#I’ve only done theories here before but I actually draw a lot so maybe post some pics

[malbenita-old]

Starlight Anya! ✨

#spy family #anya forger #sxf #spy x family fanart #sxf fanart #it’s quite old and messy but I still like the vibe so why not #I’ve only done theories here before but I actually draw a lot so maybe post some pics #spy x family #artsy stuff

[fallinglikemagic]

Penny Polendina alludes to Astro Boy - and how this allusion foreshadows Penny’s eventual resurrection

Some of you may remember my first post in which I compared Penny and Astro Boy, with a specific focus on the version of Astro from the 2009 3D animated film (if not, you can read it here, but I'll be repeating everything stated there anyway). In the month or two since I first made that post, more and more parallels have start to pop up, with one of those parallels matching one of our most popular theories and foreshadowing Penny's upcoming resurrection.

In order to write this, I went through and watched the entire film, taking notes as I went. I'm not going to include every single detail that I noticed, only the things that seem the most relevant and can be put together in a single post in a comprehensive manner. Believe me when I say that I've thought about this a lot, and the sheer amount of parallels and connections (and the fact that I'm not the only one to notice these connections) has lead me to believe that this has been done intentionally. 

With that being said, I'm only going to focus on the Astro Boy film from 2009 - the Astro Boy franchise is massive, going back to the first manga coming out in 1952 with a few different adaptations and reboots with different versions of the story, and I just don't have the time to go through all of those. As such, I'm going to be focusing on the movie, due to the fact that it has the highest amount of parallels to both Penny specifically, and RWBY as a whole.

So, let's get into this.

Worldbuilding

Metro City and the Surface - Atlas and Mantle

One of the reasons I've decided to focus on the film in particular is due to the nature of the film's setting. Astro Boy (2009) takes place in two locations - Metro City, and the Surface.

According to the opening of the film, Metro City was created when the people who would become the founders of the city noticed the world changing for the worse, and responded by taking part of the land and lifting it into the sky, creating a floating city - the opening voiceover refers to it as "an oasis, a floating paradise". Everybody else is left behind on what is referred to as the Surface, left to fend for themselves while the people of Metro City largely ignore their existence.

The parallels to Atlas and Mantle are crystal clear. Atlas and Metro City are both set up as a beautiful city above the clouds, meant to serve as an inspiration for the rest of the world. In reality, it's a place where the rich and privileged can live in comfort while shunning the poor. Meanwhile, down in Mantle/on the Surface, people are suffering and struggling to get by. Additionally, both 'surface' and 'mantle' are words that are associated with the ground.

The Blue Core (and the Red Core) - Penny's soul and Maiden powers.

Another concept that is (as far as my research shows at least) unique to the film is the Blue Core and the Red Core.

The Blue Core is a small sphere that is filled with pure positive energy, referred to as Blue Core Energy. It was created by Dr. Elefun, made from the fragments of a star that no longer exists - meaning that the Blue Core is all that's left, and cannot be recreated. This is reminiscent of how Pietro has no more aura left to spare, and thus is unable to give any more of his soul to Penny like he did the first time she died. In this allusion, the Blue Core is representative of Penny's soul and the power of the Winter Maiden.

When the Blue Core was created, there was also a byproduct - the Red Core. Essentially, it's the same thing as the Blue Core, but with negative energy instead of positive. If the Blue Core and the Red Core make contact, they both die - this is relevant later.

You could compare the Red Core to Watts’ virus, due to the way that it causes a robot to have red eyes and that it coming into contact with the Blue Core destroys them both.

Character Parallels

Before I get into this properly, I wanna give a quick side note. While Astro matches up to Penny perfectly, things get a little bit messier with the others in that we have a case of characters taking on multiple roles. However, this is far from unheard of in RWBY - let's not forget about how Blake represents both Belle and the Beast, Yang is sometimes the Beast to Blake's Belle, and Adam is an amalgamation of every antagonistic force in Beauty and the Beast. It's far from uncommon for a character to allude to multiple characters from the same allusion, or vice versa, which is what we see with some of the characters in this allusion as well.

Astro - Penny Polendina

Unsurprisingly, Astro himself is our parallel to Penny.

After the death of his son Toby, Dr. Tenma rebuilds his son as a robot, using the Blue Core as his energy source. The Blue Core is stated to be unpredictable, and it's this that makes Astro who he is, what makes him unique from every other robot. As stated earlier, the Blue Core represents Penny's soul (and the Winter Maiden powers that are attached to it). When the Blue Core dies - and Astro dies with it - and Dr. Elefun is asked if he can be rebuilt, the answer is 'no' because the Core was unique and can't be remade - just like Penny's soul.

While Astro appears perfectly human on the surface, he's fitted with as much self-defence technology as Tenma could fit in him. The most iconic of these upgrades (and the only one that's consistent across every single version of Astro throughout the franchise) is the rocket boots. He even flies in a very similar way to Penny - pay attention to the posing, especially with the legs.

When Astro starts making friends with humans on the Surface, he conceals the fact that he's a robot, afraid of what they'll think of him when they learn he's not human. This matches up to Penny initially hiding the fact that she's not human, seeing herself as 'not a real girl'.

Astro has two father figures - Dr. Elefun and Dr. Tenma. Similarly, Penny has two father figures - Pietro and Ironwood.

During the climax of the film, Metro City starts to fall out of the sky and back down to the Surface. This is a parallel to two seperate moments in RWBY. The most obvious one is when Atlas is falling onto Mantle after the Staff of Creation is used. However, I think this scene more closely resembles the scene from Amity in which Amity Tower begins to fall.

When Astro sees that Metro City is falling, he immediately flies in to hold it up, despite the incredible strain it puts on him. This is a direct parallel to how Penny flew in to hold up Amity Tower.

Astro pushes himself to the limit when he holds up Metro City, to the point where the flames from his boots burn so brightly that they turn blue - oh hey, doesn't that look familiar?

Astro also demonstrates self-sacrificial tendencies at a few points in the film. When he's captured in order to have his Blue Core taken out and placed into another robot, he simply accepts it, saying that "I think maybe this is what's supposed to happen...this is my destiny". This becomes a lot more interesting when you remember that the Blue Core is representative of Penny's soul and Maiden powers. Astro giving himself up to President Stone (the film's main antagonist who later ends up in a sort of 'fusion' with the Red Core) so that Stone can use the Blue Core could be a reference to the virus making Penny want to give herself up to Ironwood so that he can use her soul to open the vault - especially if we believe that the Red Core is connected to the virus in some way.

Near the end of the film, in the fight against the fusion of President Stone and a giant robot containing the Red Core (it's a long story, I'll get to it later in the post), Astro makes the decision to sacrifice his own life in order to destroy both the Red Core and the Blue Core, saying “this is what I was created for” and saving the lives of everybody else in the process. I doubt I need to explain how "choosing to die in order to protect other people" relates back to Penny in Volume 8.

At the end of the film, and in the rest of the Astro Boy franchise as a whole, Astro takes it upon himself to be the protector of Metro City (and technically the Surface, but since Metro City has fallen, they're not exactly seperate locations anymore...). 'Robotic guardian of a city who's seen as a hero by the people' - you don't get much more obvious of a connection to the Protector of Mantle than that.

Additional details that may not be intentional but I still noticed anyway;

- Dr. Elefun describes as Astro by saying "That robot had more humanity than most of us". At this point, there's been many moments that affirm Penny's humanity - "You have an aura, Penny. A soul. That's who you are - our friend. Not a machine", "Her soul is who she is", the fact that she was able to receive the Maiden powers, all of these moments affirm that Penny has always been just as human as anybody else. This is also contrasted against Ironwood (and, for a while, Winter), who act more machine than human.

- Astro is actually rather heavily trans-coded. Penny is also trans-coded, but this is mostly likely a coincidence that happened as a result of the inherent transness of robots

- Elefun tells Astro that he's "not actually an entirely ordinary boy", which is reminiscent of Ruby describing Penny as "she's...not your typical girl."

- The shape of Penny's bow (the way that it sticks out more on one side while the other side is more vertical) looks similar to the shape of Astro's hair (this one was pointed out to me by @cosmokyrin​ when I mentioned this theory in the Frosen Steel server)

Dr. Elefun - Pietro Polendina

Dr. Elefun is one of Metro City's top scientists, and one of Astro's father figures. He is soft-spoken and gentle, a dreamer but a genius. In terms of personality alone, he's a pretty good match with Pietro. He's also the one who created the Blue Core, which draws a direct parallel to Pietro creating Penny's soul from part of his.

Dr. Elefun is the first person to truly see Astro as who he truly is. Dr. Tenma expects Astro to be a replacement for Toby, and is disappointed when he isn't. Similarly, everybody else sees Astro as a robot just like any other at first - an advanced robot, but nothing more than a robot. But Dr. Elefun gives him genuine praise, and encourages Astro to live his life and find his place in the world, just like how Pietro tells Penny that he wants to see her live her life.

It's also worth noting that in most other versions of Astro Boy, Elefun takes the role of Astro's primary caregiver after Dr. Tenma no longer wants him.

President Stone - James Ironwood

President Stone is the current political leader of Metro City. For the entire film, his entire focus is on combat and military strength, and on multiple occasions he actively expresses his intention to start a war with the Surface. He believes that the best way to get re-elected is with a show of military force and violence.

His primary goal throughout the film is to have Astro destroyed in order to retrieve the Blue Core and use it for his own gain. This is a direct parallel to Ironwood's goal in Volume 8 - to hunt down Penny and have her use her Maiden power to open the vault, and destroy herself.

Stone wants to use the Blue Core in order to power a specialised combat robot, ironically called the Peacekeeper. When Astro continues to escape his clutches, he decides to use the Red Core to power the Peacekeeper instead, but it doesn't completely go as planned. The Peacekeeper is equipped with what the film calls 'adaptive technology' - it's capable of absorbing anything it makes contact with into its own body.

And I do mean anything

After Stone is absorbed by the Peacekeeper, he's in full control of it - essentially the Peacekeeper is nothing more than a metal outer shell. President Stone has become a fusion of man and machine.

Dr. Tenma - both Pietro Polendina AND James Ironwood (a bit more Pietro than Ironwood but it's worth acknowledging both)

You might notice that while Elefun and Stone do have plenty of references to Pietro and Ironwood respectively, there are gaps where they don't cover every aspect of these characters and/or their dynamic with Penny. This is where Dr. Tenma comes in.

Dr. Tenma is Astro's dad, and the one who built him. He originally created Astro as a sort of 'replacement' for his biological son Toby after he died, giving Astro all of Toby's memories (more on this later). Naturally, this is a very clear connection to Pietro.

Additionally, Dr. Tenma uses the Blue Core - a completely unique, one-of-a-kind technological marvel - in order to power a single small robot that's intended to be nothing more than a replacement for his son, saying "I can't lose him again!". In this moment, Dr. Tenma is so focused on not losing his child that he doesn't acknowledge the big picture.

However, once Dr. Tenma realises that Astro isn't a perfect replica of Toby, but rather his own person, Tenma discards him, not caring if Astro gets destroyed or not. Similarly, when Penny stopped doing what Ironwood wanted her to do, Ironwood stopped caring about her as anything more than a container for the Maiden powers and is perfectly willing to let her die once the vault is opened.

Luckily, Dr. Tenma does have a change of heart, deciding that while Astro isn't Toby, he's still his son. Near the end of the film, Astro is very injured, and Dr. Tenma encourages him to get far away from the danger. However, Astro refuses to back down, instead choosing to sacrifice his life in order to stop President Stone, despite Dr. Tenma begging him not to go. Here, we have yet another parallel to this moment in Amity.

Bonus (aka characters that aren't perfect allusions, but connections do exist)

When Astro ends up on the Surface, he's taken in by a man who calls himself Hamegg. Hamegg ends up being a jerk, and while his personality and actions in the film don't particularly match up with any characters in RWBY, his backstory is a perfect match to Watts - a head scientist in Metro City who was shunned and fired for reasons unknown (Hamegg claims that they were 'intimated by his ideas and talent', but this was when he was trying to impress Astro and he lies a lot anyway, so this could be a complete lie).

On the Surface, Astro befriends four human kids (Cora, Zane, Sludge and Widget) and their robotic dog, Trashcan. While the personalities don't really match up (though Cora, Astro's closest friend, does bear a visual resemblance to Ruby), the idea of a 4-person group + a dog could be a parallel to Team RWBY and Zwei.

Zog is a very old, very large robot that had been 'dead' for several years until Astro found him and revived him by giving him some of his Blue Core Energy. Zog is our allusion to Winter - Astro giving Zog some of his Blue Core energy is a parallel to Penny giving Winter the Maiden powers. Additionally, in The Final Word, Winter explicitly calls herself a machine. While this does have significance on it's own, it could also be a nod to this allusion. That being said, the main connection between Winter and Zog (and possibly the most important part of this post) is based on events that have yet to happen in RWBY canon, and so I'm saving that part for the end of the post.

Story Parallels 

Toby's Death

Toby Tenma, Dr. Tenma's biological son, was very similar to Astro in terms of personality (with some key differences), as well as having a strong physical resemblance.

When the Blue Core and the Red Core were first being shown off to President Stone, Toby was accidentally locked behind a sealed off barrier, trapped with the Peacekeeper containing the Red Core. Toby was killed in a blast that completely disintegrated him, leaving nothing but a hat containing a single strand of hair.

This hair is important, because Dr. Tenma used this hair in order to extract Toby's DNA and memories, which he was then able to implant into Astro in order to make him resemble Toby.

This scene is most likely a parallel to Penny's first death in the Vytal Festival. In her first death, Penny's body was destroyed, but her core remained intact. Her core, which contained all of her memories, was the key piece in properly putting her back together without erasing who she used to be. The strand of hair containing Toby's DNA is representative of Penny's core containing her memories.

Additionally, there's the fact that when Toby was rebuilt as Astro, he was given various upgrades to allow him to better hold his own in a fight, with the most obvious behind the ability to fly via rocket boots. Penny received similar upgrades when she was rebuilt as well.

It's worth acknowledging that Toby's death could potentially parallel the moment that Ambrosius separated Penny from her robotic body, with the strand of hair instead being her soul, separated from her dying body and then disintegrating. However, due to the timeline and order of events, I think that Toby's death is more likely to be a parallel to Penny's first death, and her separation from her robot body is instead a parallel to the next scene I'm about to mention.

Momentary Death

When Astro is captured by President Stone and taken back to Metro City, Dr. Tenma actually does remove the Blue Core from his body, which does cause Astro to temporarily die.

Luckily, it only takes a few moments for Dr. Tenma to change his mind and return the Blue Core to Astro, reviving him.

Astro's 'soul' was removed from his body, causing that robotic body to die, even though in the end Astro does survive it. This is reminiscent of Ambrosius removing Penny's soul from her robotic body, letting that body die, while Penny survives.

Zog

I briefly went over Zog earlier, but I wanna go into more in-depth about him, because the parallels between Winter and Zog and the implications of said parallels are the main reason I ultimately decided to make this post.

As I said earlier, Zog is a very old, broken down robot that nobody has been able to revive in years. When Astro finds him, he brings him back to life by giving him some of his Blue Core Energy. Astro essentially gives Zog some of his lifeforce, a part of his soul.

Winter was on the verge of death at Ironwood's hands, but Penny was able to save her by giving her the Maiden powers, and her soul with them.

However, Zog doesn't keep all of the Blue Core Energy Astro gave him all to himself...

Resurrection

As I've mentioned a few times in this post, Astro does die - and I mean properly die, not a death that lasted 2 minutes at the most and had no consequences. Astro sacrifices himself and his Blue Core dies, all in attempts to protect the people of Metro City/the Surface and his friends. Dr. Elefun says that he can't be rebuilt because his Blue Core, his soul, was unique.

But then, Zog comes around. Zog, who is holding onto what is a part of Astro's soul - the only surviving part of Astro's soul. Zog returns some of the Blue Core Energy to Astro, which brings Astro back to life.

So, to recap: Astro gives a part of his lifeforce, part of his soul, to Zog. When Astro dies, Zog gives some of that soul back to Astro in order to revive him.

If you've been looking at the theories regarding Penny and Winter recently, this will sound VERY familiar. While the specifics vary, the essentials of the most popular theory is that Penny transferred her soul to Winter to hold on to along with the Maiden powers, and that somehow, Winter will return that soul to Penny in one way or another (either by putting her into another robotic body, or just somehow extracting her soul and letting it form it's own body again). The fact that this movie has these exact events occurring makes this seem more and more like the most likely route.

If Penny really is an intentional allusion to Astro Boy - which, based on the sheer length of this post, seems pretty damn likely - then the film practically spells it out for us. Winter will give part of her aura, the part that Penny gave her, in order to bring Penny back to life.

thank you for coming to my ted talk

#rwby #penny polendina #rwby v8 #rwby theory #rwby volume 8 #I've spent the past 2 days working on this #but the amount of parallels is insane #there's lots of bits and pieces I left out too #combine this with Pinocchio's three resurrections and the Narnia/Aslan theory and that's three allusions that foreshadow Penny's return #honestly I was just kinda chilling in my room yesterday when suddenly the scene with Zog came to me and I yelled HOLY SHIT out loud- #-because I realised it was the exact same scenario #there's probably some typos here and i could've included more pictures but like...it's 4am #and this thing is like 4000 words

[reidyoulikeabook]

Invisible String

Ship: Fem! Reader x Spencer Reid

Warnings: None, this is just fluff.

Word count: 3.2k

Summary: You and Spencer Reid don’t know it, but you’ve almost met quite a few times. What happens when you do?

A/N: This is potentially a bit on the wrong side of the cheesy line, but I was listening to invisible string by Taylor Swift and couldn’t get this idea out of my head. Pls bare in mind I’m from the UK and my only understanding of the US college system is from Google searches, so pls be forgiving of any misunderstandings about that.

November 6th, 2007

Dr. Spencer Reid. As you sat, thumbing through the article he’d written about the formation of ionic compounds in a chemical whose name you could not for the life of you spell or pronounce, you couldn’t help but resent the man.

Sure, the paper was very well-written and as cohesive as possible given the complex subject matter. But Dr. Spencer Reid, whoever he was, was the current source of your resentment at selecting chemistry to make up your science credit. Highlighting the name of a substance you’d have to look up later, you sighed. It was getting late but you had to hand in a critical summary of the paper on Friday.

It didn’t help that Dr. Reid was: a) a triple doctorate holder by the age of 22, or b) that your chemistry lecturer was none other than his old chemistry lecturer from Caltech and practically glowed with pride whenever he got to bring him up.

You chew on the end of your pen, having now distracted yourself from the notes. Not that you were particularly focused anyway.

In another life, maybe you’d have been a budding chemist who could describe an ionic lattice off rote. In this one, however, you’d just have to settle for slogging through the list of chemical processes and hoping you understood it well enough to please Dr. Reid’s biggest fan.

***

April 16th, 2008

Spencer hated flaking on commitments. It caused him a great deal of anxiety, the feeling of disappointing someone. He didn’t have much choice in this circumstance though.

Diana had taken ill over the last weekend. Nothing serious, some stomach bug or other. She’d become severely dehydated though, and had been hospitalised as a precautionary measure. Truth be told, he might not have gone if she hadn’t caught him on the phone. He was already feeling guilty for not having visited since Christmas. He wrote her letters everyday, yet still felt like he was neglecting his duties as a son. Rubbing his hands over his face, he lets out a deep sigh. Then takes out his laptop, to send another email.

Dear. Dr Abraham

I sincerely apologise again for my last minute cancellation. Excluding any unforeseen circumstances, myself and SSA Hotchner will be available to present the lecture on May 12th.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Spencer Reid.

***

May 12th, 2008

Considering this was your third year on campus, you sure were bad at finding your way around. In your defence, they were doing maintenance in one of the main buildings, meaning that lectures got shuffled around and relocated. You probably had a higher change of attending the right lecture by accident than on purpose.

It doesn’t help that you’re running a little late this morning. You rush into Room 203. A lot of the seats are taken, you have to meander your way past quite a few people until you end up sat almost directly in the middle. Only moments before the lecture starts.

“I’m SSA Hotchner, and this is SSA Reid. We’re members of the BAU which is based at FBI quarters in Quantico. Today, we’ll be talking to you about profiling.”

This is not your forensic linguistics lecture.

Panic hits you, hot in your gut. Scanning the room anxiously, you suddenly become conscious that you’re drawing attention to yourself when you feel the eyes of the man who is not SSA Hotchner on you. Fuck.

There’s no way for you to escape now, not without disturbing half the lecture hall.

So you sit back in your seat, resigning yourself to sit awkwardly in the lecture you’re not supposed to be in and hoping nobody notices.

But then, it’s really interesting, actually. The work that Dr. Reid does sounds similar to work you’ve done in forensic linguistics, analysing patterns of speech and minor phrase formations that can give things away about the perpetrator. By the end of the seminar, you’re sat leaning forward. Enraptured by almost every word coming out of their mouths.

It seems to be the general mood: everyone is enamoured. People are clammering to speak to them at the end. After a brief inner battle, myou decide that you should talk to them too.

What’s the harm?

You’ve decided that you’ll speak to Dr. Reid, since he seems to share more of a field focus. However, as you’re heading down, you spot him. Dr Adams, your chemistry lecturer from last year. Oh shit, it’s that Dr. Reid.

Speaking to SSA Hotchner will just have to do instead.

----

“I’ve been majoring in forensic linguistics and criminal psychology,” You tell him, “Do you think ... I mean, I know it’s a pretty exclusive team to get on to. But is that the kind of thing that could maybe get me there one day?”

Hotchner nods, “Forensic linguistics is something that comes in very useful in the investigative aspects of cases. The FBI is always looking for new angles and perspectives, those are both good subjects to study if you were thinking of signing up to the academy.”

"Thank you, Agent Hotchner,” You say, suddenly a little bashful as you notice the queue of people lingering behind you, “That was a really interesting lecture. It’s definitely something I’ll think about.”

“You should talk to Dr. Reid if you have a particular interest in the linguistic aspect of profiling. He’s more specialised in that area than I am. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to discuss any research you’re conducting at the moment and suggest materials that might be helpful in furthering your understanding of the area.”

“Thank you,” You smile, and he nods at you again.

Stepping away from Agent Hotchner, you look to your right. Dr. Reid is still engaged deeply in conversation with Dr. Adams. You glance at your watch. There was time before your next class, you supposed, so you could wait. It couldn’t hurt to find out more, could it? It wasn‘t like you were getting your hopes up or anything.

It’s then that you feel a pair of arms around your waist, a familiar scent of cologne.

“Hey!” You whip around to see your boyfriend, grinning widely.

“Hey,” You reply, “How’d you find me?”

“I was walking past when I saw you talking to that FBI agent. Seriously, FBI?” He asks, with a disapproving quirk of his eyebrow, “You want to grab a coffee before Psych?”

You want to say no. But he’s got his hand on the small of your back, leading  you out of the room before you even get a chance to reply. You glance back over your shoulder, making eye contact with Dr. Reid for all of two seconds before you’re swept away.

“Seriously though babe, FBI?”

Unsurpisingly, you don’t mention your potential change in career path to him.

***

March 8th, 2009

“Come in,” Hotch calls. He looks up from the paperwork on his desk to see Spencer entering the room, clutching a report in his hand.

“That last case we were on. I was doing some more research, just for future reference about linguistic patterns. Have you read this?” He asks, sliding a copy of your paper across the desk.

Hotch gives it a cursary look over, nodding, “Yes. It’s interesting. She’s signed up as an NAT. I believe I actually spoke to her at one of our lectures last year.”

"Her work is really impressive for somebody whose only studied this at a master level.”

Hotch almost smiles, “Yes. That’s exactly why I’ve recommended to the bureau that she signs up for profiling classes. Her work shows a lot of promise. They’re sending over a copy of her completed thesis, if you’d like to read it.”

“Yeah, I’d like that, thank you,” Spencer says, struggling to conceal the smile playing on the corner of his lips.

“I’ll email it to you as soon as I receive it.”

Spencer nods, smiling properly to himself as he leaves the room. It wasn’t unusual, exactly, for him to share new research that was relevant to cases. It was important that they all kept themselves fresh and acquainted with new theories about the field. Hotch, however, didn’t miss the excited way Spencer had presented it to him. Talking about how impressive you were, as if to subtly hint. He thinks it’s quite typical, actually, that Spencer could take such an interest in someone he only knew via an essay.

Although Spencer’s response does get Hotch to send a follow-up email, inquiring about whether you’d agreed to the classes. If Spencer was this impressed with your work, it must be good.

***

June 1st, 2009

The Metro that morning is packed. It doesn’t help that you’ve not been living here long, and don’t exactly know the route from your flat to the station off by heart yet.

You'd also had to make a detour to the post office. Your, firmly ex, boyfriend had mailed over the last of your things. Really, it was good riddance. His hounding you about your choice in job had only worsened. The relationship had been hanging on by a thread long before you’d moved away last month. You were more than a little grateful that it was finally over, that you could draw a line under it all and focus on your career.

Unfortunately, that hadn’t stopped you having a little cry to yourself on the way over.

Rushing, you make it onto the Metro just as the doors are about to close, falling against the railing on the left side. You grip onto it for dear life.

On the other side of the carriage, Spencer notices someone hurrying for the train. He had been buried deep in the paper he's reading, but the bustle had pulled his attention. Your back is to him, and there’s a scarf at your feet. He wants to say something, to try and get your attention, but he can’t from where he is.

“Miss, I think you’ve dropped something,” The woman you’re standing in front of says, gesturing to the scarf pooled at your feet.

You meet her eyes, sniffling slightly, “Thank you.”

Spencer watches as you pick it up, back still to him. Crisis averted, he turns his attention back to what he's reading: the published copy of your thesis Hotch had emailed him last week.

***

September 2nd, 2009

"This is SSA ____, the newest member of our team. She’s recently graduated from the academy and has an excellent knowledge of linguistics that the bureau feels will be a great advantage to this team. She’s had her induction and now will be joining the team on a probationary basis. She’ll be spending a little time with each of you in between cases to make sure she forms well-rounded knowledge of all aspects of what we do.”

It’s a little overwhelming, having everybody’s eyes on you.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” Emily is the first over, offering her hand for you to shake.

“You too, it’s really nice to meet all of you,” You say, shaking hands in turn with her, Morgan, Rossi, J.J, and Garcia.

“Hi,” Spencer calls from behind you.

You turn around to face him. You remember what Hotch had mentioned to you about him being a bit of a germaphobe, so you keep your hand by your side.

“Hi,” You say, “Dr. Reid, right?”

“You can call me Spencer,” He says, a little bashful, “I read your thesis, the study about you did about the construction of passive clauses as an indicator of guilt in adolescent offenders. It was fascinating.”

You feel yourself getting a little warm under his gaze, “Thank you. I'm surprised you’re even aware it existed.”

Hotch interrupts then, “Reid, do you want to sit with ____ while she goes over the case file? It’d be useful if you could go over how you’d go about constructing a linguistic profile.”

That’s how you end up spending much of your first day: with Spencer, huddled up over case files as he explains his profile-building process to you. Spencer’s an incredible teacher, you think. He explains his thought process without ever being condescending, leaving little gaps for you to answer.

You’re incredible, Spencer thinks. You seem to grasp exactly what he’s saying, filling in the gaps based on the clues that are actually in front of you, not letting yourself be guided too much by bias.

***

October 29th, 2009

Spencer loves everyone at the BAU. They’re all the family he never had, and he has relatively good friendships with all of them. Just, they aren’t quite the same as they are with you.

He struggles to put his finger on it, exactly. It’s a unique relationship. He shares very familial bonds with a lot of them: he and Morgan are brotherly, Rossi is fatherly, Garcia’s somewhat like an overexcited little sister.

The friendship he has with you is special. You always listen to him, even as he rambles on about inane things that anybody else would tell him to shut up about. In fact, sometimes about the exact things that they do tell him to shut up about. Just last week, he was rambling on about Star Trek when Morgan told him, not altogether unkindly, to “give it a rest, kid.”

“What was that you were saying?” You’d asked, sidling up to him, “I’ve never watched Star Trek but I thought the quote was beam me up Scotty.”

He’d looked at you, considering you for a moment, “You don’t have to-”

“I know. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know Spence. You think I’d ask for a 15 minute lecture on Star Trek if I wasn’t interested in it?”

A warm feeling flooded his chest. The look on your face was so genuine, and you’d perched on the edge of his desk as he gesticulated, getting deep into the lore and how the misconception had come about. He still didn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, until he got to the end of his spiel. And then you asked him a question. You asked him a question to make sure you understood what he was talking about. You were listening the whole time, and you genuinely cared about the point he was making.

It's then that he realises, it was hard to pinpoint because it wasn’t friendship. He likes you. Shit.

***

November 2nd, 2009

You like everybody at the BAU. They’re all quite patient with you, really, happy to walk you through how they do things. Morgan’s taught you quite a bit about the tactical side of things already, and Rossi has been working with you on your interrogation techniques. Emily’s generally just a great mentor, always happy to listen and support however she can. She’s more experienced, but still relatively new to the team too, so you feel like there’s a certain understanding between you.

However, you’d definitely be lying if you said the person you hadn’t learnt the most from, or spent the most time with, was Spencer.

It hadn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the team, either. You seemed to gravitate towards one another, forever sitting side-by-side on the plane. Sharing a line of thinking that usually led to devolved rambling, and scribbling, until you came up with something coherent.

It isn’t until November 2nd that you realise you have feelings for him.

You’re sitting at your desk, filling out a case report that Emily had promised to go over with you before she left for lunch.

“Hey,” Spencer’s familiar soothing voice comes, as he sidles up to you, “I got you something.”

Looking up, you notice the coffee cup in his right hand, “You are my caffeine lifesaver.”

He hands it to you, smiling a little nervously, “It’s actually not that.”

“Oh?”

His other hand is tucked behind his back, and he pulls it foward towards you, brandishing a red sweatshirt.

“I know you uh, left your red sweater behind at the hotel on the last case. And I know it was your favourite one, and I was shopping yesterday and I saw this and...” He trails off, embarassed, “It’s not the exact same, but it’s the same kind. I just thought you might like it.”

You swallow, hard, “Spencer that’s so sweet. C-Can I hug you?”

He nods. Standing up from your desk, you wrap your arms around his frame.

“That was so thoughtful.”

He squeezes you a little, really leaning into the hug, his face pressing against your shoulder. His tousled hair tickles your nose a little and you smile, clinging onto him, relishing in the feeling of safety and warmth.

It hits you then. When you realise you don’t want to let go. When you realise he makes you feel fuzzy. Loved. Cared for in a way you haven’t felt in a long time. Eventually, you have to let him go, and it’s in a daze that you return to your desk. You’re so concentrated on your overwhelming realisation, you don’t realise how reluctant he is to let you leave his embrace.

***

December 22nd, 2009

Driving Spencer home from the office was really just an excuse to get some time alone with him. You’d said something about the Metro being busy, one of the services being cancelled. He hadn’t factchecked you on that.

The BAU had tentative plans for boxing day, with the caveat being that no emergent cases arrived in the meantime. It was only really four days you wouldn’t see him, but that was longer than you’d ever gone without seeing him in all the time you’d known him. You worked together everyday, and it was unusual for you to go a full weekend without seeing each other. Recently, you’d got into the habit of going out for Sunday brunch together.

Pulling up outside his house, you hear him sigh.

“I know it’s only four days, but I’ll miss you.”

Smiling, you turn to him, “I’ll miss you too.” 

Something in you changes then. He’s looking at you. You may be relatively new to profiling but you can see something behind his eyes, feel the charge of unsaid words electrifying the air.

“Can I hug you?” He asks.

“You can always hug me,” You reply, undoing your seatbelt and opening your arms for him.

He embraces you the way he always has: tightly. Like he doesn’t want to let go, couldn’t imagine ever letting you go. His face nuzzles to the crook of your neck, and then you feel his thumb brush your chin. Tilting your head down.

You exchange a look. His eyes flicker from your eyes, to your lips, and back. You nod your head, just slightly.

He kisses you then. Tender. You melt into one another, lips moving quickly as you drink one another in. Kissing each other breathless, your fingers intertwine in his hair and his hand comes up to cup your cheek. Nothing has ever felt so right.

***

June 10th, 2011

Neither of you have ever really believed in fate. It’s hard to - especially in your line of work - to want to interpret the workings of the universe as deliberate. Maybe you’d think a little differently though, if you knew about all the near-misses. All the times you could have met. But fate knew better. She waited until you were ready.

And as you exchange vows, promising each other your forever, you both know you couldn’t possibly deny that this was meant to be.

------

Taglists: @takeyourleap-of-faith @sassiest-politician

(let me know if you would like to be added to/removed from this list!)

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #criminal minds #reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #imagine spencer reid #criminal minds x you #imagine criminal minds #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid imagines #pls like this it took me so long

[dimonds456]

Gem Steven’s gem is flipped upside-down. (Theory/Speculation time!)

SPOILERS FOR @spudinacup’s SU AU “Gone Wrong”!

Also WARNING: long post!

So recently, someone pointed out that Steven has a scar on his torso going across his gem’s location, which I found interesting in and of itself. Makes sense, since he wasn’t able to heal it since he DIED and his gem was shoved out of his body before it got the chance to heal him. That slash mark is there now. Wow, neat! Nice detai-

Wait.

Hold on a sec.

Is his gem... flipped upside-down? Well, it’s been like this for a while, maybe it’s just a creative choi-

...oh.

This is VERY intentional.

So I did some digging, and found much more symbolism and possible foreshadowing, and now I want to throw out my theory about Gem Steven here, including his potential arc and character development. I’ll try to keep everything brief while still blowing your minds, and I’ll try to get across what my jumbled mind has come up with.

Spud please notice me.

I will not be uploading photos to go with everything I say (go reread the comic after this and verify for yourself what all I’ve said), but I’ll show visuals when they’re necessary. I do not claim ANY of this art as mine (I wish my art was this good ;u; ), all of it belongs to Spudinacup and their SU AU, which has all kinds of hidden symbolism, foreshadowing, and visual cues we haven’t picked up on yet, as I’ve just learned while researching this theory. This ain’t your run-of-the-mill AU, everything in here is intentional. Scott Spud doesn’t do coincidences. So I’ll point out that stuff in screenshots.

Okay let’s go.

SO! To begin with, let’s talk about why his gem may have flipped, and to realize that, we have to know when. We don’t see the gem much, but we do see it constantly through Chapter 1, where it is normal. The pentagon is pointed upward. However, in Chapter 2, this is where we see it flipped upside down. When did that happen? We didn’t see it. I believe it happened in that first scene in the bathroom, right after we left. The butterflies were swarming angrily, and Steven was very lost in thought.

Notice whenever those butterflies appear. They seem to show up every time he thinks about who he is. Is he still Steven, or is he someone else now? Steven is dead. Everyone is mourning him, trying to heal him, but Gem is still here. So if Steven is dead, but Gem is still alive, that must mean he isn’t Steven then, right? But then that undoes everything we learned in “Change Your Mind.” He IS Steven. He’s always been Steven. But that’s when they were together...

...And so the butterflies swarm.

Notice how the first one shows up when he looks at himself in the mirror. When you look in a mirror, you should see yourself, right? But who IS he? In the show, butterflies represent thoughts and ideas, mostly dark ones, disturbing ones, or ones you don’t want to think about. Well, he already spent WAY too long proving who he was, so now to do it again sucks.

But he isn’t Steven anymore. He’s on the couch being mourned. But he’s already proved he IS Steven before, and it’s this uncertainty that is making his mind swirl. I believe this is why he flipped his gem. Just upside-down, so it’s a small thing no one will notice, while he tries to figure it out. In doing so, he’s separated himself from “Steven”, as they’re not one and the same anymore, and the flipped gem shows this. He’s someone else right now. Maybe. He’s not sure.

So what do we call you for right now? Steven. He already proved he was Steven, so until he’s proved otherwise, Steven it is. Now he just has to figure out what exactly that name means and wether or not he still fits that quota.

Flipped gem/Pink Diamond imagery is EVERYWHERE, mostly hidden in drastic shadows or in panels. It’s things you don’t notice at first, until they’re staring you in the face. See if you can spot them from the 3 screenshots below.

There’s probably more hidden throughout the comic, these are just the ones I’ve found that I feel confident enough to show as hard evidence.

So, what does it all mean? We’ll talk about the screenshots in order, left to right.

First, the Diamond is hidden as the panel in the center. In it, Human Steven lies upside down while the gem-panel is technically upside right. This can be interpreted in a few ways, but what that means to me is that something isn’t right here. If you flip Steven back around so he’s upside right, the gem is now upside down. Notice Gem Steven looking towards his human half on the bottom panel there, clutching his shirt over his gem. It’s a motion we’ve seen Steven do a TON throughout the show, anytime he’s thinking about Rose/Pink, who he is, or complicated gem stuff as a whole. Because early on, his identity was always shrouded in shadow. THAT is Steven, on the couch, without his gem. So for Gem Steven to call himself Steven is inaccurate, but also not at the same time. It’s all swarming in his head, and thus, the gem is flipped.

Next, he’s just broken the rejuvenator. This was probably the hardest to spot of the three, but if you look at the panel where Bismuth asks “feel better?” you will see, in the background, a white line cut through the soft pink hues. Look closer. It’s the outline of the gem, but it’s flipped correctly this time. This is because Bismuth seems to be the only person NOT saying Steven is dead, and treating his gem half one and the same. Is she unnerved? Yeah, but who WOULDN’T be? This is still Steven we’re talking about, as emotionally blocked as he is. He’s aware of why everyone is being weird around him, so to see Bismuth trying her best to treat him with familiarity instead of a completely different, new, dangerous stranger is really calming and helps to calm the storm a bit.

Notice the gem is flipped correctly. This is because he feels like Steven right now. Bismuth has been constant confirmation that he is still Steven, no matter the circumstances. Notice how his eyes dialate back to a larger size. They do that a lot in the comic, articulating his emotions without changing the rest of his face. It’s a clever detail to keep track of. His eyes grow more relaxed, dialating bigger when she pats his shoulder, asking if he feels better after destroying the weapon that killed him. It’s a huge relief for him to hear. So, the gem is correct.

Finally, we see Bismuth telling Greg that his son is dead, which is very contradictory to what Bis was saying earlier (in Steven’s eyes). Where is the gem on that frame? Look at Steven’s shadow. There it is, facets and all. To us, the gem is correct, but think about it this way: if Steven were actually replaced with the gem in that frame, what would it look like, Pink’s or White’s? That’s right. The point is coming from his feet, meaning it would look more like White’s, meaning it is back to being flipped upside down. Again, Bismuth just said Steven is dead, meaning he’s back to questioning his whole entire identity. So it’s back to being flipped upside-down.

It seems that the orientation of the symbolic gems hidden throughout panels show quite clearly where his head is at in terms of who he is. If it’s upside down, he’s separating himself from the cold meatball on the couch, whereas when it’s normal/upside right, he is associating himself WITH the cold meatball on the couch.

Notice he’s been grabbing at his gem a lot recently, too, all things he does while in turmoil over who- or WHAT- he is. He cannot heal right now. He can’t use his powers. Some powers are new and unfamiliar (see the more recent pages where Lapis struck out with water and he blocked with those hexagonal shields/walls). “Steven HEALS people.” He can’t, so who is he?

This is something he’ll need to have an answer to by the time the comic is done, and this is a mission for Gem Steven and Gem Steven alone. If his human half were alive (and content without his gem), he’d probably call himself “Steven” no questions asked, since he GOT his answer already, two years ago. But Gem can’t do that, not when everyone keeps drawing all these lines between the two. He needs to learn what being “Steven” means, and know that he is a part of a greater whole, but on his own, he is STILL Steven. Everyone else needs to realize this, too, and stop separating the two. It’s gonna be rough, since it may feel like replacing what they lost, but is it really? It’s going to be a tough road to trek, and I don’t know what anyone’s answer is gonna be (that’s the big mystery here, after all), but I’m here for it.

Remember, all of this has been speculation on what may happen based on facts and clues Spud has presented us with. I’m not claiming to know how Gem Steven’s arc will end, but I am throwing my hat into the ring on where I THINK it will go. Either way, the foreshadowing, symbolism, and unspoken characterizations here have been excellent, and I’m looking forward to seeing everything play out. Spud, your mind is incredible, and whatever you’ve got planned over there, I’m confident the answer will be satisfactory.

I’ll shut up now. Thank you for reading this huge meta post, and go read Spud’s comic. You can find it at @suaugonewrong or on Spud’s Tumblr, which was linked above. If you think I’m wrong or have a counter argument, bring it. Let’s talk, cause this is genuinely interesting and fun to dissect. I wanna talk about it OwO

Thank you. You may now continue scrolling.

#LONG POST #I’M SO SORRY #but Spud please notice me #owo #su au gone wrong #su gone wrong #gone wrong su au #meta post #au #theories #speculation #super long post #gem steven #pink steven #human steven #split steven #storpse #trigger warning #theory #idk you don’t find many aus that have this much depth to them #it’s nice #and i love it #so thank you #blood #tw blood

[andhumanslovedstories]

I’ve been working on this theory lately about my own media consumption that I’ll call representational contrarianism because I’m tickled at giving it a fancy sounding name. And it’s like this: given the choice between media with canonical queer characters and media that has characters you could argue are queer, I’ll default to the latter nine times out of ten.

And it’s like. Why?

(And yeah, this is a post about Supernatural, but it’s not ABOUT Supernatural, you know? Also everything is about Supernatural except Supernatural which is about umm truly who fucking knows.) 

So, for me (and consider that the big disclaimer for this post) queer characters created by queer people either cut too close to the truth, or they’re disappointing. If they’re truthful, then the truth, through the warped lens of my own insecurities and uncertainties, becomes “yes Sarah this is who you are” or “no Sarah you ain’t this.” If they’re disappointing, if I don’t like them or I don’t like the romance or I like some other character better, I feel like I’m letting someone down--not always sure who, just someone, maybe it’s myself, maybe it’s the Community, maybe it’s this fictional person--and further, this becomes another tick in a column labeled “you’re straight and you’ve always been straight, you hurt gay people by thinking otherwise, and also everyone’s laughing at you.” Which is a lot of pressure to put on kindle lesbian romance novels I picked up for $1.99, but that’s what I feel. 

The important thing is, these characters and stories are tests I’m very capable of failing.  

And queer people created by straight people--look, it’s not universally true, but look at the shitty way explicit homosexuality is treated on Supernatural (a joke! flat! background! nothing!) versus the absolutely inadvertent queer-coding they did with Dean, Sam, and Cas. They wrote three distinct queer masculine allegories by complete fucking accident. They couldn’t have done that on purpose. They don’t think gay people are people in the same way that straight people are people. They think that they’re Gay and then a little later that they are people. (And does my hyperfixation on this issue mean that I approach gay characters the same way as shitty straight writers? Hahahahaha shut the fuck up I’m almost in therapy again, this is all on the docket.) 

Queer characters created by queer people are a litmus test, and queer characters created by straight people are pandering. And you don’t really know about the creators that often, and they shouldn’t have to list their identities on the back of the book (although catch me scanning acknowledgements for the words wife, partner, people thanked with love but identified only as an initial, like deciphering how this book might make me feel is a test I can cheat on, but what do you do with a writers room? Memorize the gay ones if you can, cross-reference who wrote what eps?). So I’m comparing myself against these characters (bad choice) in the hopes of learning about myself while also hyperanalyzing these characters in a way that would be insanely unfair to do to a real person (are they Truly Gay? are they Truly Good Representation? if I don’t like them, is it their fault or my fault or their story’s fault or God’s fault or or or or or or or). So I end up evaluating this central question about myself--literally the question Who Am I--against characters (again, a bad choice) that I swivel wildly between believing they are better at being gay than me (because they might have been written by queer people) or are worse at being gay than me (because they might have been written by straight people). 

(I know this is horribly reductive in regards to representation and own voices and good writing. You don’t want to see how long this post was with nuance.) 

And let’s do the ultimate thought experiment: let’s say they did Supernatural good. And now Dean is bisexual! Yay! Canonically! They decide this in season four and he comes out and maybe he always knew or maybe this is all new to him, whatever, it’s all handled fantastically. GLAAD awards for everyone. 

If Dean was gay, canonically gay, if he had what I do not--a cast of writers, a voice of God saying definitely, yes, yes, he is sexually and romantically attracted to multiple genders, he is Canon now, there was an interview in Entertainment Weekly about it and everything--then he is gayer by default than me--no writers, no God, no all hands meeting when everyone nods solemnly and concludes, let’s give the people what they want: this one’s a dyke. And he slips somewhere I can’t follow, into that tantalizing paradise called Certainty, and he learns the gay lingo, and he learns the hidden stereotypes only gay people get to know about other gay people, and he unlocks the Shared History and the Inside Jokes, and he speaks to the other people in the club with the knowledge that all of them deserve to be there because they know that they deserve to be there.  

(Meanwhile, I am not in the club, I am instead down at the courthouse where I get called forward before the Gender Judges who reviewed the emergency application I made in the middle of the night, and they ask, “It says here you want to change your name?” and I say, “Actually no, I thought about it but the idea of being called anything other than Sarah genuinely horrifies me,” and they ask, “But you did say you were considering experimenting with your pronouns?” and I say, “Again, no, I’ve toyed with the thought but the idea of me being referred to as anything other than she/her viscerally disgusts me,” and they ask, “Okay but what is it that horrifies and disgusts you: the thought of being identified as someone you aren’t, or making a fuss about your identity in a way that draws attention to it?” and being unable to come up with an answer, I throw myself out the nearest window and start running, also causing me to miss my scheduled meeting with the Sexuality forum where we were going to litigate whether I was allowed to use dyke like that a paragraph back.)

(We don’t have time to get into gender. Just assume this all applies to gender stuff as well, and we’ll move on.)

But. If he’s not canonically anything, then he is as gay as I make him. In this daydream or that fanfic, we make the subtext text and here is a queer story, a gay story, a story about me as I would like to be seen and would like to be, and when I am done, I spray him off with some windex and wipe him down to factory settings. And then tomorrow there’s a different fantasy where he’s gay in a different way, a nuance, a tweak, a thousand variations on the same basic premise (what if this guy liked guys), and if I don’t like one, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t stick. It’s a novel written in sand. The appeal is that it’ll wash away. Why should he be any more sure than me? 

Anyway, that’s why queerbaiting is good actually (joke). 

#long post #sorry I mean long post (apologetic) #the digressions I cut out good god #anyway #my public diary #spn

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

just because you’re afraid it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Titans 3.05

once more into the cold dark void of the internet with my stream-of-consciousness take on a superhero tv show...

spoilers ahead.

1. i cannot believe that among the first things i get to hear in this episode with my own two ears is the line 'eluded our overdudes'. why must you give me such pain along with so much joy, show?

1.5. scarecrow stringing jason along on this path to red-hood-dom is not something i would’ve ever expected, but does kind of make sense. 

1.55. i don’t know all the details of the original resurrection arc in the comics but i like that jason, weirdly, has a greater role to play in his own demise and rebirth? i think it makes it easier to draw a line between his past trauma, the demonstrably shitty and terrifying responsibility of being robin, the ways bruce and the titans wronged him, his responses to that, the reasons he turns to scarecrow, and his final evolution to red hood. it makes for a smoother character arc rather than a one that was interrupted for two decades before somebody went oh hey let’s resurrect that kid that the audience once voted to kill and make him an anti-hero!

1.75. what’s crane giving him? anti fear toxin? anyway, crane is a fucking creep and i’m not sure i want to see a whole lot of him on my screen.

2. oh, um, heads up: there’s a long sequence of unsteady cam + flickering lights right after the title card upto the 3:16 mark. it’s a bit headache-inducing so if you want to skip, you can go ahead and do that. 

2.45. that’s... weird... why would he dream about... donna...

ok, who am i kidding. i’m going to jump right into my theory about Why Titans Makes Sense Actually because the show itself is apparently not interested in explaining itself:

a) it makes no sense for jason to be conjuring up donna--who famously did not care much for him!--in his dreams. (he wasn’t even there when she died.) or for her to be telling him don’t go or there’s still time.

b) this leads me to think that that’s actually donna, in some sort of limbo between life and death, the kind of place where jericho used to be

c) rachel has demonstrated that she has the power to link the minds of the titans across great distances--she called jason and hank/dawn for help in 2.01, she linked up everybody later in the season, projected dick’s hallucination of his father into their brains without even realising she was doing it, and in the finale, she managed to get dick into conner’s brain. she’s in themyscira now. is this how she gets donna back to life? but reaching out to her in that non-space between life and death?

d) the next obvious question is: why isn’t donna appearing in the dreams of the other titans? she probably is, but they have better reason to be dreaming about her since they were actually close to her, unlike jason.

e) but why would she warn jason in particular? does she foresee jason entering the afterlife--however briefly? does she have an idea of what jason plans to do and what he will become?

f) anyway, more trippy mindscapes and weird psychic powers, yay!

2.5. my heart clenched when bruce comforted jason post-nightmare: clearly i’ve been reading way too much batfam fic. this is a side of bruce we haven’t really been told to expect by all the characters on the show calling him a ‘psychopath’ (*cough*unreliablenarrators*cough*) and him getting jason to speak to a professional speaks volumes about the kind of self-reflection he’s done post dick’s departure, and maybe some of the regrets he has with regards to how he dealt with dick’s traumas.

i mean, just look at him when jason dismisses his concerns! BRUCE IS TRYING JASON

anyway, i have a whole lot more i want to say about this, but i’ll save it for later. 

also: LESLIE THOMPKINS!!!!

3. i really like molly--and i love that she’s a friend from before jason got taken in by bruce, the implication that they meet up regularly and that she’s a grounding influence on him (tho clearly not grounding enough to not go along with his dumbass idea about confronting a child trafficker alone). 

3.5. aw, jason. robin was his armour against everything in the world that would throw him down and chew him to bits, but san francisco proved that even robin wasn’t enough to protect him. it’s really interesting how ‘disillusionment with the idea of robin’ is so integral to the traumas of both dick and jason but in such different ways. 

4. LESLIE!!!!!!! i even forgive her office being so goddamn blue because leslie! 

4.5. it makes so much sense for titans!verse leslie to be a therapist, because this show is so inward looking anyway, and therapist sessions are a useful tool to showcase this character work in a story. besides, at least in fanfic, leslie often seems to double up as a counsellor anyway. 

4.6. oh man. i’m not terribly convinced by walters’ red hood (tho i think that may be the point--argh. i’ll come back to this thought later. have to stop getting distracted!) but he plays the asshole kid that’s trying not to let any real emotion seep through really well.

“you’d like me to punch you, wouldn’t you”

5. not sure what to think of batman’s little trophy case other than the show winking unsubtly at us and going look look - catwoman! the riddler! two face! you excited yet?! it’s like the scene from the end of amazing spiderman 2 when they were trying to drum up excitement for a sinister six spinoff by having harry osborne walk by a bunch of display cases with stuff from iconic villains in them.

... but then again, bruce does like to display a lot of shit in his batcave, including his dead robin’s bloodstained costume, so.

5.5. bruce is so soft with jason it’s killing me. beyond just trying to learn from his mistakes with dick, it speaks to his own genuine desire to balance his dedication to gotham with doing the best by his sons, although he’s often not successful with that. 

i love that titans is really playing the long game with bruce wayne, with each season and character-perspective sliding in fresh pieces of a bigger puzzle. titans’ bruce has always been a phantom of other peoples’ making, but now we’re getting the idea that he’s a whole lot more complicated than other people make it seem.

5.75. it really recontextualises some of his actions from previous seasons: the fact that he locked dick out of his security systems in 1.06 is likely his way of respecting dick’s independence and his desire not to be associated with batman/gotham anymore. jason knowing about bruce’s tracker while dick doesn’t is probably bruce trying to be more honest and upfront with his charges. bruce sending jason packing off to sanfran to spend time with the titans is probably not him passing on a big responsibility to dick (as i first uncharitably thought) but him trying to get jason out of the toxic influence of gotham for a while and a sign of his trust in dick as a leader and a mentor,

5.8. i mean, bruce is a prick, but he’s also human.

6. i think leslie is doing some good work with jason here, though she may have overstepped the line with her line about robin as a construct being projected by a man with BPD. her speculations about bruce’s diagnosis have no place in her session with jason, and if bruce confides in her, an egregious violation of patient-therapist confidentiality. 

(about the diagnosis itself... i don’t know. i can’t really confirm or refute this without a whole lot more information, and i’m not sure if the writer of this episode means BPD in the same way an actual professional might.)

6.5. i think a huge thing that gets missed out in a lot of recent comics as well as movies/shows is that bruce didn’t create the robin persona out of whole cloth. dick did. he’s the starting point of that legacy and to call it entirely bruce’s creation is blatant erasure of that. in fact, i’m surprised that dick doesn’t feature more in the conversations they’re having about the pressures of being robin. after all, the guy had been robin--bruce’s partner--for such a long time before jason. 

6.8. (and here’s the primal part of me that resonates the deepest with dick grayson--the Eldest Daughter part--that’s sort of resentful: that jason gets the therapy and softness and the learning from mistakes when it took years and years for bruce to reach out in any meaningful way to dick.)

7. oooh that was a great scene!

it’s fun to do these stream-of-consciousness live reactions, because the moment you step down from your soapbox, the episode goes right into tackling what you were just complaining about. bruce means well, he’s learning, but he goes about exactly the wrong way to help jason: taking away robin now can’t be read by jason as anything but a devastating judgment call from bruce. and iain glen really sells the moment that bruce realises this--too late--and his helplessness in trying to get jason to see that it isn’t jason’s fault that he’s trying to do this. he loves jason enough that jason is enough. 

7.5. aaaah so jason brings up the elephant in the room at last. dick got everything makes sense from his perspective, where getting to put on a costume and fight crime means approval, means being something stronger and better than you are. dick got to be robin, then nightwing, and a leader of a whole team of other costume-clad heroes. 

8. ... how did jason just walk into arkham????? this is ridiculous.

8.3. i mean, clearly jason’s not thinking straight, but betraying batman like this puts his possibilities of being robin again even further away. 

8.5. watching that chemistry experiment montage was strangely funny. this guy is looking for an antidote to fear? well, constantly mixing up and inhaling gases concocted by a mad-scientist supervillain is something only the very fearless--reckless to the point of foolishness!--would do. what’s to say crane’s not given you a formula for a drug that will keep you tethered to his every will and whim? hmmmm?

8.7. so he sought out the joker to... test the formula??? 

9. wow the “loud and clear... boss” hits different after a whole episode of them referring to each other as father and son.

9.3. waitwaitwait HOLD UP. wait a DANG MINUTE. you’re telling me that scarecrow had enough resources that he could not only have folks on the outside steal jason away and dunk him in a lazarus pit (i TOLD you that this show would bring up and dismiss ra’s al ghul in a ten second aside! I TOLD YOU) but also have his own little chemistry lab in the basement, AND have enough resources for jason to build his red hood persona???????? all of this in barely twenty four hours?

well there goes my ‘jason orchestrated his death’ theory. it was nice while it lasted. *cups hands to the sky* fly away, my baby.

9.6. a part of me is gleeful at the rushed nature of such an iconic transformation though, especially when compared to all the character work that went before it. we’re so used to getting the opposite that it’s fucking delightful to have a show that’s more interested in exploring its characters’ minds rather than battle scenes or recreating transformations from the comics. that’s taken such bold and exciting steps to fully convey all the nuances of its most recognisable character, bruce wayne, from casting an older actor to play him to unflinchingly showing just how damaging the vigilante lifestyle has been to him and the people he loves. BRILLIANT

*sporfle*

10. again, heads up: a whole lot of flashing lights between 40:28 and 42:00. 

10.3. i guess it’s the super-compressed timeline that’s really throwing me off. where did he have the time to get/develop the mind control thing from? or is it something that he got from the cabal of villains that he intimidated at the beginning of 3.02? very messy.

10.5. i love molly, i hope she shows up again this season.

11. aaaand that’s it! that was a solid episode as flashback episodes go, but now i can’t wait to return to the present.

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #jason todd #bruce wayne #leslie thompkins #a tragic jalebi #robin #red hood

[lover-of-queens]

Farah Dowling is Alive Part 2

The follow up to Part 1 or as I like to call it: look mom, I told you this degree would have uses in the real world! 

If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, you can find Part 1: Here 

You know the drill, under the cut cause this is probably going to get long!

Episode 4: Some Wrecked Angel

Episode opens with our favourite trio. If you’ve read the first part then you’ll be familiar with my argument that it could be possible the writers are leaving Farah x Saul threads to pick up at a later date. I think this scene has some interesting ones. There’s a lot of effort in this scene to set Farah and Saul up as parallels - in a way that also makes them stand apart from Ben. We have them saying his name together, but also, when they discover Callum’s body, both Farah and Saul are in sync as they move into a kneeling position. 

I don’t necessarily know if this could be considered an argument for them bringing Farah back, however, in the scene with Farah, Stella and Luna, Stella brings up an interesting point about Farah’s pedagogy. We’re told that Farah chooses care and time over “solely results” when it comes to teaching. In the next episode we learn Rosalind’s own teaching style involves putting her students “through hell”. I don’t necessarily know when the change will happen but given this, I don’t see any way Rosalind can remain Headmistress, especially when they’re taking pains to show Farah as better suited for the role.

Also important in this scene is Farah and Luna’s last exchange. We know what appearances Luna has helped Farah maintain - the barrier/illusion that stops Aster Dell from being seen. So, what’s interesting is Farah’s next line:

Farah: “Yes, we’ve both done a great deal to preserve Solaria’s reputation.” 

This does not get addressed during the remaining episodes. Personally, this line and the amount of tension between Farah and Luna also strikes me as a potential thread that could be picked up later. I’m going to wager that I’m not alone in wanting to know what exactly they did to “preserve” Solaria’s rep. And my guess is, because Brian has mentioned that they’re going to expand on the winx world, we’re going to be finding out more about Solaria in S2. Theoretically, I suppose whatever event that is being referenced here could be dealt with without Farah on screen, but then we’d miss out on all the fun tension! Also, as of right now, fan response to Luna is nothing compared to Farah (at least from what I’ve seen). 

Tattoo theory, several people have already spoken on this and I don’t want to speak over them. I’m still sorting out my own thoughts on whether it’s Farah’s or Eve’s but I will say that Farah is always wearing rings so it seems to me that if they wanted it covered they could easily do it with a ring (or makeup). If the tattoo is purposely put there then I’m going to assume its for a reason that the writers may want to deal with at a later date (hint, hint: bring back Farah). 

Episode 5: Wither Into the Truth

I may do another post on this at some point if I can find enough to say to warrant it but Farah’s eye colour when she does magic. Up until now every time Farah’s done magic her eyes have glowed blue and yet in the scene where she questions Beatrix they glow light orange. Now I’d always assumed that the colour of the glow = element, which was why I didn’t know why Farah’s glowed blue to begin with; she’s a mind fairy so I would have expected the purple that Musa has. And actually the confirmation of her being a mind fairy comes from Fate’s IG page shown below, I don’t know if it’s ever explicitly stated in the show? Further, to my knowledge, Farah is the only fairy we’ve seen whose eyes glow different colours. So, a thread to pick up in season 2, perhaps? 

Also I’m very interested in the use of the word “Once”. In this instance I would almost take it to mean ‘no longer is’ but the tense is present perfect (I think?) which can suggest the continuance of an action. But now I’m being overly nitpicky and technical. Also I don’t know how ‘principle’ made it through what I’m assuming are several stages before making it onto IG, but it gave me a laugh!

“Incredibly powerful” yet loses to Rosalind without a fight? Not buying it. Additionally, the use of “other forms of magic” is interesting and I figure could be taken to mean other elements. But I wonder if there’s more to it than just that. Farah shows knowledge of archaic Fairy Magic with the Nettle Amalgam, so maybe there’s more archaic knowledge out there that she knows ... that could prove helpful. 

Now, back to the episode. When Farah and Hologram Luna are talking, the fact that there are two burned ones travelling together is cause for concern. 

Farah: “There are two of them travelling together. That hasn’t happened since … In a long time.” 

Once again we are left with a thread of something that has happened. In the same IG post as above, in the section for Saul, it mentions that he and Farah became confidants “after experiencing the Black Woods Massacre”. I wonder if that could be what Farah’s referring to here? I know the massacre has come up once or twice in conversation and correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe it’s ever been properly explained? To me, it looks like a great bit of backstory to get into at a later date. It may not confirm Farah being alive necessarily, but you could take it as a sign that we might see Eve again. 

Lastly, for this episode, is the scene between Farah and Bloom. Specifically this part: 

Farah: “I will help you get the answers you need. I give you my word.” 

You can probably guess what I’m going to say at this point, a thread that can be picked up in season 2! You could counterargue that Rosalind could help Bloom with answers (as she offers in the next episode) but in my humble opinion, I don’t think it would offer narrative satisfaction. First, because we’ve been shown what a terrible mentor Rosalind is. Second, they’ve spent the first season showing how Farah and Bloom’s mentor-student relationship has developed (bloomed?) so it seems a waste to go through all of that development for nothing. 

Episode 6: A Fanatic Heart

Rosalind has her little prison break. Personally, I still think there’s a lot of unanswered questions about what happened after Aster Dell, how they imprisoned Rosalind, etc. And I do hope that we get some answers in Season 2 - again these answers may not necessarily involve Farah on the screen but as every writer gets told the age old advice of “show, don’t tell”, I think there’s potential for that. 

Farah immediately tries to disprove my points about her intelligence by wandering alone in the woods at night. But she’s pretty, so I’ll allow it. 

Rosalind gives Bloom some answers but not all, so I do think that my point above about Farah helping Bloom find more answers still stands. Further, I find the Farah is Bloom’s mother theory to be unlikely for several reasons (this is not the post for them) but I do want to draw our attention to several lines of dialogue here. 

Bloom: “You hid me from Miss Dowling.” ….

Rosalind: “The guidance you needed was love. Farah couldn’t give that to you. Vanessa and Michael could.” 

There are SO many reasons why this exchange is fascinating. I’m interested in why Bloom brings up Farah to begin with - her other points could stand alone to the same affect. I’m also really interested in the direct comparison between Farah and Bloom’s adoptive parents -- if Bloom hadn’t gone to them, she would have gone to Farah? It almost seems as though the direct comparison implies that. Also, considering Bloom’s relationship with her adoptive parents, I really doubt the validity of the statement. Plus, I wouldn’t trust Rosalind’s idea of love in general. 

Also, Rosalind is just so certain that Farah couldn’t love Bloom … can’t love in general? There’s just so much of Farah and Rosalind’s relationship that hasn’t been explored that I think really needs to be. 

Now, the scene that always makes me cry! Farah and Bloom have had a difficult time this season and it’s all lead up to this moment of trust and vulnerability - on both sides. If you ask me, this season has been setting Farah up to be the mentor figure that Rosalind was not - Rosalind’s opposite. And they’ve worked hard at it, even when they were trying to convince us Farah might be the evil one which like lmao. I find it hard to believe that they would go through all of that work just to discard it by leaving Farah dead. Especially because what Farah admits to Bloom in this sequence feels like a changing moment for her - she recognizes things she wishes she would have done differently (being less of a figurehead, being more open) and I think its only fair that Fate allows her to follow through on those things. 

And onto the scene that I really don’t want to rewatch but I’m going to do it for y’all. I’ve touched on Farah x Saul moments so it’s only fair that I touch on Farah x Rosalind ones. There is tension here (looking at each other’s lips, Rosalind getting closer to Farah, Farah grabbing her), I mean the cast has joked about shipping them. But there are several different ways to read this and you are more than welcome to your pick! It doesn’t really change my point, which is … thread to pick up in season 2? Have you started taking a shot every time I’ve said that (please don’t <3). 

Farah who has shown herself to be incredibly intelligent and cautious when it comes to Rosalind turns her back on her. And we get what is probably the most important piece of evidence: the eye glow. It can mean absolutely anything, but I’d wager one of the reasons its there is to have people do exactly what I’m doing here. Theorizing about whether Farah could still be alive. I’m going to take that as a sign there’s hope (mainly because I think it would be cruel to suggest a ‘could she come back narrative’ and then … not have her come back). Also, in the Fate novel, it describes Farah’s death as “too easy”. I absolutely refuse to believe that it could be easy to kill Farah when she’s proved time and time again how powerful she is. 

That finishes my episode by episode analysis. It totals well over 2500 words. If you can believe me, I still have more to say on this topic (discussing general counterarguments and possible logistics of Eve’s filming), so stay tuned for a Part 3?

#Farah Dowling #fate: the winx saga #fate the winx saga #fate SPOILERS

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

open the door and let the flood back in (Loki & Sylvie, 1k words, just a little speculation for the end of episode 4) Rating: General Warnings: no archive warnings apply; references to mind control; very vague reference to torture Summary: Loki's awkwardness would be at least a little endearing under almost any other circumstances, Sylvie thinks, but there’s not much room for anything else alongside the numb hollowness of defeat. (A little speculation, at the last minute when it's no doubt about to be proven wrong, on what Loki might have said at the end of episode 4, other than the obvious, if he hadn't been interrupted. Spoilers through episode 4, obviously. Can be read as shippy or not.)

The nerve endings in my arms are working just fine, yeah, Sylvie almost says, but the snark doesn’t come so easily with the fake Time-Keeper’s head on the floor nearby, and that makes her pause long enough to realize that yes, there’s…something else, something deep inside the core of her magic that she’s never felt before. Something like—the recognition of a touch, or an echo, or both at once even if that really doesn’t make sense. Like she’s reaching out in the dark by instinct, and she knows someone else is reaching back.

She frowns. “Are you doing something?”

“I think we’re doing something,” he says, and now she can feel it, a flicker of suppressed excitement that isn’t just hers.

Sylvie’s eyes widen. “You are not in my head.”

“I’m not,” Loki says. “We’re just—listen, I’ve read about this. It was only ever a theory, nobody’s ever been able to do it properly, but there were scholars who suggested that two people could link their magic together, if—if their souls were similar enough, I think that was how it was discussed at the time, and create something like a feedback loop, continuously amplifying each other’s power. But strangers could never do it because they didn’t know and trust one another, let alone deeply and openly enough to allow that kind of connection, and even for people who did, mages who were lovers or lifelong friends, even if they both genuinely wanted to make the link, their magic wasn’t quite compatible. Not enough for that. A couple pairs of twins came the closest, I think, but all they could really do was boost each other’s power a little, so it was never worth the energy expenditure.”

“Because they weren’t the same,” Sylvie says. She’s pretty sure she can guess where he’s going with this.

“Two variants of the same being—we’re different people, we learned magic differently, we use it in different ways, but it’s still—the root is the same. The energy signature.” He grins. “They did say our temporal aura was the same. They just didn’t realize why it mattered. Or maybe they did, and that’s one reason they made sure only one of us could exist at a time.”

Sylvie is used to drawing power from her core and reaching out with it to take control of other minds. It’s easy enough, most of the time, because she has the process down, but it was exhausting when she was still experimenting—is exhausting, if she spends enough time fighting a strong mind or trying to control too many people at once. She pulls on a tendril of magic and feeds it into the little knot of Loki’s power, and—

It doesn’t disappear. It comes back stronger. In her mind’s eye, their magic glows brighter together, like a fire growing as it finds more to burn. “Okay, yeah, that’s new.”

“The theory was—an exponential increase for both mages. Doubling their power at minimum, like…like two wavelengths amplifying each other, or maybe a lot more than that.” He pushes power into the connection, more than she’d tried, and she can feel it: magnifying her power, which feeds back into his and strengthens it again, which expands hers in return, and they’ve barely even started.

“A lot more,” Sylvie says, staring at him, her mouth suddenly very dry. “Like nuclear fusion levels of a lot.”

His eyes gleam in the dim light. “Exactly. And I think that’s what caused the nexus event. I think our magic would have done it at the last second to save us, and I think we would’ve saved what was left of Lamentis-1 in the process.”

A burst of involuntary magic from both of them at once, at the moment that would otherwise be their deaths, doubling again and again as it passed back and forth between their joined hands—yeah, actually, she can see it. It doesn’t sound so absurd when she can still feel their linked power multiplying right now and they’ve hardly tried. “That’s insane.”

“Goes without saying.”

“We could—” She swallows. “We could do anything.”

“We could do anything,” Loki agrees.

“And do we? Trust each other that much?” she asks, but to be honest she already knows the answer. She reaches back for him, finally, settling her hands on his forearms, and his skin twitches under her fingers—like when she first put her hand on his arm on Lamentis, and he flinched like the last thing he expected was a gentle touch.

Loki’s mouth twists in a faintly sardonic half-smile. “I’m not…good with trust. Gave too much of it for a long time, maybe. And then—” He hesitates. “We might…share some memories, and I haven’t—the TVA knows what happened, I suppose. But there’s a good reason I’ve made sure nobody can get into my head again. You might see why, and it’s…not pretty.”

Okay, yeah, she can imagine a few different reasons for that and none of them are very pleasant. That flinch could hint at an ugly story too. She pulls his hands down, just far enough to interlace her fingers with his, and meets his gaze squarely. “My memories aren’t a laugh riot either. Do you trust me with yours?”

Loki squeezes her hands, just a little. “Yes, actually. You?”

She cocks one eyebrow at him. “Be a little inappropriate to say I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, right?”

He coughs out a laugh. “Maybe a little. So—do you want to try? See what kind of universe-disrupting chaos we can make?”

She tightens her grip. “Yeah. Hell yeah.”

***

[I didn't exactly come up with this idea--I developed more detail about the whole idea of magical amplification, but I know I came across at least one Tumblr post theorizing that Loki and Sylvie were about to do something that would save Lamentis, which was actually caused the nexus event and the TVA's intervention rather than them falling in love or whatever. Unfortunately I'm not actually sure who posted that, and my drafts and likes are already a nightmare, but I will make every effort to find the original post and link to it. I just really wanted to get this posted while, you know, we still can theorize.

Do I think this was actually the intent of the scene? Not really, no, although it sure would've been cool. Is it a little silly to write this when I could potentially find out in just over two hours how wrong I am? Maybe a little bit but on the other hand I finished a short fic and the whole entire point of what I’ve been writing lately is to try to finish some short no-pressure fics without letting them turn into a whole complicated thing in my head, and you know what it fulfills that purpose so I'm cool with it. AO3 link in the notes, just wanted to post it here because it’s short, it’s speculative, and Tumblr hates links.]

#loki #loki show #loki series #loki spoilers #sylvie #marvel cinematic universe #loki speculation #loki meta #my meta #kind of #I expanded on a theory anyway #loki episode 4 #fanfic #occasionally I write things

[minshinxx]

//tw abuse, manipulation

Big huge /roleplay !!!

(Sorry for any grammatical issues and dumb formatting errors. There’s a reason I’m an artist and not a theorist. It’s because I can’t write a good essay or armument to save my life, so bear with me please! This might be a little sloppily written.)

Ok, first off. The abuse and manipulation c!Dream put c!Tommy under is inexcusable and I will in no way invalidate c!Tommy’s mental state after what happened to him. Those streams made me so uncomfortable and upset I ended up skipping a few. C!Tommy’s already shown and will continue to show how c!Dream made him feel helpless and dependable on him and what impact the manipulation had on him. I’m very sorry if I made anyone think that or feel upset! Abuse is a very serious thing and c!Dream definitely cannot be excused for his actions!

I do not excuse anything he did just because I feel like it! I take responsibility for not clearing that up directly, sorry :/

I 100% agree that Dream not showing his pov is probably one of the best decisions made in the whole series! It definitely made me unbelievably curious about his character and motivation and I’m always on the edge of my seat when he makes an appearance on anyone’s stream.

A lot of the following is based off Punz’s last dream smp stream because that is one of the few times we actually get some insight on c!Dream and his motives and character. Also I’m taking a few things from a twt thread by @/dr3amt3am3. I wanna credit her, because it’s a very interesting thread. I am not speaking for her though! I guess this is just my interpretation of her theory.

C!Dream has been from the beginning on all about having a unified server and as he said in the conversation with c!Punz, he thought of them all as a family. Then came around people who destroyed that ideology by splitting from the group and making their own countries and stuff. I think c!Dream does think of everyone on the server as his family and you want the people close to you to get along, right? I think that was always his intentions. But instead of that happening- L’Manburg happened. And then Manburg. And then the Badlands. And then Mexican L’Manburg. I’m not even sure he knows about Dry Waters yet? His plans backfired and the server split up in more and more pieces. I think at this point c!Dream is very desperate because he lost the one thing he always needed. Control. Control over the server and it’s inhabitants. Also I’m not sure, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think c!Dream’s way of operating changed after his deal with c!Schlatt? I don’t want to blame all his wrongdoings on something that has no standing at this point in the story, of course, but I’m way too curious about that book c!Schlatt gave him to not at least mention it.

I wish I could just easily blame Dreamons or possession by a certain ghost, I’m not gonna lie, but that would invalidate literally EVERYTHING that happened story and plot wise. I did want to mention that as well though because this fandom does tend to ship off all the blame on possession, me included :’D

I think c!Dream took a huge step in the wrong direction after the Pogtopia/Manburg war.

My theory is actually that he thinks he HAS to commit to being a villain, as it is the only way to make everyone be unified. That’s why he’s sure he’s gonna be hated by everyone after whatever he’s done. He’s destined to be their ultimate villain and they bond and stay together after it. This sounds farfetched, I agree but this is what my brain latched onto after the information c!Dream dropped on us!

Something even a little more fucked up I’ve read by before was what if c!Dream just ends up putting everyone in the prison to rule over them as one nation? That sounds even more unrealistic but I did want to mention it.

Of couse this depends on whether or not c!Dream actually spoke the truth while talking to Punz. If it turns out he just manipulated Punz too by telling him that my theory is made null and my hope in c!Dream as well.

And yes, you’re right that Dream is well on his way of making c!Dream an inexcusable villain. There’s no doubt. None of my theories are based on c!Dream being a good person. Maybe he had good intentions once (???) but at this point he’s too far gone.

Don’t take this too seriously though, it’s all just some thories I have. I can definitely be swayed on my opinions if anyone thinks I’m 100% in the wrong here and should see it another way!! Please just don’t come and hate me, I get upset very easily :(

I don’t even know if any of this makes sense tbh I think I’ll just go back to drawing after this :’) Writing analysis and theories is really not my thing-

I do have to apologize for not clearing up that I do not excuse any actions of c!Dream though. When I made those posts before, I woke up after sleeping for two hours. I am sleep-deprived 24/7 but today was really bad and I didn’t really think before posting so there came up some weird things that I’m not very proud of, I’m really sorry. This does not excuse my dumb takes but I did want to explain it!

I hope I could at least relay some of my thoughts and I’ll take a break from tumblr today because this took like all my brain capacity available ngl

Have fun discussing my dumb thoughts though!

#mcyt #dream smp #dream smp spoilers #dreamwastaken #c!dream #i hope i apologized correctly #and i hope no one really thinks i excuse abuse in any way #my brain is literally mush right now though #maybe i should actually sleep at least a little more #tw abuse #tw manipulation #long post

[kienava]

~~i stayed up til 4 am and wrote beauyasha and i regret nothing~~

When the Nein return to the tower, Beau finally has a chance to read Yasha's poem.

Awkward conversation ensues in a room full of flowers.

_______

how do i wake my spirit cold? [AO3 link]

It had taken Beau a solid three reads to convince herself that this poem was actually real, not just something that her cold-snapped brain had imagined for a fleeting sense of warmth. She’d gone from staring at the words blankly to reading slowly, scrutinizing the angles of each letter, and on her seventh read she’d discovered that it was impossible to tear her eyes off the piece of parchment in her hands. This was now the eighteenth time in a row she’d scanned over these four lines, though she’d long since memorized their contents. At this point, she was less reading a poem and more gazing at a painting. Its beautiful simplicity hit all at once, like a thin blade between the ribs.

Many months ago, Beau might have guessed that Yasha’s handwriting would resemble her intimidating appearance, or maybe even her fighting style: sharp and strong, rough strokes and firm lines. Now, the slight, slanted script on the page came as no surprise, not when Beau had all but reached out and touched the soft edges hidden under layers of rage and anguish - and shawls. Yasha was big on shawls.

Eventually, Beau knew, she would have to put this piece of paper down and stop reading, but her hands and eyes had yet to consider that idea for themselves.

Her breath stayed steady despite her sparking nerves, years of practice kicking in to steady her. After she folded that piece of parchment up, what could she possibly do? Sleep? Not a gods-damned chance. The tower was safe and still, much unlike the thumping in her chest. As skilled as she’d become at controlling her lungs and diaphragm, the ability to keep her heart calm eluded her.

She knew it was a symptom of something that she’d avoided addressing for as long as possible, a creature that would longer allow itself to be pushed off and locked up. Beau had done her best to drown it alive when she’d learned why Yasha pressed her own heart between the pages of a book to desiccate along with torn petals and broken thorns. Loving dead flowers left little room to tend a new garden.

For all Beau’s attempts to do otherwise, she kept coming back to this, perennially doomed to weather the most apocalyptic storms.

In an effort to inspire some new consideration besides poetry, Beau let the paper flutter onto her desk and took to the fighting post. She’d been curious to see how adaptable the tower’s contents really were, and she’d asked Caleb for a variety of weighted staves to train with in this rendition. She grabbed the heaviest one from its mount on the wall. Maybe if she exhausted herself by whaling on the fighting post, she’d be able to fall asleep sometime in the next several hours.

As soon as she started swinging, it was clear that her plan would be fruitless. Her muscles could go on autopilot and run through routines she knew deep in her bones, and she’d built up too much stamina fighting gnolls and ghosts and undead sea monsters to tire herself to the point of genuine exhaustion.

Despite all of her mediation training, she couldn’t shut her brain off. She’d been in research mode for weeks now, mind racing constantly to piece together theories that somehow sounded less and less wild the more their group trekked on. Even while sparring with this helpless post, she exerted more effort willing herself not to sit back down at her desk and scour between the grains of the paper Yasha had given her for clarity and truth.

She made a last-ditch effort at meditating, sitting in the middle of the room with her legs crossed, counting her inhales and exhales. It was the first technique Dairon had taught her, the simplest form of breathwork. The goal was not to control or influence the breath, but to build awareness of one’s natural pace without judgment. At the time, Beau laughed at the possibility that she could go a second without judging (herself or others). But she'd changed so much since then.

She felt herself smile, recalling a conversation from what felt like ages ago.

Thank you for not judging me, Beau.

Have you seen me? Who am I to fucking judge?

I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you a lot.

Was that it? Was that the moment that the harmless flirting had developed its own sense of gravity? That Beau had suddenly found herself tongue-tied during their most superficial conversations, yet secretly hoping for even the briefest moment alone together?

Without intention, her breath had started to line up with the endearingly crooked meter of the poem repeating infinitely in her mind. She inhaled through one line, then emptied her lungs by the end of the next.

Each time she ran through that short stanza again, more questions frayed out like a string splitting endlessly. None of the answers she sought could be found in the library. She’d only need to go one floor down, not two.

All distractions exhausted, Beau considered knocking on someone else’s door instead of seeking the one stamped with lilacs, but she couldn’t come up with a good reason to do so. Veth and Caleb would be together, huddled in front of a cozy fire and having one of those intense conversations meant only for them. Caduceus usually went to sleep early anyway, and he’d eaten a whopping dinner. No way he’d still be up. Fjord had taken up his own meditation practice, and far be it from Beau to interrupt that. Jester - well, that was just a bad idea. If Beau mentioned the poem (and there was very little chance she’d be able to talk about anything else), Jester might just drag her down to Yasha’s room and throw her through right the door.

If Yasha could be brave, so could Beau. In fights, that was the very thing that pushed her to go as hard as she did. She knew that Yasha would be there to pull her out of a giant lobster claw if her risks didn’t pay off. They had each other's backs, always.

Would that still be the case when neither of them held a weapon in their hands?

Only one way to find out.

Beau opened and closed her own door as quietly as possible. Jester had some kind of sixth sense when it came to Beau’s interactions with Yasha, and Beau really didn’t want to explain anything when she wasn’t even entirely sure what was going on herself. She whispered the command word to the lift and sank slowly to the next floor down. She was careful to keep her knock quiet, though it probably wouldn’t wake Caduceus. No promises that Jester wouldn’t somehow hear it, no matter how thick Caleb claimed the walls were.

There was a long beat before Beau heard footsteps. Her stomach flipped - had she woken Yasha up? Normally she relied on some burst of brash confidence to start a conversation, and it had already taken her nearly an hour to build up the courage to step into the hallway and onto the lift. This was too different from the casual check-ins and mid-battle flirting that had happened more often in recent weeks, and Beau forgot every normal greeting she knew when the lilac-emblazoned door swung open.

She only had one thought: “Yasha.”

“Goodnight, Beau,” Yasha said. Quickly, she added, “Not goodnight like ‘goodbye, you should leave.’ Goodnight as in good morning. Like a greeting, I mean.”

“Ha, yeah. Goodnight, I guess,” Beau replied with a little wave. This was going about as badly as possible. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“No, no, no. I was just - well, I cannot read Zemnian, but those books Caleb gave us have very nice covers.”

“Yeah, they’re cool,” Beau said. She had an opening here. Might as well take it. “Speaking of reading...”

Yasha raised her eyebrows.

Beau tried to swallow the dryness in her mouth. It didn’t work. “I checked out your poem.”

“Oh, you did?” Yasha asked.

“You sound surprised.”

“Maybe a little.”

Beau wasn’t sure where to go with that, and all she could come up with was a stilted laugh.

Yasha joined in with her own quiet chuckle. The way she bit her lip, lost in thought, made it clear that she was just as much at a loss for words.

This was a bad idea. Beau hadn’t been thinking straight, obviously, when she’d come down here with a million questions and no plan for how to ask them.

“Okay,” Beau said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “I guess I’m gonna--”

“Do you want to come in?”

Beau blinked. “What? I mean, sure. Yeah.”

Yasha stepped back from the door to open it wider, and Beau stepped inside the flower-laden room for the first time since Caleb’s magical mansion tour.

The door settled shut behind them, and they were left standing in the middle of the bright, colorful blossoms.

“So,” Yasha started. She didn’t go on.

“Nice plants,” Beau commented, nearly smacking herself across the face for it.

Fortunately, Yasha smiled at that. “Caleb really thought of everything for this place.”

Beau’s mind flashed to the mirror mounted above her bed, and for the first time in many years she had to remind herself to breathe. She was more than getting ahead of herself.

“Anyway,” Yasha said, drawing out the end of the word a little more than normal, “what brings you down to the fifth floor?”

“Ah, just got lost on my way to the kitchen, thought I’d swing by,” Beau tried.

Every time Yasha let out even a small laugh, Beau counted it as a win.

The most concrete question burning in Beau’s skull was rooted in something ugly and frightened. She asked it anyway. “So did Jester put you up to that?”

“It was her idea, yes,” Yasha admitted.

“Oh,” Beau said, not quite catching her voice from cracking.

“I shouldn’t have said that. She only helped because I asked.”

“So it was your idea?”

“Not quite. I don’t think. Not the poem thing, specifically. I told her I wanted to...do something, for you, and that is what she suggested.”

Beau fought against the urge to convince herself that those words could mean anything other than what she wanted to hear. She’d been jumping through flaming mental hoops for weeks, maybe months, trying to talk herself out of this. And then Yasha had the pleasant audacity to write her a poem.

“No one’s ever done that before. For me,” Beau reiterated. She held her hands up. “Hey, I’m no expert, but I thought it was dope.”

“No, you didn’t,” Yasha dismissed.

“No, I did.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

Yasha busied herself by stroking the petal of a nearby flower with her thumb, a small smile creeping in.

“Why’d you write it?” Beau asked. 

Yasha’s fingers stilled. Her gaze stayed fixed on the flower in her hand, and her slight smile grew.

“Do you have a favorite flower, Beau?”

There was the answer Beau wanted to give, and then there was the truth. In the dense quiet, the latter won out. “Not really. Kinda wish I did. Do you?”

“I think...” Yasha gently plucked the flower from its stem. “I think they are all my favorite.”

“Really?”

Yasha nodded, cradling the flower in her palm.

It was, quite possibly, the happiest Beau had ever seen her. She suddenly wished that she knew the name of this plant, of every plant in the room. If something could bring Yasha such tranquil joy, it was worth knowing. 

“The ones in this room are from all over. I’ve never even heard of some of them,” Yasha said.

“Caleb probably read about a thousand botany books just for this.”

“Probably,” Yasha laughed.

“Come on. You’ve gotta have a favorite,” Beau pushed, in the back of her mind hoping that she could use the information for future reference.

Yasha shook her head. “My book...I was keeping it for Zuala at first, but I think I am also keeping it for myself now. I want to remember the places that I’ve been and the things that happened there. Because those things have brought me here, and I am very happy about that, even if some of what happened was...not so happy. I would not be here, with all of you, without every single one of those flowers.” 

She held her hand out, presenting the plucked flower. Beau stared at the five long, carefree, white petals, tinged with a sunshiny yellow at the tips. Slowly, she reached out and was surprised to find the petals were rich and soft like velvet. She couldn’t recall ever seeing it before - maybe it was from Xhorhas.

“And,” Yasha met Beau’s eyes, “finding new favorite flowers to add to my book does not mean I forget the old ones.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Beau agreed.

“This one reminds me a lot of you, actually,” Yasha said, almost whispering to herself. 

Beau felt her heart skip. She’d never been given a poem before, and she’d certainly been compared to something so delicate and precious. She wracked her brain for something witty to say, but she’d never been very good at that around Yasha. “It does?” she choked out.

“It grows in the desert,” Yasha explained. “It's very stubborn and strong. We called it Sunsbane. Even with very little water, it survives the hottest days. The buds stay closed for many years, but the plant stays strong. The roots grow deeper than you’d ever guess just from looking at it above the surface. It can take a long time, but when the nights get cool enough, the flowers finally bloom.” She paused, sweeping her hair behind her ear. “You probably didn’t come here to hear so much about plants, though.”

Beau could very well have been in the desert herself at the moment - her mouth went dry again, and she felt like it was about a thousand degrees in that room.

Untrusting of her own ability to form words after that, she lifted the flower from Yasha’s hand, then reached up and tucked its short stem back where Yasha had fixed her hair.

“Hey,” Beau managed.

“Mhm?”

“You can tell me about plants anytime, alright?”

“Alright,” Yasha returned. “Okay.”

Beau retreated a step, realizing how close they’d been standing. “White’s kinda more your color, though. Plus, the yellow really...your eyes, it - works. Looks nice. Um, goodnight.”

There was a strange look on Yasha’s face, like she was thinking too hard.

“What?” Beau risked asking.

“Just that...I didn’t answer your question yet. About the poem.”

“Oh. Yeah. It’s cool, honestly--”

“Beau.” Yasha said her name so softly that Beau had no choice but to stop protesting.

Yasha took the flower from behind her ear and clutched it to her chest. “You should know that I like this flower very much.”

So much of Beau’s old self - the person who’d just tried to leave again - wanted to bolt for the door, but her new self locked down and stood her ground. Inhale, exhale. “I think it likes you, too,” she said weakly.

Yasha waved her hand, still holding onto the flower. “Jester said some things, and I - well, I don’t know. I didn’t think I should hear them from someone else in case they weren’t true or--”

“They are,” Beau jumped in. “I don’t know what she said, exactly, but I can guess.”

“How do you mean?”

“Like I tried not to for a while. And then that became more impossible than it already was. Just like Sunsbane, I guess. Deep roots, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Yasha said suddenly. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Not that I - I wasn’t expecting anything. You’ve surprised me in a lot of ways, is all.”

Beau couldn’t handle the guilt on Yasha’s face. It wasn’t her fault, everything that had happened to her, to them. Beau would’ve waited a thousand days in the desert if it meant letting Yasha heal and find herself.

The gap between them had shrunk again, somehow, but it was more unbearable than ever. It felt like every time they got closer by half, always lessening the space but never quite meeting. But Beau was very good at breaking things, and, for once, she could break something for good. Her palm met Yasha’s cheek, fingertips curling around a small braid hanging loosely.

“You said those flowers are pretty damn patient, right?” Beau said.

Yasha nodded almost imperceptibly, like she was afraid Beau’s hand would pull back.

“Then I think you have nothing to apologize for.”

“Still.”

“Well,” with much less confidence than she’d hoped for, Beau asked, “you gonna kiss me or what?”

Yasha’s eyes closed for a moment, her expression neutral save for the slight crease between her brows and the subtle part of her lips. When her eyes opened again, her gaze was angled down slightly, plotting a trajectory that Beau had hardly dared to dream of.

“You’re sure?” Yasha said softly.

Beau’s answer was no more than a breath of a laugh.

Yasha went on. “I just want to make sure that you are sure. I’m very sure, at this point, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be--”

Beau cut her off as gently as possible.

For a moment, Beau’s mind went blissfully blank.

Then it hit her. She was kissing Yasha.

It started soft - not tentative, but quiet.

And then, miracle of miracles, Yasha was kissing her back, and she was much less patient. She was lightning and thunder striking at once, a storm raw and deafening in its power. Beau wondered when her knees would give out under the sheer weight of it - until solid arms circled around her waist and pulled her in.

Desperate to hold onto something, Beau’s fingers wound into Yasha’s hair. Her other hand was trapped just below Yasha’s collarbone, grasping tighter until blunt nails scraped past a cloth edge and found skin.

Maybe Beau did have a favorite flower, after all.

***

#beauyasha #beauyasha fic #beauyasha fluff #i haven't really written for them but i decided to fix that #my writing

[davidmann95]

So... Crossover #1: any thoughts?

Anonymous said: You seemed not to think much of Crossover #1 on Twitter. Your full thoughts?

wcwit said: So Cates' Crossover #1, best bad comic of the year or just regular pretentious trash?

An incidental note upfront: What you’re seeing there is the apparently SUPER-RARE SECRET VARIANT COVER I unwittingly picked up at the store - at first glance indistinguishable from the standard cover, the kid getting four-color-fucked by mysterious comic book rays is in fact themselves reading a variant cover of the book, rather than the main cover again in an infinite painting-within-a-painting sort of deal that’s the standard.

So I wasn’t gonna get this: my initial post on the comic and what an obviously awful idea it was back when we only knew half the premise and it was known as Pray The Capes Away actually got some out-of-nowhere traction recently, and I’ve grown rapidly tired of Cates’ Marvel work. Even learning that it was going to be Image’s biggest debut in decades - Jesus fuck, how and why - mostly just made me wish it was Commanders in Crisis getting those kinds of numbers. But Sean Dillon/@deathchrist2000 and Ritesh Babu both got early looks at it and assured me that I, specifically, needed to see the last page, so in I dove. I’ll be posting my reaction to the last page below because I recorded it for their amusement, and below that I’ll talk about said last page. It may surprise you, however, that that wasn’t my main takeaway from the issue.

Let’s accentuate the positive first! This book is gorgeous. Geoff Shaw was terrific back with Thanos Wins, but this is an incredible stylistic level-up aided and abetted by Dee Cunniffe’s colors: it’s rote as hell to say “They mix the elevated and the mundane so well!”, but even beyond the obvious ben-day dots stuff there’s such a tangible sense that the comic book beings don’t belong here, that they’re of higher, misty, platonic stuff and we squishy non-paper-people inevitably crumble and break and bleed in their wake, communicating that big idea so much more powerfully than the actual loads of text on the subject. And if we’re talking good things, I’ll concede it’s possible that there could be subtleties that play out in more interesting ways as it goes on, and that not everything is meant to be taken at face value: a smart friend who actually did like it mentioned being interested in it as clumsy but potentially effective exploration of ‘what if the fun hobby you had inadvertently became contaminated and stigmatized by forces beyond your control?’ In a post-Comicsgate world where we recently ended up inches away from the Superman logo almost certainly becoming a fascist propaganda symbol ala the Punisher skull for at least a generation, that’s a defensible lens to view this book through.

For all Donny Cates’ legitimate talents however, I don’t think an expectation of subtlety is gonna work out with this one.

Okay first off getting into the rest of it the main characters’ name is Ellipsis because “Those three little dots...they can become anything”, so there’s that. More importantly, in the world of this story where comic fans face social oppression after superpeople materialize and fuck up Colorado, they face EVERY KIND OF OPPRESSION: there are clear parallels drawn in here to the violence and harassment faced by people persecuted for their religion, people seeking abortions, queer people, and people of color; this motherfucker even drops a “hates and fears” to let us know comic collecting basically makes you one of the goddamn X-Men. Which in theory could be a purely misjudged allegory rather than stemming from actual, obscenely inflated to the point of disgusting fears of ‘nerd oppression’, except that the book literally opens with a quote from Wertham. If Cates didn’t want to make the message “Hating comics? That’s bad. Like, racism bad”, he utterly, grotesquely failed by inextricably intermingling imagery of real-world bigotry with systemic, deluded fanboy paranoia, at least as of this first issue that’s supposed to meaningfully convey the premise. As a queer dude I think I’m somewhat in my lane to say it’s too blunt and broad and dopey to be particularly offensive, but the co-opting of oppression is what this is rooted in.

The idea of ‘comics good no matter what people think, ain’t it?’ extends to the last traditional local comic store standing in this world: much as superheroes are the primary cause of suffering in this world but the point of the story is still supposed to reveal the beauty in them, part of this is that the comics community isn’t perfect but it sure is great. Which is expressed here via Ellie’s boss Otto, a loveable asshole who yells at people coming in trying to sell the wrong kind of comics to fuck off, but at heart is we’re supposed to understand a good enough dude that the shop he runs is “the only home a lot of (the benighted nerds) have left” (because I guess in this alternate universe the physical stores are still the main hub through which comics fans talk with one another?).

So here’s a story of my very own! That’s me in 2013, it must’ve been some kind of special day because I’m wearing a shirt with a button. I’d at that point only frequented one of what would be my thus far four regular comic shops. The first was a great place, and while to say I had a sense of community there would be overstating it a bit, I was on really good terms with the owner and we regularly chatted when we had the time. When I left for college my store there wasn’t as well-stocked, and for some damn reason all variant covers were double-price, but I got along really well with the owner there too. The third I wasn’t so lucky; the guy regularly behind the desk was never overtly hostile, but clearly wanted to wring my neck every time I asked when a missing comic might get in or if I could update my pull list, and given I’m in the ‘ideal’ demographic for being a comic book store regular and was dropping a solid lump of money there every week, I wonder how others were treated there (the store nearly went under, was saved on the last day of operation by another store that wanted to incorporate it as part of its franchise, then shortly afterwards DID go under and is now I believe a beef jerky place). My current store is fine, I didn’t chat much with the folks behind the counter even before we all had medical incentive to get in and out of places fairly quickly but it almost always has what I’m looking for.

Just because those were my regular stores of course doesn’t mean those are the only ones I’ve ever gone to. About a year before that picture was taken - it’s the closest I could find - when I was 17 my store didn’t have something or another I was looking for, so I head across town to see if another place I had looked up had it. This other place didn’t have what I was looking for either, though I distinctly remember picking up a few issues of Hickman’s FF while I was there since I had foolishly fallen off, hence my remembering the year. I bought a couple issues, but hung around for a bit looking to see if I might grab something else out of a dollar box, setting my comics down. Without realizing it, I’d set my books down on top of another issue, and when I decided I wasn’t getting anything else, I just picked that up along with the rest of the pile and was about to walk out before the owner stopped me. He explained what I had done though assumed it had been deliberate, and because I was a good-hearted little geek I even recall thinking “Well, he’s gonna chew me out, but I guess I deserve it. I’ll try and take this to heart as a learning experience.”

Then he pulled up his shirt a little to show me the gun on his belt. He pointed at the security camera monitors at his desk, and explained to me that if I ever did something like that again, he would have it on tape, and he would pull that gun on me and hold me there while he called the cops.

As it turned out, the comic was free.

The whole thing was so sudden and bizarre and unexpected I didn’t actually freak out until the drive home. It wasn’t until weeks or maybe months later that I managed to tell my dad about the experience, because I *had* nearly stolen a (free) comic and my guilt was mixed in with my nerves and I guess I was somehow too close to register just how disproportionate his response was. It wasn’t until now, nearly a decade later and thinking about it for the first time in a long time as I write this, that I wondered if that might have gone differently - especially living in the midwest - if I hadn’t been a white, squeaky-voiced 17-year-old.

So, minor spoiler, when our cantankerous but well-meaning LCS owner yells to call the cops and grabs and yells at a small kid for pocketing a comic (and later displays fantasy racism towards said kid), I am not filled with nostalgic love for the brotherly safe space that is comic book stores, where this guy while not meant to be seen as perfect is still framed in part as a charming, witty representation of Why We Love These Places, And This Community, And This Genre, And This Medium. Cates is clearly drawing on real time at his local stores, but he equally clearly has a very different takeaway from those experiences than me. And I am, again, in a demographic - white, cis-male, abled, bi but more interested in women, disposable income, a lifelong collector - that the industry and a lot of the guys who sell it to us contort themselves around catering to, even if I had a single very negative experience and later an ongoing low-key uncomfortable one to help disabuse me of any notions of the purity of the dork community. In the world of Crossover as of #1, toxicity is intertwined, deliberately or not on the part of the creators, with what we love on the cosmic and small business scales alike, but at least in the latter case it’s the whole picture that’s beautiful, not any single kernel that needs to be worked on to be dug up.

So underneath is my video reaction to the last page of Crossover #1. Very minor spoilers because I mutter the last two words of the comic to myself, but under the video I discuss said final page and some other scattered thoughts. Whether you read that or not, my takeaway is this: I’m fascinated with wherever the hell this thing is going, I’m glad my dad liked it well enough to want to keep getting it because now I’ll get to see where it heads, but my first impression is that this is at heart meant as cheapass Oscar-bait for people who only read Batman. It’s big and high-concept but also small and intimate! It’s meta and about how great you, the reader are for your consumption, especially the consumption of this! It’s going to be in large part about a forbidden love between a couple divided across impermeable social lines (a couple where they’re a seemingly straight white man and woman, but one likes comics)! Maybe it’ll become Not That, and I’m sure it’ll do at least something interesting along the way because Cates has done good stuff before and there are some inherently interesting big ideas for him to play with here, but for the love of god if you’re thinking about getting this buy Commanders in Crisis too or instead, it’s another new book out of Image about superheroes dealing with the collapse of the multiverse but that one is really fucking good.

So the final page splash reveal is that when the comic book child discovered in here got out of Colorado, which has had an impenetrable energy shield erected around it by one of the heroes for years, she and others were ferried out of there...by Superman, as the narration declares that “This is a story...about hope.” They don’t say the word, but she sketches her savior, Ellie and Otto freak out and go “Is that---” when they see it, and on that last page we see that while a crude drawing it isn’t a rough analogue character, it’s a guy with a cape and trunks with an S on his chest. Surprisingly, I don’t have much to say: it’s just another blunt signifier that superheroes rule and are the best, paired with the most utterly devalued notion as of late of what makes Superman special in ‘hope’. I mean, I’m perversely excited to see whether this is building the entire series on a hook it can never deliver on, or if Cates actually has talked DC into an intercompany crossover; believable given they’ve done a bunch of those over the last several years, and why else would Mark Waid be supervising as ‘story editor’ on this? I guess it’ll shake out one way or another with #6 given Cates has said it “has one of the more epic and — I would argue historic — sequences in comic book history in it.” But I’m far less convinced this is gonna truly go into the meaty question of “What does Superman mean and what makes him unique in this world where superheroes in general are indisputably either failures or monstrous bastards given the scale of destruction their presence has brought about, and he himself failed to stop that?” than as some kind of holy grail of how great superheroes are despite how dang violent they’ve gotten these days for the crew to chase after, whatever additional twist will surely be placed upon it. At least he’s kinda helping an immigrant kid get over a wall, if that’s deliberate?

Random final thoughts:

* If I wrote the opening essay and turned it in in a college course, I would be expelled for plagiarizing Grant Morrison. This is not a joke.

* If mainstream American superhero comics ended January 2017 in this universe, its own last ‘crossover’ was Civil War II, which is hilarious.

* God, please tell me if it takes the dive after all that this isn’t somehow tied into whatever Waid’s Superman project is.

* I wouldn’t normally crap on issues with the finer details of worldbuilding, but A. This is rooted in a nominally ‘real’ world playing by recognizable rules, B. I’m ragging on this anyway so what’s the harm, and C. It’s really obvious. So: Why is one of the racists against the superheroes the guy who loves superheroes so much he’s the last holdout in the entire world still selling comic books about them? How does this modestly-sized shop exist long-term with apparently a significant regular customer base if there are no new comics or even reprints to restock with, ever? Who’s buying the serialized cop/cowboy comics that the U.S. government apparently created pretty much overnight (nobody, it’s just another Wertham dig)?

* The solicit for issue #3 proclaims “Don't miss this one, folks. If you do, it just might drive you...mad.”, so now I fear some kind of Ultra Comics riff.

* “Kids love chains” is the most metal-ass quote of all time and I hate that it’s being wasted as an arc title on this book.

#Donny Cates #Geoff Shaw #Dee Cunniffe #John J. Hill #Mark Waid #Me #Superman #Opinion

[chessdaze]

Since I outed myself with an ask to phoenix about an event I’ll go ahead and post something about my schedule for three wishes here. I won’t put this under read more just for visibility, so sorry ahead of time for clogging your dashes.

As a note ahead of time THESE ARE ALL SUBJECT TO CHANGE, I DO NOT GIVE ANY DATES CAUSE I’M NOT PUTTING MYSELF ON A DEADLINE. I’m doing this for my own enjoyment and hopefully, others as well but please don’t rush me. I’m sharing this just to be open about my plans and what I’m working on, and perhaps for the motivations / reminders it’ll give me - not to give anyone a reason to come at me. Okay? Okay.

Not counting small comics or misc posts of art and info or fics:

First order of business is for me to finish drawing all of Silas’ outfits and Design the Enchantress. I have Silas almost completely done sketch wise, so I’ll work on the sketches of the Enchantress next and then line/color and post those. I might also do some side character designs as I have a few that might show up here and there (but they’ll just be like the ghosts in canon, occasionally there and then you don’t see them for fucking ever). I WOULD do outfit design sheets for EVERY character BUT....that would be a lot of work. I might end up just making polls like ‘who would you like to see outfit references for’ and then work on them at my own pace. That way you guys get what you want first and I still have fun designing everyone’s outfits regardless.

Second order of business is my event I mentioned in the ask to phoenix, BATTLE OF THE BANDS! I accidentally went full game dev on the documentation (because if I’m not gonna use all that documentation homework I did for that game art degree NOW then when am I going to??), but I’m actually pretty far along planning wise since I’ve been working on it when I needed break from art things. Right now I have about half of the main story of the event outlined. My order of doing things is Summary of Story > Outline of items / mini games > Figure out what characters were going to be in the event > Main story outline > Card Story outlines > Finalized story and Card Stories > Art Assets. So it might take awhile before I post any art for it. But if people show interest in me posting some of the in progress things feel free to send me an ask every now and then and I can update you! Because of the ask and permission given, Evonie from @phoenix-manga ‘s Diamond Crown Academy will make an appearance in the event, as well as Three Wishes OCs made by @tsukikoayanosuke (Bridgette) and @missnekonyan (Donelle) as the clubs their characters are involved with the event overall. I’m really excited I got permission from all of them to be able to reference their characters! They won’t be big rolls but I’m happy to give all of these creators spotlight by adding in their characters.

Third thing, Regular Card Stories and Art for Cards! I am already making documentation to have these noted down, Will probably do them one dorm at a time but I do have a few ideas already. I will say that my R-SSR order of the cards is a bit different from canon. R’s are School Uniforms and PE outfits (will be slightly different depending on which PE course is taken by the student, since there’s three at three wishes), SRs  are Dorm Outfits and Fundraising outfits - as Dorm outfits are different per person i didn’t think they were special enough for SSRs but still worth some highlight, and Fundraising / Volunteering is a mandatory class at Three Wishes so that gets another SR spot. Then lastly their SSRs are their Ceremony outfits. These are also different per character but they will all have a matching color scheme so that’s why i wanted these to be the SSRs.  I also already have like four future events planned and which characters will be getting cards / what rank the cards will be for those characters! None of these events have any kind of outline yet, only general concepts and characters possibly involved, so the characters may change but I have them written down so I don’t forget and I can add to the event outlines as I find inspiration.

Maybe the fourth thing is actually designing the dang school. I SUCK at environment art, I’m not going to lie. It’s why alot of my comics up until this point has had minimal or no backgrounds at all. But one of the reasons why I’m drawing comics is to maybe get better at backgrounds cause I’m already sick of them not having one so progress I guess. But this is why this is kind of last on my list, as I definitely need the practice. If there’s a dorm or location I have listed that you would like to see art for or just described in better detail, Feel free to send me an ask!

And the thing I’m kind of working on while all of that is going on is of course, the Main Story Outline! I have all the chapter names picked and I have at least the Prologue - Second chapter bullet pointed as a first draft - I already know some places I wanna go back and change things but for now I’m just trying to get the general ideas for each chapter down. As of now there are eight chapters in total - including the prologue and the finale, so six major story chapters over all.  I’m still not sure how I want to tell this story in all honestly. Part of me REALLY REALLY REALLY wants to make these full blown comics in all honesty. I’ve been wanting to draw actual comics since I was a kid and I’m closer now than I ever have been to being able to do so. But I also know how much of a time sync that is and know that I haven’t quite grasped all the shading tools in CSP to really give it the effect I want to have - which is one of the reasons I’m working on the mini comic pages here and there so I can slowly improve - but I can’t promise anything. If nothing else, I’m semi confident in my writing skills so I will maybe end up writing it out.

As a treat TM, I’ll list the chapter titles I have down below. THESE ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE, but I am pretty happy with them right now - they’ll only likely change if I end up changing my entire idea for the chapter or changing the order of chapters. Anyone care to give me some theories on what you think each chapter is about? :thinking:

Prologue: the start of an actor's life Chapter one, Nightingale: by the stroke of midnight Chapter two,wondrous: a queen among thieves Chapter three, diamanttobar: the wishing well Chapter four, guardian: a dragons curse Chapter five, lapinhole: tipping the golden scale Chapter six, servireu: the guest has arrived Finale: when the last petal falls

If you read this far, thank you so much and I hope you look forward to more three wishes content! <3

Also I ask that this post isn’t reblogged, not gonna come at you if you do but it’s just a to do list really lol idk why anyone would want to reblog it.

#three wishes institute #twst fanschool #twisted wonderland fanschool #twst #twisted wonderland #schedule of project #kind of #just really a long winded to do list lmao

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Riverdale 5x09 Review

Well I didn’t hate this episode like I hated the last one but I wasn’t exactly blown away by it either. It wasn’t a bad episode but I think my issue with it is if you dropped it into the middles of season 3 or 4 it would have fit in. It was fine it was just nothing new which you know doesn’t exactly make me excited to watch more. It was definitely one of those episodes where I either found myself checking to see how long was left or was rolling my eyes at something. Still there were moments I enjoyed. But without further ado lets jump in. As always these are just my own opinions and interpretation also there are clearly spoilers. 

 Betty and Polly

So a good chunk of this episode was following Betty as she continued to investigate what happened to Polly after finding the crushed telephone booth. Betty hears back from Glen and is told that the blood found on the booth is a match to Polly’s so with the amount of blood that is there it is likely she is dead. When she tells Jughead he tells her that he might have a lead, someone who might have seen something. So they go to see My Dreyfuss. He tells them on two other occasions a phone booth has been shredded like it was with Polly, in the summer of 77 and 82. He explains that its caused by the Mothmen ship’s antimatter fusion reactors which create a gravity field that allows them to levitate but anything that gets caught in that field gets crushed. Which you know sounds legit to me. Though I will say I did think the look Betty sent Jughead when Old Dreyfuss started talking about the Mothmen was hilarious. Needless to say Betty wasn’t exactly sold on this version of events. Which again I found kind of funny considering she hunted down something called The Gargoyle King in high school but apparently aliens are even too weird for Betty. 

I am not at all surprised that Polly’s storyline is linking up with the Mothmen one, I’ve been saying for a while now that I thought all the storylines would converge at some point and I expected that Jughead’s and Betty’s would be the first to do that. My theory is that the Mothmen mystery is to do with military testing and that will tie in Archie as well, I also think as the Mothmen body Nana Rose had was found in the maple groves, and Hiram has an interest in the maple groves, that Hiram’s storyline will also be linked in, which will also link in Veronica and the other characters who are going up against Hiram to save the town. I did wonder if maybe its not really Hiram that wants Riverdale to be shut down but rather some rogue section of the military who want to cover up the testing they’ve been doing and that’s why Hiram unincorporated the town, maybe the military are paying him to help them. 

So in her grief at what has presumably happened to Polly has sent Betty off the deep end. Now here’s the thing with this I appreciate that not every character’s development goes in a straight line. That’s what makes a character’s storyline interesting. There are twists and turns and they have set backs. That being said this return to dark betty didn’t really work for me. I mean I can understand that she is grieving for her sister, she’s going through trauma because of TBK and all that is making her turn back to her dark side. But for me I thought they wrote a good end to that whole storyline with her going under the hypnosis and kind of telling her younger self she could go play, and basically ‘killing’ dark betty before she is ever born. I liked how, well how I thought they had brought a close to that part of Betty’s character development. I honestly thought we were done with ‘dark betty’. But I guess not. I suppose we see where they take it maybe it will be well written but I’ll be honest it did kind of make me roll my eyes a bit in this episode, I just feel like it was a bit too on the nose and predictable especially after her speech last episode to Archie about how this thing with her sister would probably be the darkest she’d ever have to face. I said to myself then watch them bring back dark betty, so when they did I was just kind of like of course they are going there again. I think that was the issue was it is just more of the same stuff which I just find boring. 

There was one thing that I did find a little interesting though and that was the way she was thinking in that moment. The idea that the person in front of her was a horrible person who had hurt someone she loved and so deserved to have justice brought to him in the form of death. Sound familiar? Because it should, its exactly the same way Charles thinks. I do wonder if that was deliberate and we were suppose to draw a comparison between Betty and Charles there. 

I think in that moment when she is about to kill the trucker, Jughead’s call telling her that Logan had gone missing reminded her of why she was an FBI agent, to protect people and I think that kind of snaps her out of it. In that moment she could have killed that man or she could go and find the missing child who really needed her and who needed protection which is what she was saying earlier in the episode, that she wouldn’t let what happened to Polly happen to anyone else. At first she decided the best way to stop anyone else from getting hurt is by going after the truckers and stopping the women who are tricking there. But her method has flaws in it and I think getting that phone call reminds her that its not as black and white as she was looking at it.   

So poor Alice, I felt really bad for her in this episode she does seem like she was very much giving up hope. I mean Alice has been put through the wringer so I don’t really blame Betty for lying about it being a match to Polly’s blood I mean it wasn’t advisable because the truth was going to come out eventually but I could understand why Betty did it, she just couldn’t bear to take away the little hope that her mother had left. I am glad that Betty turned to Cheryl for this. I said that I thought if it came out that Polly had been killed then I thought Cheryl would be the best person to help Betty through that. You know different people can help with different things and like I keep saying how I really do think Archie will be the best person to help Betty through the TBK trauma I do think that Cheryl was the best person to help Betty here. She gave her some good advice even if Betty didn’t follow it. I think it was important what Cheryl said about how it is best to know the truth because then that allows you to grieve and heal and move on. I also loved that hug Cheryl gave Betty. If anyone needs a hug right now its Betty. Also I do like when they show Betty and Cheryl actually acting like family. 

So lastly I want to cover Glen. I’ll be honest Glen and Betty’s relationship confuses me. Because in the first episode of the time jump they seemed to have something going on between them in that they kissed. But I said then that it didn’t seem like Betty was that interested in him. But since then it seems like she just doesn’t like him at all. I could understand why she was angry in this episode when he says he’s sorry about Polly and she says that if he cared that he would have done something to help. I know Riverdale are trying to paint Glen as this bad person, like how he shows up at the end and tells Alice about the blood and takes over the case. I just know that they are trying to do this because they either want Glen to seem suspicious or they are actually going to go the route of he is evil and somehow involved in it all. What I will say to that is oh for the love of god please no, not this crap again. I just if they make another FBI agent a killer in this series I just no. Can we not keep rehashing the same damn storylines over and over. Can we please introduce a character to the show and not have them turn out to be some psycho because its just boring now. Also like I said I know they are trying to paint Glen as being the bad guy here, but it makes perfect sense for them to take Betty off this case. For one she is still a trainee who is severely traumatised by her capture by a serial killer. On top of that this case involves her family member, there is a reason why irl certain professions don’t allow you to work on cases involving your family members and that scene where Betty had tied the trucker up was seriously considering killing him is why. Firefighter, police, doctors, paramedics and I am going to assume FBI agents aren’t allowed to work on cases of a personal nature for that very reason, they are too invested and that clouds their judgement. Glen should have taken Betty off the case when Polly first went missing, or rather Betty should never have been on the case at all. Also the other question I have is if Glen is here who the hell is feeding Toffee? He better have brought that cat with him. When I made my prediction post for episode 10 I hadn’t seen the episode and so was very confused at the opening shot of the promo where Betty is slapping Glen squarely across the face but I am going to assume it has something to do with this situation. Or maybe he tries to make a move on her and she isn’t down for it? Or another situation is he could find out about her and Archie’s arrangement and make an unfavourable comment about Betty which she decided to set him straight about? Either way there is most certainly going to be some tension between Glen and Betty next episode. What I do find interesting is that apparently the only actors Glen’s actor is following are Lili, KJ, Hart and Wyatt so I am assuming that he has scenes with Archie, Charles and Chic. I do wonder if instead of having Glen turn out to be bad they just have either Charles or Chic kill him. 

To be honest I am still in two minds as to whether Polly is actually dead. On one hand that was a lot of blood on that phone booth and we do know that she was in that phone booth and someone was coming for her. On the other it seemed like they were being very careful to say it was the same blood type as Polly’s and not that it was Polly’s so there is that uncertainty. I mean if they have the blood surely they would be able to DNA match it not just go off the blood type? 

Jughead and Lerman. 

Ok so I’m not hundred percent sure what the point of this storyline was, I feel like its just another piece of the puzzle and we won’t really know the significance of it until the rest of the mystery is revealed. But what did annoy me was the fact that Jughead was reprimanded for talking to his student who he was worried about. I mean when the parents were like oh if you were worried something was wrong at home then why didn’t you come talk to us instead of ambushing our son. I mean the answer to that is obvious if the parents were mistreating their son then talking to them isn’t going to do any good because the parents would just lie. Even if they aren’t really doing anything wrong like these parents they might be wary about telling the truth out of fear of being judged, I mean they didn’t offer up that information about Lerman sleep walking until he went missing, so I think talking to his student was exactly the right thing for Jughead to do. Also since when was there another English class, I mean I thought the school was struggling with staff and that's why they needed the core four to become teachers? 

It does seem like something odd happened with Lerman with him going missing and then not being able to remember anything. What is very odd is that you’ve got two sets of missing people. You’ve got the women who keep showing up dead usually with some catastrophic injuries. Then you’ve got the men who disappear for hours at a time but then return but have no memories of where they’ve been. Yet all of it seems to be connected so the question is why are the women dying but the men are surviving? It because physically the men are able to take whatever the testing is but the women can’t and so their bodies end up with these terrible injuries. Or is it that whatever they use to wipe the memories of their test subjects doesn’t work on the women so they are forced to kill them after? I mean physiologically women and men are different so maybe the difference in the hormones or something is what’s causing this difference in outcome between women and men. 

By the end of the episode Lerman and his parents have moved out of town and haven’t left any forwarding details. This does seem a little weird but I guess maybe the parents are worried about what will happen to their son if they don’t get him out of there. 

Veronica, Archie and The Bulldogs.  

Ok I know I said I wasn’t a v*rchie shipper and that as a barchie I didn’t want to see any of that, but Riverdale you didn’t have to stick them in the darkest room ever to have them kiss. Like I know that Riverdale is known for bad lighting but that one scene between them was even more ridiculous than normal. Look if you like V*rchie then that’s all good, there were some scenes that I think were probably enjoyable for you and I am happy for the V*rchie shippers. For me though I don’t know if its just because I’ve seen so much of them at this point that its made my mind go numb to them but I just found their scenes boring. I was actually surprised they didn’t talk more, especially seeing as they’ve just got back together, she’s going through a divorce, but none of that was brought up. Their scenes seemed to be really short and not much happened in them, it was just a couple of kiss scenes and then one bed scene were Veronica says oh I have a plan and then that was kind of it. I thought they’d at least have a scene where they say something like ‘I’m so happy we got back together’ or ‘I’ve filed the divorce paper’s I just have to wait for Chad to sign them’. Just anything to get that continuity, but nope nothing.    

To be honest I really wasn’t that fussed about the football storyline. I did find it kind of funny that when presented with the problem of the team losing every game Veronica’s solution was to just throw money at it, like somehow that would magically make them better players. That being said there were some elements of it that I did enjoy. I loved Archie making that speech to encourage people to support their team. It is true that having a crowd behind you and supporting you makes a difference in sports so I liked that they put some attention on that. I also love Britta and I am so happy she was the one that scored. The other thing I liked was that when the kid who was like their star player, Derek transferred to Stonewell there wasn’t any tension between him and his old team. Like I think Hiram was expecting there to be but instead when they met on the pitch he and Britta were really respectful and just fist bumped and got on with the game and I loved that. Also after, he came and spoke to Archie and again he recognised that Archie had taught him something valuable that he was going to keep with him. Again it was very respectful and supportive. Both Archie and the team recognised that it wasn’t personal, it was just that Derek knew he had a better shot at going to college with a football scholarship if he was playing with the Stallions. 

Speaking of things that I liked, lets give a hand for Reggie. I have so much respect for the fact that when Hiram was saying he wanted Reggie to basically beat up some of the Bulldog players, Reggie refused and said it wasn’t necessary. Then when Hiram fired or ‘benched’ him as Hiram put it Reggie still didn’t back down and even said that he would be standing with the Bulldogs. Also it was good to see him back in that Bulldog jacket and even though it was a very small scene I loved the three way hug between Veronica, Reggie and Tabitha. 

Ok the other thing we had was that part of the plan to raise the teams spirits was to fill the stands, which you know makes sense, like I said I do think having a crowd supporting you makes all the difference. Cheryl decides that one thing that will fill the stands isn’t just a Vixen’s performance but one that includes her. Now me personally I don’t think she’s wrong, like if I heard that the new Vixen coach who was the town recluse and had spend the last seven years holed up in her gothic mansion of horrors was going to be putting on a performance with her Vixens, I am there, front row baby. This I want to see, at best it might actually be good and at worst it’ll be a cringefest but either way it’ll be entertaining as hell. I just think that scene with Cheryl performing was peak Riverdaleness. I know alot of people complain about those kinds of scenes but me personally I think they’re part of what makes Riverdale, well Riverdale. So I just choose to embrace the Riverdaleness of it all.   

Overall I think the issue with this whole football storyline is it is once again the same thing we’ve been seeing for the last four seasons. It’s Veronica and Archie vs Hiram and that’s just nothing interesting about that anymore. 

Kevin

So Kevin got his own storyline this episode and we got a little background story on him. I’m a bit conflicted about his storyline and this idea that he is ashamed of being gay because I never really got that sense before. To be honest I always thought he was proud and confident of being gay. However I could see him having this experience with his mother where he feels ashamed of being gay when she makes a insensitive comment and then him getting into the whole cruising in the woods as a coping mechanism. It also explains why he still continued with the cruising when the Black hood was around. But then if I remember rightly he did stop for a bit. So maybe he started to heal a bit and become more confident and then that incident with the director from Katy Keene happened and that made him feel ashamed again and brought all that back up again and Fangs was away alot Trucking so he asks for a open relationship so that he can turn back to that old coping mechanism of cruising. That would make sense to me but they don’t really touch on that trauma he experienced in New York with the director in this episode. 

Cheryl acting as a relationship councillor was sort of amusing. I mean it was sweet that she wanted to fix Kangs, I think she recognised that what she did was wrong and so she wanted to help mend it. But like Fangs said the games Cheryl played just brought up deeper issues that were already there. I feel so sad for both of them. I mean Kevin is clearly struggling but I really felt for Fangs when he said that Kevin had never really been all in and that he wants to know everything about Kevin the good and bad. In that moment I could see that Fangs really does love Kevin. Also I think the fact that Fangs hit the nail right on the head with Kevin being ashamed of being gay shows that Fangs really does know and understand Kevin. I do feel like Kevin’s view on things right now is very similar to how Betty was seeing things with Archie. I think like Betty didn’t want her darkness to effect Archie, Kevin doesn’t want his to effect Fangs. Both of these views are flawed though because when you’re at your darkest that’s when you need someone to draw you back to the light. I do hope he talks this through with Betty and little because I think they could both help the other see the truth of their situations. 

The scene in the sauna was rough to watch. Kevin didn’t deserve that, it was an obvious mistake, he misread the situation and there was no need for that guy to react with violence unfortunately, its sad to say, but we live in a world where this kind of thing happens, where toxic masculinity results in males reacting with hate and violence towards gay men and that is never ok. I don’t think this helped Kevin in dealing with his shame at being gay, it most likely made it worse and that just makes me so so sad.   

I’m not gay, so Kevin’s story didn’t hit me on a personal level like I think it might have for other viewers, but his scene with Tom when he was talking about how he was made to feel ashamed of being gay really moved me to tears. I think it was a very touching scene and both actors did a good job. I am so glad that Kevin did open up to his dad. I also thought it was really good how when Tom worried that he might have done something to make Kevin feel that way Kevin reassured him that he had always been supportive of Kevin and had never judged him and I do think that is why Kevin felt he could open up to Tom. Just everything about that scene was done really well. I really do hope that he does find the courage to talk to Fangs about it though. I think Kevin does still love Fangs and its not that he doesn’t want to be with him, its that he doesn’t think that he deserves to be and that is just heart breaking. I still have some hope for Kangs though and I’m really hoping we get to see Kevin healing and working through things. I do think next weeks episode might help Kevin realise what he really wants. We know that he is in a potentially life threatening situation with a gunman in the school so maybe that makes him reflect on his life choices. Seriously though nothing better happen to Kevin. 

Little bits

Ok so these don’t really relate to any of the other sections really so I just figured I throw them all together at the end here. 

I loved that little parallel to season 1 with Barchie where Betty hears Archie over the speaker and sort of looks up at the sound of his voice. Also that shot of Betty working on the car I don’t know why but she looked really pretty, I really like her hair in that shot. 

Sticking with Barchie this one is a complaint about continuity. Riverdale seems to really struggle with this for some reason. But like I said with Veronica and Archie and how there didn’t seem to be any connection with the events of the previous episode this is the same kind of thing. Last episode Betty said she wouldn’t go through everything with Polly alone she would still go through it with Archie and yet despite there being big changes in the case Barchie didn’t interact at all. It could have been something really small like Betty giving Archie a call to let him know that Polly’s blood was a match and him offering her help, her saying no it was ok focus on the bulldogs, him telling her he was there if she needed anything. It isn’t much it wouldn’t have taken up much screen time but it would have given a link back to the previous episode. The same can be said for Minerva. Last episode her and Cheryl kissed which to me was a major development in the relationship and yet in this episode she’s no where to be seen and she isn’t even mentioned. Again Toni, where’s Toni? I thought they would at least mention something like she’s on maternity leave or something. Nope nothing. In fact the only link back to last episode we got was Cheryl talking to Kangs about the games she played causing problems for them. It’s just one of the things that frustrates me with Riverdale the lack of continuity.

No idea what this might mean if anything but did anyone else notice that when Dreyfuss started talking about the Mothmen ship his little burner with the teapot on it, suddenly the flame became higher before it went back to normal? Like there was some kind of energy in play there maybe? 

I was really glad to see Tabitha interacting with people outside of Jughead and I liked the little scenes she got with Veronica. I know Erinn said in her instagram takeover that Tabitha would be interacting with alot of the other characters too soon so I am looking forward to that. As much as I love her and Jughead’s dynamic I think it’ll be interesting to see her with others. 

Ok well that’s it for this week. I am still looking forward to next weeks episode. I do feel like this episode was a bit of a filler episode but next week looks like its going to be action packed so it should be a good watch.   

#riverdale #anti varchie #riverdale spoilers #riverdale review

[italian-pastry]

Rambling about the Family Tree

Here’s the Family Tree!

And under the cut is all my rambling about designs or whatever! (this ended up not being about designs too much. Hm)

OK WE NEED TO BE ORGANIZED HERE I’ll be going generation by generation, from left to right. Everyone will be here, just for organization sake. Of course, some people are more important than others, so be warned for long rambles (in generation 2 especially) OK LET’S GO

Generation 1: Iida Parents: Idk man. They don’t even have designs. They’re probably cool Enji: He doesn’t deserve to be drawn well :) That and he doesn’t deserve to meet his grandkids :)) Rei: She deserves to be pretty and be a cool grandma. Her grandkids adore her. Hisashi: This mans is kinda wildin’ in my universe. Whatever he’s up to, it’s not being Inko’s husband. Inko: Soft grandma!!!!! We love her and she loves her grandkids and husband. Toshinori: He deserves to retire and settle down and be happy with his family and be adored by his gandkids. Emiko’s Father: He and Yukie got married (and Yukie got pregnant with Emiko) almost right out of highschool. He expected Yukie to give up her career to care for Emiko, but that didn’t gel with Yukie, so she divorced him when Emiko was little. Idk where he is now. Yukie: We love her. I love her. She’s super sweet and super cool and super short and that’s all you need to know. She also looks a lot like Eijirou (or, at least I tried to make them look similar) Crimson Riot: I subscribe to the Dad-Crimson theory, so here we are. After Emiko started elementary school, Yukie tried to get her career back together, but after meeting and having a thing with Crimson Riot and getting pregnant with Eijirou, she gave it up to be able to care for her kids. Nadie: An American journalist who moved to Japan for work! She and Yukie met and got married when Eijirou was 9-10. She has 3 kids from her previous marriage (that ended in disaster). Christopher Skyline: (Yes, THE Christopher “Captain Celebrity” Skyline. We’re just ignoring the Vigilantes canon over here.) Nadie’s ex-husband and the father of Hanae, Etsuko, and Suzume. He was a serial cheater, and the kids was a desperate attempt made by Nadie to try to make him stick around. Sperm Donor: Just a sperm donor. Mitsuki: Still looks SUPER young. She doesn’t like it when her grandkids call her “Grandma” or anything like that because it makes her feel old. Masaru: Loves being called “Grandpa” or whatever by his grandkids. He loves them, and likes to visit them a lot. Mika: Still quiet and chill. We love her. Kyotoku: Still loud and fun. He’s a cool dude, and he got them smile lines Beru: Her head is weird. I’m sorry queen, but it freaked me out. Ganma: He freaked me out even more. He was my least favorite to draw. Sorry bro. Uraraka’s Parents: Her dad reminds me of my dad (vaguely). They don’t have names, but they’re cool. Also, Ochako was able to get them a nice house, so good for them. Shouta: Just go look at @nartothelar‘s Silver Fox AU that was my main inspiration. He a grumpy old man who only likes his kids and grandkids and family. Hizashi: Same thing as Shouto. I like to think that all of his hair has grayed, so his hair is like Platinum Blond now.

Ok! Gen 1 done, and it was mostly me rambling about Eijirou’s parents. Maybe one day I’ll dedicate a post to them.

Generation 2: Tenya: I had him grow his hair out because 1.) I thought it was cute and 2.) it represents him loosening up a lil’ after school. He wears contacts during Hero Work, but wears his glasses casually. Tensei: Literally just the same dude. He’s Tensei and he’s chill and he’s cool. Dabi: I gave him an eyebrow piercing and a fun new cut. (Fun fact: That’s his Fantasy AU fairstyle) Fuyumi: I hope her hair looks very Teacher-y and Motherly. I think she looks super cute. Natsuo: A simple dude. He finds a cut that works and sticks with it. Although I did give him sideburns and a lil’ touch of beard. Shouta: Instead of shaving his red side, he combs the white side over it. Also, I hc that in his left eye, he’s half blind. Izuku: Yikes. He got the wound early in his hero career. He went blind in his right eye, so he and Shouta together are like 1 and 1/4 blind. Emiko: Eijirou’s older half sister. I would say she’s Girlboss and Natsuo is Malewife, and I think that’s accurate - even if only a little. She’s a social service worker, and met Natsuo in college. I had an old design before, but I like this one A LOT more Eijirou: I am a simp for long hair Eijirou, so here we are. ALSO freckles!!!! I love freckley eijirou. Also stubly beard and cool new scar. He is very dad. Hanae: The chill little sister. Probably a lawyer or professor or something smart like that. Etsuko: The crazy sister. She works in the hero field! If as hero support or as an actual pro, idk yet! Suzume: The ex-crybaby sister. She’s prolly doing something fun and artsy. Also, HUGE demigirl vibes Kane: The energetic little brother! He has most certainly gone pro, since he’s like very early 20s now. Fun Fact!: He was 6 when Mieko was born, so a lot of people thought they were siblings. It only got worse when Akio rolled around. Katsuki: hehe Undercut Bakugou. Also, hearing aids! I put his eyebrow scar there so he and his hubby are matchy matchy. Actually, both of their scars are pretty matchy matchy.... huh. Also, I’m totally not saying he was invloved in the fight that gave Izuku his scar, definitely not. Mashirao: STOP SAYING HE’S PLAIN AND ORDINARY. HE’S BEAUTIFUL DAMMIT. Every time I draw him I think about how darn pretty he is and that he could be like a KPop star or smth Tooru: It’s tooru! Super fun lil’ lady. What a queen. Mina: Look at that kick-ass scar I gave her. It’s what she deserves. Although, that eye may be a lil fucked up. Ah well, at least it looks cool. Yuuga: LOOK AT HIS HAIR. I am so happy with how it turned out! He so pretty. He and Mina are DEFINATELY Girlboss and Malewife. Hado: Also a simple lady. Prolly also needed to stick to her brand of long hair. She still super pretty tho. Lowkey disappointed I didn’t give her the stereotypical Anime-Protag’s-Mom hairstyle Haya: Completely shaved her head, and got more piercings! Like, 100% more Punk Rock. Itsuka: FRECKLES FRECKLES FRECKLES. And short hair!!!!!! Sigh, I love her. Tetsutetsu: I tried to make him look like Ejirou, even if just the face structure. I like how his hair and scar turned out tho. What a lad. Mezo: What a cool dude! Got a sick nasty scar, but covers it with his hair. I think, even with a majority of his face covered, he is still very handsome Miya: She has a name now!!!!!! What an icon. She’s a Hero Costume Designer, and she has a spider mutation. Wolf Spider, specifically (I think). She is so adorable and spunky I love her. Momo: Short hair!!!!!!1!1!1!11! God, what a goddess. We love her so so so much. Also, she gets to have a cool scar, too Kyouka: While she’s in UA, she straightens her hair, but after she graduates, she doesn’t care abt it. Momo rlly likes it curly. She also has that thing going on where you shave all of ur head except for ur bangs (and the side thingies). Oh! And eyebrow piercing! Satsuki: Pretty! Also, I made sure that all the girls who would’ve been 6-7 during the current time all had ponytails now (Satsuki, Etsuko, and Eri) Samidare: He’s super cool, and I decided to give him long hair to make him cooler. Also, Demiboy vibes, anyone? Tsuyu: A queen!!!!!! I love her so much!!!!!!! When her hair is down, it reaches to her shoulder blades. Ochako: SHE LOOKS SO BADASS I AM SO HAPPY. Look at her, with those cool scars, and that cool hair! What a queen! Mirio: Classic Mirio! Tbh, idk if I’ll give Mirio his quirk back. Like a lot of the stuff in the recent arc I’ve ignored, soooo......... Tamaki: He has SO MUCH HAIR. It ridiculous. Since growing it out, he uses it to hide behind if it’s left down. So Mirio likes to do stuff with his hair and make it look cute. Nikko helps, too! Eri: A queen!!!!!!!!!! Idk if she’ll be a Pro Hero or doctor that specializes with pro heroes, but I want her to be happy and help people! Hitoshi: Hanta and Denki weaves flowers into his hair a la Rapunzel all the time. The braid is really loose and shitty a lot of the time tho. Ah well. Denki: Because I moved his black stripe to down the center of his hair, my little sister keeps calling Denki and Race Car. And I agree. He got those scars because he was able to train himself to really not fry his brain anymore, but that means if he overloads, his electricity escapes some other way, so through his ears and into his face. Hanta: That scar was very strategically places because I am a firm believe that Sero will uncannily resemble Shouta when he gets older. I hadn’t done a really good job at that tho....... hm.

Gen 2 is done!!!!!! It was my fave generation to draw UwU. I’m not sure what to say with Gen 3, since I’ve already talked about them a lot. Jeez, idk. I’ll think about something to ramble about later.

@questionableholidayreally Tozen rlly said “I am literally just vibing ;)”

#Long post #bnha #bnha fankids #bnha next gen #I still cannot get over the fact that I drew 84 faces #like #damn #If u have any questions or just wanna yell at me just slide on into those asks! I'm happy to answer! #Born And Raised #Mha Born And Raised

[devourer--of--books]

I’m mad about Hunter being written off and here’s why you should be too

You: wasted potential.

Me, an intellectual: ah, Hunter and Nicola’s friendship

I have strong opinions about Hunter.

Yeah, you heard me right.

Look, I have strong opinions about many, many, things. Today, we are taking a dive on Hunter and Nicola. First I’d like to blame this post on Kate, as I decided to make it after I tried to articulate why Hunter being written off TCY makes me so angry in a huge comment under her latest OTK post but it ended up being too big and messy so I deleted it. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone elaborate on it, so if you were also mad about this, bro, not to be intense, but like, are we soulmates or...??

Before anything else, as I usually do with my text posts (which I haven’t done in a while, opsies), I shall provide you with arguably unnecessary context. Sit down, grab yourself some snacks, make yourself at home, I’m about to rant you into oblivion.

Since I know many accounts weren’t around back then, I’ll also give you the socio-political vibes of the time period, as any self-respecting half-baked essay written last minute should.

POV, you’re 14/15 year-old me. You flat iron your hair, you don’t use sunscreen, you think you’re straight and your school makes you wear those horrid low rise uniform pants, but at least you can somewhat do your make-up decently now that you grew out of your emo phase.

The year was 2016. The Ever Never Handbook has just come out. You re-watch the handbook trailer on youtube for the fifteenth time. Everyone is losing their minds over OcTObeR 14tH and “a student named Agatha ~ now Agatha of Camelot~”, as well as the portraits and the teasing for a new SGE book. Quests For Glory is announced just a few days later. 2016 tagatha ship week happens a few months down the line. 

This is the SGE Tumblr Fandom Peak.

Now, let’s start right there, two-ish weeks after the release of the Handbook, right as the QFG announcement comes out.

We all knew Soman wasn’t done with SGE after TLEA. He definitely had been teasing something in his weekly blogs (lol, remember when I used to check the blog, what a time to be alive) and once we got the ENH, we got quite lot of info to theorize. Here’s some that I can think off the top of my head: 

- The coven was going on a mission to find a new School Master.

- Tedros and Agatha were struggling financially in Camelot but were going to get married soon (even if Sophie doubted Tedros would have asked Agatha yet, as of the time of the Ever Never RoundTable, but we’re taking that with a grain of salt, because she was written to sound jealous here, and I won’t acknowledge that kinda of bs, she is happy for her friends okay, we’ve been though this-)

- Sophie had completely remodeled the School For Evil and was getting on Dovey and the rest of the faculty’s nerves (except for newly hired history teacher, Hort).

- The rest of the supporting cast had just graduated third year and was to be off in quests soon.

- The School was now accepting applications, and two of those applicants are Nicola and Bogden.

Now, I’m not even gonna bring up how it was mentioned in a video in EverNeverTv that Bogden would be an important character in TCY, and yet, I can’t think of anything relevant about him other than the fact that he knew tarot apparently, or how his application had more personality than him in the entire series, or how he was basically there so we could look at him and Willam and be like “oh, representation”, or how he’d be a good insight on how Galvadon perceives Sophie and Agatha post-TLEA, or- I’m just not gonna.

Oh, no. Instead, we are here to discuss Nicola’s application.

If your memory is foggy, let me remind you:

Nicola’s application is submitted, according to the Handbook, by her friend, Hunter. For convenience sake, we’ll assume Hunter is a guy (I’ll tell you why Hunter being a guy works better for me in a bit), but his gender is not mentioned anywhere in the ENH. I don’t think he has been gendered in any version (correct me if I’m wrong) or if there are any pronouns for him during TCY, but I’m fairly confident he isn’t mentioned at all.

Hunter tells us he is applying on Nic’s behalf, as she’d never apply for herself. He mentions that she is more or less the Galvadon equivalent of an activist for women’s rights, founding a rugby unisex team and campaigning for pants instead of skirts for the local school uniform, as well as having a feminist sounding book as her favorite book. It’s heavily implied that she is a jock, as he lists that, if marooned on a desert island, Nicola would want to have a soccer ball, a hockey stick and a set of dumbbells (“and none of this 5-lb nonsense”) with her.

Upon asked why Nicola should go to the school, his answer is: “because there’s a greater place for her in the world, where she can learn a girl’s true worth, and I don’t think it’s here.”

Then you have a note from (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) the very late, long, long gone, absolutely dead, August Sader, telling the Deans to accept her application, despite having no reason to do so, as Nicola was to “play a crucial role in it’s [the school’s] survival.” Dovey and Sophie agree to flip a coin to decide which school will take her, which Sophie must have lost, as Nicola is accepted into the School For Evil.

By now, I think we all agree that Nicola was done dirty. If you check my QFG re-read you’ll notice that I complained about her there. As I had to go though her introduction chapter again to make this post, let me tell you why: Nicola wasn’t written to be likeable.

She simply wasn’t. That’s the one conclusion I can draw. Whether that’s intentional or not, I can’t tell, but the backlash she received was fairly useful, as it meant Soman could write her off the main story without much backlash from his target audience (aka, not us, pesky pretentious older readers).

The Nicola I was introduced to, not only in the Handbook but on her trailer for QFG was not the girl on QFG. 

Nic is there to be the smart  girl™, and while I do appreciate having a character who is a bit cocky about their brains, it just doesn’t work well there. Because her bond to other characters and the way she earns their respect feels so weak, she just comes across as pretentious. Characters like Hester and Agatha, who are supposed to be smart, feel dumbed down to show us how clever Nicola is. Agatha is supposed to be the resourceful thinker and Hester wanted to be class captain, you bet she studied like crazy, she probs knows every fairytale in existence. 

Then you add that to the (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) Nicola and Hort fiasco and Nic feels like a weirdly written OC insert.

Handbook!Nicola sounded like a smart jock kind of character (read, more Gryffindor than Ravenclaw). Handbook!Nic was a Reader who read the tales as a hobby, but her favorite book is not a tale, it’s a non-fiction book (as far as I can tell). She might not be the fairytale expert, but she sounds like a practical thinker, as sport requires strategy, which is not Hester’s strong suit, given she is rather impulsive, or Agatha’s, given she is often unwilling to make hard decisions due to her Good nature and her own insecurities. C’mon, Handbook!Nic would have taken one look at Hort and sent him running to hills, because she would be able to smell his bs three miles away. She’s no one’s replacement, least of all Sophie’s (whom she probably would not have gotten along with (at least they got this part right) given Sophie’s “my prince will sweep me away from an ordinary life” phylosophy). To be honest she doesn’t sound like she’d be interested in dating at all.

But this post is about Hunter right? Let me remind you, Hunter is not mentioned in Nicola’s introduction, when she talks about her life in Galvadon. Canon!Nicola tells us that she has two brothers who want to inherit her father’s pub in order to sell the place, but Nicola is close with her father and likes working there to some extent, even if she has bigger ambitions. She believes her brothers sent her application as a way to get rid of her.

Back when I still had some faith that Soman had an arc for Nicola that included resolution, I had my theories as to why she wouldn’t mention Hunter: maybe he was to appear in later books and they’d have a huge backstory explaining their friendship, as well as a dramatic confession that Hunter sent her application because he felt Nicola deserved to live an adventure, and Nicola would either realize that she was meant for something more or that she wanted to live a quiet life, honestly either would be nice. I would have taken anything. Truly, if Nicola’s k-pop boyfriend in the OTK epilogue had been replaced with Hunter, I might be able to hate it less.

Especially if they came to the (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) school wedding as friends. Because you know what?

We are starved for male-female friendships in the SGE universe.

Tedros’s only female friends (all his friends in general) are Agatha’s friends (who all tried to get rid of him at some point, save for maybe Dot) and his actual friends are all dead (Bettina/Chaddick). Hort could be counted as Agatha’s friend, if only he didn’t bash her every five seconds like a moron (he literally pitched the idea that Agatha should be executed by Tedros in OTK, just because he was envious or her relationship with Sophie (not jealous, envious, because Sophie wasn’t his to begin with)) over his delusional sense entitlement of Sophie’s affections (which I hate, but as this is not a Hort-bashing post, I won’t get too much into), but the coven, Beatrix, Renna and co. would not touch him with a stick. Merlin’s friendship with Lady Of The Lake is gone, and Dovey is dead. Rhian and Kei both had that frenemies thing with Sophie in ACOT/beggining of OTK, but I think it was supposed to be romantic? It wasn’t ew (I hate Rhian but he’s also wasted potential, and so was Kei, whom I liked, rest in peace). Japeth hates women for??? Whatever. Willam and Bodgen are such background characters I could not care less about them. The new students weren’t memorable enough for me to remember their names. I think this about covers the main male cast.

There’s a lack of male friendships too, but we kinda have (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) Tort and whatever was that rushed Tedros/Chaddick friendship.  Rhian and Kei were gay friends (yeah, right, sure, very platonic). Tedros and Rhian could have been friends if Rhian redeemed himself, but otherwise no. Tedros and Filip… gay. Japeth literally killed Rhian, so also not very good friendship between brothers. Hort has no friends, because Ravan would so not be here for his bs. Willam and Bogden are a couple and (*rolls eyes* *suppresses a gag* *tears hair out*) so were Aric and Japeth, I guess.

Still don’t believe Hunter was wasted potential? Okay, let me tell you what my ideal Nicola arc would be, mixing Handbook!Nicola with some canon!Nicola and including Hunter.

- Nicola is the one inheriting the pub (once she gets married), despite Galvadon’s pre-TLEA sexism and conservative views, because she is her father’s only child and her brothers are actually her older half-siblings from her mother’s previous marriage.

- Her mom died at some point early in her childhood. Not a childbirth tho, because Callis, local witch gynecologist (have you checked my post on this yet? no? you should) was there for her, even if it was a high risk pregnancy because the mom was already older.

- Because of that, Nicola’s father actually sells bread to Callis for cheaper prizes, but don’t tell the elders, shhh

- Anyway, because her mom was gone so early, Nicola was raised by her dad, brothers and by the employees (mostly men, as I don’t think it was all that common for women to work jobs in Galvadon) of her father’s pub. Due to being a girl, most guys weren’t willing to befriend her (sexism, am I right), but because she was a tomboy she had difficulty bonding with the other girls at school, even when they weren’t outright hostile (cof cof Sophie). 

- Example: she and Belle had a tentative bond over their love of cooking, but often ran out of things to talk about and the conversation fell flat.

- Which is how she ends up befriending Hunter. 

- Hunter is the only boy in a family of many girls and his father works all day. He has a good heart and is rather emotional, but he always feels like he has something to prove, which leads him to being rather impulsive. Both Nicola and Hunter love sports and are very competitive people. Once Nicola gains his respect, he feels very protective of her and often feels the need to stand up for her, even if she doesn’t need it.

- Nicola knows Hunter feels overlooked in his family, so she is always inviting him over and taking care of him, keeping him out of trouble. Her father begins to see him as his own son, and soon he spends more time at Nicola’s house than at his own.

- Everyone thinks they’ll get married some day. His sisters tease him mercilessly about it, and so does Nic’s father, but frankly, Nic and Hunter see each other as family.

- You can bet Hunter is the one teaching Nic about periods after asking his sisters, so she wouldn’t have to suffer with Galvadon’s horrid Sex Ed. (go check the Callis headcanon’s okay, give me clout, that it my favorite post I’ve ever made)

- They tried to kiss once. Nicola vomited and Hunter gaged.

- Hunter is Nicola’s number one supporter and fan, 100% had those gender-equality pins she made for her campaigns all over his bags and jackets.

- Since most wedding matches are arranged by the elders before girls even graduate, it was settled that Nic and Hunter would get married to each other and then inherit the pub. It would of course, be a secretly platonic match and they would suspiciously have no children (Nicola even had a plan to visit Callis to get a potion for infertility, just in case the elders wanted to check on her... okay, I’ll stop).

- Hunter doesn’t tell her, but Nicola knows he wants to marry for love and have a family of his own. She tries to talk him out of marrying her, but he insists that he would be doing it out of love for her, even if not romantic, because Nic didn’t deserve to be matched up with some stranger she barely knows who would no doubt be less tolerant of her more radical views.

- She tells him it’d be fine for him to have a affairs then, but he insists he would never do that to her, because people would talk about Nic if that was the case and her reputation would be ruined.

- The night of Sophie and Agatha kidnapping Nicola tells him she would rather be taken to the School than to stay there and make him live an unhappy life.

- Hunter is horrified (remember, everyone thought going to the school was a fate worse than death) and makes her promise to never treat her life so fickly.

- Sophie and Agatha get taken, come back, but during Tedros’ reign of terror in Galvadon, right before they return to the Woods, Nicola’s father grows very very sick.

- Nic thinks he’s going to die, and she frets, not only because they’re close but also because she can’t inherit the place if she doesn’t marry Hunter. But, well, she sort of always knew, but now that feels very real, she thought she had some more time before that.

- They set a date for the wedding, but thankfully, Tedros and Agatha’s escape ends up causing the ceremony to be delayed.

- By the time the new date is set, there’s no more elders and Stefan is now mayor.

- But just because he is the mayor doesn’t mean the law and the sexism is gone overnight.

- Nic’s father is getting somewhat better, but she is still very worried about him, because of his old age.

- Once SGE starts having applications and has been proved to be, well, somewhat safe, Hunter suggests that Nicola applies, but after the scare that she might lose her father sooner rather than later, she tells him she can’t bring herself to leave him.

- Hunter doesn’t want her to throw her life away, specially now knowing that in the Endless Woods there were people like her and that progress would get there before it ever got to Galvadon 

- (He also wants to not marry someone he views as a sister, pls).

- So he files her application in secret.

- Nicola gets accepted, upon Sader’s request and Sophie’s bad luck, into the School For Evil. She and Sophie still don’t get along, the Evil castle rejects her and she gets pushed to Good, becoming an Ever, but she’s only staying until Christmas, because she is worried sick about her father.

- She thinks the application was a plot from her brothers because she doesnt think Hunter would ever betray her trust like that, after she specifically told him she wouldn't go.

- There’s no Hicola, instead, she and Hort become friends and she talks him out of his delusions with Sophie, because as much as Nicola dislikes her, Sophie was a girl too, and deserved to have her feelings respected. 

- She also punches Hort into giving up his envy of Tedros and Agatha while at it, because she is just that efficient.

- Everything else up to OTK can be pretty much the same because I can’t remember what happens, other than everytime Nicola is smart girl™, it’s not “because she reads”, but because she is practical. 

- Example: on the boat scene where she very pretentiously sasses Agatha for not saying hello to her (canon!Nicola, girl, she just suffered six months of loneliness at Camelot because Tedros shut her out and is now on a quest to save her happy ending, probs didn’t get much sleep, maybe cut her some slack) and then tells her how to sail a boat (despite the fact that there are no boats in Galvadon and I’m sure you can’t just read Peter Pan and learn to sail a boat, unless I did it wrong or something, maybe the storian version comes with a crash course). Here, instead, Nicola presses Hort (who is a pirate’s son) to remember literally anything to help them (therefore making him not completely useless on this quest), and he does and they tell Agatha and she’s like sure and does it.

- Now, in OTK, I literally can’t remember where Nicola was for most of it and I read that book not too long ago, so I’m worried. 

- Okay, so, have the Knights Of Eleven actually serve some purpose, include a scene where Tedros and Nicola stress-play rugby and get her some internal conflict.

- Nic now loves this world. She just spent the last few weeks fighting to protect it. She is now a Knight, and she loves the adventures and the new friends she made. Can she really go back to Gavaldon to take care of a pub? Well, she needs to, doesn’t she? That’s what a good daughter would do.

- After Japeth’s execution, Nic goes straight home.

- Her father’s condition is stable, as he is being treated by Hunter and his new wife.

- Oh boy, Hunter has some explaining to do.

- Nicola is furious that he broke her trust, but at the same time, she’s happy he’s happy and well, Hunter what do you have to say for yourself?

- “Damn, Nic, nice armour- ouch, my arm!”

- Apparently, since Nicola was taken, Stefan approved a law for people to be able to leave their inheritance to whomever they wanted. And since Nic was gonna be at the Woods, her father was more than happy to leave it to Hunter. Of course, unless Nicola wanted to stay at Gavaldon. 

- Does she? She’s not sure.

- Hunter and Nicola attend the tagatha wedding at Camelot (what, like I wasn’t gonna fix this part?), Hunter is Nic’s plus one.

- There, Hester, Anadil and Dot show her Sader’s note, and ask her, not to become School Master, but to become Dean Of Good, because she would be perfect for the new brand of Good to match Sophie’s Evil. You know, since she is all for gender-equality, good manners, practicality and was particularly good at dealing with Sophie’s bs.

- Since Tedros has the Storian Ring, the pen doesn’t need actual protection, well, not more than it can get from Nic and Sophie.

- Sophie herself insists that Nicola accept the position, not because she doesn’t want to be alone at the school now that Hort and Dovey are dead, no, of course not, since when did Sophie ever need anyone, she was just asking cause… cause Nicola looked lonely. The pretty boy who came with her was not her boyfriend, was he? Sophie was prettier than him anyway. Who needs a boy when they can have her?

- Whether they become a couple or not, I’ll let you decide.

- Bonus: years later, Hunter’s eldest daughter is accepted at the School for Good. Nicola is her godmother, and her favoritism shows.

There, if nothing else, the reason you should be mad about Hunter and the Handbook in general is because this didn’t happen.

#school for good and evil #The School for Good and Evil #nicola of woods beyond #Sophie of Woods Beyond #Hunter of Woods Beyond

[mistytpednaem]

So, what’s up with Another Me?

Honestly, I tried to draft this post, but the mental block made me decide to just go for it stream-of-consciousness style. Which I hope doesn’t bode poorly or anything. But here goes!

The Past and the Present

As you may know, I’ve been at this for a while now! Since 2014, in fact. In that time, I’ve gotten through the prologue and... most of chapter one (fun fact: I do have the entirety of this story mapped out! We are transitioning into what should be the final scene of this chapter. Originally, I wanted to make this post - or something along these lines - once I finished the chapter, but I figured since the year was about to end I’d be better off doing it now).

Now, let’s not mince words: that is a long time. I have six chapters total (not counting the prologue) mapped out for this comic, and there is more I’d like to do beyond it (what I like to call Arc 2, or, as you may or may not know:  The Part Where My Pet Character Marco Evangelisti Actually Shows Up). If I keep going at the current pace, I will probably not be done within my lifetime. So, if I’m aware of this, what gives?

... I mean, damn. There’s a lot I could point to; I was finishing my degree until 2016, and I suppose that takes something out of you. I have unreasonably high expectations for myself, as the people closest to me know. “2020 was a bad year for everyone,” I tell myself, before I also go on to say, “but even though updates slowed down even more this year, it’s not like they’ve been particularly speedy for the past couple of years, and I haven’t had that bad of a year anyway, so that’s a shoddy excuse.” And then some semblance of reasonable thought comes over me and reminds me my grandfather had a stroke in March of last year and passed away in early June of this year, and I’m like “I mean, okay, I guess I’ve been through SOME things.”

But lighthearted reflections aside, there are more actionable problems I have identified - such as, in an overarching sense, my attitude. My friends made me realise this some time late last year, and while I’ve been trying to work on it, I have to admit I’ve made very little progress: at some point, I developed a seriously unhealthy relationship with my art. Here is how my workflow has tended to go:

Start scripting update. I have a small readership, but that’s okay; I am grateful for every suggestion, I can work with this, and I AM building towards something that excites me.

Script done, regardless of insecurities. It’s time to start working on the actual panels. This sketch didn’t come out exactly the way I intended, but hopefully it still works (alternatively: this sketch looks promising! I am excited about this sketch. Sometimes, I do feel happy with my sketches).

Oh dear. I was hoping the lineart would help a little (alternatively: oh dear. the lineart completely ruined this perfectly fine sketch). Maybe it’ll still look alright with colour?

Oh no. I hate it, actually. I suppose I’m too sloppy; I should be more careful next time. 

(Repeat for however many panels i have planned for an update, typically with mounting guilt the longer I take on each one, because I keep taking longer and longer and, to my eyes, there is no improvement.)

Well, as my friends keep reminding me, done is better than perfect. Let’s post it!

The update is posted to a small readership and a quiet response, which, again, is okay, but leaves me wanting for feedback that I cannot get because I am reluctant to spread the word for several reasons, one of them being that I’ve convinced myself my work isn’t good enough.

Rinse and repeat, with the process continuing to be slow - if not turning exponentially slower - because apparently when things make you feel bad your brain starts wanting to protect you from them.

Apologies if this is a little harsh, but it is genuinely the most sincere breakdown of The Whole Deal that I can produce.

The good news is there are things I can do about this! Not easy things, granted, as they tie deeply into a lot of the recurring neuroses in my life, but in theory, the more I embrace imperfection, and the less I worry, the faster I should be able to work, and I should start getting some serotonin out of the whole thing again. In theory. This is not the only issue, however, and I have good and bad news about the other issue I’ve identified:

I don’t think the forum adventure format is working in its current shape.

It’s not about the suggestions - I love working with suggestions! Reader interaction is fun, it’s already shaped a good number of things and I hope it continues to do so. It’s more of a matter of visibility. Tragically, forums are not the most In Vogue things these days, and that reflects itself in, well, poor visibility. I’ve tried to remedy this by allowing suggestions through MSPFA, Tumblr and Twitter as well, but honestly, it hasn’t helped much. I think I’ve only gotten one or two suggestions through MSPFA? And don’t get me wrong, I’m sure this is in great part because of my passive role in getting the word out! But it’s all contributing towards this strange, shrinking spiral of a feedback loop.

The good news is that, since I have identified this problem, there should be an actionable solution. The bad news is I’m not quite sure what form that solution should take just yet.

The Future

Whew, that was a lot. So, what’s in store for 2021 and beyond?

Well, er, like I’ve implied, I’m a little unsure. But that’s my default state of existence, so let’s go over what I think.

When I finish chapter one, I would like to find a proper hosting place for AM. As I said, I don’t think the forum thing is quite working out, and MSPFA is a wonderful website, but I feel AM has little to do with most of the content on it beyond the second-person narration and the script-style dialogues. Whether that means a change in format is needed along with the change in hosting, I’m not sure; I would like to keep the whole “one panel per page with text underneath it” deal, which... should be doable on most places, but in this current year, I’m frankly not sure how it would come across, haha.

(I’m also not sure what this hosting place should be, mind you; potentially a wordpress blog with a layout tailored for comics, but drawing isn’t actually my day job, so I’m not sure how viable paying for a domain name might be. Or hosting, for that matter, should I need it - but imgur has been friendly enough of an image host so far.)

What I do know is that I want to keep the suggestions, even though I’m not entirely sure how well that will work without a forum structure. Comments on a post, perhaps? Maybe. But we can’t forget that this doesn’t solve one of the other big issues, which is my reluctance to advertise. And there’s still, you know, my unhealthy, unreasonably high standards affecting my entire workflow.

... But that all kind of comes back to one thing, doesn’t it? The fear of taking the plunge? That’s what I need to overcome. Plans are a good first step, but they mean nothing if I don’t act on them. Which is part of the reason I’m talking about all this - so people can hold me to my plans.

(Plus, like, offer feedback and opinions. That’s very valuable too.)

This whole Future section is a whole lot more uncertain than, I think, even I hoped for when I started writing this post. But I hope what I’m trying to say comes across in some kind of way - not just in the sense of this being elucidating (which, don’t get me wrong, hopefully it is!), but also as far as conveying my feelings to my friends and readers is concerned.

I’m going to keep trying, and I know I’m a little lacking in the Doing department, but now you all know what’s been on my mind. Thank you all for the support, stay safe in These Trying Times, and hopefully we can all keep growing together.

#another me