#I have zero context for this I barely even remember writing it

[nockfellblues]

For the second ask- can I have a story of Junpei Yoshino being saved by the reader? Context: Reader is also a sorcerer and was with Itadori at the time of the encounter with Mahito.

Ngl it took me a bit to work out a good concept for this one- idk if its just cuz i never really toyed with making a jjk oc or if i was just having a brain fart lmao and then I started writing and it just kept going??? Either way, here it is! GN reader and can be read as platonic or as a crush if you squint. Again, thanks so much for requesting! I hope you like it! 💕

Warnings: Usual canon compliant violence, mentions of blood.

“Should we really be doing this?”

Yuji just shrugged with a smile, looking blissfully unaware as you both lounged about in none other than Junpei Yoshino’s house, waiting to start a film while the aforementioned boy grabbed some snacks from his kitchen. Behind you both his mother was blissfully unawares as she slept soundly at the kitchen table with a smile on her face. This was supposed to be an investigation into the troubled boy and the strange circumstances he’d found himself in the middle of, but had quickly turned into the three of you becoming fast friends. Before either you or Yuji knew it, you were sat at the dinner table in the Yoshino residence like you always belonged there.

You couldn’t deny how much you genuinely liked Junpei- he was quiet and reserved with a stalwart sense of justice, but listening to him talk about his favorite films seemed to bring out the absolute best in him and make his smile look so much more alive. It was like a little part of his soul bloomed into a bright glow of happiness and contentment. Something about someone talking about their passions always made them shine in a way that was so beautiful, and you couldn’t deny that his bloom was so very enticing. Of course it helped that you shared taste in movies and in music and that he was seemingly such a sweet boy…

Truly, becoming friends with him like this had been such a breath of fresh air in all of the insanity lately. You were so thankful to have met him, even if the circumstances were.. crazy.

When Nanami had brought you onto this particular investigation you were terrified. Being just a student, and just a first-year at that, you had zero concept of how your curse techniques would be even remotely useful. Especially when Nanami and Shoko showed you the horrific amalgamates this new curse was able to produce. After all, all you could do was alter the physical form of objects, not people; Changing a rock into a knife and imbuing it with cursed energy was a vast difference to changing the shape of a body part, or a whole person, much less their soul. But Gojo had put the idea into Shoko’s head that it was worth a shot to see if you could reach something tangible in the form of a human soul, and so you tried.

Touching the soul was… exhilarating. Being able to see the physical manifestation of a soul was so, so beautiful. But it was also terrifying- being the only hope for these.. people that the patchwork curse left behind. It was like falling into a litany of swirling emotions, memories, passions, and colours, everything that made a person who they are, and trying desperately to wrangle them into a shape that they remembered and holding them there until they understood that this was their true shape and began to.. ‘heal.’ So far the best result was separating their physical forms and returning them to ‘normal’- but, so far, not a single person had survived. They returned to ‘normal’ only to be completely comatose for varying periods of time before slowly fading and, eventually, passing.

“Think any harder and your brain will melt,” Yuji laughed, nudging you with an elbow. You returned his easy smile as Junpei came back with an overflowing bowl of popcorn and some drinks.

“Yum! Alright, let’s get this movie party started!”

—————

You could barely breathe, running as fast as your legs could take you towards the ominous shadowed dome of the veil that had opened over Satozakura High School- Junpei’s school. You had happened to be in the area doing some light shopping when it started- the wrong place at the right time, you supposed. Reaching your senses out you desperately searched for any anomalous energies, until Yuji’s burst of cursed energy lit up like a homing beacon.

“Please don’t let Junpei be here- Please.”

—————

“People don’t have hearts.” You could hear the tears in Junpei’s voice and you raced around the corner of the corridor. You found him kneeling amongst broken glass in the darkened hallway, Yuji standing before him looking angry and distraught.

“You’re still just trying-“

“Junpei, please-“

“They don’t!” Junpei’s voice was absolutely wrecked with what could only be grief as he cut you both off.

“Other wise…” Tears streamed down his face, his entire body shaking as you reached to place a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Otherwise- Then that could only mean that people cursed me and my mom with those hearts! That would just be.. Too much,” he sobbed and shook you hand off to stand.

You backed away as cursed energy gathered within him and made the outline of his soul shimmer a brilliant melancholy blue- when in the world had he come into being able to produce cursed energy?

“I wouldn’t even know what is right and what’s wrong any more!” In a flurry of iridescent blue, a billowing jellyfish shikigami appeared behind him, quickly taking aim and stabbing Yuji with its sharpened tentacles.

“Y-Yuji!” You covered your mouth in shock as he took slow steps towards Junpei leaving a dripping trail of blood behind.

“Why-why didn’t you dodge it?”

“I’m sorry. I said a lot of arrogant stuff without really understanding anything. So, tell me what happened to you.. and I swear to you, if you do, then I wont curse you anymore. Please.” Yuji kneeled before Junpei, his voice soft, and you approached again to return a hand to Junpei’s shoulder.

“We’re your friends, Junpei. So, please, let us help?” You gave his houlder a gentle squeeze as he met your gaze with wide tearful eyes- and the dam broke.

Junpei crumbled before you both, body wracked with heaving sobs as he told you about his mother- the horrifying discovery of her mutilated body and another of those damn fingers of Sukuna’s just left there out in the open. Yuji took his hands in his own and you wrapped your arms over Junpei’s shoulders, letting him cry as you both fought back our own emotions at the news.

“I’m so sorry Junpei..” You gently rubbed his back as Yuji took a moment to process what you’d learned.

“Junpei… join Jujutsu high- You’d like it! There are lots of crazy strong teachers and good, reliable friends there. If we all work together, I guarantee you, we can find whoever it was that cursed your mom… then you can make them pay for what they did!” Yuji’s determination had Junpei’s tears start anew, and you nodded along with him.

“It’s true, Junpei. You’d never be alone, and we’d all do our very best to help you!” Yuji nodded in turn and you moved to hold his shoulders to properly look into his eyes. “Trust us again, Junpei. I swear, we’ll do whatever we can to make this right.”

“That’s a big promise coming from such a weak sorcerer.” At the top of the stair stood a man with silver hair and…a patchwork face. His body seemed to radiate the same shimmer you now equated with the visual manifestation of a soul, but so, so much brighter than you’d ever seen one. It seemed to ripple and move, like it was made of water, as though it didnt know enough to stay in one shape. What is he?

“Who are you?”

“It’s nice to meet you, vessel of Sukuna.”

The three of you stood and you deepened your stance to something more solid and defensive as it all clicked, “Yuji that’s him-!”

“Mahito, don’t do it!”

The Patchwork curse’s arm and shoulder alike began to curn like bubbling water, rapidly morphing as it shot out to slam Yuji into the adjacent wall- a second appendage morphed out of the side and swing too fast, swiping you away and tossing you down the hall like you weighed nothing. You flew until you hit the wall at the the end with a sickening crack. Groaning as you slid to the floor you were distantly aware of Yuji yelling, or saying something, but everything was violently tilting and fading into grey, your ears ringing like crazy and you could feel warm blood drip down your forehead and over your brow. Get up, they need you now!

There was a pulse of that same too-bright glimmer as the patchwork curse did something you couldn’t see and Yuji was yelling again, the tone now distinctly distraught as he yelled for you, then for Junpei. Blinking slowly, you’re positive you blacked out for a moment. You woke again to Yuji begging Sukuna for help while that awful patchwork curse giggled like a child. Dammit, get up! Get up!

Struggling to your feet the world swayed dangerously for a moment before snapping into focus on distinct blue shimmer of Junpei’s soul- now distorted and morphed into.. some.. thing that was collapsed at Yuji’s feet. The curse continued to laugh wildly and Yuji’s soul bloomed into a wild cacophony of bright white noise that was nearly blinding- and then he swung.

Fist meeting the patchwork thing’s face, you could see their souls touch in a way you’d never seen before- and the patchwork curse’s soul seemed to… crack? It was so small and barely there, but it had cracked! Had Yuji really hurt it?

You stumbled towards the thing that was somehow still Junpei, his soul twisted and tangled into some little blue monster that was nearly unrecognizable. The curse was goading Yuji into more of a fight and you could feel their souls and cursed energy bloom yet again as they moved their fight up the flight of stair behind them. Good, that gave you time.

“J-Junpei!” You dropped to his side, the wavering glimmer of his soul now so dim it was almost faded to grey in places. If you were going to help him, it needed to be now. But… You’d never touched a soul so newly wrecked- would it make a difference? Would it hurt him to try when he was so weak? There was no do-over with this, and if you fucked up he would die.

“I… I can do this. Please Junpei, please don’t die on me!” Placing your hands over the center of his mass, where is soul seemed strongest, you pulled at your own cursed energy. Reaching into him you were submerged in a vast, cold ocean of darkness. All you could feel was desolation- the frigid grasp of grief and sorrow as you tried to pull as much of his soul together that you could reach. It was like trying to grab bubbles of shimmering water, Junpei’s soul trying its best to separate and float away.

“Not today- You’re coming back with me, dammit! I’m not giving up on you, so don’t you give up on me, Junpei!”

Pushing the last drifting bubble of his soul in with the rest you could feel your own soul stretch thin trying to compress the pieces into the familiar form of your friend and holding it there-

This has to work. Please! The dark around you seemed to grow brighter and brighter until it was a blindingly bright sky blue as the pressure on your soul seemed to pulse- then something within your souls seemed to snap and everything went black.

—————

“Stop fidgeting, you look great!”

“S-sorry!” Junpei’s face was flushed in embarrassment at your praise as he tugged at the collar to his freshly finished Jujutsu High uniform.

Today was the day you finally got to introduce him to the other first year students and he was a bit of a nervous wreck. You gently swatted his hands away and adjusted the buttons on his collar one final time, returning his nervous look with a reassuring smile.

“You’re sure everyone will be.. cool with this?”

“Absolutely, silly. The others are super cool, and they’re all total weirdos, just like us! That’s why we all fit in so well!”

In hindsight that might have been a little rude to say about your friends but it made Junpei laugh, the first real laugh you’d gotten out of him since everything went to hell.

So it was totally worth it.

Ahhh okay this was so much longer than I intended it idk i kinda Ike it! Junpei deserved better 😤

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #junpei x reader #junpei yoshino #Junpei yoshino x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #my writing #this fix-it fic brought to you by Baja Blast™

[nobody-is-evil]

Hob Gadling and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

but cheer up, Hob. You get a Dream out of it!

Alternative Title: In Which Destiny Gets Tired Of Two Idiots Dancing Around Each Other And Does Something

This is for the Jan prompt Fake Dating for @yearoftheotpevent. Also fulfills another prompt, but I’ll leave that a mystery :D.

Thanks to @wolfe-marvin (hope I got the right person) for being my beta!

I’ll crosspost this on Ao3…soon. Before the end of January. Would love it if I got constructive criticism in the meantime!

Hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

Mary’s party was okay.

Hob probably should’ve had nicer things to say about his friend’s party, especially a friend he’d known for years now, but the truth was that he wasn’t feeling it. He wasn’t feeling the board game room, or the table tennis tournament, or even the room where everyone was watching the news, waiting for the countdown to start. He wasn’t really feeling...

People. Hob laughed at himself as he headed for an unoccupied balcony. He was socially exhausted. Probably should’ve realized earlier, what with over six hundred years of experience. What he wanted was to be alone.

Well. Not alone, per se. He’d be fine with the company of one other, as long as that one other was his oldest Friend. They’d increased the frequency of their meetings, but even so, Hob hadn’t been able to get a meeting to land on New Year’s Eve. Instead, they were meeting tomorrow, so it was all he could think about (not that he wouldn’t be paying full attention to his Friend if he was here).

The new year likely didn’t have any significance to his Friend. Hob had been around for many, many years, his Friend likely even longer, and today’s party was just minuscule compared to the gigantic parties he’d been to for each turn of the century, especially 2000.

That didn’t mean this year couldn’t be significant. He’d seen his Friend several times in the past year, and they planned to meet many more times this year—that was pretty significant already to Hob. He should make a New Year’s resolution about his Friend.

I will confess to my Friend.

But was that too fast? It took him centuries to get his Friend to admit they were friends, and Hob still didn’t know his name.

At the same time, with only one day of meeting over the centuries, it technically only took him seven days to achieve it.

The fact that Hob was in love with his Friend was kind of pathetic either way, but he could probably pretend it only happened after their more frequent meetings started, and then, once he knew his Friend wasn’t going to run away, he could tell him.

Besides, it was a resolution for the whole year. He didn’t have to do it the next time he saw his Friend. He could wait a month. Or two. Or several. It wasn’t like he didn’t have time.

“Robby! What’re you doing out here all by yourself?” Mary sounded genuinely confused, and Hob didn’t blame her. Without any context, he’d think his behavior was strange, too. “It’s almost time!”

“Oh, is it? Can’t miss that!” With a bright grin, Hob slung an arm around her shoulder and led her inside as if he’d been the one retrieving her.

As she said, the countdown was in the final stretch. Everyone had packed into the biggest room, leaving barely enough room to breathe, let alone add two more people, but Hob powered through to reunite Mary with her best girl friend. Once he’d done that, he backed out to the nearest wall, taking whatever bit of space he could.

The countdown hit zero. While everyone was cheering and kissing their partners, Hob imagined kissing his Friend.

———

Hob woke to the disorientating feeling of split-second freefall before landing heavily on a hard surface with a thump. He groaned. Where did the meadow go—oh, wait.

Now, he was awake and remembered what happened. Parts of it, at least. He distinctly remembered the feeling of annoyance that came with having to flee from a woman (a friend of a friend of a friend?) who wouldn’t leave him alone. That had been at a party, Mary’s party for the new year. Everything else was just flashes.

He was hungover, he knew that much, though he didn’t feel as bad as he would expect after blacking out for most of the night, falling asleep on the couch, and then falling off the couch.

Hob narrowed his eyes at a familiar presence. “Friend?” he asked as he pushed himself up off the ground.

Those gorgeous eyes—

His Friend was, indeed, there, looking down at him. At his silence, Hob got the impression that his Friend had said something that Hob somehow missed. When asked to repeat himself, his Friend said, “I have a request.”

“And I’d love to hear it, if you give me some time to freshen up.” He started to head to his bedroom before pausing. “How long have you been here?”

His Friend replied in monotone, “I was here when you arrived.”

“Since I came home?” Hob repeated with no small amount of surprise. At his Friend’s nod, he asked, “Why?”

“It is...an important request. Important enough to wait for you to be sober.”

“Okay...” His Friend had never asked anything of him beyond their deal for him to tell his experiences. Hob was unsure as to what else he could do. “I’ll be quick, then.”

True to his word, Hob showered, changed, and did everything else to freshen up within the next fifteen minutes. “Okay!” he called as he went in search of his Friend, “What did you need?”

He found his Friend sitting on the couch Hob had been sleeping on, inspecting the tv remote. His Friend quickly set it down and stared at Hob as he sat down in a chair across from him.

I’ve been the subject of my Friend’s gaze before, but that wasn’t after he showed up unexpectedly, after he apparently took care of me while I was blackout drunk, after he watched over me in my sleep for I don’t even know how long, or after he was in my home while I was naked—

“...’re supposed to have...guests...and Destiny has told me that I shall bring one...”

Having spaced back in, somehow, Hob got the feeling that that wasn’t just a name like it was for most people, but that wasn’t as important as the fact that his Friend needed him. “So you want me to come to a party with you?”

His Friend narrowed his eyes at Hob, and, as if repeating himself, said, “A family dinner, yes.”

Hob didn’t say anything for a moment. He got the feeling...but no, surely his Friend wouldn’t hide something from him if he truly needed to know it. “Of course. So, who should I expect to see?”

“Five of my siblings shall be present. Destiny is the oldest...I believe he is bringing a man named Tobias Indiana. Death is als—”

“Death?” Hob interrupted with no small amount of disbelief. “I thought, well, I thought you’d have some sort of power over death. Given,” he gestured to his Friend’s entire vibe. Not that he isn’t attractive—

“...my older sister is...much better with humans than I. She is also bringing a human. Jonathan Geiger impressed her when...he won a contest against Lucifer.”

Was that a joke? Was his Friend taking the piss? Either he was (unbelievable) or Lucifer was real (equally unbelievable).

“Of my younger siblings...Desire is bringing a deity named Ekeko. Their twin sister...Despair...is bringing...I think it was...a ghost.”

A ghost? As in, an intangible dead person who could make things float and possess people? They were real?

As though he could read Hob’s mind, his Friend continued, “Perhaps...they shall not be as you expect. Ghost is simply...the closest term for them...in English.” His Friend didn’t elaborate beyond that.

“My youngest sibling...Delirium is bringing...” His Friend let out a sigh, suddenly looking much older as he stared at the floor. “A Knocker.”

If there was one thing that could be counted on, it was good big brothers being protective over their younger sisters. “You don’t approve?”

“Delirium has one requirement for her guests...that they amuse her. Death informed me that she attended the last family dinner with a demon whose goal was to take vengeance against us Endless.”

That sounded like Hob had stumbled upon another can of worms they did not need to open at the moment. He quickly redirected onto the most harmless-sounding and most curious part of that, the last word, endless. “Is that another word for immortal?”

“That is the word for my siblings and I.”

This was probably the best opportunity he was gonna get. His Friend couldn’t misunderstand this. “So it is some sort of requirement that your name start with De-?”

His Friend took a deep breath.

Hob leaned in. What was it? Delicious? Deception? No. Destraction? Uh, Deal? No. Dear? Hmm. Deer? Definitely not. None of them fit his Friend.

“My name is Dream.”

Nothing could have fit his Friend, Dream, better. It’s perfect. Dream’s perfect. I wanna just say his name over and over— “So you know things about people because you know their dreams?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, but is it like asleep dreams, or aspiration dreams?

“Yes.”

Okay, so this was just one of those things Hob was going to give up on and stay confused about.

Like how throughout this conversation he seemed to be missing snatches of time here and there, as if he was a computer with files getting corrupted.

Hob cracked another joke to get his mind off of that, “I don’t have to worry about Death being mad at us for helping me avoid her, right?”

Dream (!) gave him an incredulous look. “Of course not. You would not be able to escape Death if she did not allow you to live. No...you should be more concerned about the rest...of my siblings.”

His Friend suddenly turned the full force of his stare on Hob. It’s still overwhelming, even more so because Dream’s so fucking concerned for Hob—

“...able?” Dream was saying, his gaze now expectant.

Hob blinked at him. “What?”

“I merely asked that you inform me if any of my siblings...threaten you. Is that agreeable?”

“Well, you’d know your siblings better than I would,” Hob decided, then teased, “You’re the reason I’m coming, so naturally it falls to you to protect me, my lord.”

Dream’s eyes widened, and he raised his voice, “You must not call me that—my siblings expect us to be close!”

Hob had jerked away from him, staring frozen with shock. I’ve never seen Dream like that before—

When he had zoned back in, his Friend had averted his eyes. There was a pause, and then, “Perhaps...I should be...truthful.”

“During my meeting with Destiny yesterday, he told me that I would visit you. I would...begin a romance with you...that was why I would bring you to our dinner.”

That was a possibility? That could’ve happened?? Or maybe that can still happen??? What do I have to do to make that happen?!?!? Even just one kiss—

Dream had moved closer, expression and tone full of concern. “Hob?”

When he’d recovered, hesitant and more than a bit bewildered, Hob tried, “I’m sorry, mate, but I don’t—”

“I did not expect you to.” Dream sighed. “His methods are incomprehensible to all but himself. You are under no obligation to be...romantically involved...with me.”

“Nevertheless, I ask that you appear to be. That is the nature of your status as my plus one...that is what my siblings shall expect.”

Okay, so his Friend would hide something that he truly needed to know from him.

Well, at least Dream told him. Hob wasn’t exactly volunteering the fact that he kept missing bits here and there. Beyond that, he also got the feeling he himself was hiding something else, and had been for a while, that he was forgetting about...but that had to be the guilt.

“That’s fine with me.”

(This was still, after all, the first thing Dream had asked of him. Hob really, really, really didn’t want to lose this friendship. And hey, it wasn’t like this was a fanfiction—there was no way Hob would fall in love with his Friend.)

———

They hashed out the details. He found out when (at night in a few days) and where (Destiny’s castle), how he would get there (when he went to sleep, Dream would find him and bring him out of his dream into the Collective Unconscious). He learned exactly how wary he should be of each person and why.

Hob went about his days as normal between then and the dinner. He had the rest of the day and the next off, but on the 3rd of January, it was back to business as usual for his job. Good thing this was dinner, and not breakfast or luncheon.

There was also the New Inn to consider—though he’d hired someone else to run it and never, ever ask who he was or let anyone know they weren’t actually the owner, there were still decisions for Hob to make. Decisions that, as someone living above the New Inn, he had a stake in.

Then, the day of the dinner was upon them.

Dream’s realm, the Dreaming, was amazing. He’d had to go to sleep shortly before 6 pm, not a challenge after living for so long and being in so many wars. The problem with using his techniques for falling asleep quickly was that usually, it gave him bad dreams.

“Where are they?” Hob was naked, opening every drawer in his apartment, but he’d forgotten where he put his shirts. Not a single drawer had shirts or anything to wear on his upper half. “Come on, come on, they’ve gotta be around here somewhere!”

Then he was at his high school. He’d forgotten where everything was, and he was late for his class. “Excuse me, can you give me direction?” Nobody could help him. A clock ticked ominously.

When he finally made it to his room and started class, he realized he’d forgotten what he was teaching. Nothing on his notes made any sense—he’d forgotten how to read his own handwriting. One of his students raised their hand. He couldn’t remember their name.

“There you are.” Dream raised his arm gracefully, and their surroundings changed in a whirlwind of power that buffeted Hob even though it didn’t touch him. When it settled, they were in a throne room.

His jaw hit the floor. He had to turn in a circle, and then do it again, to be sure he saw every inch of the gorgeous place he found himself in. The statues, the arches, the stairs, the stained glass windows, the throne, the King himself—

Ugh. This was happening again. He’d gone hours without missing time, and it had to start happening again right before the important dinner?

Dream was smirking at him. “Is it to your liking?”

“Yeah,” Hob breathed out. “This might be the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in.”

His Friend’s smile widened into a more genuine one. “Is that what you intend to wear?”

“Ah...” Hob looked down at himself. He was clad only in nice pants and shoes. Why—oh, right, his dream. How had he not noticed? Dream had been looking, was looking, at him shirtless—

He cleared his throat and looked up (not at Dream; he couldn’t just let his Friend see his embarrassed smile), “Do you have any—”

“You are in the Dreaming. Anything is possible.”

Oh. Neat. Hob lowered his head again in thought. The first outfit he could think of was one of Harry Osborn’s outfits in Spider-Man 3, where he had on a white vertically striped button-up, then a blue shirt, then a dark brown overcoat. In an instant, he was in them.

He looked up and found Dream giving him a contemplative look. “What?”

“It is no matter. If you are ready, come; we shall go to my brother’s castle.”

———

Destiny towered over everyone else in a long, light-colored hooded cloak. He had a book chained to his right wrist, and his left hand was another person’s hand. “Brother, this is Tobias Indiana. Tobias, this is my brother, Dream, and his partner, Robert Gadling.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Indiana said, extending his hand. He appeared...normal. There was nothing that differentiated him from any other middle-aged man.

Hob shook it with a similar greeting. Dream simply glared at it.

Indiana, for his part, didn’t let it get to him. “Oh, you are a prickly one.”

“Tobias is very eager to show you his art. Won’t you come with us and see?”

Dream glanced at Hob.

“Oh, and your beloved can’t come. Tobias is very shy.” Indiana looked, in no way, shy. In fact, he seemed like a confident, unbothered person. “He wouldn’t be able to bear it if anybody else saw his work.”

It said something about how blatantly Destiny lied that he still managed to get Dream to do what he wanted.

Hob watched their backs as they headed for a hallway before realizing that, without Dream, he was a sitting duck. Sure, he didn’t have to pretend to be infatuated with his Friend anymore, but anybody could walk up to him and trap him in a conversation.

A woman’s voice said, “Robert Gadling.”

Fuck, he was too late.

Hob turned around with resignation to face the woman, only to find that she actually...didn’t seem so bad. She seemed distinctly maternal, despite the fact that most people seemed young to Hob.

The boy that was with her, on the other hand, had no hidden depths. He looked like any other overconfident teenage son of a farmer.

“That would be me, and you are—no, let me guess,” Hob cut himself off when he saw her ankh necklace against her all-black clothing, “Death?”

She beamed and nodded.

“And that would make you Jonathan Geiger.” Wait, Dream said his siblings were romantically involved with their plus-ones. This was a little concerning.

“It’s Johnny,” the kid corrected in a Southern American drawl. “An Ah’m 63.”

Well, that made Hob feel a lot better, but there was an unspoken ‘I’m older than you’ that he couldn't let stand. “I’m over 10 times that.” He shrugged, “When you're as old as I am, there’s no way to know your exact age.”

“Who ya with? Mah gal’s the embodimin’ ‘a Death,” Johnny challenged.

“My boyfriend is all Dreams and Nightmares. He’s basically everything you can imagine.”

“How’d ya get yer immortality? Ah beat the devil in a fiddle-playin’ contest.”

“I just didn’t die.”

“It’s actually because you called me stupid right in front of me.”

Both of them turned to Death, Johnny furious and Hob with the blood drained from his face. “I did?” he asked, in disbelief—not that he’d done it, but that she’d apparently granted him immortality rather than killing him on the spot.

“Oh, don’t be like that. I don’t get mad at words said in grief. It’s human nature to fear my realm. Despite the fact that my siblings’ are much scarier than mine,” she muttered. “I only get mad when my siblings are hurt.”

Death looked at him.

It took a moment for it to click for Hob that he was dating Dream, so this was a shovel talk. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he answered weakly.

“But—hey, listen to me—that goes for you, too.” She poked him in the chest. “My brother has proven himself to be an idiot on multiple occasions, as I’m sure you know.” Somehow, she said it without even a drop of malice. “If he hurts you, you can always call me.”

Hob agreed, “I’ll do that.”

There was a pause.

“Well, we ain’t gonna take up anymore ‘a yer time,” Johnny, the scoundrel, smirked. “I know that gal Delirium’s bin dyin’ to meet ya.”

———

“Hello, Hob! Hobsie! Hobby! Hobert!”

Delirium was a short, thin girl with a high-pitched voice on the cusp of her teenage years. She had untamable hair in a rainbow of bright colors, and her clothes looked like they’d been chosen independently of each other. Those were the only immediate constants Hob could find about her appearance—everything else changed multiple times a minute.

“They should call you David. Or Patrick. Or Nick. Or Charlie. Or Connor. Or Oliver. Or Ian. Or Mickey. Or Yusuf. Or Nicoló.”

What.

“Oh, uh, I’ve stuck close to Robert for way too long to consider changing it,” Hob tried.

Delirium nodded sagely like a little kid.

She was with a Knocker, if he remembered correctly, a little shorter than half her height. He had a copious amount of wrinkles, a somewhat large head compared to the rest of him, a long white beard, and he looked like he hadn’t bothered to change since leaving the mine, complete with a pickaxe in hand.

“What about you?” Hob asked him.

“I’m Pasco,” the Knocker said in a voice just as high as Delirium’s.

Delirium grabbed Pasco’s surprisingly long arm and bounced up and down. “You’re such a Deary,” she told Hob before scrunching up her face and varying her appearance. “No, a dory. A ducky. A bucky!”

“Thank you.” Hob hoped that was a compliment.

She giggled. “You’ve got something on your back.”

“Oh.” Hob looked over each shoulder once. “Not, like, the Trickster Beetle from Doctor Who?”

What? He was British. It was practically instinct.

Her eyes widened and her clothes shifted again. “No! No, don’t worry, that’s already dead for you.”

Well, that was a relief.

“No, smaller. They’re circles.”

He leaned forward, laser-focused on her words. “Uh, moles?”

She shook her head.

“Hives? A rash?” Hob asked desperately.

Tears filled her eyes. “They’re gonna get you.” But then she looked behind her, where a short mustached man in a poncho and an Asian woman covered in blood were dancing. When she looked back at him, her face was blank. “It’s gonna hurt.”

It was only when she and Pasco were walking away that his mind cleared. That...had all been gibberish. Of course, he was sure it made sense to her, but there was no need to get worked up about it. Even if he would get hurt in the future, he was over 650. Hob could handle it.

———

“You’ve been in my realm a lot recently.”

She was a large woman in comfortable clothes with limp, unwashed hair and a large hook on a ring that she was toying with.

Hob had met Dream, Destiny, Death, and Delirium. He didn’t think it was much of an assumption to think he was talking to Despair. “Have I?”

Her quiet voice cut at him, “You shouldn’t be.”

He stared, taken aback.

“If you’re suffering, then so is my brother. He’s suffered enough.” She turned and walked away.

———

Hob watched the door Destiny, Indiana, and Dream had left through. They still weren’t back yet. How long could Destiny’s contrived excuse take?

“Oh, you’re good,” Desire purred from behind him.

Hob whirled around and came face to face with them. His expression hardened. Coming from the one that Dream had warned him the most about, it was basically an insult. “And why’s that?”

They elaborated, “The trick you’re playing on my siblings. You’ve really got all of them fooled. Not even I could manage to fool Destiny.” Desire’s seemingly-permanent smile sharpened as they cornered him, “How are you doing it? Right now, my brother is filled with the most sickening yearning for you, yet you don’t want him in the slightest.”

Well, that was unfair. Of course Hob wanted Dream. To, y’know, be his friend. To do things with him, to open up to him, maybe even give him some physical touch in the form of a shoulder bump or something.

“Not even a kiss,” Desire scoffed. “Nothing about his appearance, while he desperately wishes he was with you. He wants to hold you, kiss you, make ‘love’ to you.”

Hob choked. Dream felt that way about him? He wasn’t sure how to feel about this. He’d been determined to listen to Dream about Desire’s manipulations, but...

Dream feels the same way! Yes! Yes! If we were alone—

“...esting.”

Hob felt the dizziest then out of any time he’d forgotten the past few seconds.

His surroundings had changed. He was alone with Desire, who’d completely invaded his personal space. Their arms were wrapped around his shoulders, face inches from his. When they spoke, and their breath hit his face, his stomach turned.

“Seems I wasn’t quite right,” they hissed. “It isn’t that you don’t desire him. You’ve just been made to forget. Someone’s hidden it from you, and done a very good job of it, but it’s been leaking out.”

Their expression and tone softened. “The spell’s had to do a patch job; it’s been snipping away bits of your memory, hasn’t it?”

Hob narrowed his eyes. He got the impression that they were...trying to comfort him.

It was more than a little disturbing.

He ducked out of their loose hold and stepped back. They’d guessed his recent memory problems—so what? That didn’t mean they were telling the truth (even if his instances of forgetting did, in hindsight, have a clear correlation with Dream) and it definitely didn’t mean they weren’t trying to manipulate him. He was done putting up with the Endless. All of this, he decided, counted as a threat. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to find my boyfriend,” he snapped, and turned (apprehensively) to head for the door.

A hand grabbed his shoulder.

Hob had half-expected and prepared for this. He tried to move to take them down only to find that instead...he really wanted to stay still. Why had he ever wanted to move from this spot?

In the background, somebody spat, “I’m trying to help you, foolish human. As if I was just going to let you keep walking around with all that repressed desire.”

They cupped his chin with their hands and made direct eye contact. “Now, hold still,” they teased, “You’ll feel a lot better when I’m done.”

His ears popped. His senses whited out for a long moment from the pain of a gaping wound in his chest being healed, but not without being reopened first. Hob squeezed his eyes shut to prevent tears from falling as his memories returned to him—he could remember everything, all of his love for Dream.

He wrinkled his nose at an awfully strong smell of something—like a lightning strike?—as he came back to his senses. Then he heard Dream calling his name urgently from far away and opened his eyes to see Dream’s legs. Dream was bigger? No, Hob was kneeling—at some point, he’d fallen to his knees.

He looked up at Dream. He could stay like this all day, just looking up at Dream. (And trying not to wince every time he breathed.)

But Dream was saying something to the person next to him, Desire (they looked pleased). Hob let himself hear his surroundings.

“...you do to him!” Dream was demanding.

“Dream, love, I’m fine,” Hob cut in (only belatedly realizing that the endearment had slipped out). “Desire was helping me.”

Dream’s face could’ve been carved from stone as he turned to Hob. He didn’t say anything, but Hob’s heart sank as he realized Dream didn’t believe him.

He had to fix this. Now that he remembered he loved Dream and he knew Dream felt the same way, the plan was to confess, but he couldn’t do that if Dream thought it was all manufactured by Desire.

Hob clarified quickly, “Okay, it bloody hurt, and I definitely told them not to do it, but I’m glad they did it, really.”

The answer was thunderously directed at Desire, “What did you do?!”

Yeah, so that hadn’t helped. He wasn’t sure why he thought it would. What could he say that Dream would believe?

Desire decided to answer, “Your little pet is telling the truth. His heart was crying out to me...I couldn’t leave him chained up like that.” Their voice took on the evident quality of someone quoting, “You’re the one who told me to serve humanity.”

Dream and Desire started arguing in earnest. Desire maintained a grin worthy of the Cheshire Cat the whole time. Hob wanted to believe them, but could this be their plot? To do something that, technically, was altruistic, no catch, while being so out of line with Dream’s impression of them that Dream would never believe it?

Or, was there pain hidden behind that smile, that their brother was in such disbelief?

Or, was Hob futilely trying to assign human motivations to inhuman beings?

Whatever the case, he wouldn’t let this stand. He would find proof.

Now that he had his memories back, he knew around when it had started. It wasn’t before Mary’s New Year’s party. He even, vaguely, remembered making his resolution (to confess to Dream) before the countdown ended. So, it happened before he got home if he had been supposed to follow through on his resolution when he saw Dream. He’d definitely started forgetting after he woke up.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell when exactly it started on account of him being blackout drunk.

By now the commotion was attracting everyone’s attention (except for Destiny and Indiana, who probably already knew what was going on, those bastards). Well, fuck them. This wasn’t a spectator sport.

“Dream,” he cut into their argument, “please take me home.”

“But you haven’t even had dinner yet,” Desire pointed out.

“I’ve lost my appetite,” he said, not taking his eyes off of Dream. “Please.”

“If that is your wish,” Dream acquiesced, fury still audible in their voice. The world disappeared in a flurry of sand.

———

When his vision stopped turning, he was in the gallery they left from, still kneeling from chest pain.

Dream stood a foot or two away from Hob, arms hanging at his sides, visibly concerned. “Shall you answer me now?”

Hob thought about telling Dream the truth. No, not yet.

“I will, my Friend,” Hob said as the pain diminished and he pushed himself up with the wall, “but there’s something I have to do, first. Something I have to find out.”

“And what might that be?”

Uh oh. Dream looked even more concerned. It was a good thing Hob was going to ask for something harmless and not, say, something that would be guaranteed to end in a lethal injury on anyone else. “I have to know how far your knowledge of everyone extends. How do you do it? How does it work?”

“I am Dreams,” his Friend started, mildly confused, “and Nightmares. I am all Dreams dreamt...by everything that can Dream; I am the Collective Unconscious.”

Apparently, he thought that was a sufficient answer. Hob disagreed—wait. “I thought the Dreaming was the Collective Unconscious?”

Dream looked more awkward than normal. “Perhaps.”

Fuck kind of answer was that?

Wait. If he was right, then earlier...Hob stood by it, of course, but maybe his Friend thought Hob wouldn’t’ve said it if he knew he was actually talking about Dream.

He could fix that later when he fixed everything else. What was important was that, “If this whole world is you, then—I mean, you’re not messy,” Hob reasoned. “There’s gotta be a place where you keep all the information.”

Dream conceded, “There is.”

———

The library was just as amazing as the throne room. It stretched on further than he could see in all three dimensions, lined with books all the way.

What he could not see were signs or maps or labels of any kind.

“How do you find anything?” Hob asked with a vague gesture to the whole library.

He couldn’t tell whether Dream was answering him or calling for something when he answered, “Lucienne.”

A woman’s voice responded before Hob could even comprehend it. “Yes, sir?”

“This is Hob Gadling. You shall assist him in his use of the library’s facilities while I resume my work.”

Prior to Dream‘s words, Lucienne had seemed like a stern, hardworking woman, what with the suit and her hands behind her back. But when he introduced Hob, her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates—though only for a brief second before she regained her composure. She nodded at Hob as Dream left (probably for the best) and asked, “What are you looking for? We have every book ever written, as well as those yet unwritten.”

What was he looking for? There was no way he was gonna just come out and say ‘The person who cursed me.’ What to ask for, what to ask for—

Hob must’ve been silent for too long, because Lucienne prompted, “For example, I have detailed accounts of sleeper’s dreams.”

“Yeah, that’ll work,” he agreed. “Show me my dreams, please.”

It turned out, over 650 years on Earth meant he’d dreamed quite a lot. It was enough to fill several bookshelves, and that was with most people having one of the shelves of a bookshelf dedicated to them, at most. “Er, I’ll only need the past week,” he clarified.

Lucienne handed him the book open to yesterday’s dream. “Do not look at the dream you’re having right now,” she warned. “The ink is still drying.”

Right. Because...he was dreaming. With his senses, his reading abilities, and the laws of physics working correctly, it was easy to forget that he was asleep at the moment. How would the book even record the dream? He imagined himself flipping the page, and words appearing: “I flipped the page.”

Hob shuddered and went further back until he reached the dream he had on New Year’s, right before Dream gave him the invitation.

Oh. It was a dream about him and Robyn having a picnic. Robyn had been telling him a story, in the way only little kids could do. That was...sweet. And also definitely not the kind of dream he’d normally have after getting blackout drunk. Hob supposed if he could stop one of friends from having a nightmare right in front of him, he would do so, too. If only that was the kind of dream he needed.

He looked at the dream for the day after that, then the one for a nap he’d taken, and then all of the ones after that until he reached yesterday’s dream again.

Nothing. Not a single one was about Mary’s New Year’s Eve party.

Hob paced along the bookshelves. Okay, so this had been a long shot from the start. His Friend couldn’t have known somebody had cursed Hob—that was why he was looking for proof in the first place. He would have to do this the old fashioned-way—

Wait, was that Mary’s book?

Hob stopped and set his hand on the wooden shelf underneath the book. Mary, as the host of the party and not someone on the Dream King’s radar, might’ve had a dream about the party.

But...it was one thing for him to look at his own journal, but someone else’s? A close friend’s dreams? She had a girlfriend. He didn’t want to read something he couldn’t unread.

The lights flickered off.

Some soldier instinct of his activated, shooting adrenaline through his system even though all that happened was half a second of darkness.

Hob was berating himself when he realized—part of the library was gone. Not like an explosion, or like a wall had been put up, but like he was in Minecraft and the game was lagging.

“Uh, Lucienne?” Hob called like Dream had called her.

“Yes, sir?” she asked from behind him.

He whirled around, heart still beating like a rabbit’s. “Did you see that?”

She gave him a sympathetic look. “No, sir, but I can tell you’re on the verge of waking up.”

“But I’m not done. I haven’t even been asleep for that long.”

“You’ve been asleep for almost ten hours. You are waking up, sir.”

Hob grabbed Mary’s book. “Can I at least take this with me?”

She shook her head as the world faded to black.

———

He didn’t wake up feeling like he’d slept for ten hours, not the sleep he’d gotten used to in the 21st century, anyway. It seemed no amount of comfort mattered when he was lucid the whole time like that.

Hob was splayed on his back across the mattress dramatically, so he groaned when he caught sight of the calendar he’d put on the ceiling.

It was a school day.

With it being 4 am, he was in no danger of running late or anything, but it would’ve been nice if it was the weekend. He knew at least a thousand kids that would agree with him.

Of course, not many of his kids would feel like someone had taken a cookie cutter, cut out their centerpieces, and then replaced those pieces as painfully as they’d been removed.

Hob took advantage of his early wake-up time by going through his morning routine leisurely, taking any activity that would cause him pain slowly. Luckily, this was something he could do without regret—by the time he was done, it was still sooner than he usually left for school.

Hmm. The kids would be concerned about him. As much as he would usually advocate for caring about others, he couldn’t have them telling anyone about any overt signs of his lackluster health that they might notice.

That meant he had to whip out his tried and true method: Bribery via pastries. Hob dropped downstairs and informed the New Inn’s manager that he’d be paying for any purchases made by anyone with an ID from the school he worked at for the next week.

Understandably, his manager’s eyes bugged out, but they couldn’t argue with the increased business it promised the New Inn, not to mention his long-term resident privileges. Afterwards, Hob left for school to prepare.

Class went well. He might’ve had to sit down a couple of times (and then started to nod off), but the pain lessened over the course of the day, and the kids loved the free food. The end of the school day came faster than he expected (helped by his inadvertent nap during lunch).

That meant, as he was gathering his belongings, with no major problems from his work life, he was free to worry about his personal life, aka the events of last night. How exactly was he going to go about finding who’d made him forget when he couldn’t trust his memories and he couldn’t go to Dream?

Someone knocked at his door. Who would do that when it was already an hour after school had ended for the day?

“Come in!” Hob called.

The door opened and revealed...Mary. Guilt hit him full force (figuratively, thankfully for his chest) as he remembered how he’d debated looking through her dreams. And here she was, probably concerned about his behavior since the party. “What...can I do for you?” he asked with a smile that he desperately hoped hid the shame.

“Robby!” she said cheerfully, stopping on the other side of his desk. (The hair on the back of his neck stood up.) “So glad I caught you before you left. I’ve kinda got something important to ask.”

Hob hid his hands underneath his desk so that she wouldn’t see that he was wiping irrational nervous sweat off with a tissue. “Go on.”

“Well, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about New Year’s. About, y’know.” (He didn’t know). “About our midnight kiss.”

...midnight...kiss...?

There was no way. Surely he would’ve remembered that.

But, as a traitorous part of himself pointed out, he could’ve done it if he’d just forgotten about Dream, and Mary wanted it.

No, no. It just didn’t feel right.

Mary pouted, “I was worried you wouldn’t remember. It’s just, you’re such a great guy, Robby. You’re kind and funny. Hot, too.” She gave him a onceover as she walked around the desk. “Won’t you give us a chance?”

“I...” Alarms blared in Hob’s mind as he wracked his drunken memories and found no recollection of kissing anyone at midnight. In fact, he was rather certain he’d been fantasizing about kissing Dream. It wasn’t a stretch that he might’ve told her about it.

“Uh...” It was a stretch that she would do what her behavior was pointing to.

“Well...” He just couldn’t believe it. Years, they’d been friends. She’d helped him decide what he wanted to do with this iteration of himself, and now she almost ruined his chance at a relationship with the only constant in his life? If Desire hadn’t helped him, he wouldn’t even know.

“The thing is...” It occurred to him that Mary definitely thought her spell was still working. He had no clue how it worked. What if she tried to do it again, right now? Hob had to get out of here.

He had to make sure she wouldn’t do it again. He had to go big. That meant using an underhanded tactic: Guilt.

“I don’t know, Mary,” he breathed out eventually. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ve just felt off for the past few months or so. Like there’s some essential part of me I’ve forgotten.”

Ooh, it was working. She was pale as a sheet.

“I’ve actually,” he laughed self-deprecatingly, “been having memory problems. Spacing out while talking to people, and forgetting the last few seconds. Haven’t been sleeping well either. I’m worried that there’s something wrong...neurologically.”

Mary had frozen except for a hand she’d moved to cover her mouth. Was that too much...?

No. He remembered how he felt when it first started, and it was awful. If this made her feel guilty, that was her fault.

Hob finished, “And, I just don’t think I can handle a new relationship on top of all of that and school.”

She stared at him wordlessly. When her brain apparently turned back on, she squeaked, “O-of course. I’ll just, um, go.”

———

Thankfully, Hob wasn’t interrupted again between then and when he got home. It was already nearing six pm.

The nap he’d had during lunch had somehow given him enough energy that he wasn’t tired even now. It was a good thing, even if it was an accident, because now he already knew Dream wasn’t necessarily going to talk to him if he just went to sleep.

Instead, Hob was going to try praying first. Maybe it wasn’t possible. Maybe it would go to voicemail. Maybe it would work, but Dream would still ignore him. It was still better than potentially wasting the rest of the night sleeping, and having to wait until tomorrow after school to talk to Dream.

“Dream,” he started, trying to inject intent, “Please hear my words. I’d like to talk to you.”

“Hob Gadling.”

“Fucking—” Hob spun around. Why did everyone always have to appear behind him?

Oh well, he had good things to look forward to in the near future. He gave him a wide grin. “Dream, I’ve found out what I needed to know. What do you have on someone I know, Mary?”

His Friend gave him a scrutinizing look, then closed his eyes. “I shall look.”

He was still for a long moment. Longer than Hob felt like he should’ve been. Then, Dream opened his eyes, and they were full of tears.

His voice was dangerously low: “Mary Cornell...has violated you...irreparably. I cannot begin to describe...” Dream bowed his head.

“Oh, no, no, no!” He couldn’t bear to see his Friend like that. Hob crossed the space separating them in two quick strides and took both of his hands, making Dream look up. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t irreparable. That’s what Desire did; they fixed it.”

He let that sink in as he teared up, himself. “Dream, I love you.”

Hob had the pleasure of watching Dream’s devasted expression turn into one of pure joy before he was pulled in for a bruising kiss.

#now imagine Dream kissing Hob for a while without breathing because Dream doesn’t need to breathe and Hob doesn’t care about breathing #but then the lack of air makes his chest starting hurting again and he makes an involuntary action like a wince that alerts Dream to it #Dream: Hob? Hob are you okay?!? Hob??????????? #yotp 2023 #dreamling #the sandman netflix #dream of the endless #hob gadling #year of the otp #my writing #my fanfiction #fake dating #amnesia #crack treated seriously #drinking #(not explicit) #friends to lovers #happy ending #miscommunication #pining #cursed #cursing #new year’s day #destiny of the endless #death of the endless #delirium sandman #despair of the endless #desire of the endless #lucienne #7k+ words

[seven-stars-in-his-palm]

august help rat and i are going absolutely feral over running minds au . i didnt even know anything abt fnaf before this but i have been CONVERTED homestly . i need to ficify it so bad . God . oh right thats why im here i was wondering if you have like any writing tips ?? because i have Zero Clue what im doing and you are By Far the best writer out of everyone i know Shoves microphone in your face whats your advice to someone who has like never written ever . actually i have an unrelated actually pretty decent quarter-ish of a fanfic sitting in my notes app but i barely remember how i Did That so it doesn't count i dont remember what wizardry i performed to materialize all those Words

OKAY OKAY OKAY ive figured it alllll out. its honestly not much but it's My process. LETS A GO

august's shitass guide to all things fanfiction and planning (which is near nonexistant!) 🔥

i will be using my current nano project for this because honestly this is the epitamy of writing i have right now and i love talkin about it. sooooo GOOOO

1: Bare Basics

the tagline. the who when what where why. why are u writing this fanfic. for me its the Talking: i want my angel and demon to talk about Feelings, so im gonna make them talk about FEELINGS. this is personal fulfillment. it might take a while to get there, but i want them to TALK. for you, i suppose would be for ford and michael to meet and go on whimscal adventures. basics!

2: How To Get There

so how are we making aziraphale and crowley talk. how are we getting ford and michael afton smushed together in the multiverse. you, of course, have told me how that works. now is it important enought to flesh that out before the rest or just needs to be explained in a quick flashback? your pick, but since my topic is so vague, i definitely need context before it. that, my friend, is up to you. nothing much more to it. if u dont know how to start a fic, just explain how we got to what's intriguing about it (the crossover :))

3: Notes.

now is where the process BEGINS. what happens in the story. i usually start with miscellanous bullet points--everything i want to happen, no matter the order it'll happen, in a little page. here's a picture of one of my pages ib my notebook, with things i want to happen in my titanic fic (handwriting reveal?!??!) (TEA, IF UR READING THIS SOMEHOW, DONT LOOK AT THE IMAGES🫵🫵🫵) (SORY FOR HURRIED SCRIBLES, I WAS TRYNA REMEMBER IT ALL)

there's literally no order. just stuff that need to be there, there. even if its as simple as the au coming to fruition, or even just one conversation, PUT IT THERE. its all the appeal. what you're doing this for. dontforget....

4: Outlines

now, before i tell you how to do this, there really isn't a way. here's a picture of my timeline for the fic mentioned earlier (not the titanic fic) (TEA AND OTHER READERS OF THE SERIES, ALSO DO NOT LOOK TYYYY ❤️❤️)

see? complicated as fuck. it doesnt have to be that way tho, obviously: each chapter or one shot could be as simple as "michael is fucking ZAPPED, and meets ford" it just has to be something to work with. (i, on the other hand, need extensive help. so. there's the thing above. theres eve more its just online)

there really isn't too much other than that in the planning department. understand why you're doing it, know how to get there, and PLAN. detail it out. idk if this is an adequet explanation actually. if u need more specifics i can try again, but is what i got. do what works for you, work at ur pace, and such like. it doesnt have to be at this level, or even close. have fucking fun, dude. if u need morehelp, pls ask, or even consult blogs that help out specifcally for that stuff. GOOD LUCK!!!!! <3

#oh i hope its okay. pleaseeeeee #hath are perceived #the guys (with a z!) #be heard

[u-changed-my-life]

What are your favorite and least favorite Robron moments?

Oooooooohhhhhh 🥲 A Robron Ask!!! You have made my day, Anon!!! THANK YOU!!!

Okay, since the fandom is relatively small and intimate at the moment, I am going to say EXACTLY what I think even if it is a bit controversial. 😉😘 And I apologise in advance if I offend you. Also, I am going to challenge myself and give you ONE favourite moment and least liked moment because otherwise the post will never end 😂

Most Favourite Moment: The all night conversation after the ONS reveal. It was the first time they REALLY spoke about their insecurities and laid themselves bare (emotionally 😜) in front of each other. I actually love ALL the Robron fight scenes - the one just before Aaron is charged with GBH , the ones on surrogacy, the break up one, the one about Vic and her baby. I think their love comes through most vividly when Robert and Aaron fight....like when they REALLY... disagree with each other on values. And Ryan and Danny are BRILLIANT at these. Like think about the log cabin scene!! 🤌❤️ But in terms of writing, the conversation after the ONS reveal was the most complete and best written I think. I mean, most of the surrogacy fights, though beautifully written had zero closure, the Vic one was a bit contrived to facilitate Ryan's exit and didn't give Danny much to do, the log cabin one was great but a bit out there, and I really don't like Paddy etc etc.

So, on balance, that fight and the morning after when they hug and kiss is where that ons story ends for me. The rest doesn't exist as far as I am concerned.

The Least Favourite Moment: This one is actually easy. It will either be the second wedding proposal or the wedding, take your pic OR (if we expand the meaning of your question a little bit) that Aaron Cain lockdown scene when he finds the letter and decides not to go after Robert.

And before you are ready to kill me 😂❤️ hear me out. The proposal came out of nowhere! It was choppy, and its success entirely relied on how fondly we remembered ssw16 and how successful it was. The dialogue was okay and the lay by scene was...well it was Danny and Ryan portraying Aaron and Robert, Ryan dressed in a blue suit and Danny dressed in black, sitting on the hood of their car, in THEIR LAY-BY and kissing at the end. They could have declared war in Klingon and that scene would still have been a hit. Plus who wouldn't love a nerdy Robert proposal in Klingon !😂🤷‍♀️

It lacked imagination and acknowledgement of how far they had come and it was like the new regime wanted to throw us Robron fans a few candies (the proposal and the wedding) before they could completely ignore them and do their own thing. I didn't like it then and in hindsight I don't like it even more. Plus, Robert being dragged into YKW tracing at their engagement party, Nooooooo thank you!

I would have much preferred a chaotic non proposal, proposal like it's chaos in the Mill with Robron day care and one of the kids finds the ring Aaron has hidden and starts playing with it....

The wedding 2.0 was the same- a big candy floss for Robron fans, written really well by Maxine. But it lacked context. And then inserting YKW once again in that show (while Diane never uttered a word or the watch scene was cut off) as if somehow she is a victim!!!! 👎NOPE!

#robron #robert sugden #aaron dingle #ryan hawley #danny miller #truelove #aaron and robert #aaron sugden dingle #robert sudgen dingle #robron emmerdale #Robron ask

[multitrackdrifting]

What do you hate about the elementals? I actually cannot remember details about the elementals at all now that I’m typing this which is probably not a good sign, 14 has really tried to shove the whole shroud under a buss somewhere.

This is going to be a massive over-simplifcation since I just crammed a shit load of information for some group projects I'm working on but the gist of it is that in the shroud is ruled by the Elementals and they get sick when foreigners enter their lands (no I'm not making this shit up)

They have a governing force that is kinda just like "we're not gonna do shit buddy" in 100% of quests about them including but not limited to:

The WHM job quests

The Endwalker Tank Role Quest (one of the most egregious by far)

The Carpenter leveling quests

While there's a lot of problems to address with how they are written, I think the worst one by far is that everyone in the shroud is seemingly at their mercy and nobody really gives a shit because of obtuse mystic rules you have to adhere to XD. I love that the racism in the context of the place has barely moved at all since 2.0 too, like I can't even see a bad attempt being made to improve the relations there because it's just "Hmm the Elementals may suck ass, but they're all we got."

A lot of the time the elementals can help a situation but simply don't because they're weirdos. Even if you dig up some obscure 1.0 or side-quest lore it still doesn't begin to get them out of the shithole the writers left that place in.

NPCs will be like "sorry I can't get healed, my ass has to die the Elementals want me to die from the common cold". Every interaction you have with them is like talking to a petulant child that has countless lives depending on their protection so you're supposed to just let it slide because they're a necessary protector despite being a bad one.

Every time the Elementals are involved in anything it's just them making you solve some shit they started or cannot solve otherwise, and the Tank role quest is the worst because it shows that they destroyed this random kids life over nothing and showed zero remorse about it by the conclusion.

And where other nations at least Feel like they've tried to give a shit (while still not great) the same cannot be said about Gridania's general writing which has seemingly just been written into a hole from which the writing team can probably never emerge.

Elementals simply ask you to do shit for them but rarely ever do anything for anyone else and you're supposed to accept the injustices they let slide evn though it's their obtuse logic that is only upheld by your [necessary] intervention. If it were up to me I'd burn that shit hole to the ground in 9.0 or some shit. It's really fucking bad when the player concedes that "something worse will happen if I don't help" as the only moral justification for doing what they do wrt the elementals. It's just so badly written it's laughable

Gridania writing in FFXIV? Abyss Media

[otakween]

Digimon Adventure 02 (manhua) - Vol. 1

Eurgh...I think this one is even worse than the first series. However, it is mercifully short (2 volumes), so at least it will be over quick. I think copies of this manhua in English are kind of a rare commodity so I'm just reading scans.

Ch. 1

-Back at it with the rushed adaptations as illustrated by Yuen Wong Yu. So far, the art in this is looking pretty good, but the writing is a mess, just like the previous series.

-This was a super condensed intro to 02. Veemon, Hawkmon, and Armadimon are all introduced simultaneously and the 01 kids don't even attempt to hide the Digiworld from the 02 kids. It bugged me that when Daisuke got his digivice he was like "so this means...!" How does he know what anything means?? He just got sucked into a computer with zero context.

-Charmingly lame translation. Daisuke says stuff like "mad skillz" and "dag yo." Honestly, he would. Sooo funny how they kinda-sorta incorporated the Japanese names. "I'm Daisuke, but my friends call me Davis." That's like saying "I'm Maxine, but my friends call me Meredith!" Just...a completely different name lol. (Then again, I guess East Asian people do choose "American" names, so maybe it's not so crazy).

Ch. 2

-I really wonder about the production of this manhua. 01 was 5 volumes, but for 02 we only get 2. The writer/artist must have known from the start that they would only get 2 volumes because of how blisteringly fast the pace is. Was this based on bad sales for the first manhua? Or maybe the fact that the second season of the anime wasn't as popular?

-This chapter starts with Koushiro saying "I found out why digivolution isn't working," but we never had a scene showing digivolution not working lol. We also see all of the armor digivolutions in this chapter...without any chapters of those getting introduced. So yeah, this is another adaptation that assumes you've seen the show so they skip all the exposition that would be helpful to a newcomer.

-Daisuke said "wiggedy wack"

Ch. 3

-Lol at Koushiro calling the 02 gang "kids" when he's like 2 years older than them. Middle schoolers do be like that tho...

-They just threw all the new digimon armor evolutions together in a way that I thought didn't really make sense. They find the digimentals and can't lift them up, but then later in the same chapter the digimentals just fly over to the kids and work? Why couldn't they pick them up the first time? Were the vibes off or something?

-I was sad to see they cut out the part where they make fun of Ken for calling himself the Digimon Emperor/Kaiser. I did enjoy Iori's "how does he do that with his hair?" bit tho lol

Ch. 4

-Wow, this one was laughably bad. Somehow we're already on Ken's redemption arc. The instant after Wormmon's sacrifice Taichi appears literally out of nowhere (he wasn't in the previous scenes at ALL) to be like "guys it's okay, Ken's brother died." WTF? How did he know that and where did he come from?? Clunkiest exposition ever. They could have at least thrown in a separate "Ken backstory" chapter to make this go down a lot smoother.

-Daisuke literally says "Dag. This thing got the bling bling" when he finds the miracle digimental loool. Why.

Ch. 5

-In horrible 90s/2000s slang news, in this chapter Daisuke calls Veemon "boo," randomly shouts "Extreme!" and says "that's straight." (I don't even remember that last one being a thing).

-I liked how they drew Stingmon. His face is a little more Wormmon-like than it was in the anime. I always prefer it when digivolutions bare a resemblance to their earlier forms instead of being totally random.

Ch. 6

-In this chapter, Daisuke calls Ken "homeslice." He's the only one they made talk "street" (or whatever you want to call it). The other characters are just like "Wtf?" lol. Of course, I'm sure none of this was in the original Chinese.

-Not gonna lie, going through this again is just reminding me how dull 02's story is :/ I think they kept presenting questions "who is this mysterious lady??" but then the answers we eventually got were underwhelming, so you were left feeling like "what was the point...?"

Ch. 7

-They mention the dark ocean, but it's completely without context because they didn't bother to adapt that episode lol. So much of this manga is out of context in general and would be a nightmare to read without prior knowledge.

-Weirdo dialogue when Hikari saves Miyako from falling off a cliff and says "I believe in you!" and Miyako's reaction is "wow! That was really nice, thank you!" As if Hikari was mean to her before...? Just awkward.

Onto the next! I bet it will be just as underwhelming (especially since the 2nd half of 02 isn't that great in the first place).

#digimon adventure 02 #manga #digimon #don't read this lol #manhua

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Have been hearing from several professional and unprofessional critics alike that 65 was a disappointment, can you give a more thorough explanation as to how the script is lacking? Most importantly what about Driver's acting,did the poorly written script managed to affect his performance in a degradable way?

The actors did great with what they were given, the main problem was that they were barely given anything. It felt like a first draft because the characters have almost no personality, the relationships and themes are undeveloped, and it doesn't do anything with any of the ideas it introduces.

Like, first the set-up is super paint by numbers, serviceable but ponderous and overdone. Then the sentimentality they're trying to bring to it to give Mills pathos is just incredibly hacky. He's a pilot going on a two year assignment to pay for his seriously ill daughter's medical treatment, analogous to a technical diver or someone in the military. The daughter has Occasional Cough disease and is classically precocious while being played by an actress too old for how young they're writing her.

Anyway, they keep hammering on Mills having pictures and videos of her and constantly play them. These videos are entirely free of content and tell us nothing about either character. It's like placeholder dialogue. This is very tedious. I get it, he has a daughter.

But the main thrust of the film is the crash, the desperateness of the situation, and the renewed quest to escape once he realises there is another survivor. Mills the character has to carry almost the entire movie essentially alone, because Koa the other survivor does not speak a language he (or we the audience) can understand. And I think Adam could easily do that, he's a very engaging screen presence even in this, but they give him zero tools. Mills sends one message and then does not make further attempts or audio diary entries or anything like that. He doesn't talk to himself. He doesn't talk to Koa much and when he does talk to her the writers haven't thought at all about how people who don't share a language can communicate.

There's one scene where he draws for her, but it's horribly executed and for the rest of the film he just shouts slowly at her and when the plot needs her to understand, she magically does. There's just barely any effort made to establish a connection between them, we're supposed to care because she's a little girl and remember he has a daughter. It's especially stupid because one of the few things the movie bothers to tell us about Mills is that he's heroic. He considers suicide when he thinks he is the only survivor in a hopeless situation, he doesn't want to endanger anyone by calling for rescue and clearly has guilt issues, but he becomes determined to save that person the moment he discovers someone else is alive. It's clear he would have done this for anyone, it's not because Koa is a young girl.

If he'd had a monologue where he recorded his experiences for anyone who might recover the ship, or messages to his wife, or if he just thought aloud, or if he'd really tried to communicate with Koa, we could have seen some personality from him and the whole movie would have worked imo. Adam is more than charismatic enough to carry that off. But with the boring dialogue, no personality, and cloying hack sentiment the only thing going on... it's just empty when they try to make us care. You can see all the strings. Every device they use is so obvious and so unthoughtful.

There were one or two really funny/cute moments, but it's sold entirely by the actors with no dialogue.

There's also some bad blocking and confusing scene construction that undermines the performances, but it's not super embarrassing or anything, it's just not good. There's no support for the heady emotional moments or some of the intense physical moments, the actors are just adrift trying to sell it without context. So the script didn't really degrade Adam's acting apart from not giving him anything to work with, but the director does let him down. It's not an impressive showing for anyone.

But like, what is the point? We find out his daughter died while he was away despite the treatment. Was that necessary? He needs a dead daughter to bond with this orphaned girl on a hostile planet? He doesn't have an arc about learning to value life or wanting to live again, he is willing to give up out of guilt and despair and then instantly changes his mind when someone else's life is at stake. He's a selfless person, he already was, the only reason he's on this mission in the first place is because he's willing to do anything to save someone. Nothing happens on a character level. I'm not asking for much, it's a very simple story and that's fine, just something to invest in. It also has nothing to say about emotional connection without words or communication or language- why make them unable to communicate if you're not going to do anything with it?

He lies to Koa that her family is waiting for her at the escape pod to get her to come with him and that's supposed to be our stakes (the only stakes the film has besides 'will they die'), but it's just goofy because it's so haphazard and it's so unclear what she even thinks is happening. She's even more of a blank slate than Mills so I felt no tension about the lie or their relationship. When she finds out, it's deeply blah.

It just feels like there's no thought behind it and there's not enough effort put into it to make it as mindlessly entertaining as it should be either. Even a dumb action thriller needs character. There are good sequences, but way too many parts of it seriously drag because of how underwritten it is. I'm also really annoyed about a) the replacement goldfish plot of them killing his daughter so he can bond with Koa as though a man can't just care about a child in danger because he's a decent person and b) his wife is in the opening scene doing exposition and then she is literally never mentioned again. He has no pictures or videos of her. Getting back to her is not part of his motivation. We will endlessly harp on his dead daughter but the wife is chopped liver. Fuck you, movie.

But yeah the scene with the flower may be bog standard but it worked. Adorable, funny, A+ no notes. Again, credit to the actors because this is a super paint by numbers moment but they sold it. If they had leaned into the comedy a tish more, this would be a blockbuster. Every moment of deadpan with Mills, usually completely non-verbal, is stellar. He is funny and letting him be more funny would have saved this. Let him John McClane it up. They already have him getting progressively more injured as the film goes on, if they'd just let him talk to himself and be sarcastic this thing would have worked.

#if you want to stare at Adam being hot and competent it's great for that #he is in almost every single scene and gets to be an action star #it is worth it if you're watching for him and it's certainly not awful or anything #I was disappointed because I expected it to be a lot more fun and/or a lot more character driven #but it's mediocre it's not outright bad #it's shallow I guess I should say #I was expecting it to be interesting #I was expecting some actual sci-fi elements #but if you are here for suspense and dinosaurs- it's pretty good on that #some boring parts and the budget limitations show a bit but they do a lot with what they have #65

[an-asuryampasya]

oh my god

I don't why it took me until literally today to think of this but i should run In Trousers through Voyant Tools

(context if needed: voyant tools is a text analysis software and I already messed around with falsettos before and it led to some fairly amusing results. although despite being the one who wrote those posts, I barely remember anything from them except going oof at Whizzer + alright having the most negative correlation. nope still not over that for some reason. anyway I digress.)

I also think I have a better idea for the [name because person is singing] vs [name because it's said in the musical] problem that I keep running into when I do this. Wanna see if that works this time. Also yes I'm aware that i could probably just do even a basic course on data analytics to learn how to actually do this right but I also know that any such course will use logic and my brain will short-circuit and I'll drop the idea completely, and I'm having too much fun with this to stop now. So! We're stuck with me attempting (and failing) to reinvent the wheel and figure this out as i go along. although I'm surprised I'm still enjoying it so much? Technically it's a pretty low gain-to-effort ratio, particularly because there isn't a handy way to copy the entire script. I need to copy each song individually. And then sort through the whole thing to separate the [MARVIN] vs "Marvin" thing. And then finally, I don't actually know Voyant all that well. It gives me readymade graphs, sure, but I still need to sift through all the different graphs and word clouds and stuff, fiddle with the settings to find new connections, etc. to find something fun to write about. Voyant is great when you have an actual research question, but I don't. But it's still very easy to pick up and fairly intuitive despite zero knowledge so there's that at least. Plus it's online and open source! Okay now I'm just advertising Voyant for some reason so I'm going to stop here ajfjajjf

#placeholder tag

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

what the fuck I just found this in my drafts I literally wrote this years ago, like a very significant number of years ago this is old shit

and apparently I just saved it and forgot about it??? anyway I polished it up and now it is here, I have no context and I barely even remember writing it, enjoy!

my apologies for the long post I still can't figure out how to do read mores in the app

edit: some lovely people have unformed me how to use readmores, thank you ~

-----

Jack was starting to wonder perhaps if he'd done something wrong.

It wasn't uncommon for him to accidentally say or do something to upset his wife or daughter, although usually when such an event occurred Maddie would glare at him to express her displeasure, and Jazz would always take the opportunity to tell him in exact detail what he'd done wrong and how to make it up to them (something he was honestly very grateful for).

It must have been something pretty bad this time, because both women wouldn't even look him in the eye.

Jack first twigged that something was off that morning during breakfast, when he sat in the empty chair by Jazz's side and gave his usual greeting, "Hey Jazzypants!"

She ignored his presence completely, steely eyes glued to the wall opposite her, they were puffy and red and Jack wondered perhaps if she'd been crying.

It had been a long time since her problems were easily pushed aside by her father's warm hugs and jovial attitude, he had stopped being able to handle a crying Jazz after she'd turned twelve and countered his attempts at humour by insisting that he 'stop trivialising her distress', whatever THAT meant.

Nevertheless, warm hugs and gentle jokes were the only method he knew and so he wrapped a comforting arm around her thin shoulders, noting that she continued to sit still as a rock, not even glancing his way as he tried to coax a smile out of her.

Jazz didn't say a word as she pushed herself away from her unfinished breakfast and left the room.

It was when he walked down to the lab intending to ask Maddie about Jazz that Jack started to suspect he may have been the one responsible, as it became apparent that the two had seemed to coordinate their punishment for whatever transgression he'd made.

"Hey Mads!" his voice boomed over the noise of his wife's current project. He strained to see through the bright light of her blow torch at the large gun-like weapon on the table. Jack whistled in appreciation is he took in the size of what he assumed was some kind of rocket launcher. "So what are we calling this one? Ooh! How about, The Fenton Spectre 'Sploder!"

Maddie's goggles made it difficult to see what expression adorned her face, but her tensed shoulders and the shaky grip on the blow torch told him that she was most certainly upset about something.

"Mads? Are you alright?" his voice quivered slightly as he took a few steps closer, seeing his wife this tense tightened a coil within his chest. Suspecting that he may be responsible added an extra weight to his stomach that he knew wasn't cause by the breakfast he'd skipped.

The light from the blow torch snapped off and Jack had to blink the bright spots it left behind from his vision, trying to peer through the blotches to find any indication that Maddie was going to acknowledge his presence. It seemed as though she'd looked his way for a moment but before his eyes could clear enough to meet hers she'd looked away again.

Jack watched, puzzled as his wife raised a hand to cover her mouth and catch the sob that ripped its way from her throat, she hadn't succeeded as the sound echoed across the lab and tore its way straight through Jack's heart, causing his eyes to sting and his throat to close up.

He reached a hand out to touch her shoulder, intent on giving her some form of comfort. He'd barely brushed it with his finger tips before Maddie stormed right past him up to the stairs, Jack had to quickly stumble backwards to avoid being trampled.

He couldn't imagine what he possibly could have done to elicit such a response from the woman he loved, but he knew for sure that he must have done something terrible for her to not seek him out for comfort like she did any other time she was upset. He just wished he could remember what.

Jack's shoulders slumped under the dim light of the glowing jars of ectoplasm lining the various counter-tops, he dry-swallowed a few times, trying to push down his confusion and distress before following his wife's light footsteps up the stairwell.

He found her in the kitchen, leaning against a counter with her goggles slung around her neck and her wild red hair loose around her head, abundant with the kinks and tangles Jack usually watched her brush out of it every morning.

"Mads?" Jack said, voice rough and quiet, "Look I... if I did something wrong I-" Jack's apology froze in his throat as Jazz poked her head through the kitchen door, eyes once again glancing right over Jack and instead locking onto her mother.

Neither woman shared a word as Jazz crossed the room and wrapped her arms around Maddie, who desperately grabbed at her daughter in return, burying her face in long red hair as violent sobs wracked her whole body.

Jack, at a loss of what else to do, wrapped his own arms around his girls. Nestling his chin on his daughters hair, he expected the annoyed scoff that Jazz usually gave him for his 'chin noogies', but it never came. Neither Fenton woman pushed him away though, so Jack considered it progress.

Finally, after an age of rocking and sobbing, Maddie's muffled words escaped through strands of Jazz's hair.

"Where is he? W-where'd he go, where'd he go?"

A deep chill coursed through Jack's veins, Danny? Had something happened to Danny? Jack pulled away, a million questions thrumming through his mind.

What happened? Was he missing? Was he hurt? Had he run away, been kidnapped, been kill- no. Jack shook his head violently, running a hand through the shorts strands of his thick hair. No he couldn't be. He couldn't be he couldn't be.

Jack's mouth was on the verge of catching up to his brain, multiple questions bubbled at his lips when he heard a voice echo down the stairs.

"Jazz?"

Jack took a steadying breath and grasped at the counter for support, relief flooding his body as his son rounded the corner and came into view. Danny was fine, Danny was safe. He had been fretting over absolutely nothing.

Then Danny's eyes locked into his.

A number of emotions flickered across his son's face, the first being a brief moment of sheer relief and delight, but it didn't last. Soon, too soon, Danny's dark brows pulled together and his lips curled sourly in confusion before a new expression swept it away. It was one Jack had never seen before.

He felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room, an icy chill prickled up his arms as the sudden wave of absolute horror overtook Danny's face. Jack couldn't tell if his son was about to break down crying or scream.

And then it was over. The tension in Jack's limbs released as Danny's face flattened into an unnaturally blank expression, he dropped his gaze and continued his way over to Maddie and Jazz. Once again it was like Jack wasn't even there.

Danny placed a hand on his mother's shoulder. "Maybe you should do another lap around town, you might find something today." he spoke softly into her frazzled hair.

Jazz looked at Danny strangely, her brother sent her back a glance that must have held some meaning because she then gripped Maddie tightly around the shoulders and led her straight out of the house, and suddenly Jack recalled that he still didn't know who it was that had gone missing.

"So... is anyone gonna tell me what's going on?" the jovial tone Jack meant to use came out flat and strained, Danny didn't look even remotely amused.

"I think you should sit down." Danny said quietly. He was no longer meeting Jack's eyes as he pulled out a chair for himself and one for his father.

Jack took the offered seat and prepared himself for the worst, obviously someone dear to Maddie and the kids had gone missing, Jack ran a list of all the people they knew, preparing himself for the worst, it was obvious Danny did not want to tell him what had happened. Perhaps whoever was missing was someone that Jack in particular had been close to? Was that the reason behind the horrified look on Danny's face? Because he'd realised he was going to have to be the one to tell him?

Something in Jack's gut told him he was on the wrong track, but try as he might he just couldn't imagine what else it could possibly be.

Jack kept his eyes on his son as the boy's thin torso straightened up in his chair and his icy blue stare bored into Jack's. Danny took a deep breath, then took several more, eventually he seemed almost ready to speak, Jack didn't rush him.

"Dad... you're dead."

#Bitter #danny phantom #lula's fanfics #jack fenton #I have zero context for this I barely even remember writing it #like this has to be 5 years old AT LEAST

[grippingbeskar]

The Element of Surprise | Part 10

Chapter Ten: The Nickname

mando x fem!reader

series masterlist here

warnings: swearing, slight sexual context?? (not really)

word count: 3.3k

a/n: sorry ive been away so idk how good this one is HA but its still cute ANYWAYS enjoy imma be writing alot more so hopefully I can get more chapters up soon k bye xoxoxoox

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

Sunlight streams onto your face, washing over your eyes waking you up just in time to soak in the feeling of it slowly drifting down your face, kissing your cheeks and collarbone, warmth trailing in its arc. You don’t open your eyes right away, delighting in the feeling of the sun on your skin. You always remember the morning, white hot rays signalling another day of sweat and aches that never seem to ease, but something about this morning, the slow, relaxed breaths of the man behind you lull you into a state of pure bliss.

His arm is draped over your side, lazily hanging just below your breasts, which you realise are completely bare apart from the blanket that wraps you both tightly against each other. The hard metal of his armour against your back should be uncomfortable, but you honestly can’t remember a time that you’ve felt more relaxed. His unfiltered breath hits the back of your neck and his hand occasionally brushes against your stomach when he shuffles closer to you, and as you slowly start to wake, your eyes flutter open to the harsh glint of his beskar helmet discarded on the floor, and your sleep hazed brain starts to put the clues together. He never put it back on.

You aren’t sure how to react, knowing that his face is just inches behind you. Last night should have snuffed out any feelings of unsteadiness, having his mouth on yours covered by the darkness is a hundred more times intimate than just looking at him, but somehow this seems infinitely out of bounds. You trust him, and you want him to trust you, so even with the image of his face, or at least how you pictured his face, slightly droopy with sleep, a half smile on his face lit up by the warm orange sun streaming through the window, you screw your eyes shut. Your body must tense against him, because you hear a heavy inhale before his lips graze the back of your neck just once, his touch never failing to send shivers down your spine.

“Morning.” he says into the back of your neck, and his voice alone causes you to squeeze your bare legs together to relieve the pressure. His pitch is low and gravely, and he slurs slightly, and your eyes zero in on the helmet in front of you to keep yourself from turning over and taking him then and there.

“Hi” it comes out more of a squeak than an answer as his hand drifts higher up your side, stopping just shy of your breast, and stays there, drawing small circles on the side of your chest with his finger. “You don’t have your helmet on.”

“Nope.”

“It’s light out side.”

“Do you wear it to sleep?”

“When I’m alone.”

“But you’re not alone.” you go back and forth like children, but there’s no aggression in either of your voices. You are half curious half concerned, and your pretty sure he’s just teasing you, betting the last credit in your pocket he has a smirk on his face while you pander him. He mumbles a small ‘hm’ against your skin, and your starting to realise why he didn’t put it back on, feeling him trail kisses down your neck and the top of your spine.

“Keep your eyes closed.” he whispers into your ear as the hand that was on your side comes up to touch your jaw, gently turning you into his face. After what feels like miles you finally meet his lips, but your squeezing your eyes shut so tight that you struggle to meet his pace.

He pulls back, holding your jaw in place with his thumb resting on your bottom lip, and you can hear him laugh, the sweet sound filling your ears, him obviously enjoying the sight of you making a fool of yourself. You pout and it only makes him laugh harder. He presses his forehead to yours and kisses your nose.

“You can relax. I trust you.” You have to focus really hard not to let your jaw drop open at those words. It should be obvious, you’ve spent every hour together for days on end, he leaves you alone with his kid, but hearing it from him while he holds you, probably being the most vulnerable a Mandalorian can be, means so much more. You let yourself relax slightly at his command, shifting on your back so he can have easier access. His hand cups your cheek as he kisses you, and every time he does you can feel your legs go jelly and your stomach flip, unable to help the effect he has on you. You push your chest into him, loving the groan it pulls from his throat as your bare tits press against armour.

You stay like that for a while, and something about you being completely naked and him still completely armoured turns you on even more than it did last night, the idea that he can see every inch of you floating in the back of your mind with every move you make. His hands roam your body, gliding over your stomach, slipping under your back and over your ass, giving a slight squeeze as he does so making you moan in surprise.

As he lets his hands roam free, his tongue exploring your mouth in ways that make the wetness between your legs build, he takes a deep inhale through his nose before diving back into your mouth, and you realise why he didn’t put his helmet back on. His senses would be so dull in that giant metal bowl, it’s form created purely for hunting his next target. You know it’s built to highlight the tiniest of discrepancies in a landscape, but would he of been able to smell any of the hundreds of stalls they walked passed on Coruscant? Would he have missed the rusty smell of the sand on Tatooine? You knew he didn’t get to eat with you on Nevarro, did he ever stop and enjoy the taste of food? He’s enjoying the fact that he, for once, doesn’t have to rush with you, so as his hands glide over your flesh you arch into him, wanting him to enjoy every piece you have to offer.

You both would have stayed in that tiny metal cot forever, had it not been for the surge of energy that ripped through your mind, forcing you to flinch under the Mandalorians soft touch. He pulls back immediately, his hands going completely still, ghosting above your still bare stomach.

“Maker; he’s strong when he wants to be.” You say when the wave finally subsided, your half asleep brain having to work extra hard to control the flow of the Force that Grogu throws at you. You know he doesn’t mean to hurt you, he probably has no idea how strong he actually is, but you are well out of practise, and just because you’ve been feeling stronger doesn’t mean your ready to compete with an above average baby jedi in the early hours of the morning.

A hand strokes along your temple; soothing and soft.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, his tone concerned.

“Not as much now. He doesn’t know how to control it, so if anything it’s pay back for me slacking off my tutoring skills yesterday.” The pain leaves completely, replaces by a soft kiss against your temple. He doesn’t respond, but you feel him wrap his arm around you and pull you closer to him.

“We should probably go down there. Make sure he doesn’t eat all our food.” you say, your eyes still closed, but the rising sunlight makes the darkness more of a dull red.

“Mhmm.” he mumbles, his mouth muffled by your shoulder.

“You know that means we have to get up.”

“Mhmm.” he replies again, but still no movement. You sigh, but it turns into a laugh.

“Well I could get up first, but I would rather not fall on my ass trying to get out of this room blind, so your gonna have to go first, big guy.” You’re smiling and you can feel his eyes on you. You aren’t sure if it’s just a feeling of emotion or your unconscious mind reaching him through the Force, but you can always feel when his eyes are on you. He releases a heavy sigh from behind you, pulling the blanket up so you are covered completely before leaving the cot, his armoured boots clanking around the room, until you finally hear the hiss of his helmet.

“You can look now.” he says, the familiar low tone of the modulator signalling your safety, taking a moment to adjust to the light, you observe the small space in the daylight. It’s still fairly plain, but the light streaming into the room gives it that same homey feeling. Maybe that has something to do with the Mandalorian standing in front of you, one hand now covered with a glove resting on his belt, a slight lean in his stance. “Your turn.”

“What?”

“Get up.” You tilt your head, and just as your about to follow his command you remember you are naked. All the times you’ve been with him you have at least had the cover of darkness to hide any insecurity, and honestly you have been too consumed in whatever he was doing to worry about what you looked like, but the sun has risen now, and he stands in front of you waiting for your move. He knows you don’t have any clothes on, and this game he’s playing is turning you on as much as it’s making you nervous.

“But I’m-“

“We need to go. Get up. Doors will close soon.” You hear the shutter of the cockpit doors sliding open, his stance is so relaxed that it’s hard to match up with his voice.

Your eyes never leave the dark lines on his helmet as you cautiously slide the blanket off your body and swing your legs over the side of the cot. You feel insecure under his gaze, but the idea of him watching you so intensely makes you so wet that you can’t help but indulge this. Subconsciously your arms come in front of your stomach, attempting to hide the parts of yourself you are least confident about.

You weren’t exactly in incredible shape, life on Tatooine kept you fit, sure, but working out was never a priority, and you ate every chance you got, never denying yourself food when you didn’t know where your next meal would come from. You were okay with how you looked, but standing in front of a man who looks like he was made in the image of the Maker himself makes a girl kind of self conscious. He steps towards you, and in two of them he is in front of you, his hands gently pushing your arms down to your sides.

“Your fucking perfect.” He whispers, and hearing him swear like that sends your head swimming, the compliment heating your cheeks and core. You smile up at him. After a moment of him looking down at your bare skin, you break the silence, wanting to see where this little game of his goes.

“Where did you put my clothes?” you ask, and he chuckles lightly before answering.

“Still in the cockpit. Better go now. Taking off soon.” His sentences are staggered - you can tell he’s hardly listening, distracted.

You take a deep breath, unable to help the smirk that spreads across your face as you brush past him, walking towards the door which opens for you automatically. You look back quickly and see him taking a step towards you so that he can see down the small corridor, and you walk down towards the cockpit, feeling his eyes burning into your back as you leave his sight.

When the doors shut behind you, you hear metal boots walking past and descending the ladder, and your heart sinks slightly at the lost possibility of him following you in here. You just spent the entire night with him, but somehow, it’s not enough. 

You pick out some clothes, and quickly get changed, unsure how long it will be until the baby inevitably finds his way up here. Going down the ladder, you come across one of the most adorable sights you think you’ve ever seen.

A giant Mandalorian, sitting cross legged on the floor hand feeding Grogu tiny pieces of fruit he has pulled apart with his hands. A couple of pieces have fallen on the floor around them, making a complete mess of both the baby and him, and the occasional low ‘ow’ coming from the Mandalorian when Grogu bites his hand erupts a giggle from you, making them both turn their heads in your direction. You keep laughing as the baby goes for the big half of the fruit in the Mandalorian’s opposite hand, him moving just in time to keep it from his grasp.

“He pukes when he eats that fast.” He says as an explanation, but as Grogu jumps to try and reach the fruit now elevated in the air by a gloved hand, you just laugh more. Slowly, he lowers his hand, tearing another piece of fruit and bringing it in front of the baby. He snaps it up quickly, another ‘ow’ coming from the modulator as he shakes his hand.

Taking a breath, you close your eyes, reaching out and feeling the familiar flow of energy guiding you towards the floor. You slowly pick up on the multiple pieces of fruit strewn across the floor, each one fizzling with life and growth. You focus on one, raising in the air before allowing your eyes to open. Both heads rise with the fruit you lift, watching intently as you hover it over the child. He jumps up, and snatches it out of the air, chewing happily. You grin, the kind of smile that takes over your entire face as the Mandalorian pushes off the floor, brushing off the remnants of fruit and liquid stuck to his armour.

“Show off.” He says once he stands behind you, making you laugh again. He looks down at you.

“Beats getting my hand chewed off.” You say between giggles. You can’t stop laughing this morning, mainly because the night before has you so giddy you can’t help but smile whenever your around him.

“Okay, giggles. Let’s go.” He turns to go up the ladder, but you spin around and grab his arm.

“Giggles? Is that meant to be a nickname?” you’re still laughing as he takes his foot off the bottom rung.

“You’re proving my point.” He says, but you can hear the smile in his voice.

“That’s not fair. I’m giving you a nickname then.” You have only ever referred to him as the Mandalorian, so you scrunch your eyebrows together as you realise, you’re coming up blank.

“Go on.”

“Im thinking! Umm… Mando?”

“You stole that from Kreef.” He says, and you roll your eyes.

“Well, it’s not like I have much to go on!” You scramble, looking around you see the baby, and your brain goes straight to the first thing you learnt about him.

“Dadd-“ you cut yourself off before finishing the sentence.

“What?” he says, and you suddenly feel incredibly small in front of him.

“Nothing! Nothing.” A small ‘hm’ leaves him, and you sigh in defeat. “Well, what should I call you? I know you guys have a thing about your names, but ‘The Mandalorian’ is kind of a mouthful. Is there like –“

“Din.” Your jaw drops and eyes shoot open. What the hell did he just say? Its your turn to be confused.

“What?”

“My name. Its Din.”

You cant imagine what you must look like, blinking dumbly at him, speechless. He told you his name. His real name. The weight of his confession hasn’t really hit you yet, but you know what this means. A Mandalorian sharing his real name is something only done with those who they trust, the people who they hold closest. He reaches a hand out to you, a finger extended slightly and presses under your chin, shutting your mouth manually. You realise you haven’t said anything as his hand drops to his side, closing in a tight fist.

Truthfully, you don’t think you have a suitable response that would express everything your feeling right now. Your entire adult life you’ve felt out of place, a drop in a wave of someone else’s ocean, but here you are, standing in front of a man you’ve only known for a fraction of time, and he has shared something so sacred to him, something probably no one else alive knows about him. You swallow, hard, before blinking a couple more times.

“Din.” You say back, and you could swear he tenses slightly when you say it. “Din.” You repeat, the same reaction – a small tense, only visible to you because your so close together. “Din.” He clears his throat – which makes you smile slightly, clearly you saying his name holding some kind of effect on him as much as knowing it does to you.

“Only when we’re alone.” His voice is low and course. His words make you look over to the baby, who’s still busy clearing up the left-over fruit on the floor. “Kids okay.” You nod, looking up at him as Grogu curls up into a ball in the corner to sleep after eating his fill.

“Okay Din.” You smile, liking the way his name sounds from your lips. He sighs slightly, the modulated air swirling straight into your core. The tension that has been created by simply sharing this small piece of information is almost unbearable, the emotion it elicited from you mixing with your imagination of all the ways you could say his name. You’re staring at him – the amount of time you both spend in this tension filled in between stage is probably weird to anyone else, but there isn’t anyone else here, and that’s exactly why you do it.

He nods again, and reaches a hand out to brush down your arm, gently pulling you towards the ladder as he turns and ascends, a silent question. You, of course, follow him without any doubt. The doors to the cockpit open and you slide in after him, silently disappointed you weren't going back to your room, but as he straps himself in tot he chair, you realise the ship is still moving, and you haven’t actually landed anywhere. The sunlight from this morning made you believe you had stopped for the day, but you must have still been at cruising speed.

“So, Din-” You'll never get sick of saying it, and you are going to use it every chance you get. He sighs again, a quiet laugh following. “Where are we, exactly?”

“Guess.” he says flatly, and as you slowly pass further into the planets atmosphere, you instantly recoil.

“Are you fucking kidding me.” you already feel hot, the sand coming into view as you descend. “You know, when I snuck onto this ship and shot at you, it was actually a ploy to get away from Tatooine.” you start to feel a little sick, ugly memories resurfacing before you even hit the ground.

“Its not Tatooine.” your eyebrows scrunch together as you concentrate. You feel the Force flowing through you, your nervous energy unconsciously alerting your fight or flight reflex. The closer you get, however, the less it feels like Tatooine. You know how the sand feels against your boots, you know the flow of energy of that planet like the back of your hand. Why does this look so much like it? 

“Its not Tatooine.” he repeats, and you think its in an effort to comfort you, until he continues. “But when we land, you’re going to wish it was.”

------------

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[phoenixyfriend]

Thoughts on “Auntie Soka and Little Leia” now that I’ve actually got it posted:

Call it a director’s cut! The process of actually writing the thing, and also jokes made along the way. Link to the actual fic.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the energy for image descriptions, even the text screenshots. Might come back that later. Most of this was DMs with @atagotiak​.

This was an entire thing before I even started writing:

Before I decided on ages and stuff Ahsoka, to Jango, who has had zero contact with Kaminoans: Okay I know I'm a Jedi kid so you hate me but this toddler is your clone from the future. Jango, tired: What the FUCK are you talking about. Rex, barely able to talk: Don't you dare leave me with him, Commander! Ahsoka: I'm not going to leave you I just--I'm so tired I'm so fucking tired I haven't slept in five days and someone tried to kidnap Leia two days ago I am so fucking tired I need help

Ben: [twenty years of depression followed by a 'now I'm safe' breakdown over the course of weeks] Sokari: [whatever the FUCK this mess is]

When Ahsoka mentions there only being three other Jedi at the time of her death,  I was thinking Kanan, Yoda, and Obi-Wan (Leia told her about the latter two living past her). She's not counting anyone that received training after the Temple fell, and she didn’t know about Cal.

When Leia says  “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”

Depa: I'm no therapist but I diagnose you with "incredibly fucked up." Ahsoka: yeah, that’s fair

"Why did you pick Depa for--" She's pretty and I'm gay. Also because of the Kanan thing But mostly I'm gay "It's not a visual medi--" GAY

Empty of context beyond general post-fic AU: "Hey Sokari, we need to engage in psychological warfare against this individual and--" "I'm going to break into his office and leave a threatening note on his desk and leave no other sign that I was there. He'll see that his security is nothing and the only reason he isn't dead is because I'm too nice to kill him." "...okay, not what we were planning, but that works. Why is that your first choice?" "I really like breaking and entering, it's soothing." Ben just standing there with a bland smile like This Is Normal.

"We need someone to infiltrate a highly guarded facility in hostile territory." "So we're sending the Torrent kids?" [sigh] "We're sending the Torrent kids."

Rex and Sokari insist on both going by "Torrent" even though Rex could be a Fett. Jango really wants him to be a Fett. Rex has too many grudges to agree to being a Fett for... a while.

I really hope it's blatantly obvious that Ahsoka's not a reliable narrator for some things Ahsoka: Fett could care less if I died Jango: jfc even if you are older than me I can see you're fucked up. Drink your hot chocolate. Hells. She's got good reason to expect him to hate her as a Jedi! BUT. THAT IS NOT REFLECTIVE OF REALITY

We don’t get a lot of actual characterization for Jango, but the way I played him out here is he has never really parsed that Jedi are people before all this. It's a lot harder to treat them as a monolith when the traumatized former child soldier is having regular breakdowns in your shitty little kitchen

Fett: I respect you Ahsoka: No, don't do that

Ahsoka’s vigilantism is something that, in my mind, she's associating heavily with Zygerria and then the clones.

I figured that she never bothered to learn Quinlan’s teacher’s name but in the process of looking up some basic facts (whether he had a surname), I found that Wookiepedia was forced to give us a VERY wide range of possible death in Legends.

Please take a moment to imagine Quinlan's FACE when Ahsoka initially dismisses him. Quinlan has put a lot of effort into being rogueishly charming! It's very useful for his line of work! He knows to expect either irritation or a return flirtation when he acts like this with people his own age! Ahsoka is not flustered OR rolling her eyes and insulting him, she's just ignoring him and it's a bit of a blow to the ego

This just makes me really happy:

This was the initial comment I made, as a joke What if Maul is just. There. On one of the planets they make a pitstop at. What if Maul exists as the walking problem he is, but fifteen, and Ahsoka immediately tries to kick his ass and drag him back to Coruscant. I do not have room for this plot but What If

Despite not having room for this plot, I proceeded to write this plot.

Maul is kidnapped and it’s the best thing that ever happened to him HE'S FIFTEEN HE'S DUMB AS SHIT AND HAS A BAD ATTITUDE AND YEAH HE'S A DARKSIDER BUT HE'S FIFTEEN

Ahsoka: I sense... Maul [takes off sprinting] Rex: [immediately takes Jango's blaster and runs after her] Jango: Wait who Tholme: Who Quinlan: Who Jango: [looks at Leia] Leia: I don't know who that is either! Ahsoka, already wrestling a teenager to the ground: Oh no, you're a child, REX STUN HIM AND GRAB THE CUFFS, I'M SURE FETT OR THOLME HAS SOME

Fighting him isn't even legal, they have NO evidence of criminal wrongdoing, so first she needs to yell until he admits to something she can fight him about

Ahsoka: When I see Maul, it's on SIGHT Maul: WHO ARE YOU

Ahsoka: The Force didn't give me hands just to NOT throw them when I run into That Crafty Son Of A Bitch

Ben, when they arrive, after the tearful reunion: You... you brought Maul. Ahsoka: Well, yeah, he's fifteen and kinda dumb. I figured we could drag him here and force him into therapy, see what happens. Ben: I can't quite tell through the gag, but I think he's threatening to feed you your own spleen. Ahsoka: Lol, yeah.

Ben is absolutely on team "get Maul therapy" and will fight the Council on rehabilitating the baby Sith But also it's like. Here's your daughter! And your niece! And your daughter's QPP! Also your best friend, but baby, and his teacher, and the biological origin of a number of people you cared for deeply! AND ALSO THE GUY WHO SPENT LITERAL DECADES CRAVING YOUR DEATH, FOR SOME REASON

I just really want Ahsoka lovingly bullying Maul She gives him noogies and the horns don't protect him because girl has reinforced gloves

Maul's only allowed a low-power training saber and his fights with Sokari involve Much Taunting by her and Eventual Screaming by him, and everyone pops by to see: 1. Sokari doing the most absurd flips, for fun. 2. The bullshit that is ataru-shien reverse-grip jar'kai in the hands of someone who makes it work 3. What a Sith lightsaber form looks like 4. Just the general nonsense that is the way these two fight

Tia said “Wrt ridiculous flips. I'm remembering that time she beheaded four Kryst'ad at once.” and I just Rex brings up the quadruple beheading at one point to get someone to stop asking questions and the awkward, horrified silence almost makes him regret it. And then Sokari just snorts and makes a joke about how Rex once speared a slaver point-blank and everyone's just like hello??? "are you two okay" "no"

Maul absolutely starts crushing on Sokari after a 'sword under chin' moment and she's just very "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you're fifteen, bye" GO MAKE PUPPY EYES AT OBI-WAN OR SOMETHING

The crushes are the worst part of everything, really, she's an attractive young woman that can kick a lot of ass, and a lot of people are into that! Unfortunately, most of those people are a decade younger than she is, mentally, because all the people her actual age look at her and see a child on account of the 17yo body.

It’s almost a good thing she’s in no place mentally for a relationship.

I just want Ahsoka to wear beskar.... I think that would be Nice........

This AU is also what caused this post.

I'm deeply enamored by the idea that Ahsoka can win fights against "older" padawans pretty much unilaterally, even when they team up 2v1 And then she offers to fight 5v1 "But only if I have permission to fight dirty." Ben approves it, a horror show full of "I fought many wars and will scream in your face or kick you in the balls if that's what it takes" follows She wins. There are no permanent injuries, but her reputation certainly gets weirder. Nobody under the rank of Knight agrees to let her fight dirty again. She just lets that stand because, well, she's not actually a padawan, she's thirty-three.

I’m not going to write this but my brain was EVIL and suggested it:

IT WOULD BE REALLY SAD IDK maybe 9yo Anakin has nightmares about what's happening to baby Ahsoka because bullshit about time-traveling force bonds IDK ANYWAY he cries to Sokari about the nightmares and she's like "oh shit" and it's time to go rescue herself from motherfucker unlimited

It's either that or she's like, expecting to welcome mini-me aaaany day now, for like, several months, before she realizes Something Went Wrong. Anakin’s dreams could even start right as she’s starting to realize something’s off.

Obi-Wan has never had a padawan that doesn't at some point bite Even Luke will, when pushed

OH also once the twins get Baby's First Lightsaber (training sabers, not real kyber), Sokari begs to borrow them for a dumb joke and tells Rex to get on her shoulders for a "Grievous Greeting" and they do The Thing

Jango and Ahsoka wrt Quinlan is just “Do I need to beat him up for you” “You realize I’ve beaten up sith lords before?”

JANGO'S TRYING He's just. "Can we be friends? Can I--can I be the guy that just noticeably gets in the way of a creep on the subway so you can be more comfortable without someone making a scene? I'm fucking trying here, give me a hint."

We didn’t actually figure out Jango’s age until this point. The only reason Fett's age matters is for Quinlan making a Wild Oats quip after Jango says he didn't know about Rex until a few weeks ago, and Fett going "How old do you think I am? And how old do you think the kid is?" and Quinlan getting Very Awkward as he does the math. Rex overhears and lets Quinlan sweat for a bit before saying "I'm a genetically-modified clone someone grew in a tube, he didn't know or have reason to know until he saw me with Sokari." Which is like. Eight additional layers of WTF, obviously, but at least Jango gets to avoid awkward wild oats jokes

Like, you’d expect the rebuttal to be ‘he’s my brother just with a biiig age gap’ or ‘he’s my nephew’

I find it very unfortunate for Quinlan that I've decided his defining characteristic in this context is going to be repeatedly putting his foot in his mouth

He’s trying so hard but "That sounds like a cool thing, maybe I'll ask ab--and it's another fucking trauma."

I'm doing Ahsoka&Jango t w i c e (there’s another fic where I’m doing it)

It’s just a fun dynamic! So much resentful respect.

Like she's twenty seconds away from calling him a bitch at any given time and he's just there like "I don't like you but I do see you move like you're about to tell an entire building to get on their knees with their hands in the air and I can respect that" Also she's probably much less judgmental about using blasters than Obi-Wan is The Maul subplot actually started with me daydreaming about Ahsoka grabbing a blaster for Reasons

I like the idea of Jango just deciding the most Useful thing he can do is help teach the Smol how to fight. He's AWKWARD around Rex and Soka because he doesn't know if there's anything he CAN teach them.

I didn’t actually plan for Tholme to figure out the age thing, he just SAID it and I had to sit there like Wait.

Ahsoka, Rex & Leia: ahhh, children Tholme: you say that like you aren’t children

I liked getting to write Rex's little "I have worked with all of them, and they're all Terrible" He loves them But They once got stranded on a planet that didn’t exist and Ahsoka died and Anakin killed a god.

There was research and discussion as to whether Ahsoka could win against Tholme but seeing as she held her own against Vader, and fought Grievous at that physical age without dying, etc.... yeah, the only thing holding her back was her body not being what she was used to, and she’s had a few weeks go adjust.

“I miss being able to just jump off skyscrapers” is such a jedi thing

Jango: I'll take the gun back if he tries to leave, they can't get far before--WHAT THE FUCK He knows Jedi are scary but he’s still not really used to just how over the top ridiculous they are He knows how to deal with Jedi in battle, not Whatever The Fuck These People Are Doing

Rex isn't even a Jedi, he's just so used to working with them. “Oh yes time for free-falling without a parachute again, same shit as always.”

Tia: I’m imagining Jango freaking out and Quinlan and Tholme being like. Concerned but mostly exasperated Clearly if they’re jumping off buildings it must be serious? But jfc they could’ve maybe communicated a bit more?

Leia: I want to finish my juice Tholme: Quin, stay with her while we go figure out what those two are doing. Quinlan: Wait what

Jango: Oh now he’s jumping off a building too??? Tholme: Sokari, you are not registered! You can't legally jump out windows yet! Jango: What the hell is going on? Is this normal?

We don’t necessarily know how often Ahsoka and Maul ran into each other after Mandalore. There was the later thing on Malachor, but other than that I'm just going with the idea that they ran into each other every year or two and just went for the eyes like feral cats

Ahsoka: I need to kick ass and you're coming with me. Rex: Yeah, okay. [several minutes later] Rex: Whose ass are we kicking?

Ahsoka and Rex

Neloms aren’t a SW fruit to the best of my knowledge, I just wanted to mess around with lemons/melons

Jango: you didn’t think any of this through, did you? Rex: you were there, you know we didn’t "When the Jedi says to jump out a window, I jump out a window."

Tholme’s real composed about stalking the ancient nigh-mythical enemy of his people, very “Life is already so goddamn weird”

This fic has been so heavy on the trauma but then I introduce Maul and suddenly it's the worst kind of comedy Nobody is competent, everyone's a little dumb, the bad guy is just grocery shopping

My propensity for banter has turned this into a six-person buddy cop comedy about Maul buying grapes They spend a significant amount to time ineffectually stalking Maul before Quin suggests the sensible option Quinlan just "You remember this is my literal job and specialty right"

Ahsoka sees Maul and all her brain cells go out the window except "Fight good" Usually she doesn’t need to worry about doing things legally. Maybe she needs to worry about someone seeing her do illegal things but she spent the past 15 yrs in a place where her existing was illegal

I feel like he’s also maybe kinda wanting to reassert that yes he is competent. Bc like. Ahsoka’s been kinda condescending this whole time and also can beat everyone up so. It's not his fault that he's actually the youngest person there, but.

Jango is finding this whole being friendly to Jedi thing a lot more overwhelming than he thought it would be. And overwhelming in different ways.

Maul usually signifies things getting worse and more horrifyingly tragic but he's just a dumb teen that they needed to arrest for his own good.

Quinlan: Look, I'm useful! Ahsoka: I've been through hell, wanna hear? Quinlan: NO. I DON'T. WHY.

Quinlan: I understand the concept of joking about your traumas, I do it sometimes myself! But sith hells that’s a lot of trauma.

Quinlan just wanted her to treat him as a Competent Individual, and here she is whipping out stories about Dying and Gods and the Force insists it's the truth and he just???? And apparently emo darksider over there is a Sith. And just, sure. Why not

A lot of people’s interactions with the time travelling disaster lineage is just

Tholme and Fett arguing and  Ahsoka's just waiting for a moment to pop in with "Hey, when's the last time either of you worked with the other's culture before this mess? Yeah, that's what I thought."

Much like Leia and Ahsoka hurting each other earlier, and Tholme figuring out the de-aging, we ALSO have Fett’s confrontation with Ahsoka being something the characters just did, rather than something I planned.

FTR the only time I managed to trigger myself while writing this fic was the “your behavior isn’t actually acceptable and we’ve all been trying really hard to give you room to recover but you have to at least make an effort to not be a bitch”

Writing about people having PTSD and symptoms of such: Yay! Writing about people having PTSD and engaging in toxic behavior to cope: Shit Ahsoka had... basically my exact reaction. It's "remind yourself that you're in the wrong, that they have a point, and then be overly formal in the apology because fuck if you accidentally make them feel sorry for you when they're the injured party"

Quinlan: Can we be friends? I mean, you're an asshole, but you're really cool. Let's be friends. (He MIGHT be nursing a crush) (Neat mysterious girl who can beat him up.)

Also he realises she's probably nicer when not having a slow-motion breakdown He's like "Huh, you'll probably be less of an asshole once you've gotten therapy."

...also, she pretty and got Nice Biceps

I love writing a good mental breakdown

I was so close to including a "he tried to kill me" just early enough for Jango to wildly misinterpret as her thinking Quinlan tried to kill her. He'd have been very confused, considering Quinlan's the one that called them down in a panic and currently has Ahsoka having her massive breakdown in his lap But

Tia:  I could see Jango interpreting it as idk, Quin resembling someone or for a moment acting like someone who tried to kill her and she had a flashback or something like that

There's absolutely room for a couple reasonable interpretations there And "trapped in a flashback about someone who tried to kill her" is absolutely what's happening! Just. You know. For a different reason. Jango probably wouldn’t assume Quin would hurt her, for one thing he seems to like her, for another even if he did he’s smart enough to pick a way that wouldn’t be so likely to get him caught

I had to step back and actually say “Also I'm just. Wow. I'm really just shoveling QPP Rex&Ahsoka at full speed”

Me, a few weeks ago, joking: Two halves of the same idiot black ops specialist Me, now, entirely seriously: Two halves of the same idiot black ops specialist

Me, belatedly: Oh, Ahsoka being joyfully mean to people was a form of mania she was unconsciously using to build a barrier between herself and her impending meltdown

She went from "just died" to "in charge of Rex and Leia" in like. Two minutes.

Confession: I've been delighting in the mental image of this whole Mess leading Jango to try to retake Mandalore, and Ahsoka loans him a saber for a 1v1 to get the darksaber.

“Can’t I just fight him barehanded? That’s how I did it on Galidraan.” "But the drama, Fett!"

Probably Rex has learned how to use a saber as well, because you never know when you have to borrow a weapon

I later changed my mind to Jango asking her to help, rather than her just sneak-teaching him, but it was funny.

Background nonsense to all this is Ahsoka and Rex, despite Rex being as force-sensitive as a lump of coal, having developed a process where she can extend her sensitivity to him mind-to-mind for weird symbiotic battle trance that scares everyone around them. It’s very similar to Battle meditation.

CONTEXT FOR LEIA BEING WORRIED ABOUT THOLME HIDING THINGS: Tholme is hiding the fact that the Council reached out and told him that the people he picked up might be connected to Ben and Luke, who showed up after the Depa thing but a solid week and change before Jango's ship makes it to the Temple. They asked that he not share that information to avoid getting anyone's hopes up in case the two situations aren't related. Ben and Luke haven't shared enough information for anyone to really be sure if the other three are connected Because the info Tholme has isn't quite the info Jango has, etc. And they can't just say Ben is a future Obi-Wan over comms

I just have a lot of feelings about people trying to do something right and just. Nobody's at fault! Not really! It's just complicated!

Tia: I like how when Ahsoka isn’t doing maladaptive trauma response stuff she’s very mature. And of course she’s had to be but it’s a good like, contrast. Where when she slows down to think about things she’s very sensible

Jango just spends most of this story lowkey wanting Ahsoka to Be His Friend but there's too much baggage that he's only metaphysically responsible for

Local aroace(?) has a squish

Ahsoka: He just wants to get on my good side because of Rex. Jango: I'm pretty sure you could kill an entire army without trying but you wouldn't because you have actual morals and stuff... and when I met you it was because you were killing yourself trying to keep (what appeared to be) children safe... you seem cool please be my friend.......

Ahsoka’s #1 weakness: mountains of trauma Ahsoka’s #2 weakness: she just doesn’t get why so many people think she’s cool and want her to be their (girl)friend

Jango, a 27yo massacre survivor who's killed Jedi masters with his bare hands: [gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly]

Ahsoka was raised in a religious meritocracy but developed all her opinions during a galactic war and then became a vigilante spy, Rex comes from a military cult, Leia is from an inherited monarchy that participates in democracy, Quinlan was originally from what appears to be a dynastic dictatorship, and IDK about Tholme other than that he is also from the religious meritocracy. And in legends Quinlan came to the religious meritocracy after his aunt sacrificed his parents to a vampire cult and then forced him to experience the psychometric echoes of that. There's just. A lot going on.

Leia at least has knowledge about structure and admin in theory that isn't based in either the military or populations under 10k

Jango: I want to be your friend. Ahsoka: Sounds fake.

I am unfairly fond of "Rex destroys a conversation by bringing up his own horrifying childhood and calling it a cult"

"Why does Sokari call you 'Rex'ika'?" "Because she's older than me." "...can I--?" "No."

Nickname privileges are extended ONLY to Ahsoka and older clones. There are no more older clones, so it's just Ahsoka.

Me joking about Star Wars AUs: Would you like a crackship? Me writing actual Star Wars fic: My favorite character type is apparently “too traumatized to have a relationship” so this is at least 90% gen.

I had to pull a scene opening at one point because Ahsoka's skill with not getting shot is actually much less useful than Tholme's clearance levels.

Now I really want a team-up of Ahsoka, Rex, and Jango where they do have to get in a dogfight of the "she flies, we shoot" variety and Fett just has to scream because the speeder thing to catch Maul was one thing, but this....

Ahsoka, before TCW: I know all the traffic rules but I'm not that great at flying! Ahsoka, after TCW: I'm great at flying but if you let me behind the wheel we are absolutely getting arrested.

She went from "knows the rules but doesn't have the skills" to "has the skills but primarily in the form of not getting shot" which! Is delightful! "Bet I can get us through that alley--" "DO NOT"

Jango and Ahsoka are both just very "Is this friendship? Is this camaraderie? My heart's been fried on platonic love by so many murders that I'm not sure anymore." "I've lost a lot of friends. I kind of forgot how to make those."

I have no idea if "hasn't been closer than Alderaan except that one trip to Chandrila" is canon-compliant but ehhhhhhhh It feels plausible enough?

Belatedly realized that I could just explain my optimal Rex&Ahsoka dynamic as just... drift compatible. It's vague enough on the specifics while still digging into the meat of what they mean to each other and how they work together. The terminology is already in existence. I can just use it.

Romantic? Platonic? Familial? Doesn't matter! They're drift compatible.

They are important to each other and that is what matters

I really like the Leia&Quinlan thing. He's just like "This small child needs a friend that isn't super depressed," and decided he's going to be her friend. I keep trying to toss in "Quinlan volunteers to 'baby'sit." She's not much older and she has a Baby Brain, it works out

There's a running bet as to whether Leia will leave the Order the second she turns thirteen, or if she'll let Sokari "train" her for a few years first. And... that’s how I came up with Leia Antilles, Senator of Serenno.

They'll be bullshitting Ben as her new master to "finish out the padawanship" since they can't tell everyone she's really in her thirties and he's conveniently there and already knows everything and was half her master anyway. Like Ben was planning on taking on Luke, but Luke is "six" and even he can't swing that as old enough to be a Padawan, and it's not like Sokari will take more than a handful of years to justify knighthood, sooooooooo

#Ahsoka Tano #Captain Rex #Leia Organa #Jango Fett #Obi Wan Kenobi #time travel #de aging #Phoenix Babbles #Uncle Ben and Little Luke #Auntie Soka and Little Leia #I need to excise the bits that are actually funny on their own

[serpentstole]

Can I ask what's wrong with Michael W Ford's books? I never read them but I've seen often people recommending them, so I'm curious. Thank you and have a nice day.

Thanks for the question! Sorry if this gets a little long, TL;DR is at the bottom but I've broken down some more specific examples in point form.

I'll preface this by saying that if people get something worthwhile from Michael W Ford's books, that's their business and I'm happy for them. However, there's a few things about his writing and him as a person that I don't really love and struggle to get behind. Most of the specific textual examples I give are from the Bible of the Adversary specifically, as it's one of his more famous books and the only one I personally have had the mental fortitude to page through so far.

- I'm immediately leery of anyone who's often described as a "visionary" or "luminary" on websites selling or listing their books, especially when I've gotten the feeling that it's just that his books are accessible and plentiful. Even among fans of authors like E. A. "Become A Living God" Koetting, the general opinion seems to be that his books lack a lot of consistency and are a bit poorly written. Can confirm for the Bible of the Adversary, at least. There's some parts of that thing that could have used a once-over by an editor.

- I try very hard not to use what happened to the Greater Church of Lucifer/GCoL against him. Another member of the community that I do still (loosely, infrequently) interact with was also involved, and while I sincerely wish they'd both more deeply researched the man they were signing up to run a very public and scrutinized church with, I think his turning into a scam artist who publicly converted to Christianity was enough punishment there. Likewise, I'm a bit uncomfortable with his past involvement with the Order of Nine Angels/ONA/O9A given the fact that they're a pack of murder advocating nazis, but apparently he left when he discovered that fact, so I try to give him the benefit of the doubt that he truly did distance himself from them immediately upon learning of their beliefs, as I don't know when these things became more widely known. However, both of these fumbles alongside how he presents himself and his books just don't sit well with me, as the most generous interpretation is that he was twice-misled in some pretty dangerous and harmful ways by those that are damaging to the public perception of Luciferianism, but still likes to be some figurehead of the Luciferian community. People make mistakes, and people can be misled, and people can learn from past experiences, but his track record is a bit upsetting for a supposed authority.

- His work includes pieces and ideas from occultists or practices that I tend to avoid in my own practice and study, such as Thelema and Crowley's writing as a whole, inspiration taken from the Temple of Set/Setian magic, Qlipoth (because it wouldn't be a Luciferian grimoire without pilfered Jewish mysticism), and forms of Gnosticism that embrace the idea of God as an evil demiurge (which i explained my discomfort with in my previous post). I'm also not a huge fan of his "all magic comes from within" approach (and find it hard to reconcile with his frequent use of Luciferian deities/spirits and demons), nor that he'll talk about Cain's role in "Luciferian grimoires" without actually naming any... though given how similar a piece of Lilith themed artwork he's done looks to Andrew Chumbley's illustration, I assume he means the sort of books the Cultus Sabbati was writing. I wish I still had the Ford version saved or could remember which of his books it's from, the side by side comparison is painful but without it I risk looking like I'm making things up.

- Heavy, heavy use of Lilith, which I don't love for reasons I outlined before. She mostly seems to appear whenever spooky lustful sex magick is being discussed, which is great, that's great.

- He also uses the Wiccan wheel of the year sprinkled in among his more Luciferian focused holy days, which is just really funny to me. Why are we celebrating Beltane, Michael? Why are we celebrating Imbolg? (Page 69)

- He likes to use a lot of "black magic" and "vampyre magic" stuff which tends to feel very sensationalized and over the top to me. I've seen discussions of vampiric magic I found very interesting, but so far his hasn't been one of them.

- He sometimes seems to conflate Lucifer with Samael which I really truly dislike, though it's admittedly not the most baffling or out of left field take I've seen.

- Ford at times seems to either willfully misrepresent or misunderstand information he's passing along. For example, in the Bible of the Adversary he says that Cain's name comes from "...root ‘Kanah’ which means to possess. This by itself presents the antinomian nature of his essence, while instead of sacrificing his most bountiful items to the Lord, he kept them for himself." As I understand it, discussion surrounding Cain's name possibly coming from the Hebrew word קנה (kana) lean more into it being the word for to get or to obtain, referencing Eve's declaration after his conception that she'd gotten a man from the Lord. I'm all for alternate interpretations, but it feels like needless edgy-fying to fit the narrative he's trying to present. (Quote from Page 58)

- He'll say some absolutely bonkers shit like "Abel in some Luciferian Lore is considered a lower pre-form of Cain, thus the sacrifice was not literal" with zero citations or references. Like sir what the fuck does that mean, what Lore, please give us the lore please. (Footnote, Page 59)

- His interpretation of the Watchers and the Book of Enoch is so insultingly bad that I won't even relay it here, but if I see one more person claim that an angel, demon, or spirit they want to distance from Christianity or Judaism is actually a Babylonian god I'm going to go feral.

- As I've hinted at above, it feels like he'll just cherry pick and regurgitate for no real purpose. A few spirits from other texts like the Lesser Key and the Grimoire Verum get mentioned for... mostly the set of names, it seems like, he just kind of lists them out of context.

TL;DR, Michael W Ford feels (to me at least) like someone who has picked out the more appealing and edgy occult trivia and magic he could find from a wide range of sources, recontextualized the parts that didn't appeal to him until they fit his aesthetic and purposes, and presented them as a workable entry point to the Luciferian religion and its potential magical systems that is all flash no substance... and then could barely polish the flash. I don't like that he's many people's first exposure to the concept of theistic Luciferianism, and I don't like how authoritatively he presents his jumbled works as what the religion is truly about when it's so broad a label. Again, if there is something that someone finds useful within his books I am very happy for them, but I have struggled to find anything I could point to that make them worth the read... even for me to investigate further keep critiquing.

I honestly do not know why so people recommend them, unless it's just that they're easy to buy, reasonably inexpensive, and specifically have the Luciferian label on them. If that's truly the case, those people are being lazy and uncritical in a way that doesn't speak well to their apparent Luciferian ideals.

#asks #answer #luciferianism #theistic luciferianism #michael w ford #bible of the adversary

[mrslackles]

what do you think are gg's biggest flaws?

Ooh, Anon! It’s like you’re in my head. 

I’m busy making a video (that will probably never see the light of day) about this --  my distance from the show has really helped with some super objective clarity -- so I’ll use my notes from that to help me answer. 

I’ll preface this by saying what I was most shocked by after putting down all the points was that Rio isn’t even mentioned until really far down??

Anyway, let's get into it.

These are Good Girls' greatest flaws in my opinion (and relative to season 1 -- while I think it had its flaws too, the list is far smaller and I think that's a separate post)

1. It didn't stick to its guns

What set this show apart from others in the 'Everyday person does crime (poorly)' genre was its comedic lightness, strong friendship element, relatability and emphasis on girl power.

a) By season 2, the lightness was already slowly disappearing to make way for season 3's darkness. (Quite literally; this show said sunlight scenes for WHO.) It also stopped being as fun. Remember how it genuinely used to be fun? I mean let's not forget The Best Scene Ever where Ruby shoots Big Mike by accident and we all laughed our asses off. (Compare and contrast to a similar-in-tone-and-context scene -- or even the whole episode -- like Boomer popping up behind them as Rio's package in season 3.) I think season 3 had some great lines and laughs, but in general, the fun element was completely missing for me.

b) As was the friendship. We already know Annie and Ruby basically became Beth's backup dancers in season 2, but at least then they still seemed to have some type of agency. In season 3, they rarely question Beth's (truly questionable) decisions, don't talk to her about shit like why she's still with her horrible husband and have very few true friendship moments as they did in season 1.

c) Which made it less relatable, but what also contributed was the major plot holes (it's less easy to relate when you're constantly having to remind yourself to suspend your disbelief). And, to be honest, their stupid actions. Just the most common-sense things weren't followed, like not taking your children to a crack den or not putting a hit out on a gang leader. It's frustrating watching a TV show -- where characters are supposed to learn things, have arcs and improve over time -- and feeling like you have more logical sense than all the main characters in every scene. (WHO would think a hitman was going to use a sniper rifle on people in broad daylight on the side of the road???)

d) You don't have to look any further than the title or the stans who shout "THE SHOW IS ABOUT THE GIRLS" -- or, hell, the first 10 seconds of the show where Sara is literally talking about the glass ceiling -- to know that the main characters being women is very important to the show. If not formally feminist, it was at least supposed to be empowering or feel like "girl power" (a term I hate, but we won't get into that now).

And I think it did it pretty well in season 1 -- it actually played on my favourite theme of the show, which is the world's perception of these women being what ultimately allows them to get away with so much. (Rife with opportunities for commentary about white privilege, but also a genius way to upend patriarchal beliefs.) But more and more it seemed like the show was asking you to accept empowerment as simply "these things are being done by women, yay".

And, well.

2. Its marketing

I'll keep this one short because I think we all know how messed up this situation is. Basically they're selling a show (every week!) that they're not making while ignoring all feedback on every social media platform. Which brings us to...

3. The marriage of Death

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times -- Beth's character development starts with getting rid of Dean. Her growth is stunted by him on multiple fronts and it's frustrating to viewers since she's constantly put forth as the main character. Not to mention how the audience, separately from Beth, was originally conditioned to see Dean as the scum of the earth (think of scenes like him crashing his car because he was perving on a woman jogging) so keeping them together is really... a choice. To actively root for this marriage (which seems like what the show wants, at least for the protracted moment) means either thinking Dean is a great person (which, as I said, we've only seen the opposite of) or believing he's all Beth deserves. Which leads me to...

4. Beth's (socio)path(y)

Is sociopath a 'good' word? Probably not. Have I seen dozens upon dozens of posts talking about whether Beth is one? Yes. And I see it from a huge variety of people -- from viewers who just binged the show last weekend to those who've been watching for years, the question keeps coming up. And I entirely blame the writing of the show that, by the way, I don't believe is deliberately creating Beth to get this reaction. I think she's written (and, to an extent, acted) in a way that is much too aloof and I'm not convinced it's meant to come off as cold and unfeeling as it does. Everything else leads me to believe that the audience is supposed to root for Beth, but it's just so difficult.

Beth does a lot of messed up shit that requires dialogue to sympathise with her and the inner workings of her mind, but in the later seasons Beth rarely gets to express herself verbally. And every time she does get to speak about her emotions, the dialogue is a pick-your-own-adventure between "She's in so much denial", "This person feels no emotions" and "I'll go find an analysis/fic later to explain this" (scenes like "Nothing" or "I was just bored"). Compare and contrast with some of the great scenes in season 1 where she emotes, like her paralysing shock after they first rob the store or admitting she enjoys crime, or (one of my favourites!) the one in the park where she's mimicking the other mothers beside her.

5. Brio

I said in the beginning that I was shocked Rio doesn't get mentioned until this point and that's because I've always felt like he was an integral part of the show. When people say the show is about the girls, they're truncating -- the show is about the girls getting into crime. That crime is represented by Rio over and over again -- they never bring in another criminal at his level (which is another one of its flaws, but that's also a different post); Rio is it.

And though I stand by Rio's importance, the truth is that Brio isn't as essential to the show, by which I mean that if all of the above were done well, it wouldn't be as sorely missed. In lieu of riveting plot, a fun friendship, character development and empowerment, most viewers have glommed onto Brio like a lifeboat (or ship, heh).

Unfortunately it's also what the show has most stubbornly refused to develop significantly.

It's honestly a toss-up for why I feel Brio is a flaw: is the flaw that they got together? That they never got together well enough? That the writing keeps bringing in these 'chemistry-filled' scenes that are ultimately filled with air?

I don't know. Maybe all of them; maybe just one, depending on the day.

6. Its criticism falls flat without intersectionality

This is a big one because Good Girls is *trying* to do something very clever. As mentioned previously, my favourite theme of the show is how the women's apparent innocence/vulnerability in the eyes of society is their biggest strength. The show plays with this and other interesting themes with varying levels of success, but ultimately they all fall a little flat when they don't feel intersectional.

When Ruby gets sidelined. When Turner, who sees and all but calls out by name Beth's privilege, is portrayed as the villain. When Rio is told he's gonna "pop a cap" in his young child's "ass". When the racist grandma becomes a sympathetic character whom we must later grieve. (And she really didn't have to be racist, now that I think about it? It was just that one line for laughs and that was it.) When, despite the real-world implications, Dean can loudly announce in a store that he's buying a gun to kill someone with and the show just glides past it. When Ruby has to grovel for forgiveness from Beth for trying to protect her husband and family from the system, with no acknowledgement from Beth about how their realities are different. When Rhea gets booted off the show as soon as she's done serving Beth's plot. When Rio gets treated like a prostitute for absolutely no reason. (Oh, and is accused of raping Beth and is literally spoken of as an animal and starts only existing in zero dim lighting as a one-dimensional stereotype... the list goes on.)

7. PR/The actors

I'll risk my life here to sprinkle this in because I do think it's a massive problem. The Manny/Christina of it all is just the tip of the iceberg (although wtf Good Girls? There's nothing you could do to get these two into an interview together??). The main actors do the bare minimum to promote the show and it's weird. I also think it's the height of unprofessionalism to keep characters on the show against the wishes of the majority of the audience just because you enjoy their actors (Boomer confirmed; Dean highly suspected). While, on the flip side of the coin, limiting a character's screentime because you aren't best buddies with them. Having less and less Rio when he's such a fan favourite is dumb; as is not including him in any series marketing material. It feels personal and that isn't how a TV show should be run.

8. The entire hair and wardrobe department needs a stern talking-to

#Anonymous #NBC Good Girls #also imo Matthew Lillard is weird af online #and he's lucky he has his Scooby Doo rep #anyway Reno Mae and Isaiah are my faves #on IG #ALSO speaking of wardrobe! #I saw the Fitzpatrick scene #and it was really good ngl #but also Beth LOOKED good?? #her makeup was nice again #and there were even HEELS #the granny belt was also present again BUT #the rest was really nice #last also #the intersectionality really affects every other point as well #this show's racist/tone-deafness is an undercurrent throughout #sorry this took me so long to answer Anon! #I wanted to get everything #I had to come back and add the hitman thing #because it was SO DUMB!!!!! #I will forever have a gripe with that scene #it also was only funny for the first few seconds but the director persevered

[popculturebuffet]

Prince of Wishful Thinking (Tom Retrospective): Tough Love or The True Monster

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Prince of Wishful Thinking, what is usually my look at the life and times of Tom Lucitor but since I NEED to cover the season 3 finale as vital part of Tom’s story, we’re taking one last look at the tragic tale of Meteora Butterfly before the finale sends these two stories hurtling together. You’d THINK this would be the last detour of this already sizeable arc.. and you’d be wrong as i’ll also be covering Kelly’s World, as I feel it’s vital for both “Curse of the Blood Moon” and “A Boy and his hard to remember title”, as it provides extra context for Marco’s anguish in the former.. and provides extra evidence for why a CERTAIN MOMENT in the latter pisses me off to no end.. seriously even when as universe dies and the only people left are Frankllin Richards and Galactus, there will still be a little note reading “Fuck how they treated Kelly” written in all caps so Galactus remembers to yell it. 

So sadly that DOES mean it’s been three entries in this retrospective in a row that either haven’t feature Tom at all or in the case of the last episode only had him in short cameos. I mean we did get his love affair for pie but we also got a creepy goblin man forcing his girlfriend and best friend to kiss each other, his best friend being WAY to eager to jump to that conclusion, and neither considering using Marco’s Scissors because the writers only remember he has those half the time in Season 3... and clearly I ddn’t either as I forgot to mention that plot hole, something @jess-the-vampire​ brought up to me. Sadly I DID forget to consult on this when we talked earlier this week , and she’s not online as I write this so I won’t have her insight for this one. 

But if you want some Tom content, i’m happy to share my crossover ship for the boy with you. I’ve been shipping him with Octavia from Helluva Boss lately.  Because of course it’s Helluva Boss, i’ve not been at all subtle with my obession with it and much like Letterkenny, X-Men and Dragon Ball Z Abriged it is a love I never plan to be subtle about. 

But I just think they compliment each other well: They have contrasting atittudes, and tastes in music, but seem like they’d share hobbies. Like taxidermy.. I could see Tom buying this... demonic combination of a badger, a skunk, a deer and my nightmares Octavia is preciously holding up.

Granted I also feel tom would both animate them with their dead souls.. and then use his new woodland friends of the dammned as a chorus to sing “Can You Picture That” from the Muppet Movie, because that’s what my mind does on a regular day. I think the contrasting attitude creates great chemstiry and it made me also realize I have a thing for ships with directly contrasting home lives.  Tom has two loving decent parents who deeply love one another and at worst simply didn’t reign in his worse behavior because it was standard for demon stuff. Octavia in contrast simply has two parents, one who DOES love her and tries his best, but his best includes calling his side piece “My big dicked blitzy” right in front of her and hiring said side piece to guard them, and her mother who clearly thinks so little of her daughter’s emotional well being she hired a cowboy to shoot her daddy dead in the middle of a large crowd. The point is I think they’d be adorable and they both badly need to be happy after being emotionally fucked over by people they care about. 

But  alas my new ship will have to wait as we marginally important things to get down too.. things that will impact both this season and the next’s endgame and utterly destroy Eclipsa and Moon’s relationship for good. Sound fun? Well if so join me under the cut won’t you?

We open in the Pidgeon Kingdom.. and things aren’t exactly great.. and by that I mean Meteora stomped a hole through it and ravaged the place and Rich demands blood.. and vengance.. and possibly blood vengance. But not Tekken Blood Vengance.. he already has like 5 copies of that on dvd. Still needs it on Blu Ray though, hook him up if you got it. 

So Moon and Eclipsa are trying to smooth this over/find out which way did she go George which way did she go, and are angrily dismissed after they try Rich’s patience, not helped by Eclipsa not being familiar with the Pidgeon Kingdom because they hadn’t slaughtered everyone who used to live there yet. Look that’s what happened, Star outright mentions in the Big Book of Spells that htey suddenly sprung up where another kingdom was and no one knows what happens. There was some bird murders up in that place.. or birdur if you will. Some birds drank some human blood. This is what Alfred Hitchock tried to warn us about with his film built on horrifying actress abuse. 

The point is with some more pidgeon-led murder stabbings on the cards our heroines are trying to find her since their attempts to convince Rich not to go on an Archer Style Rampage fell on deaf ears. 

But it’s clear from the second the two are alone both have diffrent priorties: Eclipsa desperatley wants to find the daughter she lost and talk her down from what sh’es become, help her become better and hopefuly heal from the pain she’s been in. She’s lost her husband, her kingdom and centuries. She can’t loose her baby girl too.

Moon on the other hand... clearly has no intrest in helping Meteora or stopping this peacefully. Her first thought is stopping Meteora. Her living through it is not necessary. It’s also clear her racisim isn’t REMOTELY gone depsite Buff Frog and Star’s best attempts and despite learning just how deeply and horribly Mewni’s engrained racism has hurt eclipsa and destoryed Moon’s own family history. To Moon this is just a big monster to fight.. i’ll dive into this more in a bit.

For now our heroines encounter an angry mob. This time their not here for Homer Simpson, but for Meteora as her rampages have destroyd their towns, livelehoods and given some weird guy a hat. It’s the best bit of the episode and i’m embarassed I forgot it happened. 

So with them being no help our queens back out but end up finding some actual help: Eddie! You know the guy from the episode I skipped over... River’s cousin or something like that. He dosen’t have a wiki entry, I do not know why. He’s voiced by Rhys Dharby of Flight of the Conchords Fame whose since made quite the career as a voice actor. No major roles yet that i’m aware of, but a lot of delightful minor ones like this. It’s good to see him he was one of the highlights of that show and not just because he sang this..

Eddie showed up in the Bog Beast of Boggabah and I honestly forgot he was in this episode.. but again, it’s Rhys Dharby. It’s not like suddenly finding out “Aw god dammit Pauly Shore is in this”. So Eddie agrees to help as he’s been tracknig Meteora.. and we find out something troubling: Meteora is getting BIGGER. Gradually, to the point the bog from said episode Is skipped over is drained because she DRANK IT. We also get a great exchange “I’d hate to see the size of her mother” “Actually her father more than helped with that”

Awwwww.... seriously Esme Blanco is a national treasure and has some great deliveries in this one.. and some heartbreaking ones. But before we can get to that it turns out Meteora sucked the powers out of Eddies family.. who he misses..e xcept one guy> That guy can fuck right off. Seriously Eddie is also a national treasure and I wish he’d shown up in season 4. I mean he couldn’t of HURT it. For one it’s Rhys Dharby and for another that season shot itself in the face, both feet, the groin and then the face again enough that I don’t think anything could hurt it as bad as the writers already did. 

But sadly we say farwell to Eddie as he goes out how men have since the begining of time.. deciding to poke a strange creature till it murdered him. Or took his soul out in this case, speaking of which...

Yeah while I couldn’t get Jess in time for this review, she did bring this up in the past: Meteora’s ablility to pull a 

Comes right the fuck out of nowhere with no build up and no explination for it. She DID drain personalites and according to this episode youth.. but that was with a big ole machine. It MIGHT have been intended to be one of Globgor’s powers.. but that makes zero sense, as if he COULD do that, as we saw with Toffee last season when he had that power, also out of nowhere but at least it made a touch more sense given his power was draining magical energy anyway at the time, so adding souls to that isn’t a huge stretch, but as we saw that would’ve been game over for the comission, especially since we DO see him fighting them one on three next season. If he had this power, he wouldn’t be in crystal and I think they realized that, but just tried to act as if his daugther COULDN’T do that and assumed everyone would casually forget. And I get not accounting for me writing about this years later, even I wouldn’t of thought that, but not counting on fans both young and old to latch onto a continuity error? Have you met fandoms Disney, have you? It dosen’t bring the story down entirely and I get WHY ti’s there, so she can nonlethally kill people so we’re not down most of the cast for Season 4, but it feels like an easy win button and one she barely uses despite it being eye beam activated. It should be easy enough to pull, boom, soul suck, win, rinse and repeat. It’s okay to have uber powerful tequniques but they have to have a drawback. For instance the Kaioken from DBZ. It’s a really damn cool technique that gives the user a neat red aura and amplifies poewr.. but the more you amplify the more strain it puts on your body and the more likely you’ll die, and Super later creatively explained why it hadn’t been used since Super Sayian was introduced because said form would’ve sped it up so much it’d be too much for a body to take. Here whie Meteora dosen’t use it in EVERY fight, she uses it enough that it makes no sense this isn’t just her first move for every fight she gets into, mental breakdown or not. 

That being said Meteora’s current mental state as she talks to her mother, having regressed to talking in only a few words and acting like a child, makes perfect sense. Henious already wasn’t in great mental shape to begin with, having a slow sustained breakdown since Marco overthrew her. and now on top of this she remembers her whole life has been a lie, starts to mutate into her natural state at a rapid and likely unehalthy pace, and then finds out on top of all of this Mewni is rightfully owed to her. Given she ended last episode blowing a guy up for rejecting her, it’s not a stretch that given even more power and no time to process anything, Metora would deteroate further. 

Esme and Jessica really knock this scene out of the park as Eclipsa presents Metora with her old doll Bobo and gently trying ot talk to her.. but you also get the fear Eclipsa feels as she tries to awkardly manuver around the fact her daughter is far more unhinged than she was prepared for, even threanting Eclipsa simply because Eclipsa wanted to be called mother instead of mommy. But despite this fear.. Eclipsa wants to help and Walter beautifuly captured metoera as a hulk like tragic figure:a being with low sanity and too much power desperate to be loved by the one person it cares about. And it makes it even more heartbreaking as Eclipsa explains what happened: bad people trapped her , a disfunctoinal society with a racist queen and even more racist subjects has taken hold in her absence... and it’s clear both want opposite things: Meteora wants what sh’es owed, her family back on the throne and Mewni back in her graps, but has lost herself so much to rage, anger and insanity she can’t see it’s not hers to take, while Eclipsa.. just wants her daughter back. She’d be happy just settling down with her and having a LIFE after hers was taken away. Eclipsa just wants a chance to be with what family she has left. It just HURTS to know that despite RIGHTFULLY hating the comission, despite having eveyr reason to take the crown from Moon by force and make the world better by force.. she dosen’t want that. She just wants some peace. It’s selfish... but it’s hard not to be when you havealmost nothing to hold onto. Eclipsa has lost her legacy, her husband and her crown... Meteora is all she has and all she wants and sh’ed of been happy if she just accepted that. If that was enough. 

But the real telling part, and the thing that ultimately makes this go as bad as it does.. is Moon’s reactions to all of this. Sh’es CONFUSED by Meteora having a toy as if that’s foreign to her a monster would, and she’s cleaerly livid , if restrianing it, at both Meteora’s deire for the crown and Eclipsa RIGHTFULLY calling out the state of how things are, and mildly at that. Despite seeing how much damage Mewni’s inherent racisim has done, how it lead to her living a lie, ruined Eclipss, Globgore and Metora’s lives, despite how DESPERTLY her daughter struggles to fight against it, despite seeing firsthand that Monsters can have famiies and lives... she can’t let it go. She can’t see monsters as people. SHe dosen’t see a flawed person who was turned into a metpohrical monster by years of brainwashing and abuse and is slowly unravling under the weight of her true self.. she just sees a threat to her kingdom. She dosen’t see her kingdom as racist, just as it should be. And she dosen’t see herself as stepping down like hse damn well should’ve the MOMENT she found out everything. Because at her heart Moon can’t accept the truth and clings to her racisim. 

And that my friends.. is what ultimately leads to Tragedy. Not Meteora’s unraveling mental state, not Eclipsa’s naitvite. What happens next is ENITRELY Moon’s fault. Whle Eclipsa was failing to get through to Metora, she was trying her best and might of gotten somewhere.. but Moon was already settling to attack.. and does so, making it look like Eclipsa set her own child up. 

A fight ensues, a suprisingly even one... but Eclipsa breaks it up and PROVES her way could’ve worked. In one of Esme’s best performances sshe tearfully tells her daughter she loves her.. that ALL she wants is time with her to make up for what she’s lost.. she dosen’t need a kingdom or her crown or her wand, all things she DESERVES... she just wants her daughter. She just wants to help her baby girl before she goes so far down this path of hatred and vengance she’s alreayd well trod upon there is no point to return to. 

It gets through to Meteora, makes her stop... and Moon TAKES ADANTAGE OF THAT. She then restrains metoera with a magical rock barrier and starts palpatineing her to death. It’s a horrifying moment that ultimately shows who Moon really is.. that when given the chance to let Meteora go, let her CHANGE and grow as a person and help the kingdom.. she instead tries to kill her. When she’s no longer a threat,  hasn’t seriously hurt her in their fight, and could use her power to RESTORE the damage she’s done, fix what she’s broken and help the kingdom grow and mend the bridges racisim has torn down. But all she can see is a monster, and something to destroy.. not someONE to save. 

So Eclipsa does what Moon would do if it were star about to die and saves her daughter, desperatly trying to stop mooon.. and allowing Meteora to get a clear shot and take half of moon’s soul. While Eclipsa is able to stop her from taking the full thing, Moon is left disoreinted and half alive and leaves on insticnt to parts unknown while Meteora escapes. Eclipsa is left alone, devistated and with her daughter truly lost. And the worst is truly yet to come. 

Before we get into final thoughts i’d like to talk about how this scene impacts Moon’s betryal later. To me having rewatched this scene.. it only makes it work MORE making it clear Moon simply can’t fahtom racial equality and that she can’t fahtom that eclipsa had very good reason for doing what she did ... to me it comes off as her using Eclipsa betryaing her as a very flimsy justifcation to not validate her rule and to first retire and then try a coup. That “Well she “BETRAYED” me so i’m fine. “ But in truth... she betrayed Eclipsa first. She attacked her daughter TWICE when Eclipsa was close to getting through to her Her reasons are flimsy.. because i’ts not ABOUT eclipsa, but what eclipsa represents: equality with a race Moon dosen’t see as people. It’s about Moon’s racisim coloring everything tills h’es truly blinded and should have lost everything She didn’t because the ending is a fucking disgrace, but we might get to that at some point, the point here is for all that disgrace’s faults... it did get it right here, and Moon was always portrayed as being unable to let go of her racisim no matter what it cost her or how much her daughter despteratly tried to change her. Trust me as someone whose Dad used to argue that gay marriage meant he should be able to marry his cat, and who still argues against trans people using the bathroom of their choice, I get trying desperatley to change someone who don’t wanna. “Sigh”. 

Final Thoughts: This episode is truly excellent. The writing is top notch as is the voice acting for all involved and the climax isa true, well led up to tragedy. The animation is also on point, with the characters emotions on perfect display. This is an episode I now realize is one of the series best and worth ar ewatch if you haven’ts een it. Truly amazing stuff that gets me pumped for the finale.. and disapoints me in how the series could reach these highs for one finale.. but would sink to it’s lowest point for next seasons.  Next Time on Prince of Wishful Thinking: Star tries depseratly to find her mom, while Marco, Tom and a motely crew of misfits try to take down Meteora and Tom learns the awful truth from the photo booth and wears a zuko ponytail which weirdly looks good on him. That boy can rock anything let me tell you. 

If you enjoyed this reviews, please consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As mentioned my 30 dollar stretch goal includes a review of the cluster fuck that is the series final arc, and the goals up to that , me making 20 and 25 dollars a month repectively, have their own nifty rewards: At 20 i’ll review Darkwing Duck once a month, the two remaning Ducktales 87 mini series I have not covered and the Danny Phantom film The Ultimate Enemy. 25 meanwhile gets you reviews of the Proud Family Movie, the theatrical recess movie and the Kim Possible almost finale movie so the drama. And 30 also gets you reviews of every episode of gravity falls season 1 at least one a month till I finish it at some point, so as you can see you get a lot of bang for your buck and these reviews will be public for everybody. Not only that but joining my patreon gets you a review a month if you pitch in 5 dollars and evne if you can’t swing THAT much just 2 bucks gets you access to my discord, a guarnateed pick in my shorts, votes for patreon exclusive reviews, and SAID patreon exclusive reviews. It’s a lot of bang for your buck is what i’m saying so please help me out so I can make a living off this and sign up today. I even JUST ADDED an exclusive and utterly insane scrooge mcduck review, The Great Wig Mystery. So throw in a buck to check that out. 

And if your intrested in Tomtavia... please hit me up. I’m really proud of it and until then... i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

#star vs the forces of evil #tom lucitor #prince of wishful thinking #meteora butterfly #eclipsa butterfly #moon butterfly #rhys dharby #disney xd #disney channel #disney plus #reviews

[derekfoxwit]

Doctor Dorpden’s Critical Tips of Prestige

Note: This post was made with satirical intentions in mind. I’m only emphasizing because I’ve had a couple of comments on previous joke posts I’ve did take it seriously. With that said, here we go.

Tip 1: For starters, remember that when looking at the work, if the Mystic Knee twitches fast enough to punch a hole in a wall, this suggests that the work should be near the lowest of the low. No further development of opinion is needed.

Tip 2: For an equal degree of sophistication, give the warm comfort of nostalgia at least 5 times more chances than the new thing that MAY seem actually poggers.

Tip 3: If you have the anecdote of encountering shitty fans, then use them as a scapegoat for the show they flaunt over being shitty. Clearly, they’re always making the show the way it is.

Tip 4: If you haven’t heard much about a newer film or show you’re yet to watch, there’s an 85% chance that film or show is actually not worth your time. The Father (2020) isn’t as widespread as Joker (2019) for a reason.

Tip 5: At this point, just go for the Asian Artist Dick. I’m actually in the mood to see merit in that because I want to look edgy against cute doodles. Stop attacking Uzaki-Chan, you cowards!

Tip 6: Avoid the electronic tunes. They’ll make you smell like a bum, for there’s no structural in a music album that’s nothing but wubs.

Tip 7: If you see a Tweet that looks dumb, use it as a means of generalizing all the fans of a work as sharing that same opinion.

Tip 8: If the cartoon I’m given doesn’t provide me with mature ideas such as slicing an Arbok in half or fake boobs, then the cartoon might as well be on the same level as Teletubbies.

Tip 9: You know the music is (c)rap when it brings up drugs, regardless of lyrical context.

Tip 10:  Raw mood is the indicator of quality cartooning. If you’re quick to assume the worst in the newest HBO Max original cartoon, then you got thyself a stinker. Same thing if you were super bummed out when watching a new thing, regardless of anecdotal context.

Tip 11:  When you’re not given continuous throwbacks, ensure you’re as reductive and over-generalizing about the works shown as possible.

Tip 12:  If your hazy and imperfect as hell recollection of a children’s film, whether it’s Wall-E or Lilo & Stitch, would describe said film as “too sugary” or “key-waving schlock”, then that HAS to be the case. No meat on that bone whatsoever.

Tip 13: Simpler, more graphic style that isn’t as realistic as old-school Disney or Anime? You got yourself a lazy style with zero passion put into it.

UPA? Who’s THAT?!

Tip 14: Don’t trust anyone saying that western children’s cartoons had any form of artistic development after 2008 (with, like, TWO exceptions). If it did, why didn’t we go from stealing organs in a 2001 cartoon to showing opened stomachs in a 2021 cartoon?

Tip 15: Big booba is always important to the strong female character’s quality.

Tip 16:  Only MY ships count, for they provide me with a feeling of intelligence.

Tip 17: “PG-13″ and “R” rating just simply mean you’re not caring for expressing themes in a sophisticated manner. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 18:  In this age of smelly radicals, “Death of the Author” is more important than ever. Without it, this’ll imply that a classic like The Matrix was secretly toxic, due to what the Wachowskis have to say about it being an “allegory of trans people.”

Tip 19: Turn the fandoms you hate into your torture porn. Ask in Tweets to Retweet one sentence that’d “trigger” them. Go out of your way to paint all of them as blind consoomers. That’ll show them, and it’ll show how much more intelligent you are compared to those clowns.

Tip 20: Whatever the Mystic Knee dictates upon the first viewing of a work is what shall indicate the full structural extent of the film.

Tip 21: The mindset of a 2000s edgelord is one that actually understands the artistry of the medium of animation. Listen to that crazy but ingenious man.

Tip 22: Because sheer ambition makes me feel manly, the high pedestal you bestow upon a cartoon work should be based mostly on the mere mention or mere suggestion of serious topics. This means that pure comedy is smelly.

Tip 23: Is the new work tackling subjects that you’ve loved a childhood work of yours for covering? Just assume it’s super bare-bones in that case compared to the older case, for there’s nothing the older work can do to truly prove itself otherwise. Seriously, Letterboxd. Stop giving any 2010s cartoon anything above a 4/5

Tip 24: If the Mystic Knee is suggesting that the work is crummy, then consider any explanation off the top of your head for why the work in question is crummy.

Tip 25: Sexual and gender identity is inherently political, so don’t focus on them in the story. It’s no wonder why Full Metal Alchemist has caught on more than the She-Ra reboot.

Tip 26: Since I got bothered by a random butt monkey type character in a crummy cartoon, I’m now obligated to assume that having a butt monkey will only harm the writing integrity of the cartoon.

Seriously, Mr. Enter....what?!

Tip 27: We’re at a point where pure comedy for a kids’ cartoon is doing nothing but dumbing down the children. Like seriously...... I doubt Billy and Mandy would ever use farts as a punchline, unlike these newer kids comedies.

Tip 28: The difference between the innuendo in kids’ cartoons I grew up on and the ones Zootopia made is the sense of prestige they give me. Just take notes from the former instead.

Tip 29: Wanna make a work of artistic merit? Just take notes from the stuff I whore out to. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 30: Always remember this golden rule: If the newer work, or a work you’ve recently experienced the first time, was truly great, why isn’t it providing the exact emotions from your younger, more impressionable years?

Tip 31: If the Mystic Knee aims to break the bones of a character doing certain things (.i.e. having body count of thousands; lashing out to character; etc.), that means the character is bad and deserves no redemption.

Tip 32: If you want me to believe there’s any intrigue or depth in your antagonist, give them redemption, for I am in need of that sorta thing being spelled out. Looking at you, Syndrome. Should’ve taken notes from Tai Lung.

Tip 33: In a case where you’re going “X > Y” (.i.e. manga compared to western comics), ALWAYS CHERRY PICK! Use the recent controversies of the “Y” item while pretending that the “X” item has never had anything of the sort.

Tip 34: BEFORE you bring up those comments that shat on the original Teen Titans cartoon back when it was new, whether for making Starfire “more PC” or whatever.......the DIFFERENCE between them and me is that THEY were just bad faith fools that couldn’t see true majesty out of blind rage. I, however, am truly certain that calling any western TV cartoon from 2014-onward a work that transcends its generation suggests a destruction of the medium.

Tip 35: Based on fandom growth, it shows that any newer show isn’t being watched much by kids, but rather loser adults that act like children. Therefore, there’s more prestige in what I grew with.

Tip 36: The focus on children is bad at this point since the children of today have attention spans that flies would have.

Tip 37: A select few screenshots (or even one) of either a less elaborate attacking animation, less realistic game graphics, or a less on-model image in a cartoon indicates EVERYTHING about the work’s quality.

Tip 38: Consuming or writing media where characters go through constant suffering is little more than gaining pleasure out of it. YOU SICKOS!

Looking at you, Lily Orchard!

Tip 39: Whether it’s a sexual awakening story or just simply a romance, focus on a character being lesbian, trans, bi, etc., then it shouldn’t be in a kids’ work. It’s too spicy for them by default. Kids don’t want romance anyway.

Tip 40: The very idea of a western cartoon with no full-blown antagonist (i.e. Inside Out) is a destruction of animated artistry. Sorry, but it’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 41: Unless it’s my fluffy pillow, such as Disney’s Robin Hood, it should be obligated to assume the inserting of anthros is only there to pleasure the furries. Looking at YOU, Zootopia!

Tip 42: With how rough and rash The Beast was, it shows that he was more of an abusive lover. Therefore, I refuse to believe that Beauty and the Beast has any of the meticulous moral writing that most of Disney’s other 90s films has.

Tip 43: When you suggest one work should’ve “taken notes” from another work in order to do better, BE VAGUE! Those who agree will be shown to be geniuses.

Tip 44: Remember how morally grey Invader Zim was? That really goes to show how little the Western Animation scene has been trying since that show. Really should just be taking notes from that series (and of course anime).

Tip 45: Even if I have a radar that clearly indicates such, hiding the item I look for inside an enemy is always bad, for I refuse to believe it would be inside the enemy.

Goddamn it, Arin!

Tip 46: People struggle understanding your gender identity or pronouns? All there is to see in that is a giant cloud of egotism that reads “My problems” zapping another smaller cloud that reads “other people’s problems”. Seriously, kids are starving, so WHAT if you identity confused someone. Grow a spine!

Tip 47: Stop pretending that adaptations should colorize how a story or comic series should be defined. No way in FUCK can a cartoon or film incarnation become the definitive portrayal of my precious superhero idol.

Tip 48: Enough with your precious “limited animation” techniques, YOU WESTERN HACKS! All you’re doing is admitting to sheer laziness and lacking artistic integrity. Now if you excuse me, I’ll be watching more anime, since that gives me a sense of prestige.

Tip 49: If getting five times more detail than the 2D animated visuals have requires someone getting hurt, so be it. No pain, no gain after all.

Tip 50: Yes, I genuinely struggle to believe there’s this majestic level of layered material without having the most immediate yet still vague re-assurance practically yelling in my face. But that’s STILL the work’s fault, not mine.

Tip 51: Every Klasky-Csupo cartoon has more artistic integrity than any of them cartoons with gay lovers such as Kipo or the Netflix She-Ra show.

Tip 52:  If Sergio Pablos’ Klaus is anything to go by, we have no excuse to utilize those smelly as fuck digital animation “styles” found on Stinky Universe, Suck-Ra or Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turds.

Tip 53: Stop projecting your orientation onto works of actual talent. Seriously, how does Elton John’s I’m Still Standing expel ANY rainbow flag energy?

Tip 54: Hip hop and electronica have been the destruction of music, especially the kind that’s actually organic and not farting on the buttons of a beeping or drumming gadget.

Tip 55: The audience for cartoons has become significantly less clear over the years. We should just go back to Saturday mornings of being sold toys or shit kids actually want.

Tip 56: PSAs for kids shouldn’t be about ‘woke’ content. They should be actual problems such as doing drugs; not playing with knifes / outlets / matches; or acceptance.

Tip 57: The instant you realize a detail in a childhood work that’s better understood as an adult, you’re forced to paint that work as the most transcendent thing in the world. It’s just THAT simple until I dictate otherwise.

Tip 58: Before you lash out on ALL rich people, remember this: #Not All Rich People.

Tip 59: There’s nothing to gain out of the (c)rap scene other than becoming a spiteful, gun-wielding thug that sniffs weed for breakfast.

Tip 60: Since the Mystic Knee told me to get anal about prom episodes in several gay cartoons, this shows that writing about one’s younger experiences just makes you look pathetic.

Tip 61: Another smelly thing about Zootopia is how it was painting a police chief as stern and exclusive. #Not All Chiefs

Tip 62: Me catching a glimpse of Grave of the Fireflies as a kid and turning out fine shows that you may as well show kids more adult works without worry. No amount of psychological questions being asked will suggest otherwise.

Tip 63: There’s a reason why the Mystic Knee keeps leaning more toward the 90s and early 2000s than most decades. That knee KNOWS where there’s a sense of true refinement.

Tip 64: The BIG difference between rock and electronica? Steward Copeland actually DRUMS. All that the likes of Burial, Boards of Canada, Depeche Mode and several others did was push drum buttons.

Tip 65: One exception to the golden nostalgia is when the work in question doesn’t stuff your face with fantastical, bombastic stories. At which point, there can only be rose-colored blinds covering Nickelodeon’s Doug. Nothing of merit or personal resonance to be found.

Tip 66: Remember that the sense of nuance in the work comes down to there being everything including the kitchen sink, whether it involves multiple geographic landscapes; giving us hundreds of characters; etc. Only through the extremes will I be able to tell there is nuance.

Tip 67: Once you see a joke that has an involvement with sexual or violent content, just ignore the full picture and just reduce it to having nothing to it but “sex, violence, gimme claps.”

PKRussel has entered the chat

Tip 68: With all the SJWs messing up the art of comedy, lament the times where you could be called a comic genius, NOT a monster, for shouting out the word “STAB,” calling a gay weird, painting Middle Easterns as inherently violent, etc.

Tip 69: Guitar twang will always win out over (c)rap beats. There’s a reason your grandma is more likely to listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Kendrick Lamar.

Tip 70: Once the Mystic Knee notices a lack of squealing at the video game with linearity, that shows there’s more artistry in going full-blown open world.

Tip 71: Related to Tips 66 and 68, ensure your comedy gets as much information and mileage out of each individual skit as possible. EMPHASIZE if you need to. Continuously spout out your quirky phrase of “STAB” if needed.

Tip 72: Based on the onslaught of TV shows with many seasons and episodes, animated or otherwise, it shows that there’s more worth going for that than simply having a miniseries or a 26-episode anime.

Tip 73: Building off of the previous tip, you’re better off squeezing and exhausting every little detail and notable characterization rather than keeping anything simple and possibly leaving a stone unturned, especially if there’s supposed to be a story. 

Tip 74: Playing through the fan translation of Mother 3 made me realize how much some newer kids’ works just try too hard to get serious. Why even make the kids potentially think about the death of a family member?

Tip 75: The fear I had over Sid’s toys from the first Toy Story and similar anecdotal emotions are the be-all indicators of what kind of show or film is fitting for the children.

Tip 76:  Seeing this British rapper chick have a song titled “Point and Kill” just further exemplifies the fears I’ve had about rappers being some of the most harmful folks ever.

Tip 77: The problem with attempting to make a more “relatable” She-Ra is that kids aren’t looking for relatability. They want the escapism of buff fighters or something similar. This is why slice-of-life is so smelly.

Tip 78: Based on seeing the rating of “PG-13″ or “R,” I can tell that the dark humor is little more than “hur dur sex and guns.” Given the “TV-Y7 FV” rating of Invader Zim, the writers should’ve taken notes from that instead just so I can sense actual prestige.

Tip 79: The original He-Man has more visual intrigue in its animation than any of those smelly glorified doodles found in the “styles" of the 2010s and early 2020s.

Tip 80: It’s always the fault of the game that my first guess (that I refuse to divert from) on how I have to go through an obstacle won’t work.

Tip 81: Zootopia discussing prejudice ruins the majestic escapism I got from my precious childhood films from 1991-2004. Them kids might as well be watching the news. Now to watch some Hunchback after I finish these tips.

Tip 82: There is no such thing as an unreasonable expectation, and there’s especially no wrong way to address the lack of met expectations! For example, if you expect some early 2010s cartoon on the Disney Channel to be a Kids X-Files, yet you get moments such as some girl getting high on stick dipping candy, you got the right to paint the worst out of that show for not being “Kids’ X-Files.”

Tip 83: Related to my example for Tip 82, if you get the slightest impression of something being childish, you know you got yourself a children’s work that does little than wave keys and has basically nothing substantial for them. In this situation, those malfunctioning robots found in Wall-E are the guilty party.

Tip 84: Without the extensive dialogue that I’m used to getting, how can one say for certain there was any amount of characterization in the title character of Wall-E?

Tip 85: Ever noticed yourself gradually being less likely to expect an upcoming work or view a work you’re just consuming as “the next best thing”? That’s ALWAYS the fault of smelly “artists” (hacks really) and their refusal to give a shit.

Tip 86:  It’s obligatory for your lead to be explicitly heroic just so there is this immediate re-assurance that they’re a good one.

Tip 87: Without the comforting safety net of throwbacks, one cannot be for certain that there has been an actual evolution of a series or the art of animation and video games.

Tip 88: Don’t PSA kids on stuff they give zero fucks about. That means no gender identities or pronouns, race, etc.

Tip 89: Don’t listen to Mamoru Hosoda saying that anime women tend to be “depicted through a lens” of sexual desire. He’s just distracting from the superior prestige found in anime women.

Tip 90:  If you’re desperate to let others know that your talking points are reasonable, just repeat them over and over with little expansion on said talking points.

Tip 91: 7 or more seasons of art is better than 26 episodes of art.  EVERY TIME!

Tip 92: Always remember to continuously talk up the innuendo and mature subject matter of the childhood work as the most prestigious, transcendent thing of all time. With that in mind, there’s a high chance that your favorite childhood work will be better known than Perfect Blue (1997), and there’s likely a reason for that.

Tip 93: An art style that gives many characters relatively more realistic arm muscle details will always shine through more than any sort of art style done for “simplicity” (laziness, really).

Tip 94:  Seeing a few (like, even VERY FEW) people show more enthusiasm for Steven Universe over Invader Zim really shows the lower bar that has been expected out of the western animation scene compared to anime.

Tip 95: Electronic music makes less conventional time signatures cheap as hell. REAL music like rock makes them the exact opposite.

Tip 96: If your Mystic Knee suggests that the 90s cartoon being viewed doesn’t showcase a vague sense of refinement or artistic integrity, then every related assumption of yours is right. EVERY TIME!

Tip 97: Doing everything and the kitchen sink for one series or movie shows a better sense of refinement and prestige than any form of simplicity. THIS includes character design as well.

Tip 98: The advent of that Star Wars: Visions anime really shows just how stinky western cartoons have become.

Tip 99:  For those wondering, no, Europe isn’t being counted in my definition of “western animation”. Doing so is a complete disservice to prestige.

Tip 100: If even less than half of these tips aren’t being considered, you can kiss that prestige badge goodbye. After all, I SAID SO!

#joke #shitpost #prestige #electronic music #anime #animation #cartoons #film #television #nostalgia #satire #dank memes #edgy #disney #pixar #wall-e #toy story #steven universe #she-ra #netflix she-ra #invader zim #mamoru hosoda #zootopia #hip hop #klasky csupo

[darkpoisonouslove]

Riven x Musa

Ok, so I keep seeing posts everywhere that basically badmouth S8 and after seeing ten seconds of the trailer (YIKES to the animation, what’s wrong with the industry that they are making everything anime? Powerpuff Gen Z, I’m looking at you – obs: I didn’t watch it fully yet) I can see where some of the criticism is coming from but anyways…

My favorite Winx!couple EVER has always been Musa x Riven since I was kid and first watched the show (Netflix is not helping ‘cause I ship them even there).

I remember yawning at Bloom/Sky, rolling my eyes at Stella/Brandom and making a completely incredulous expression that I could literally feel forming on my face at Helia/Flora (can anyone say ‘unrealistic’?). Timmy/Tecna are a second favorite.

And why my Winx OTP are Riven x Musa followed after Timmy x Tecna? Because it reflects real life. In real life you’re not gonna stumble into people whose real and deep relationship problems are solved in twenty four minutes (not even that considering that some episodes present the “problem” half-way through said 24 minute-episode).

The breakup between Riven and Musa in S6 (spoilers everywhere after all) was one of the most mature breakups in the history of breakups with the hope for the future (yes, I’m completely ignoring S7, sue me, the whole thing was one huge filler anyways). And, after reading a lot of opinions on both ends (defending Musa/attacking Riven and defending Riven/attacking Musa) and watching the episodes in question (reuniting through reconciling) I think I can give my own analysis.

Since Musa AND Riven (individually and as couple) are my favorite characters in Winx, I think I CAN give a fairly unbiased view (hopefully).

*clears throat*

Ok, keep in mind that I’m defending BOTH of them, because I ship them too hard not to.

Musa Being OC (sometimes being called ‘brat’): C'mon, people! Musa and Tecna are OC since S4 anyways, where are the tomboy and the nerd? With the sneakers, T-shirt and comfortable-looking clothes? Noooo, now they all need neat skirts and hot pink high heels and long, glamorous hair. Do they look good? Of course, but and I would totally be less pissed if there was ANY indication on the reason for the change. Are they just maturing? Expressing themselves differently? Crowd mentality? Tune and Stella finally broke Musa down and Tecna followed soon after? Was it just to please Riven and Timmy? ANYTHING (even the 'pleasing a boy’ would at least be A reason - a ridiculous one that would piss me off, but A reason none the less), was just a sudden impulse that took?

Sure, we can talk about “character growth” until we are blue in the face, but the matter of the fact is that there was none.

The changes we see in Musa and Tecna are basically the creators making them more like the rest of the Winx (I’m including Aisha in this too, where is the sporty girl that matched the boy’s interest in extreme sports? C'mon! Even Bloom and her Girl Next Door looks are replaced with Bratz and Clueless-level of outfits).

Is anyone really going to look me in the eye and say Stella wasn’t a shallow (if friendly and good-natured) Mean Girl? She got better, but as I re-watch the show (currently in S3, meaning almost half-way through the content), Stella still worries more about her hair than anything else even while under literal fire.

More and more, Musa, Tecna and Aisha are losing their identities and what made them, IMO, the more badass Winx.

How did the two on the left went from this…

… to this:

Yeah, yeah, Musa still sings, Tecna still technobabble and Aisha is still a Warrior Princess but Aisha was the first one to go Bloom and Stella on us with Musa and then Tecna following soon after. It’s not just their clothing style, it’s the way they carried themselves too.

Right now? The only thing keeping them apart is their BF blues (different kind of blues) and some personal interests (singing, shopping, tech, the whole drama with Domino/Sparks, etc). But that’s IT, their personalities are going down the drain!

Sorry for the long-winded text, but the reason I’m expressing my disappointment at their change is because Musa’s reaction fits it. S6 we have such an AMAZING breakup (didn’t even think that was possible, WTH, right? Amazing breakup?) only for her to be mad as hell at Riven at S8? Bad writing, that has been dragging her (and the rest of the Winx) down to becoming just one unilateral, shallow character (the Specialists are also falling into that pit, what in the world did they do Helia in S8? He sounds like Thor telling about his “brave exploits” there, yikes). And continuity what? What continuity? Do they even remember how the breakup was written?

But ok, let’s put the Audience View aside for a moment and focus only on the In-Universe terms.

S6: You’ll always be my hero.

S8: What on EARTH are you doing here. 

I laughed a bit, the contrast just got to me but instead of getting mad at one or the other like most of the fandom, I laughed.

Musa followed that by saying that Riven has not maintained contact and just in that I would be beyond pissed as well and giving my support to Musa. WTH, Riven? I think that each season is more less six months to a year? Sort of? Still, zero contact for so long even after ending on amicable terms and wanting to stay friends? And he went off on his own! A text now going, “I’m not dead” would be the bare basics for Musa not to worry herself bald!

BUT then I also read comments about how this was a two-way street, why didn’t Musa call either? That’s unfortunately something that I very much doubt will ever be explained. One of those: did it or didn’t it? Musa could have called and went straight to voicemail with no signs of life from Riven or she might not have called and just expected him to call as if feminism were dead and all initiative must come from the guy (which doesn’t even fit because they parted as friends).

Since we have no info on the above, I put it on both of them. It’s not fair to say, “HE should have called!” or “Why didn’t SHE call?” because we don’t have fricking context. So the only thing we can take is: no contact.

BECAUSE I put the lack of contact on both of them, Musa’s reaction was a little too much, however, Riven shows up all smirks and leaning against a tree with his arms crossed and I would have flashbacks to S1 if it wasn’t for the animation style that made all the guys look like girls. Dude! Not the time for that kind of posture. Not saying that he should be all sheepish and rubbing his arm as if he had done something horrible (again: we don’t have context on the no contact) but a more neutral approach was warranted here. Nobody does themselves any favors with that kind of attitude no matter what how high of a horse they may be (rightly or not) riding on, if anything I would react like Musa solely on that one.

Next episode we have that Riven convinced the guys to follow the girls in some mission and Musa was angry. Again: I would be too. WTH? Yes, yes, they helped and if it wasn’t for them, the Winx would gotten seriously injured but Musa did have a point saying that this demonstrated that they had no trust in them and need their hand held, it was no sanctioned mission like on Earth after all. BUT, Riven does something that I would never expect from in S1-4: he explains, he reasons it, he puts it in all the words that he does trust Musa and co and that he only wanted to show that he’d be there for her (you know? One of the main issues in S6 that made them breakup in the first place? His inability to conciliate Specialist work with supporting his girlfriend and ultimately failing or feeling like failing in both?) and Musa still pouts, crosses her arms, and turns around. Geez. I expected that one from Stella, not Musa. I think the closest Musa has ever come to THIS was back in S2 when Jared explains that Riven was the one to recommend that he interview Musa and yada yada yada and she got mad and stomped off on the poor guy that didn’t even understand what was going on (only to immediately apologize to Jared and recognizing that it wasn’t him that she was mad at… like I said: what character growth?).

Riven then goes to show that he indeed grew when he asked for advice from Sky and Brandon (WTH, right? Can we picture that happening back in S1-3? He very grudgingly would LISTEN to UNSOLICITED advice from Nabu and Helia in S4-6). And does a very, very goofy and embarrassing show of affection. Yeah… again… I can picture Stella loving the light show with her face for IDK how many people to see but not Musa (although can we really blame the guy after the series went out of its way to make Musa all Stella-like? Clothes, attitude, the only thing missing is making Riven carry her shopping bags around and call him “Shnookums” (although the mental image is already enough for me to fall over laughing, just for the face Riven would make). Still, I have to count that one against Riven if only because (as much as the show gives only lip service to it) Musa isn’t Stella.

Riven being mind controlled (again) aside, those two are back together. And on the overall? Riven showed more growth than any other character in the show COMBINED (he is the Zuko of the show), that doesn’t go to say that he didn’t make mistakes since coming back in S8 (but that was more a guy trying to win back a girl than… betraying his friends for a pair of nice legs or… IDEK like in S1 – where, mind control or not the show itself made sure to make it clear that he had free will) or that he is now the one out of Musa’s league. I think that NOW it can actually work… if the show allows him to keep the progress, Musa is the next to see her flaws and work on them (which she showed to be able to do since S2) and put effort in the relationship. The difference between them is that Musa can actually work on herself and the relationship at the same time. That’s not me saying she is better than Riven in any way, everybody has their own pace and their own way to cope, to improve and to self-reflect.

I still root for them.

~*~

PS-IDK why, but I read posts about how Riven changed so much and posts about how all his progress disappeared and he is now back to his S1 attitude and I’m just cofused. Yeah, different of opinions and so on, but such opposite opinions on the subject of a guy whose relationship was focused on three episodes? 

#winx club #winx musa #winx riven #musa x riven #rivusa #anti stella #submission