#i feel like with a couple tweaks here and there in the execution and like actual fuckinnn people of color in the writer's room

[aq2003]

series 3 is so frustrating because there is like a shining core of pure diamond underneath the problems . like conceptually it rocks so incredibly hard. but the problems

#dr who #i am being so honest when i say ten should have gotten on his knees and begged for simm!master's life #they should have framed the bit between him and martha's mom so different #like yes it is 10000% in character that the doctor with his bleeding heart and loneliness wouldn't want to kill him #even after everything that happened. because he's the only person he has left. 'i forgive you' was PERFECT. #but literally anyone else that suffered from what the master did. Deserves to rip him to shreds. so very obviously #and like i know.i KNOW that i am watching the 'funny immortal alien saves people through time and space' show #but i actually despise the doctor being framed as like an all powerful savior. or treated like one. even for a little bit. is Annoying #the first part of the series 3 finale having martha be humanity's last hope was SO GOOD bc it like kind of set her up as like #having to grapple with all that responsibility and attention like the doctor does. everyone's lives are in her hands. so crunchy #but when it like slides into 'everyone pls believe in our specialest boy in the world The Doctor <3' it just. falls flat #i feel like with a couple tweaks here and there in the execution and like actual fuckinnn people of color in the writer's room #series 3 would be PEAK media. but as it is it's just. falling short. #i do really appreciate martha deciding to leave ten on her own though. first of all. qpp down. second of all #she's realized that she can't keep traveling with him. bc (as i mentioned) hes someone who simultaneously needs saving #and refuses to be saved in the ways that matter. Yes im fucking ignoring the unrequited romance angle i think #it does a gigantic disservice to martha's character if u boil her down to that. fight me i dont care if that was the authorial intent #martha in the end is too kind to ten and ten keeps making her watch his meandering path of self destruction. toxic doomed qprism to ME. #anyway fuck. idk man series 2 consensus was that im dead inside and series 3 consensus is that the version i have of it in my head is peak #series 2 is better but i think because of my ten martha insanity i actually enjoyed watching series 3 more than series 2. #even if i got mad at it more than any other season. i think something is wrong with me. um. lmao #ten and martha #10 era

[thankskenpenders]

Sonic Superstars!

Superstars is out! And guess what? It's good! It's a worthy new entry in the series, and I mostly like it. Mostly. Except for the handful of parts I don't. As usual, allow me to share my thoughts.

(For the record, I got the PS5 version of Superstars. I can't speak for how it plays on older hardware like the Switch, or how the weird Steam version that seems to make you log in with Epic runs. But I encountered zero performance issues, personally.)

General thoughts

The thing is, aside from two notable flaws I'll discuss in greater detail below, I can sum up my feelings on most of Superstars quickly. You see, it's... a Sonic game. This will either be a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask. It's not a bold new take on the series that'll blow you away, but they also didn't fuck it up. There's no catch this time! There's something refreshing about that straightforwardness, given how rare it is to get a regular-ass New Sonic Game from Sega. It's just a new classic-style game where you can play as Amy, set on a new island with all new zones, and Fang is in it! This might be damning with faint praise, but that's what it says on the tin, and they did a good job overall.

(It also has co-op. That's nice. I didn't play it in co-op.)

It plays exactly how it should. At no point did anything feel Wrong. The graphics might not have the absolute highest fidelity, but I think the character models look really nice, and the levels look appropriately good with vibrant color palettes. A couple zones like Sky Temple gave me Klonoa vibes, which I like. One zone is an absolutely incredible homage that I won't spoil. The story here is minimal (as expected), but there are a few good moments of telling the story through the gameplay, particularly one very cute sequence with Trip. I did find a couple stage gimmicks moderately annoying (Speed Jungle 2 and Press Factory 2, looking at you), but like... I could say the same thing about Mania, and also damn near every other Sonic game ever made. There's always That One Level. Superstars may not raise the series to new heights, but it generally executes well on the standard beats of the series. It's an easy recommendation for all fans of 2D Sonic.

Really, aside from the two big flaws (we'll get to them), this game's greatest crimes are simply not being quite as good as Mania, and also coming out the same week as the more creative and polished Super Mario Bros. Wonder. If we hadn't gotten Mania, I would easily be calling this my favorite 2D Sonic game since... what, the Advance trilogy 20 years ago? I like the Rush games, but if you asked me to replay one or the other, I might have a better time with Superstars. And, yes, it beats the hell out of Sonic 4. It's not even close. Anyone who says this game is exactly like Sonic 4 is just being a hater.

...I guess I would say that $60 is a bit steep for this, but you know it'll be on sale for a more appropriate $30-$40 in a few months. This isn't a Nintendo game we're talking about here.

Nice little tweaks

Superstars also features a number of welcome quality-of-life updates over Mania, bringing it more in line with the design ethos of modern platformers.

You have infinite lives! No more getting a game over on the final boss and having to redo the whole final zone - or, god forbid, the entire game

Time overs are gone! It'll warn you before you go over ten minutes, but I have no idea why because it doesn't kill you anymore

The game features a hub from which you can easily replay previous levels, rather than needing to beat the game or put in a cheat code to unlock the level select

This means you can easily go back and hunt for any special stage rings you missed. However, as a tradeoff, it seems like you can only get one Emerald per zone now, rather than being able to get Super Sonic by the end of the first or second zone

You can swap characters between levels! No more having to start a whole 'nother save file to play as Tails

And those characters even have optional little movement tutorial rooms available from the hub, which is great for new players who may not know about things like the Drop Dash

And, finally, checkpoints now feature arrows pointing in the direction you were supposed to be going, in case you forget upon respawning

Of course, while you might not be getting game overs, Superstars certainly compensated with some bosses that kicked my ass.

Bosses

Here's what I would consider notable flaw #1.

I have mixed feelings on the bosses in Superstars. I don't think many of them are poorly designed - in fact, a lot of them are good, and offer fun moments of spectacle. But for a 2D Sonic game, they're REALLY long and drawn out, and by the late game this was starting to get draining.

Bosses tend to be the type where you have to dodge their attack patterns for a while until you get the chance to hit them exactly once, MAYBE twice. A few bosses seem to have quicker options if you abuse your post-hit invulnerability or play as a character with a double jump, but many will either be completely invincible or run away to the background for long periods of time, making it impossible to damage them outside of the allotted windows. And even if it seems like you'll be able to get in a second hit, many bosses turn invincible and skip ahead to the next attack pattern as soon as they take the first hit. Again, most of these fights aren't BAD, but because of this behavior they sometimes take almost as long to beat as the entire levels preceding them. This didn't bother me much early in the game, but against the more challenging bosses towards the end that kept killing me several minutes into a long fight, it got tiring. The final boss of Story Mode probably took me like an hour.

While this certainly isn't an uncommon style of boss design, part of me suspects they did this for the sake of co-op players. For one, playing in co-op means that you don't necessarily have to start the entire fight over if one person dies, so I assume the length is less of an issue. But in particular, true classic-style Sonic bosses that you can just hit repeatedly with good timing would go down in a few seconds against a team of four players. Likewise, the swarm of clones from the "Avatar" Emerald power would probably obliterate every Genesis era boss with one button press. So I get why every boss needs all these invulnerability periods, but still. I at least wish they'd made some of those attack patterns shorter and given you more frequent opportunities to deal damage.

Emeralds and their powers

Speaking of the new Chaos Emerald powers: they're neat, I guess? They're fine. I didn't use them much. Actually, I kept forgetting I even had them - although the game will play a noise and show an icon in the corner of the screen to remind you any time you reach a spot where a specific power is useful. Avatar, the first power you get, is at least good for getting a couple free hits in on the trickier bosses. Yellow's ability to slow time is obviously good, but, again, I always forgot I even had it and made it through just fine without it. I was also pleased to realize that the swimming power is useful for the water levels and not just for climbing up waterfalls.

Oh, and the new grappling-based special stages kind of suck, but they're not the worst, and I'll at least give them credit for trying something new. (Motion Sickness Zone from Sonic 1 does return as a bonus minigame, but I only did it once lmao.)

Battle Mode

I haven't played Battle Mode. Couldn't tell you if it's good or not. It did, however, give us official designs for Metal Tails and Metal Amy after all these years, and also it let me make this:

...Okay, enough beating around the bush. Let's talk about the thing that REALLY drags down the experience.

The soundtrack...

(This lengthy section on the music will feature some light spoilers for things like zone names and themes.)

Now, don't get me wrong. There are some bangers in here that I've been listening to on loop. But this is one of the most inconsistent soundtracks I've ever heard, and I'm not sure I've ever played another game where the music has such a sharp dip in quality in the back half.

As anyone following this blog knows, prior to release I was a little obsessed with trying to gauge what the soundtrack would be like. "Jun Senoue" and "new Classic Sonic game" naturally evokes the memory of Sonic 4, but from the start we knew Tee Lopes was involved as well, and almost all of the music previewed before released leans more towards the sound of Sonic Mania than anything else. I was hopeful! I was excited! Jun deserved another chance at doing another classic Sonic OST, and Tee is one of my favorite game composers of all time between his Sonic material and other works like the TMNT: Shredder's Revenge OST. I frequently thought back to this Sonic 4 remix medley by Jun and Tee as a reminder that these two could really be the dream team, bringing out the best in each other's work.

Sure enough, the front half of the game is largely dominated by the Mania sound, whether it's a track by Tee himself or one by an in-house Sega artist that's compatible with his style. Pinball Carnival Act 1 by Rintaro Soma (an up-and-coming composer who wrote a bunch of the Cyber Space themes in Frontiers) takes obvious inspiration from Mania's Studiopolis Act 1, to the point that I was shocked when Sega posted the track and revealed it wasn't written by Tee. Act 2, however, forges more of its own sound by leaning into the act's spooky haunted carnival theme. And despite being the music lead, the only level theme that I know for sure was written by Senoue in the front half of the game (Bridge Island Act 1) was actually arranged by Tee Lopes to give it more of that Mania sound. Hell, the level clear jingle is literally just the one from Mania. A few level themes by other composers don't quite match that style, but they fit in well enough.

But there are early signs that this sound won't be consistent throughout the game. Our first warning of things to come is the boss music:

When early copies started floating around and the soundtrack leaked, many, many people hoped that this was merely a placeholder, like the literal Sonic 4 Episode II music used in the earliest previews of Speed Jungle, and that it'd get replaced with a day one patch. Oh, those poor, innocent fools...

Even if you don't mind the poor production with the returning Sonic 4 faux-Genesis sound, this is a very simplistic thirteen second snippet of music that then plays a second time in a higher key before it loops. This wouldn't be the end of the world if the bosses were as short as the ones in the Genesis games, of course, but they're not! This theme is used for a ton of lengthy fights throughout the game, including an EXTREMELY long and tedious autoscroller boss at the end of Golden Capital Act 2. Maybe I would've enjoyed the bosses in this game more if they were paired with some earworms that'd get me hyped up and sell how cool and exciting the fights are supposed to be, but grating songs like this just made the minutes spent fighting those bosses feel like an eternity.

Still, boss music (and menu music) aside, all of the level themes in the front half of the game ranged from decent to great, with the peak easily being the phenomenal Lagoon City Act 2 by Tee Lopes. And then... I got to the back half of the game. And the Mania style completely disappeared, replaced largely with the dreaded Sonic 4 sound. That isn't the style for EVERY song in the back half, but even the ones that try something different tend to be weaker than the material from the first six zones, with less engaging melodies and less intricate arrangement. Many sound straight up unfinished, leaning on extremely basic synth patches with no personality. And there isn't a single track from Tee in the back half. He just disappears from the project altogether.

What this means is that we go from this absolute banger by Tee Lopes in zone 6, which elevates what's otherwise a bog standard desert level to a thrilling adventure:

To... this, in zone 7:

It's EXTREMELY jarring!

The thing is, this is actually one of the better tracks in this style. I have to assume this is by Senoue, because you can totally hear a good Adventure or Heroes era Senoue track in there once you get past the crude synth replication of the Genesis era Sonic sound. Senoue is still a great composer, as you can hear clear as day with Bridge Island, but he's working with a restrictive sound palette that doesn't play to his strengths at all. If only he'd bust out that damn guitar, or at least pick some better synths.

(And no matter what people will tell you, no, this is not an accurate recreation of what the Genesis's YM2612 chip really sounded like, nor is it representative of what it CAN sound like at its best. Go back to the Streets of Rage 2 or Ristar soundtracks if you need a reminder.)

While I can at least see what the Press Factory tracks were aiming for, some other faux-FM synth tracks are just really bland. They don't have anything interesting going on, and they also don't seem particularly tailor made for the levels they accompany. They're just attempts to mimic what Sonic 1-3 sounded like on a very literal level. Take, for instance, the Golden Capital Act 1 theme, AKA "we've got Sky Sanctuary at home." While the better level themes in this game enhance the mood or even completely carry the vibes of a level, the weaker tracks can really suck all the air out of the room and make a level feel like more of a slog.

What kills me is that there are, in fact, a couple examples of how to do throwbacks to classic Sega FM synth music well on this very soundtrack! They're just not the Sonic 4 type tracks. I love the Frozen Base Act 2 theme, presumably composed by legendary Sega composer Hiroshi "HIRO" Kawaguchi, who's responsible for all-time classic arcade soundtracks like Fantasy Zone, Out Run, Hang-On, After Burner, and more, as well as the hacking and pinball themes from Frontiers. Maybe to an untrained ear this doesn't sound all that different, but it has a catchier tune, better instruments, and stronger production overall. I'm also a fan of the track for Sky Temple, which isn't perfect, but it blends a few Genesis-esque instruments like the Sonic 1+2 snare with other instruments for a richer sound. If the whole soundtrack sounded more like these examples, I'd definitely be complaining less.

I really just have to wonder... how did this happen? How did this end up being so inconsistent? Many fans on social media are jumping to the conclusion that Senoue is just extremely stubborn and refuses to ditch the style from Sonic 4. I can't deny this possibility, but some things just don't add up. The almost complete lack of "retro" style music in the promotional material. The fact that the style just suddenly shifts halfway through the game, then disappears for the final zone, as if that's not the note they want to end on. The complete lack of any tracks by Tee Lopes in the back half. The focus on the Mania-style tracks in the bonus "mini soundtrack." And most perplexing of all, the fact that three of the first tracks you hear in the game were Senoue compositions that were given extra attention with arrangements from Tee Lopes.

This is pure speculation on my part, but it almost seems like they straight up ran out of time.

Perhaps Jun wanted more of his tracks to get full arrangements from Tee, or for Tee to contribute more songs, but things were down to the wire and they chose to leave in some of the raw Sonic 4 style demos. The soundtrack being crunched out in a matter of months at the end of development would certainly explain why Speed Jungle had to be demoed without its music a mere four months ago. It'd also explain why a game that's only a few hours long needs NINETEEN composers listed in the credits. And also the fact that multiple zones just have completely different, unrelated music by different artists across their acts. Did they need multiple artists working on different acts simultaneously, completely independent from each other with no time to cross reference each others' work, due to extreme time constraints? I'd buy it.

Ah well. It's not the end of the world. I've heard worse Sonic music. But I'll always think of what could have been...

At least the final battle with Eggman at the end of Story Mode has a pretty kickass boss theme, which ALMOST makes up for how bad most of the preceding boss music is (and the fact that that very difficult fight doesn't have a checkpoint between phases and took me like an hour to beat lmao). It even seems like it might be written by longtime Phantasy Star Online composer and recurring Sonic contributor Hideaki Kobayashi. That's the guy who wrote NONAGRESSION!!!!!!!

The postgame

Speaking of beating Eggman! It turns out Superstars has a good deal of postgame content, as merely beating the last zone with all the Chaos Emeralds doesn't take you to the true final boss. In order to do that, you'll need to do something else.

Before we hit the big spoiler warning, I'm going to give any future players who are still reading a warning. If you value your sanity... don't force yourself to do all the postgame stuff. Don't make the mistakes I did. It's not worth it, and it may very well knock your personal score for the game down a couple points.

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

SPOILERS FOR THE STORY, UNLOCKABLES, AND THE POSTGAME BELOW THIS POINT

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

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The bonus scenario

Sonic Superstars has a big surprise in store for anyone who beats the main story. For the first time since... what, Silver? In 2006? We finally have a brand new playable character in a new Sonic platformer! (I wouldn't count the player avatar in Forces as a full-fledged New Character.) Yes, after the credits roll, you unlock Trip as the super-secret fifth playable character. I was really excited to see this. Trip is cute, even if her masked appearance from early in the game is perhaps a more unique design than a Sonic-ified lizard girl who can only vaguely look like a real sungazer lizard. She IS the first new Sonic character Ohshima has designed since the '90s, though, so she gets points for that - and she gets even more points for literally turning into a dragon when she goes Super. We love a girl who can turn into a dragon, don't we folks? And her playstyle is fun, too, with a double jump and the ability to roll along walls and ceilings.

But Trip isn't just playable. Like Knuckles before her, she gets an entire alternate story mode of her own, which somewhat remixes the level layouts, generally makes things more challenging, and swaps out Eggman for Egg Robo. I was so excited to see this! It really felt like the game had so much more in store for me than I'd anticipated.

...Then I spent probably around three hours attempting to beat the new final battle with Fang at the end of Trip's Story. And it made me regret doing Trip's Story at all.

Once you learn the patterns, a lot of them are actually piss easy. But the difficulty comes down to a few misguided factors:

The fight is LOOOONG. On a successful attempt the whole thing will probably take the average player about, like... seven or eight minutes? Maybe longer? This is where I really started to get pissed at the game for making me wait through these stupid attack patterns before I could attempt to hit the boss once.

The fight is divided between two phases, one with Fang in a vehicle and another with him in a giant robot, with no checkpoint between them. Dying to one of Fang's bullshit attacks on the second phase means having to redo the ~5 minute first phase all over again. And, worst of all...

Fang has multiple projectile attacks that are guaranteed instant kills, even if you have rings.

Also there's a stupid desperation headbutt attack that can really easily catch you off guard and kill you, but I only got that far in the fight once.

It's the instant kills that got me. If those fucking immobilizing net attacks just made you drop your rings, or you could at least wiggle out of them by mashing buttons (EDIT: apparently you CAN do this but you literally have to button mash so rapidly that it's a crapshoot whether or not you'll physically be able to do it), it would have been totally doable! Kinda fun, even! Slow, but pretty cool in terms of spectacle. But nope! Three hours! Three hours on this! This is, without a doubt, the hardest boss I have ever faced in any Sonic game, period, and one of the hardest bosses I've ever seen in ANY game. All because of one attack pattern where making a tiny mistake means starting over.

The glitches didn't help, either. Something about the way the circular boss arena was set up in both stories' final battles seems to make the floor intangible sometimes for non-player objects. Occasionally my dropped rings, enemies I was supposed to knock towards Fang, or one of Fang's insta-kill projectiles would just fall through the floor randomly. This definitely wasn't my main problem, but it helped drive home the idea that this fight just wasn't worth my time.

After three hours of attempts, I gave up. I just went and looked up the ending of Trip's story, as well as the contents of the Final Story, on YouTube. Turns out I made the right call, because boy, that true final boss looks like dogshit. It's just a very dull fight against a big generic cartoon dragon. Apparently this is the thing Eggman was looking for. It appears and is defeated with little fanfare. I think I liked it better when I assumed the scary dragon being foreshadowed was just Super Trip.

...Also, hey, what's up with The End being very conspicuously visible in the background of the last zone?? I know it's just a cheeky cameo, but, like... isn't it supposed to be sealed away in Cyber Space right now? Should I be taking this literally? Does this have lore implications? This is one hell of a way to remind people that the timeline's been reunified, I guess

Closing thoughts

I really hate to part ways with Superstars on a sour note like this, because like I said up top, I mostly enjoyed my time with it! It's really just a small handful of particularly frustrating bosses and the inconsistent soundtrack that drag it down. Other than that, it's solid as a rock. Maybe wait for sales if you're not dying to play it, but it's definitely worth playing for any Sonic fan. Just... skip the true ending. I would have stepped away MUCH happier with this game if I'd done that.

I wanna try to end this on a more positive note but I'm tired, so, uhhhh... look, you can unlock a Metal Nights skin for your Battle Mode bot!!

Anyway back to jamming to about half the soundtrack on loop while pretending the other half doesn't exist, and looking forward to the continued Fang Renaissance with his upcoming IDW miniseries

#tkp post #other media

[dennydraws]

I'm unsure to get Unicorn Overlord since I like Fire Emblem but generally dislike other strategy RPG games (I didn't enjoy Triangle Strategy). Would you recommend it?

Oh boy... I'd want to say absolutely but I will try to describe pros and cons as best as I can without any spoilers first :D

First off, you have to know what makes you like FE as a game?

Second well, I too didn't really like Triangle Strategy even though I did my share of fan arts... okay I only drew Dragan a lot lol....

Gameplay

Overlord Unicorn uses gambit system (it was my first time hearing that!) so you don't move individual characters, you assign the characters into a unit and the whole fight is automatic (though it still has some rng involved.)

You assign skills and can tweak conditions to them, which can be a lot of fun if you are into min maxing or want to experiment and optimize. I did some tweaking and played on medium difficulty (?) and had no issues, if anything it started to feel too easy after a while.

It is real time movement and not like with how FE has turns. It can seem scary or maybe overwheling if you're not used to such systems. I adapted very, very fast. I didn't feel any weird difficult curves and everything flowed very nicely.

The menu may seem very overwhelming at first because it is very busy ...but after an hour or two of gameplay, the menu and the whole UI felt like some well designed work of art and became very intuitive.

Open world

Unlike FE, here you can roam and explore and do side quests and find treasures, restore areas you liberated... it has a lot of small activities which I loved to do between battles. So the game felt a lot more relaxing and fun to me because it wasn't just cutscene > battle > cutscene battle. You can tackle regions out of order and pretty much can go into the final battle right away if you really want to!

Story!

Hokaaay so... A lot of people do say TS had better story and I think yes, but UO felt way more satisfying to me. At the end of a game, I want to feel satisfied not conflicted or bittersweet or feel like "ah if only this or that happened". But if you are more into realistic outcomes and an idealistic finale doesn't vibe with you then you may cringe at some parts.... or you can of course just execute everyone you see if you rather do that!

You do get very basic beat bad guy, liberate area, reclaim your home kingdom so it's not anything over dramatic or gut punching. If you like a character, chances are you will recruit them. Nearly every enemy you bump at you end up recruiting (as long as you don't execute or jail) so at least no surprise your favorite died I guess? :D;;;;

I don't want to spoil but you do get some nifty lore and explanation on why bad guys do the bad things and while simple, I really enjoyed it.

The romance in the air! (or not)

Okay I will be a little blunt, that's not the kinda game for that xD;

It's heavily biased towards hetero couples and the male options are like none. Nearly all if not all of the female ones end up romantic and become Alain's queen. It's obvious what the target is here. Nothing that can stop the power of fanfiction or fan art though!

Other characters than Alain don't really get affected by the amount of rapport conversations so you don't really ship other characters like in FE games and their endings don't get affected by how much their rapport developed.

Personally, I saw the maiden ring as fancy status accessory and just slapped it on my favorite character and moved on. Lore wise, it is important and you do get 2 variations of the ending where your chosen maiden ring bearer plays a bigger role.

About the jiggly wigglies

I don't know how you feel about fan service but it sure has some of them jiggle mechanics on some female character! It's not too bad and it doesn't feel out of place given how...everything kinda jiggles. (the food especially!) so it didn't personally bother me but I know some people may side glance it so I thought to bring it up.

Final thoughts?

I am not sure... If you pick it with more open mind without trying to compare it to FE, I think you may enjoy it.

My final thoughts on UO is that I felt extremely valued as a player. Again, I try to avoid spoilers but I could see where they thought "lets add this" or "lets give that" to make the experience more fun/smooth/enjoyable. My perception is slightly wrapped as someone who has experience working in game development, I can tell when a dev team put thought and tested things and when a dev team just wanted to meet a deadline and publish something. This game is not the later.

I read it took 10 years to make this game and it kinda shows with the amount of polish it has. But I also don't want to set some extremely high expectations just because I had so much fun. xD;

Maybe download the demo, see how it is and if you think it's your cup o tea, grab it on sale!

I hope this helped some! ^o^7

#replies #of where I try to sell Unicorn Overlord but also want to be fair!

[thymewayster]

Fixing the Mandalorian season 3: an outline rewrite

Now that the season is finished and I can see the whole picture...season 3 had a few issues. It had a lot of good moments and some great story potential, but I think it could have been executed a lot better.

So I’ve fixed it by making a few tweaks, rearranging some scenes, and letting this be two seasons rather than one. I am trying to use roughly the same resources and roughly the same plot beats as canon did while still having the spirit of the first two seasons.

One of my major goals is also to make sure each show is self-contained—aka, you do not have to have seen any other show other than the one you’re watching for things to make sense. (Although of course, if you have seen the other shows, you will know a lot more context.)

Also fair warning, this is staying platonic, but if you want to imagine more shippy details, feel free.

This might get a little long.

So. Let’s start with Book of Boba Fett.

BoBF: Din is not the main character, Boba Is

Grogu and Luke do not make an appearance at all.

Pretty much the entire storyline of BoBF needs fixing, but fixing Boba’s story is a different issue. This post is about fixing the Mandalorian, so I’m going to focus on the last couple episodes when Din appears.

Episode 5 (or 6, depending on how Boba’s story is fixed) opens in media res, action scene. Din is in the middle of killing/beating up a bunch of guys while on a bounty hunt. Din wins the fight, pushes forward, and…it is revealed that his bounty is a child who was kidnapped for ransom that Din has been hired to retrieve. 

Optional: Shots during this part that parallel the very first episode of season 1.

Din reunites child with grateful rich parent/client. There’s a moment of Din looking at them longingly and it’s clear that Din is angsting over watching the parent/child reunion. The pain of losing Grogu is still relatively fresh. 

After Din is paid, Fennec appears (in person or more likely via holocall). 

There is a two-line exchange: Fennec asking how Din’s search for his people is going, Din replying it’s not going well and that he hasn’t found anything in weeks/months. Thus establishing two things: 1) Din is looking for other Mandalorians. 2) It has been weeks/months since the season 2 finale.

Fennec says Boba has a job for Din. Din says he owes Boba and he’ll do it for free.

All of the above takes up maybe the first five minutes of the episode at most. 

This also works because it feeds Mandalorian fans while not requiring you to have seen the Mandalorian at all if you’re just here for the Boba Fett show. 

If you’re watching BoBF in a vacuum, then it establishes all you really need to know: Din is a Mandalorian/has similar armor to Boba, is an ally of Boba’s, and is a very good fighter. It makes perfect sense Boba would call him for help.

From a business standpoint, this also still promotes the Mandalorian show. (“Hey, if you think this guy is cool, he already has his own show!”)

If you have seen the Mandalorian then you know the context of why Din is angsting over a parent/child reunion and you are having FEELINGS.

We next see Din on Tatooine and he is present for the BoBF finale as part of Boba’s crew.

Crucially, nothing of actual plot importance happens with Din. It is not required to watch BoBF to understand season 3 of the Mandalorian. 

The focus of the show is on Boba, and Din is there to be a cameo/look cool/be Boba’s backup so we can have some cool side-by-side shots and give the Mandalorian fans a sliver of content without disrupting BoBF-only watchers’ experience. 

The scene where Din says “I’m with you until we both fall” can stay, complete with sending the majordomo out with a fake notice of surrender. (Because that was great, and a good character moment for Boba.)

There is no Grogu appearing in the middle of the fight. Grogu is not even mentioned beyond the implication that Din misses him.

After the battle, we can either see Boba thank Din and then Din leaves to a quick little motif of his theme song. Or, because this is Boba’s show and Din is a side character, we might not even see Din leave. The focus might be more on other cast members.

New Mando s3: Din and Grogu

The theme: Din and Grogu reuniting, Din redeeming himself and rebuilding in the wake of season 2, the covert

Episode 1: Canon BoBF episode, where it should be

Canon BoBF ep 5, with a few differences.

The entire dramatic bounty-hunting/fight scene in the freezer is perfect, nothing changes. It also serves to tell the audience that Din’s having issues wielding the darksaber.

Din tracks down not only the Armorer and Paz, but there are some other survivors as well. Paz/somebody heals him from his darksaber accident. 

Preferably that character is a new named Mando character who is basically the covert’s doctor/medic. Like they can fight but they actually specialize in combat medicine. (This is also a good opportunity for worldbuilding since we can go into a bit more detail on how they handle injuries. Do they all cauterize their wounds or was that just Din out in the field? How do they handle head injuries if they can’t remove their helmet??)

Optional: have a passing comment about how long it’s been since the fight with the Nevarro bounty guild, further establishing that some time has passed.

This is also a chance for a nice sprinkling of worldbuilding for what the covert is like, how Din interacts with other members, and what he misses about them. 

Some members of the covert actually ask him why he removed his helmet, and there is some debate on whether his removal was acceptable as it was in service of a foundling. 

This is a good chance to introduce a few more Mandalorian characters. They don’t have to be big/detailed roles, but it helps humanize the Mandos a bit to show that they aren’t all a monolith, and we can have some familiar faces/helmets in future episodes. (And now you have names to go with the Funko pop figures. Because this is Star Wars and Disney, and let’s face it a major part of the franchise is the merch. We gotta keep the studio execs happy and the investors rich or they’ll ax our show.) 

Maybe Paz is the hothead of the group, or maybe his personality is pretty typical for the group. Maybe Din is unusually quiet/private compared to the rest of the group. Maybe one person is even more strict about the Creed than Din is. Maybe one just straight up does not speak in Basic/English and needs subtitles, implying that under the helmet they’re some species that physically can’t speak Basic/English. etc. Give us some characters.

Optional: a passing line to indicate that even though the audience is hearing English (or whatever Earth language) with no subtitles, the Mandalorians including Din are actually all speaking Mando’a and we’re getting a direct translation.

Anyway so they’re all debating whether Din is an apostate or not. The Armorer points out that the Creed is clear on removing the helmet, but she sounds deeply sorrowful/regretful about it.

Some members think Din is now an apostate. Others think that Din’s removal was justified. 

Crucially, Din himself falls on the apostate side, and he believes he needs to be redeemed.

Optional: When the covert find out he has the darksaber, there is further debate on whether this redeems him or not. Din doesn’t think it does.

Like in canon, Paz challenges him for the darksaber. Din is not sure he wants to be leader, but he also isn’t willing to just hand it over. 

Paz is like, if you don’t want it, why are you fighting so hard for it? And Din points out that losing a fight on purpose is Not the Way. Paz points out that he is an apostate. Din still refuses to give up without a fight. (Same fight from canon, with other Mandos watching, Din wins.)

Optional: At some point we meet Ragnar and learn that he is Paz’s foundling/apprentice. He is training to swear the Creed. Bonus points if Din angsts over that too.

When covert members ask about Grogu, Din reveals that he has coordinates for Grogu. (It can be left vague whether Din found them himself or Luke gave them to him off-screen) But Din has not visited Grogu because he doesn’t want to interfere with Grogu’s training. 

Din decides he wants to go to Mandalore to bathe in the waters and redeem himself. The Armorer warns him that it is probably not possible since Mandalore was glassed, but Din is determined to try. 

The covert wishes him luck. The Armorer decides to give him a gift: some chainmail for Grogu. (can be made from the spear or not.) Din protests that he has returned Grogu to his people and will not jeopardize his training. The Armorer replies that it is the child’s birthright as a Mandalorian foundling. Even if Din does not see the child again, then the chainmail will serve as a reminder of what Din sacrificed so much for.

The Armorer also gives Din a cool new weapon, possibly a new amban rifle or something similar. 

Let’s face it, cool weapons are integral to his character's design, coolness factor, and marketability. Gotta have something to make new toys. If the spear is melted down, he’ll need a replacement cool weapon. Even if he keeps the spear, that means he has two cool melee weapons, the darksaber and the spear, and he needs a cool long-range weapon.

Din accepts the gifts.

The covert is discovered by bad guys (Imperials? Beskar hunters? a crime syndicate?), there is another action sequence while the Mandalorians fight off the intruders. Din assists the others in fighting the enemies off. (This is a good chance for further characterization and exploration of group dynamics. Does Din communicate well and fight in sync with his fellow covert members, or has his time away from the covert and his bounty hunting career made it so he tends to fight alone rather than working as a team?) 

The Mandalorians win easily, because this is a chance to show off Mandalorian combat. 

But because secrecy is their survival, the covert must now relocate.

Optional: a good father-son moment with Paz defending Ragnar. Bonus points if Din also sees Ragnar defend himself using something he learned in training earlier in the episode. (Because it reinforces to Din that training is important. He’s going to bring that up later.)

Din helps the covert acquire a ship to get off planet (possibly with some money he earned on his way here? Showing that he still thinks of himself as the covert's provider. Or maybe they steal one) 

The Armorer asks if he wishes to join them. Din shakes his head, doesn’t believe himself to be worthy. He feels he does not belong with them and is an apostate.

The Mandalorians part ways, with the covert off to find a new location, while Din is left alone, watching them leave. (Visually, this shows him at rock bottom. He is an apostate. He has no ship, he has no covert, he has no child. It’s just him, alone in the universe.)

Optional end stinger: We see Grogu, meditating on a rock. He is concentrating for a moment, then his eyes open. He looks sad (and adorable). Possibly reaches out a hand, reminiscent of s1 ep1’s ending moment, but there is no Din there to take his finger.

Episode 2: Din and Grogu reunite

This episode has two plots: Din’s plot and Grogu’s. We switch between them. 

Optional: No CGI Luke. I love that Mark Hamill got to come back, but CGI Luke is not good at emoting. It worked okay for the season 2 finale, because Luke was calm and not super emotionally involved, but by the time we get to season 3 we need him to be able to emote or he comes off as very flat. If necessary, we can use a little CGI to make a lookalike actor (Sebastian Stan? An unknown?) a little more Luke like. But remember Luke is a bit older, he doesn’t have to look exactly like he did in Return of the Jedi. 

Screw it, maybe he has a beard now or something. He had a beard in the Last Jedi, and Disney wants us to use this season to prop up the sequels, right? Just look at that continuity! And that might make it easier for makeup/a touch of CGI to make the actor look more like Mark Hamill.

A Plot

We see a montage of Grogu and Luke training. Pretty much the canon scenes from canon BoBF ep 6. The seasons change on the planet they are on during the training montage to indicate the passage of time. 

Grogu is doing well in his studies, but he is very easily distracted and almost always looks sad. It’s clear that he’s feeling very distracted/conflicted. Luke is concerned.

Optional: show that Grogu is not the only student being trained. He likes the other students, but it’s clear that he isn’t as focused as the others. (Maybe squeeze in a quick flashback to happy Grogu back in the Jedi creche with the other students to show the difference?)

B Plot

Switch to Din. Din’s plot is basically the non-covert parts of BoBF ep 5. Funny public transport sequence to Tatooine, the bundle of armor is shaped like Grogu’s head, Rodian child angst. Meets up with Pelli, gets N1. Pelli tells Din that fixing it would go faster if Din helped.

A Plot

Luke is concerned because Grogu is very gifted with the Force but it’s clear his feelings are conflicted. Luke meditates with Grogu, does the frog-lifting scene. Luke realizes that Grogu deeply misses Din, and Luke gently mentions that being a Jedi requires a lot more focus than Grogu is currently using.

Optional: Luke mentions he himself has struggled to find the balance between helping his friends and his Jedi training.

Luke consults Ahsoka by holocall or in person. (Possibly drop a hint at what Ahsoka’s doing. Looking for Ezra or fighting Thrawn or whatever she’s going to be doing in her show). 

Ahsoka points out Grogu’s attachment to Din, which is why she didn’t train him in the first place.

Luke and Ahsoka have a discussion about Jedi philosophy and attachment. Ahsoka points out the Jedi did not maintain family attachments. Luke points out that he certainly is still maintaining contact with his family/friends. 

Optional: Luke mentions he has found records of Jedi maintaining family relationships, anciently as well as recently. (Drop some KOTOR references?)

By the end of the discussion, they have clearly defined attachment/possessiveness for the audience. (Will this finally stop the endless discussion among fans about Anakin’s fall and whether the Jedi’s no-attachment rule caused it? Of course not, this is the Star Wars fandom lol.)

B Plot:

N1 repair montage. 

Pelli modifies the back seat for Grogu, even though Din sadly points out that Grogu is not traveling with him anymore. Pelli’s like, “You want me to put a droid in there then?” Din, with possibly the first non-sad emotion we’ve seen him have this season, says no, absolutely not. Then Pelli’s like “So it’ll be for visits then!” Din is silent after that. He is clearly still sad.

There is a more in-depth conversation where Pelli wants more information about where Grogu is now and Din mentions that he of course misses Grogu, but he is sure that getting this training is the best thing for him and he made the right decision.

The repair montage might be shorter than or the same length as the original, depending on the runtime of the episode. (This episode will be on the longer side for a Mando episode. Maybe like an hour. Tbh you could probably stretch this out to two episodes if you really wanted.)

The N1 is finished. Din takes it out for a spin, sees the Rodian kid again, escapes from the space cops, plays out like the original BoBF ep 5 did. 

After the test ride, he bids goodbye to Pelli and takes off to space.

In the N1 in space, Din has a quiet moment. Visual shots of space being huge and vast and beautiful, while Din’s ship is very small in comparison. While Din experienced a moment of happiness in rebuilding the N1, he is still very alone.

We see Din holding the armor bundle shaped like Grogu’s head and thinking. (This scene visually echoes the s1 ep3 scene where he contemplates the shifter knob and decides to rescue Grogu from the Imp compound instead of just leaving.)

After a moment of silent contemplation (and probably as the music builds), Din makes a decision. He jumps to hyperspace.

A Plot/B Plot:

Luke sits Grogu down and asks if Grogu would prefer to continue his Jedi training or to return to the Mandalorian. Luke points out that of course Grogu’s bond with Din is not a bad thing, but being a Jedi requires focus and commitment. The greater good and the Jedi code must come before all else. Luke also points out that a short time for Grogu is a long time for Din. 

Luke would love to train Grogu to be a great Jedi, but he will respect whatever Grogu chooses.

Grogu chooses Din, and Luke accepts this decision. 

Luke is just debating how they’re going to reach Din…when Din shows up!

Optional: still include the “Is that a bench?” scene with R2 lol.

Din is awkward and nervous and just wanted to stop by for a visit and give Grogu the armor, but Luke informs him of Grogu’s choice. 

Din takes a bit of convincing, because after all he sacrificed a lot to get Grogu his training. 

Luke mentions that Grogu has done well in his training, and although it is not finished, Grogu really does want to stay with Din.

Grogu does one of those delightfully ridiculous puppet baby flips into Din’s arms. 

Father and son have a happy possibly tearful reunion.

Optional: we get another helmetless scene here with just Din and Grogu. (but probably not if Din hasn’t even adopted him yet)

Episode 3: Visit to Nevarro

Din visits Nevarro because Greef wants to give him a job offer, to stay and be a marshal since Cara is (fired) off doing New Republic things. 

Din seriously considers the offer because it would provide stability for Grogu. He still wants to be redeemed, but going to Mandalore is a suicide mission and now he has the kid to think about. 

Kind of s1ep4 vibes on Sorgan. Now that Din has left his covert, he has another chance to settle down, have a relatively normal life. We should have lots of moments either through framing/acting or maybe conversations with Greef that indicate that Din is thinking about taking the offer, but he’s reluctant to give up his desire to be redeemed. Grogu also clearly likes it here.

Optional: They can have a nice moment with the IG-11 statue like the canon s3 ep1 did, but there’s no reviving yet.

The pirate encounter occurs, but it’s a bit more extended and action-y and there are many more pirates—a scouting invasion.

After the climax of the episode and defeating the pirates, Greef and the Nevarro citizens are sifting through the pirates’ loot when they discover a green shard with Mandalorian writing on it. Din is shook.

Din interrogates a surviving captured pirate and discovers that they got it after raiding some exploration vessels in the Mandalore system. Din is ecstatic. Mandalore might be visitable, which means redemption is possible.

He declines Greef’s job offer, at least until after he is redeemed.

Episode 4: If we must include build up for the sequels, then fine. Have a fun pirate fight.

Din decides he needs a droid to measure the air readings on Mandalore, and IG-11 is that droid. The IG-11 terminator / Anzellan scenes play out like canon s3 ep1.

They leave Nevarro and are pursued by the pirates. (Can make this as long or as short as runtime allows, depending on how long the Pershing bit needs to be.)

Since this is the most flexible episode that doesn’t have as many important plot points, the Pershing story goes here as a B plot. If it has to be as long as it is due to executive demands, fine. Otherwise, condense it. A lot. The worldbuilding is great but the story itself really didn’t need to be that long. Make sure you drop hints about Gideon escaping and being alive.

Din and Grogu escape pirates.

Show the pirates on their ship. The captain mentions the mysterious employer who hired them is not going to be happy, and they’ll have to try again.

Episode 5: Getting R5 and having a fun filler adventure

Din and Grogu have a pit stop on Tatooine and have a fun action-y adventure involving Pelli and maybe a BoBF cast cameo or a fun new side character. Pelli gives Din R5 so he can test whether Mandalore is safe. 

Din uses the darksaber in a fight at some point. He’s still struggling with it a bit, but he has gotten a bit better.

Grogu shows off his powers. Din is impressed and very proud of him.

Depending on how the runtime works out, either the end of this episode or the beginning of next episode is the bit from the original s3 ep1 where Din visits Bo-Katan on her depression throne and gets directions to the mines of Mandalore.

Episode 6: The Mines of Mandalore Revamped

This episode basically follows the original beats of s3 ep2. Grogu map lesson, Din captured, Grogu gets Bo-Katan, Bo-Katan saves Din, Grogu is powerful, Din is redeemed. 

But we’re going to use this opportunity to flesh out some Mandalore backstory/history. Bo is a returning side character in this episode, but we need to flesh her out a bit more for next season.

I do want to make a bit more of a deal about Din setting foot on Mandalore for the first time. Like a shot of his boot landing on the ground and a slow pan on his helmet looking around at the barren landscape or a comment to Grogu or something. It’d take like five seconds.

Bo-Katan is still Creed-agnostic/atheist but clearly does respect Din even if she thinks his Creed is kind of dumb.

After Din wakes up post-barbecue-rescue, he points out that Bo-Katan beat the trap monster that captured him, so does she want the Darksaber? Bo-Katan bitterly says no, she can’t take it, because it has to be won in battle and whatever other reasons. The story’s not good enough—because it’s not so much about the sword itself, per se, but how you got it.

When Bo talks about her father she also mentions her sister. We’re not going to go into a whole crash course on who Satine is, because you should be able to watch this show without watching TCW. But a little mention would be nice. (Even if it’s just point to some random destroyed structure and be like “That was constructed under my sister’s rule.”)

Mention of her family can segue into a bare-bones outline of history so that TCW isn’t required viewing for context. We don’t need a detailed breakdown of pacifism/New Mandos vs Death Watch and can keep this all fairly vague. But we have to establish a couple things.

Bo fought in the Mandalorian Civil Wars, and she did a lot of shady things she now regrets. (What exactly the shady things were can be left as vague as Disney requires, because I have a feeling partly why canon Bo didn’t get to talk about this much is because Disney didn’t want a protagonist with a villainous past.)

Bo had a sister who once ruled Mandalore, but thanks to Bo and her shady actions, the sister was killed. (Yeah, it was a lot more complicated than that, but this shows that in the intervening years Bo has reflected upon her actions in TCW and regrets a lot of it and at least partly blames herself for Satine’s death. Part of her redemption arc.)

Bo concludes if the Mandalorians, including herself, hadn’t been so busy fighting over what divided them, they might have been ready for the Empire when it came, and Mandalore might not have been destroyed.

Optional: When Bo’s talking about things she regrets, Din says something about how he can relate to that because he’s also done things he regrets (like turning in Grogu or whatever he was doing with Ran’s group). Bo’s like, is that why you’re so determined to be redeemed? Because you regret taking your helmet off? And Din’s like, I don’t regret that. (because it was for Grogu)

Optional: Also, the more parallels we can fit between Din being redeemed with Mandalore being redeemed, the better. Din’s getting a new start, and so will Mandalore (and Bo)

Din recites the Creed and goes in the water. Make it more clear whether Din fell in or was pulled. I prefer pulled, but either is fine.

Optional: Bo-Katan sees the Mythosaur, but Din does not. Bo-Katan is shook. She does have a moment where Din asks if she still plans to reunite Mandalore and is she sure she doesn’t want the darksaber and she vagues at Din “...I will have to find another way.” While looking at the water. Clearly talking about the Mythosaur, but Din is oblivious since he didn’t see the Mythosaur.

Din and Bo-Katan part ways as friends. Din tells Bo-Katan he is in her debt and owes her one. The Kryze castle is not destroyed…(yet). 

Episode 7: Reunion with the Covert

Din and Grogu return to the covert. Basically the original s3 ep4 with a couple differences. 

Ragnar’s Creed ceremony, the giant crocodile, and Din’s dramatic entrance from the canon s3 ep1 is moved here.

Bring in the concept of the foundling/apprentice ranking here. The Armorer addresses Ragnar as “Apprentice Ragnar” during the ceremony, implying that swearing the Creed is akin to a graduation ceremony going from apprentice to full Mandalorian.

Din is welcomed back to the covert with open arms, and Grogu is introduced to the other Mandos. Everyone is really happy for Din and excited when he says Mandalore is not exactly habitable, but also not completely inhabitable.

Grogu’s training scene versus Ragnar stays. Din is the one who helps Grogu put on the little dart shooter. Din calls Grogu his ward, but we’re going to elaborate on why Grogu isn’t his son officially yet. When Ragnar asks why Grogu doesn’t wear a helmet, Din says he can’t talk and is too young to swear the Creed and become an apprentice, so he is still a foundling. This makes it a little clearer why Grogu isn’t officially Din’s son, and adds some Mando worldbuilding. 

Optional: Ragnar is referred to as “Paz Ragnar” or something to establish the naming convention. (Unless Djarin truly is his given name. But I’m ignoring it. He’s always Din to me.) “Apprentice Paz Ragnar” in the ceremony?

Ragnar is still captured by the shriek hawk, but this is the first time this has happened. Shriek hawk might have attacked before, but it’s never carried off a child. (Literally all you have to do is just cut the line "it always gets away" or replace it with “it got away” because really??)

Paz chases after shriek hawk, jet pack runs out of fuel, but fortunately Din/other Mandalorians bring the bigger Mandalorian ship, pick him up. (And give him more jetpack fuel.)

They all immediately go to fight the shriek-hawk at its nest, fight goes down like it did in canon and Din saves Ragnar. Paz is grateful.

They still bring in the baby shriek-hawks because lol. Maybe drop the foundling joke though since it made it sound like they were sentient. 

Grogu still gets his rondlet and processes his Order 66 trauma. Ahmed Best still saves him in a flashback.

Also, fit in as many small moments of Paz/other Mandos character development as possible. By the end of this episode we should have at least a character sketch for a few other Mandos besides Paz and the Armorer.

End stinger: Pirates attack Nevarro, Greef sends out distress signal, tries to contact New Republic.

Teva gets message, Zeb cameo

Episode 8: Defending Nevarro

Basically the original s3 ep5, but bigger and better.

Teva goes to New Republic, they turn him down.

Teva tracks R5-D4, shows up at the Mandalorians’ compound.

Din and covert peeved, Din negotiates.

Din wants to help Greef, and also remembers Greef offered him a protection gig/land. Realizes this will solve the issue of being constantly attacked by wildlife.

The group meeting/holding the speaking hammer scene.

Din points out that Greef offered him a tract of land, and that sounds a lot better than a place where giant creatures almost eat their foundlings. Basically his canon speech.

Mandalorians go to Nevarro, wipe out the pirates in as much glorious carnage as Disney will let us get away with. These action sequences take up a third to a half of the episode. 

Optional: Mandos ride the baby shriek hawks in battle. (The babies are trying their best, but they haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet, for some comic relief.)

Optional: Din uses the darksaber. He has gotten a lot better at wielding it. (Because he believes in himself and what he’s doing now.)

Pirates are defeated, Nevarro is grateful, Mandalorians take up new job as protectors of Nevarro.

End stinger: Teva ship scene, Gideon escaped, there’s beskar on the ship oh no! 

Switch to Gideon looking menacing and accepting a holocall from the lead pirate. Reveal that Gideon hired pirates. Pirates tell Gideon they failed to take Nevarro and they’re mad that Gideon didn’t tell them the planet was defended by Mandalorians. Gideon furious, stalks off from holocall dramatically, pan out a bit and we get a glimpse of the facility/beskar troopers/Gideon clones.

Season 4: Bo-Katan and Mandalore (but Din and Grogu are still the main characters)

Mostly about Bo-Katan, darksaber drama, reuniting Mandalorians. Gideon is main antagonist. Din is still the main character most of the time, but occasionally Bo takes over to further the main plotline.

Episode 1: Bo-Katan enters the chat

loosely based on canon s3ep3

We open with Bo-Katan in her childhood home. (possibly still on her depression throne lol but it’d also probably be good to see what she does with herself all day). Bonus points if there’s some kind of family portrait in the background that features Bo, Satine, and their parents. (and/or the theoretical third sister that birthed Korkie lol).

Optional: Have a moment where Bo actually looks at the painting wistfully to indicate where her head’s at.

She gets an alert of invading ships, takes off in her own ship to fight them. An action scene of dogfighting ships ensues.

They bomb/destroy her castle.

Furious, Bo-Katan chases after them, but realizes they are based on Mandalore and their forces are huge. 

Reluctantly, very frustrated, decides to retreat.

We switch to Nevarro. Establishing shots. Nevarro is thriving even more than the last time we saw it. Trade is bustling, more infrastructure. Mandalorians roam the street freely. Some are patrolling / being security, others are just there to shop/chill/socialize. Relationships are friendly.

Last establishing shot zeroes in on the Mandalorian land. Also busy and thriving. Children are playing in the sunlight…including Grogu. :)

When I say playing, I mean they’re totally sparring with and beating the crap out of each other because they’re Mandalorian kids. 

Grogu has also gotten a lot better in combat, and despite being tiny the other kids respect him as an equal. Grogu is thriving and seems much more at home than he did with the Jedi kids at Luke’s school.

Optional: Grogu and Ragnar are rivals/besties. 

Camera moves over to Din and Greef chatting about a growing threat. A larger group such as the Crimson Dawn / a new original crime syndicate is considering making a move on Nevarro since Nevarro is becoming even more of a wealthy trade hub and insists on maintaining its independence from the New Republic given how badly the NR failed them last time. 

Optional: the new syndicate is somehow led by Hondo Ohnaka, because that would be hilarious (although that also has the potential to ruin tension if not handled well.)

Din is a little concerned that if the enemy syndicate makes a move, they have enough numbers to possibly overwhelm the Mandalorians.

They are interrupted by an alert of a rapidly approaching invading spaceship that isn’t following landing protocol. 

Din and other Mandalorians jetpack off and/or rush to ships (yes, they have multiple ships now. More signs of growth.) to shoot it down, but Din gets a call from Bo-Katan. She’s the one in the ship, she’s homeless, there’s tons of bad guys on Mandalore, and she has nowhere else to go since her forces abandoned her and Din is her last friend.

(It’s not weird that she knows where Din/Mandalorians are. It’s public knowledge they’re on Nevarro.)

They let her land in Mandalorian territory. Her ship is badly damaged. (Maybe we see some Mando mechanics swarm to fix it!)

On Bo-Katan’s ship, we see Bo-Katan pause and think for a moment. She dons her helmet before disembarking to talk to the Mandos. (Din might comment on this later, and Bo-Katan says she thought it would help her case and get them to trust her. Din says that was probably a good idea.)

The Armorer points out that she’s not really a true follower of the Way, but because she saved Din’s life last season she is welcome to live among them.

From there the episode pivots to a slice-of-Mandalorian-life story. Bo-Katan, with Din as a guide since he’s the only one she’s sort of friends with, realizes that the covert she dismissed as a cult is actually not that bad.

They accepted her, in contrast to the forces that “melted away.” 

At the start of the episode, the other covert members are passive-aggressive against Bo-Katan since she is an apostate. By the end of the episode, as Bo-Katan grows to appreciate the covert’s ways, they grow to appreciate her and her ways. Mutual respect!

She notices that Din is not even the leader of his group despite owning the darksaber and Din reinforces that he and his people could not care less about the fancy sword. Honor and loyalty are more important. 

Optional: Since Din is friends with Greef he is basically the group’s diplomat (and/or military leader?) while the Armorer is social/political/religious leader. Din defers to her.

More Mandalorian worldbuilding. Have some of the Mando characters we met last season interact with Bo and/or Din so they are fleshed out a bit more. 

Optional: Paz Vizsla and Bo interaction. Do they have beef? Do they get along? Idk I just want Bo to react to seeing a Vizsla and vice versa

Bo-Katan has more large-scale military experience than anyone in the covert does, so she ends up contributing some ideas to better defend Nevarro against the enemy syndicate.

Grogu gets another piece of armor (vambrace?). Din is very proud of Grogu. We should get lots of little cute father-son moments threaded through the episode.

Optional: The Armorer is starting to sketch out some helmet concepts for Grogu

Optional: Grogu is clearly going to start talking soon, tries to say “This is the Way” when everybody else says it.

The enemy syndicate attacks. Partly thanks to Bo-Katan’s contributions, the Mandalorians successfully fight them off despite being vastly outnumbered.

Optional: bonus points if Grogu uses the Force to help somehow. More bonus points if Ragnar is also helping defend a bit.

Optional: Okay but what if they tasked Grogu (and maybe Ragnar) with defending the younger foundlings while the adults fight the syndicate? Because that would be cute and potentially hilarious. (Ragnar carefully and perfectly fights/shoots enemies. Grogu just yeets them.)

After syndicate is defeated, Bo-Katan feels great. She has actually used her talents for good. She laments if only other Mandalorians could reunite and take back their planet as well as they defended Nevarro.

Like canon, the Armorer notes Bo-Katan needs a repair and they go off in private. Bo-Katan confides she saw a mythosaur. Armorer and Bo-Katan have their “take off your helmet” scene. It’s less weird because it was always clear that Bo-Katan was wearing the helmet more out of a nicety than a belief. The Armorer tells her she has walked both worlds, and seeing the mythosaur likely signals a new age for Mandalore. 

The Armorer believes that Bo’s goal of taking back Mandalore, especially now that they know the planet isn’t deadly, is worthwhile. Reuniting with other Mandalorians sounds like a good idea (especially since she and the rest of the covert now see that Bo is not the traitorous apostate they thought her and other outsiders to be).

The whole helmetless walk is the same as canon, but at the end of it, Din asks Bo if she wants the darksaber for her quest.

Bo-Katan very much wants the darksaber, but she can’t accept. (This is practically a running joke by this point.)

Well since Din has the darksaber, does she want him to help her in her mission? Din does owe her a favor since she saved his life. (And Din lives for side quests to help his friends.)

Bo-Katan accepts.

I do see that this episode runs the risk of being a little repetitive from the new s3 finale. To differentiate, this episode’s fights should be more aerial/dogfight based since they have more ships. Also a great opportunity to show off some cool new ship models, now at a toy store near you.)

Episode 2: Din and Bo vs Axe

basically the canon s3ep 6. Was it silly? Yes. But I liked it fine, and I’m here for major plot beats. This whole show has been built on fun filler-y adventures.

Maybe clarify what the heck Christopher Lloyd’s motive was though.

Anyway at the end of the episode Bo confronts Axe Woves. Axe says his whole thing about Din not being Mandalorian and not having a drop of Mandalorian blood in his veins. 

Bo-Katan defends Din same as canon

Optional: Maybe also says that Din is far more Mandalorian than Axe is.

Din challenges Axe to a duel. Axe laughs and is like, you’re not Mandalorian, you can’t challenge me to a formal duel.

Optional: Din lights up  the darksaber, but Bo stops him.

Bo-Katan says, fine, then since you’re too much of a coward to fight him I challenge you on his behalf.

Axe accepts.

Din offers her the darksaber for the fight, but Bo-Katan turns him down.

Optional: “I don’t need that thing to take this insert Star Wars slur here down.”

Bo-Katan wipes the floor with Axe.

Then one of two options:

Option A: Din hands Bo Katan the darksaber with the same weak excuse as in canon (but since we’ve seen him repeatedly trying his best to get rid of it, this isn’t out of nowhere.)

Option B: Din mildly says to the whole group that he has the darksaber and he thinks Bo-Katan’s pretty great actually. And if they really need the darksaber to convince them of leadership, then that makes him their leader as the owner of the darksaber, and he’s putting Bo-Katan as his second in command so listen to her.

The other Mandalorians (possibly a little reluctantly) are now on Bo-Katan’s side, as is their giant fleet.

Episode 3A: Side Quest Shenanigans

a fun adventure-y episode where Din+Grogu go on a side quest in order to track down a third Mandalorian group. (Or a flex episode if the runtime for one of the others goes too long and needs to be split)

Optional: Bonus points for going to a planet we’ve never seen before 

Optional: Bonus points for introducing fun new one-off side characters

Optional: Bonus points for introducing new alien species

Optional: Bonus points for another space whale cameo

Din succeeds in his quest and gets coordinates for the Mandalorian group.

or

Episode 3B: It’s flashback time

Kind of a bottle episode with Din, Grogu, and some young Din flashbacks. 

A third Mando group has made contact. Bo-Katan’s busy doing leader-y things / organizing the fleet so she’s sending Din to go meet them, and Din of course is bringing Grogu. 

Another reason why Bo is sending Din specifically is that he has been to Mandalore and can attest that the planet is relatively habitable.

Optional: Yet another reason is because this third group possibly fought with her before and they don’t really trust her. Din’s going to be her hype man.

flashbacks reveal more about Din’s upbringing. Lots of worldbuilding. Probably a lot of TCW references. And addresses Din’s trainer (father?) and explains a bit more why Din has not formally adopted Grogu yet. 

Weave those flashbacks in with Din and Grogu having nice parallel moments

Young Din also fulfills Din’s face reveal quota for the season lol. 

End of the episode is them taking off to get the other group.

Episode 4: More Mandos

Din confronts third group of Mandos.

Optional: Bonus points if some Wrens are in the new Mandalorian group. (Probably not Sabine sadly, since she’s probably doing stuff on the Ahsoka show.)

Optional: Bonus points if any other familiar names/characters are included in the new Mandalorian group. Also a good chance for KOTOR easter eggs.

Another good chance for worldbuilding! How is this group similar/different from the two main groups (covert and Axe Woves’ group) that we’ve seen so far?

Din helps them with whatever the problem of the week is.

Din convinces the third group of Mandalorians to join them on Nevarro and take back Mandalore. (It helps that he’s actually been there. He should include that in his speech.)

Grogu continues to be adorable and powerful. Bonus points if he plays with or hangs out with this covert’s kids.

Optional: B plot where Bo does something leader-y.

Episode 5: So many Mandos

Mandos prepare for war. In order to take back Mandalore, all gathered groups of Mandalorians will need to work together.

Optional: Word has spread through the galaxy, and more Mandos have joined them. 

The Mandos have amassed a giant fleet but they still need more ships.

Bo-Katan leads Mandos (including Din) to forcefully take ships from the new crime syndicate. We see Bo actually doing a good job of leading the team.

Optional: More quick background bits of characterization for the named Mandos, especially Paz.

After the mission is over and the ships are obtained, Din gives Bo his loyalty speech from canon s3ep7. If Din didn’t give her the darksaber in episode 2, he gives it to her now, and she finally accepts.

Please fit in as many adorable Grogu training montages as possible.

At some point, Din can say goodbye to Greef, and Greef gives him a droid with the yes/no buttons for Grogu. 

Optional: The droid is not IG-11, because not enough of IG-11 survived in the first place. So a different kind of droid. I’m thinking something like a BB-8 type model or hollowed-out mind probe droid. It’d basically be a souped-up version of his orb cradle. Granted neither of those models have voice boxes..

Optional: Din informs Greef that most of the Mandos are about to leave, but they’ll leave a group behind to fulfill their defense contract. (Or they’re just leaving/saying goodbye. Now that the syndicate is defeated Nevarro shouldn’t have any major problems.) Greef tells Din to tell Bo that Nevarro and Mandalore officially have an alliance.

Episode 6: Scouting Mandalore

The plot of this episode is putting together a team and then going on a scout mission to figure out who is actually on Mandalore and how many there are. Basically an expanded first half of canon s3 ep7.

Personalities clash, old history is brought up (but somewhat glossed over. Enough that people who have seen TCW/Rebels know what they’re talking about, but a Mandalorian-only watcher still gets the general gist.) 

Like canon we do need Grogu to come along for plot reasons, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense for Din to bring him on this incredibly dangerous mission, so we’re going to tweak the scene a bit. 

Nobody’s volunteering for the scouting mission, so Din volunteers himself. Then Grogu makes a noise (or stands droid up and pushes the Yes button) indicating he volunteers as well. Din does a panicked double-take.

Axe immediately volunteers next, because he’s not about to be shown up by a not-even-blood-Mandalorian’s not-even-blood-Mandalorian baby. Then Paz volunteers, because he’s not about to be shown up by Axe. Then more people volunteer.

The scout team is a mix from each Mandalorian group. All (or most) of the covert characters we’ve met are on the team.

Din and Grogu have a moment where Din’s like, well you volunteered and you’re partly why everyone else agreed to come, so I guess you’re coming. But be very very very careful.

Back to canon, the scouting mission lands on Mandalore and finds the survivors. 

More Mandalore backstory from the survivors. (What happened on Mandalore during/right after the bombing?)

Option A: Part of why the survivors have survived is because after the initial bombings they surrendered/worked for the Empire (out of necessity for survival, to protect their kids, etc.) This causes a lot of outrage from the other groups, especially the third group who probably fought with Bo in Rebels. Bo-Katan admits she has done a lot of wrong things in her past, but she wants to make up for it. And it seems like these survivors do too. 

Option B: The survivors are heavily implied to be former New Mandalorians. Which causes a lot of tension between the Armorer/covert and survivors. Bonus points if there’s a line like “Concordia? So you were exiled?” 

Either way, it’s about to come to blows. Grogu gets his peacekeeping moment. (If Din says “He didn’t learn that from me,” Bo says “I doubt that.” Or Din just doesn’t say that at all. Like I’m guessing they were trying to imply that’s Grogu’s Jedi training kicking in, but come on, we’ve seen Din be a peacekeeper multiple times.)

Bo-Katan gives her Mandalorians are stronger together speech. She, the Armorer, and the leaders of the other two groups manage to maintain peace.

Since Disney seems to refuse to let the Mandos speak Mandoa, this will have to be in English/Basic. But in in Legends and the Mandoa dictionary, there’s this concept of cin vhetin, or clean slate. It means once you become Mandalorian, you leave your past behind and start fresh and are only judged on what you do from that point onward. 

Bo brings up this concept in her speech to the other Mandos. Says something along the lines of, we have all had our differences but in the end we are all Mandalorian. From this point on, we are as one faction, not many.

Also going to add a little addition. “You’ve trained your apprentice well.” “He’s not an apprentice yet.” “Seriously? You’re letting a foundling go on this mission?” Bo giving Din some serious side-eye. Din says nothing but is visibly stressed. Bonus points if it’s somehow mentioned that Din could totally stop him from going on the mission if he was Grogu’s parent. Also, this further illustrates the ranked system and that Din hasn’t adopted Grogu.

By the end of the episode, Mandalorians are united.

Episode 7: The Battle of Mandalore, Part I (Second half of canon s3ep7.)

Pretty much goes like canon, with a little more fleshed out since we have more time. The previous episodes should have done enough work that everything has much more of an emotional impact.

The Armorer bringing the survivors back to the fleet is now a nice character moment that shows the formerly fighting groups are united.

Now when Paz dies, it’s going to feel a lot more meaningful because we’ve built up his character more. (And I do think he should die. As much as I love him, he got the best final stand scene ever and it raised the stakes nicely.)

One tweak though is have Bo’s discussion with Paz about how he should escape with them comes before all the other Mandos have climbed out of the hole. That way it’s more clear that Paz’s sacrifice bought them all enough time to escape.

Din is still captured, we see more of Grogu’s reaction

Optional: Gideon takes off the helmet while Din is captured. I am so happy for Din that it stayed on, but it almost seems out of character to me that Gideon didn’t touch it or any of his armor. It would have been an easy, perfect way to demoralize Din and the other Mandos. Also I know you apparently somehow disabled the weapons in his vambraces but wouldn’t it be easier to just remove the vambraces?? Honestly though the fight scenes are so good I’m cool with overlooking this

Episode 8: The Battle of Mandalore of Mandalore, Part II

canon s3 ep8, pretty much untouched except for a few added shots of the Mando characters we have names for.

I realize the Volume has some limitations, but if we could add a little CGI or a practical effect to make it look like there’s thousands of Mandos gathered around the Forge, that would be great.

Din actually says the word “son” at some point after the adoption.

Now hopefully everything in this episode lands a lot better and has more emotional impact.

#mandalorian #the mandalorian #mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian spoilers #spoilers #star wars #the mandalorian season 3 fix #phew #me realizing i basically just wrote a fanfic lol

[theaberrantreport]

Did I miss #AudioDramaSunday? Yes! But I finished/caught up on a lot of audio dramas this week, so I'm just posting this today.

I am reviewing Tell No Tales, Haunted House Flippers, Jar of Rebuke, Malevolent, and talking a bit about The Aberrant Report because I can! Here it goes:

Tell No Tales @tellnotalespod

I loved Tell No Tales! It is an empathetic take on ghost hunting. I got invested in the main character, Leo, just as much as I became invested in the ghosts they are trying to give a voice to. It is fun, it is silly, but it is also very emotional. Some episodes hit hard.

The plot (no spoilers): Leo has an invention they are tweaking they believe will help them talk to ghosts. The only problem? They work for a ghost removal company. But are ghosts just pests? How close to human are they? And do they consent to being removed?

I highly recommend it.

Haunted House Flippers

I also caught up with Haunted House Flippers! As someone probably on the spectrum, I really appreciate the characters in this podcast! Both Tom and Lee strike me as different "brands" of autistic, but in a very respectful and loving way. There is a lot of heart and soul put into all of the characters. Janet and Tom's relationship, while starting off a bit off putting (in ep 1-5), is one of the best couples I've seen in media in quite a while. Tom is ghost obsessed; Janet is true crime obsessed. Together, they must flip Tom's late grandfather's house. And Tom is convinced that it is haunted.

It is a horror comedy with wonderful characters. It's silly, often light hearted, but will remind you it is horror when it needs to. I love this podcast and I can't wait to see where this next season goes!

Jar of Rebuke @jarofrebukepodcast

Jar of Rebuke is another show where the main character feels autistic. And, much like Tell No Tales, the main character works with cryptid hunters(?) scientists(?) while empathizing with the cryptids around them. The day-to-day life of Jared is interesting in and of itself, but by episode 9, I was fully on the edge of my seat.

The non-spoiler plot summary is: Dr. Jared has lost their memories. They must work for The Enclosure, a sketchy organization studying cryptids, to regain them. What's more, they cannot seem to die. It's both a slice of life AND a paranormal mystery. I highly recommend it!

Malevolent @malevolentcast

I've started listening to Malevolent again. The gimmick (a detective whose eyes are controlled by his new demon headmate) works wonderfully in the audio drama medium. And the execution of that concept is spooky and highly compelling. We'll see how it goes! I'm on episode 8!

The Aberrant Report

I wanted to add my own podcast to the list this week, because why not? It's a paranormal mystery starring Junie Bahisa, and impulsive danger-prone student journalist at Abbottsville University. There is a wide cast of characters and a diverse cast of actors! The show is extremely queer.

The story focuses a lot on the relationships between Junie and the other characters, like her best friend Robbie, while also delving into darker themes with aberrant encounters.

We are on our midseason break with 6 episodes out, but we will be back late December! I really hope y'all enjoy what we've created so far in the meantime!

#The Aberrant Report #tar pod #audio drama recs #podcast recs #queer horror podcast #malevolent podcast #jar of rebuke #haunted house flippers #tell no tales

[toastybugguy]

Dude tell us ab the LR Descendants AU that sounds so fun I would like to hear the infodump

DUDE. Dude.

okay so this is a jumbled mess bc honestly this just started as an excuse to make silly little animatics in my head to my silly little songs LOLZ. BUT. I’m an idea man at heart. So here’s just a bunch of loosely connected ideas (that you can probably poke a ton of holes in). Just do what I did and take whatever you like and RUN W IT

- The VKs are Marcus and Skylar because Marcus is obvi and Skylar being evil was fun…. and also!! I think they should b friends!!!!

- Was pondering making Oliver and Bree the other VKs to fill out the cast and so I can unite my power couples and let them all be evil together. There is no real conclusion 2 this pondering bc I couldn’t decide which version I liked more AUWGh

- All the big baddies are on the Isle, so Douglas, Krane, Mr. Terror, Annihilator, Giselle, etc etc you get the gist

- Donald snuck the rats off the Isle where Douglas had created them before it descended into chaos and was closed off, and they now go to Auradon Prep where they continue to pretend to be average students

- People in Auradon know about bionics, but only the context of the Isle, so the general association is bionics = bad

- Leo takes the place of Ben, he helps keep their secret under wraps and coaches them on how to blend in

- Davenport constantly prepares them for the worst case scenario, telling them they have to keep their secret at all costs

- Bree tries her hardest to pretend she IS a normal student, hoping one day she’ll just forget that she isn’t. She never asked for this in the first place. She hates that she has to feel different at all.

- Adam doesn’t understand why it has to be a secret. He’s pretty sure if they told the truth and explained it to people, they could help others see that they’re not so bad. Chase is always telling him it’s “not that simple.”

- Because Chase is high strung. Really, truly, high strung. He doesn’t want to know what would happen to him or his family if everyone found out they’re like the people on the Isle. He doesn’t want to mess up whatever’s going on with Kaz by revealing he’s a freak and has been lying this whole time. He also doesn’t know when he also started resenting the “different” part of himself.

- Kaz and Oliver are their friends and have seen them doing weird unexplainable things before, but Leo lies and says it’s because they actually have superpowers

- Great, another thing to lie about!

- At least we get that Leo + Kaz + Oliver friendship that we all needed

- Attempts to integrate and rehabilitate the Isle and Auradon begin with bringing in VKs to Auradon Prep

- Idk what the balance between the Descendants universe and the LRMMEF universe is here so the wand is either the same or it’s the Arcturion or some weird mix of both. Anyway it’s The Plot Thing.

- Rats have REALLY got to hide their secret now bc tensions are high and they don’t want to be associated w the VKs

- Oliver and Kaz are truthfully on the fence about the ordeal because they used to know Skylar before things went bad. They want to believe she’s not beyond help but they also know the things she’s done since the Isle was closed off, and they aren’t sure just how far gone she is.

- Conflict is v family centric w other interpersonal conflicts mixed in

- The rats have to choose between risking the safety of Auradon or risking being potentially hated and ostracized by their friends and peers in their attempts to appeal to Marcus and Skylar

there’s??? too much and yet too little to say abt this bc again. Really Great Idea Man, less good Execution Man. and still I’m not sure which version of the VKs I like more bc it would sort of make sense for Oliver to be a VK since his mother is on the Isle and I like the idea of Skylar meeting Bree and being like “hey. fuck all your inhibitions. everyone sucks so why not just go be evil.”

but THERE IT IS!!! PLS add on or build off this or tweak it or whatever you’d like!! It’s been bouncing around in my brain and I watched Descendants 2 last night so yes we r thinking. Also, I wrote most of this in my notes app at like 1am while sick as balls so this probably makes even less sense than expected. Just know this is how my brain looks on paper.

bonus stuff I’m tossing in (mostly just to talk about the soundtrack teehee):

- Pretty sure this whole thing started because I thought Did I Mention was so flamebrain coded. I’m still right about that btw.

- If Only is also very much Chase inner struggle moment

- One way that I get to still have the 4 VKs for Ways To Be Wicked is that I pull the same trick they did in Descendants 2 and the whole number is all a daydream in Marcus and Skylar’s heads. Camera pans out and they’re both just like “sigh… wish they were evil and gay for us… oh well, time to go make them worse.” This is me eating my cake and eating it too.

- I don’t know WHEN or HOW Chillin’ Like A Villain would ever be plot relevant but it made me think of Skylar and Marcus talking to Oliver (the crisis that would be for my poor boy. someone help his sappy ass). Anyways it’s just a good song listen to it RN.

- okay yes I know that technically it’s a song from Z-O-M-B-I-E-S but LET ME HAVE THIS bc if you skip like the first 20 seconds of context in Someday - Ballad… it’s very marliver 2 me. Imagine they get their shit more figured out off screen and just get to be cute n stuff except Marcus still has to lie about not being evil ouuGhuhhggggh. It would b funny.

- One Kiss is also self indulgent marliver with identical setup to Descendants 3 (despite the fact that that movie was…ahem. i mean it was definitely a movie) bc I LOVE that song and HELLO the inner conflict of wondering if true love’s kiss even applies to you because you’re an android and what if there’s no way to save him, what if you’re not even capable of loving him like you think you do?? (but then Oliver wakes up, and it’s the best answer he could’ve gotten <33)

- Good Is The New Bad from Wicked World doesn’t have anything to do with anything but I’m saying right here and now that it is TOO catchy

- also Evil (from Wicked World as well) has been on my Marcus Davenport playlist since the beginning. needed to be said

#ask bug #the ramblings of an absolute mad man!!!! #just a silly little thing I have WAY too much fun thinking about #cool and creative people out there pls tell me ur cool and creative thoughts #lab rats #lr #descendants #lref #mighty med #davenfam #flamebrain #kase #chaz #spacespeed #brylar #marliver

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

some observations made while editing this fic that i started in 2016 and last touched, idk, 3 years ago? a little less? a little more?

i was able to articulate to myself a while ago that when i'm stuck on a story, there's an extremely high chance that i've fucked up something i already wrote, and specifically there's an extremely high chance that i've fucked up by getting things to a point of greater resolution/clarity or emotional positivity than i've yet been able to earn. but like. WOW is that ever true here. a LOT of stuff that has been tweaked/moved/straight up cut has fallen under "he shouldn't know this yet" or "this scene should not end as happily as it currently does." it's funny because when i started this story i remember i was like "i'm just gonna write a super self-indulgent plotless romance story where i just write whatever feels good and don't worry about it." but like. because i am me. this was not physically possible for me to the degree i was attempting to execute it.

similarly, another thing i was like "let's just relax and not worry about this!" about was leaning into, basically, "this is the way this moment would be written in a fanfiction written by a neural network," and guess what else wound up often on the cutting room floor! or, like, heavily edited. like, adam still has a very strong reaction to ronan saying his name at what feels like a potentially charged moment but well before anything has Happened. but it no longer reads "fuck, hearing his name in ronan's mouth did crazy things to his pulse, to his hands, to his mind." and, like, what's funny is that - i wrote that originally because i do enjoy reading that kind of self-indulgent hyper-romantic all feelings all the time fanfic style! like, authentically! but in my own writing i see it and i can't abide it, it needs to go.

i kept the homoerotic creek wrestling scene, though. #yolo

i still think of myself as a show-off, but i've cleaned up a lot of sentences that very transparently read to me now as me not trusting my writing to come off Good unless it was ornate or complicated or deliberately strange to a sufficient degree at all times. i still love a baroque sentence and even more a whole bunch of them stacked on top of each other, and kinda wish i had a fic on deck that would let me really indulge in that direction again, but this is also definitely a shift i have experienced over the past couple years in the magicians fandom - i've become much more comfortable with simplicity, largely because i've just like come to believe after three decades where "good at writing" is by an extremely wide margin the most consistent compliment i have received in my life that if my writing sounds good to me it probably sounds good to other people, and if it doesn't, that's simply not my business. i think these days i have much less of a sense of having something to prove every single time i sit to write down anything. (this is also the shift i have perceived in taylor swift's songwriting post-reputation, which i choose not to interrogate too deeply.) i think it has helped also to read some stories with prose that, like, would be composed of sentences i would formerly think of as too "simple" for me if i thought of them, but reading them in the context of these incredibly good (funny, sharp, moving, gripping) stories has helped me really appreciate the power of concision and simplicity in the hands of someone really fucking smart telling a great story, broaden my conception of what good writing is, and made me more flexible in thinking about the match between style and story, and interested in being more deliberate about that. (oh, and - it also helped to at one point have had an idea for a story i felt VERY passionately about writing and could tell was going to be REALLY long, to the extent that i knew if i didn't calm down about making every paragraph a cut jewel i would never finish it, and i really wanted to finish it, lol.)

all that said, definitely a Thing in this editing process has been that this story bears the marks of whatever i was writing like over the course of like multiple years, and if i wanted to be more of a perfectionist about it i would probably do a couple read-throughs just to make sure i'm keeping to a consistent register. but i don't, so i won't!

the last time i fucked around with this story, i went through it taking notes trying to see if i could articulate for myself what the fuck it was all about. i made some not entirely successful hypotheses, but i guess that process helped because now the central issue of it feels....... maybe not the clearest it could be, lmao. but clear enough that i'm like, ok, this is a story, not just a Series Of Words.

but, i mean, it is to be clear a story with the plot "nice things happen to adam parrish, and he has like eight whole heart attacks about it." it's like, thirty thousand words of that.

related to the stuff above, i've gotten better at not overstaying my welcome by overwriting the end of the scene, but that's probably the place i tend to get most stressed about it and am most prone to getting in my own way. (mostly i feel like my experiences with fic and nonfiction are pretty different, but this is a place of overlap - more than once i've drafted an essay where i really hated the ending i'd written and then had an editor save it by being like "actually i think you already wrote the last paragraph and then for some reason just kept going after it?")

complained about this already but as someone who thinks of like, fanfiction dialogue specifically as something that tends to flow pretty easily for me, it is harder than i would have thought getting ronan lynch to talk about his feelings in a way that feels in character, because of how he never does that in canon ever! i had a couple spots where i made him a little more mush-mouthed or less self aware, but overall i'm like. whatever. i didn't create this problem. it's not my fault.

i definitely don't remember what the fuck the deal is with any of the ley line shit in the books and i am absolutely not going to look it up. also sorry to noah who appears once and then vanishes because i just couldn't deal with ghost worldbuilding at any point in this process.

oh another change i've found myself repeatedly (though not 100% consistently) making is having a character go from "he thought/wanted to say blah blah, but didn't say it" to just having him say it. i think i more consciously want to write scenes that are dynamic instead of like Tone Poems About Feelings Where People Are Talking (although those still have a place!!!!!!! imo), and also am less afraid of having someone say something strong enough to elicit some kind of reaction from the other person. that's DEFINITELY specifically a shift that comes from writing a long magicians fic where my goal in all dialogue scenes was to make them as unhinged as possible and to resist giving myself a safety net by never crossing any real lines. now i think it's fun to have someone just say something and then force myself to figure out what happens next.

when i hit publish this will probably be the closest thing to a straightforward romance i've ever written, because it's about two people having feelings and hooking up and having more feelings and really not a whole lot else, and the romance element of it is central in a way i don't usually do. this is in retrospect probably one reason this extremely simple story has taken me six and a half years to write! but also maybe this means there is hope for the divorced quentin AU yet....

anyway. i actually think i might get this thing up while it's still technically 2022 - i've got a scene and a half left to write, and while if i wanted to hold myself to higher standards about it i would probably want to marinate on the actual ending a little longer after having tightened up the first 25k, i don't so i won't. it would be the longest thing i posted this year, which would be kinda funny. part of me feels like i should chapter it bc it is going to be like 30k, but a bigger part of me wants to be Free, so. we shall see!

#writing tag

[huntergatherercreator]

Hello :) I was wondering if I could make a not so interesting request and I hope you don't mind 😅 So, like reader has kids with mob Tom Holland and you can decide the genders and number of kids they have and stuff and how would the whole family react to one of reader's friends constantly pursuing reader's love and when reader tells them that she's married and has kids, the lil shit is like "It's all right, just divorce them'' I have a feeling no one will be taking this lightly.....

Hey! I LOVED this idea!! I did switch it up to a co-worker because that's the first thing I thought of when I read this but I can definitely see him grudgingly having to put up with a childhood friend who just won't quit trying to make the reader see how in love with them they are. I feel like I need to write that too now....

Hope you're having a great day, take care and stay safe lovey 💜💜

----

Warnings: Some swearing, and super sleaze ball energy

1,389 words

“It’s just drinks,” you laughed as Tom buried his face into your neck with a sigh. You focused on the mirror, touching up your hair and smoothing over your outfit. It was just drinks but it was with your new work team. You’d all only met last week and you’d suggested a night out as a team building exercise. Nothing broke the new job nerves better than alcohol and bad karaoke.

Tweaking his curls you smiled as Tom reluctantly met your gaze in the mirror.

“You say that, but you’re not the one being left with the terrible two,” he grumbled.

You turned to cup his face, laughing at his small pout and chocolate puppy dog eyes.

“Is my big bad mob boss afraid of a couple teenagers?” you teased.

“I’m not afraid of them,” he growled. “I just don’t understand them. All I get are grunts and sighs from Thomas and with Katelyn its like she speaks a different language all together.” Hands wrapping around your waist he pulled you tight against him.

“Plus, you look too stunning to be let out without a chaperone. I think I need to come with you.” His hands wandered to your backside, fingers creeping down to lift the hem of your dress. “Or, you could stay home,” he purred seductively as he gripped the bare skin of your thighs.

As much as you didn’t want to you wriggled out of his grip. “We’ll have plenty of time for that when I get home.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” he winked.

A horn blared from outside and you cursed, you didn’t want to be late. Tom deftly swept you into your jacket and handed you your purse.

“Have a good time, darling,” he said as you kissed him on the cheek quickly. With an appalled huff, he reeled you in for a proper kiss, holding you captive until the taxi beeped their horn again.

“I won’t be late. Have fun,” you called over your shoulder as you hurried out the front door.

----

The bar was packed already and you were struggling to find your table when a heavy hand landed on the small of your back.

“It’s Y/N right?” Relieved you found yourself staring up at one of your new co-workers. Your brain faltered for a second before finding his name.

“Max?” He smiled in a cocky overconfident way before leaning in closer.

“You can call me whatever you like, sweetheart.” You grimaced a smile, subtly inching back from him as the stench of his cologne clouded around you.

“Where’s the team table?” you asked, pointedly turning away and scanning the room again.

“It’s in the back corner.” When you moved in the direction he’d indicated he caught your arm. “The table service is pretty slow, if you want a drink we can get one from the bar.”

“I’m happy to wait. I’m going to go re-introduce myself to everyone.” Breaking out of his hold you strode to the table, the prickling feeling of being watched crawling over you until you were swept into the embrace of your favourite work friend.

“I’m so glad you’re here! I was talking about our last project and this one here,” she hooked a thumb at one of the young interns, “doesn’t believe we wrote the whole presentation ourselves after tequila shots.”

You laughed at the memory. When it came to work you took it seriously, if you didn’t you wouldn’t have been promoted to executive and leading this new team. However, that didn’t mean you didn’t know how to have some fun.

You fell into an easy conversation with them both and others of the party drifted over sporadically to shake your hand and introduce themselves a bit more.

“We’ve already met but I’ll take five minutes with you over everyone else.” A voice said at your ear. You already knew from the overpowering smell of cologne it was Max. Now it was mixed with a strong dose of rum and turned your stomach. He lounged against the table in front of you.

“Tell me, who did you have to sleep with to get this job? And is there a sign up sheet?” he winked. Your skin crawled. Tight lipped you judged whether you could justify wasting a perfectly good drink by dumping it over his head. You cast a critical eye over him. As much as he was dressed like a man of business his suit was clearly off the rack. It was too small in the shoulders and had a slight polyester sheen to it. He could pretend all he liked but he hadn’t worked on a team this high up before. If he had he’d be better dressed.

“That’s funny, I was just about to ask how much your daddy had to spent to get you on the team.” His eyes flashed dangerously then he slowly grinned.

“You’re feisty. I like that.” His gaze shamelessly travelled over you. You refused to cross your arms over your chest under his lecherous stare. You’d dealt with worse, you reminded yourself.

“I need another drink.” You told him bluntly and walked off towards the bar. You reluctantly tamped down the urge to fire him. This was outside of business hours, you’d deal with it on Monday morning you told yourself. You just had to get through the rest of the night first.

You’d just reached the bar when his hand gripped at your waist and his fetid breath washed over your neck.

“Keep running away, I like a challenge. It’ll only make it sweeter when I have you writhing under-”

Spinning you shoved him away.

“I’m happily married,” you snapped in disgust.

He only leered at you. “That’s what divorce is for, sweetheart.” Your fingers tightened on your glass as you readied to throw the contents of it at him.

“Get your sleazy hands away from my mum!” You blinked in surprise as Katelyn elbowed her way through the crowd to jab a finger in Max’s face. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, you piece of shit.”

“Katelyn.” you tried to scold her but the weight of it was lost as you laughed.

“You heard her.” Tom’s voice was dangerously low as he stalked to stand beside you. “If you so much as breath in the direction of my wife again it’ll be the last time you do anything.” A cocky smile covered Max’s face until Thomas stopped behind him and dug his hands into his shoulders.

“You heard my dad. If you have any common sense you won’t mess with us.”

Max snorted, “You think I’m scared of you? I could steal your wife any day-”

“Mr Holland, I wasn’t expecting you tonight.” The flustered manager of the bar accompanied by two security guards faltered as he took in the scene. “Is there an issue here?”

“There is, this idiot is threatening me,” Max sneered.

The manager didn’t divert his attention away from Tom for a second.

“This man’s been harassing my wife, could you escort him out Eddie?” Tom asked the closest guard.

“Sure thing, boss.”

“Boss?” Max scoffed. “What did you do? Pay them off? How pathetic.”

“I called him boss because he owns the place.” Eddie scowled, grabbing a fistful of Max’s suit jacket. Mouth gaping his beady eyes flickered between you and Tom.

“Fuck,” he swore as the pin finally dropped. You were surprised it had taken him this long to work it out. There weren’t many Holland’s in town after all.

“In case it isn’t perfectly clear, you’re fired.” you snapped. You watched him get dragged away, the crowd parting like the sea to avoid him.

“What are you all doing here?” you asked as Katelyn wrapped you in a hug from behind.

“Eddie called dad,” Thomas said, as if it was obvious.

“You had him watching me?”

“I always have someone watching you. I need to know you’re safe when I’m not with you.” Pulling you into his arms he captured your mouth, hand possessively winding around the nape of your neck as he kissed you deeply.

“Ew!” Katelyn complained just as Thomas said, “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

Laughing you pulled back to swat playfully at them both.

“You just made sure I’m forever stuck with your dad, get used to it,” you smiled.

#mob!tom #mob!tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #tom holland

[fudes240]

A short story by Dylan Klebold.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Klebold wrote this story for school in late February or early March 1999, shortly before the attack at Columbine High School on 20 April 1999. For a facsimile of the original, along with his teacher’s comments and other related material, see the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Columbine Documents, pages 10,463 to 10,468 (available at schoolshooters.info). Note: the killer in the story is described as left-handed, wearing a black trench coat, and 6’4”. Klebold was lefthanded, wore a black trench coat, and was approximately 6’4”.

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

The town, even at 1:00 AM, was still bustling with activity as the man dressed in black walked down the empty streets.... What was most recognized about the man was the sound of his footsteps.

Behind the conversations & noises of the town, not a sound was to be heard from him, except the dark, monotonous footsteps, combined with the jingling of his belt chains striking not only the two visible guns in their holsters, but the large bowie knife, slung in anticipation of use. The wide-brimmed hat cast a pitch-black shadow of his already dimly lit face. He wore black gloves, with a type of metal spiked-band across the knuckles. A black overcoat covered most of his body, small lines of metal & half-inch spikes layering upper portions of the shoulders, arms, and back. His boots were newly polished, and didn’t look like they had been used much. He carried a black duffel bag in his right hand. He apparently had parked a car nearby & looked ready for a small war with whoever came across his way.

I have never seen anyone take this mad-max approach in the city, especially since the piggies had been called to this part of town for a series of crimes lately. Yet, in the midst of the nightlife in the center of the average-sized town, this man walked, fueled by some untold purpose, what Christians would call evil. The guns slung on his belt & belly appeared to be automatic hand guns, which were draped above rows of magazines & clips. He smoked a thin cigar, and a sweet clovesque scent eminated from his aura. He stood about six feet and four inches and was strongly built. His face was entirely in shadow, yet even though I was unable to see his expressions, I could feel his anger, cutting thru the air like a razor. He seemed to know where he was walking, and he noticed my presence, but paid no attention as he kept walking toward a popular bar.

The Watering Hole. He stopped about 30 feet from the door, and waited. “For whom?” I wondered, as I saw them step out. He must have known their habits well, as they appeared less than a minute after he stopped walking. A group of college-preps, about nine of them, stopped in their tracks. A couple of them were mildly drunk, the rest sober. They stopped and stared. The streetlights illuminating the bar & the sidewalk showed me a clear view of their stare, full of paralysis & fear. They knew who he was & why he was there.

The second largest spoke up “What’re you doin man ... why are you here ... ?” The man in black said nothing, but even at my distance, I could feel his anger growing. “You still wanted a fight huh? I meant not with weapons, I just meant a fist fight ... cmon put the guns away, fuckin pussy!! said the largest prep, his voice quavering as he spoke these words of attempted courage. Other preps could be heard muttering in the background; “Nice trench coat dude, that’s pretty cool there . . .” . . . . “Dude we were jus messin around the other day chill out man . . .” . . . “I didn’t do anything, it was all them!!” . . . “cmon man you wouldn’t shoot us, were in the middle of a public place ...” Yet the comment I the remember most was uttered from the smallest of the group, obviously a cocky, power hungry prick. “Go ahead man! Shoot me!!! I want you to shoot me!! Heheh you won’t!! Goddam pussy ...” It was faint at first, but grew in intensity and power as I heard the man laugh. This laugh would have made Satan cringe in Hell. For almost half a minute this laugh, spawned from the most powerful place conceivable, filled the air, and thru the entire town, the entire world. The town activity came to a stop, and all attention was now drawn to this man.

One of the preps began to slowly move back. Before I could see a reaction from the preps, the man had dropped his duffel bag, and pulled out one of the pistols with his left hand. Three shots were fired. Three shots hit the largest prep in the head. The shining of the streetlights caused a visible reflection off of the droplets of blood as they flew away from the skull. The blood spatters showered the preps buddies, as they were too paralyzed to run. The next four preps were not executed so systematically, but with more rage from the man’s hand cannon than a controlled duty for a soldier. The man unloaded one of the pistols across the fronts of these four innocents, their instantly lifeless bodies dropping with remarkable speed. The shots from that gun were felt just as much as they were heard.

He pulled out his other pistol, and without changing a glance, without moving his deathstare from the four other victims to go, aimed the weapon out to the side, and shot about 8 rounds. These bullets mowed down what, after he was dead, I made out to be an undercover cop with his gun slung. He then emptied the clip into two more of the preps. Then, instead of reloading & finishing the task, he set down the guns, and pulled out the knife. The blade loomed huge, even in his large grip. I now noticed that one of the two still alive was the smallest of the band, who had now wet his pants, and was hyperventilating in fear. The other one tried to lunge at the man, hoping that his football tackling skills would save his life. The man sidestepped, and made two lunging slashes at him. I saw a small trickle of blood cascade out of his belly and splashing onto the concrete. His head wound was almost as bad, as the shadow formed by the bar’s lighting showed blood dripping off his face.

The last one, the smallest one, tried to run. The man quickly reloaded, and shot him thru the lower leg. He instant fell, and cried in pain. The man then pulled out of the duffel bag what looked to be some type of electronic device. I saw him tweak the dials, and press a button. I heard a faint, yet powerful explosion. I would have to guess about 6 miles away. Then another one occurred closer. After recalling the night many times, I finally understood that these were diversions, to attract the cops. The last prep was bawling & trying to crawl away. The man walked up behind him. I remember the sound of the impact well. The man came down with his left hand, right on the prep’s head. The metal piece did its work, as I saw his hand get buried about 2 inches into the guy’s skull. The man pulled his arm out, and stood, unmoving, for about a minute.

The town was utterly still, except for the faint wail of police sirens. The man picked up the bag and his clips, and proceeded to walk back the way he came. I was still, as he came my way again. He stopped, and gave me a look I will never forget. If I could face an emotion of god, it would have looked like the man. I not only saw in his face, but also felt eminating from him power, complacence, closure, and godliness. The man smiled, and in that instant, thru no endeavor of my own, I understood his actions.

#reb vodka reb reb vodka columbine columbiners eric harris dylan klebold school shooting school massacre #columbine #school shooting

[telehxhtrash]

A masterpost on Togashi’s gay subtext and why it’s intentional.

Hi ! After seeing so many posts about Togashi dropping subtext about Killua's possible romantic feelings for Gon, I thought it'd be a good idea to make a sort of "masterpost" with all the subtext that Togashi has included into his work.

I usually see a lot of people trying to say that HxH isn't about romance and that Togashi isn't interested in writing romance into the manga, but when you analyze all the subtext that's been going on the further Gon and Killua's relationship progresses, I think it's incorrect to say that Togashi has never hinted at the possibility of romance in HxH.

This is going to be a long post, enjoy your read!

Also, please note that I will only base this analysis on the manga, so there can be no mistake that "maybe this is just something the anime made gayer" : i want to prove that the subtext is 100% intentional on Togashi's part.

I'd also like to mention, although I will analyze it further after listing the subtext, that Togashi is a VERY smart man. There are always little details in the story and/or foreshadowing that are easily missed at first but when you notice them, it truly makes you understand how much attention and care Togashi puts into his work. There are countless details and symbolism that are analyzed daily through wonderful meta posts, from the main 4′s birthdays and their link to their character or the religious symbolism in Kurapika’s story arc.... Togashi loves to foreshadow and plant little details into his work, so when Togashi plants subtext, I'm sure he 100% knows that he's writing it, and it can't be seen as unintentional.

I'll also link all my references for this post at the end of it, so feel free to read all the additional textposts and content if you want to know more.

Well, let's get into it!

EDIT : i can’t believe this post is still being used as a reference it makes me so happy... thank you so much !!! i edited this to tweak it a bit because i wrote this a while ago and the phrasing seemed off to me, so if you’re reading or re-reading this post, hi, welcome to masterpost on gay subtext 2.0 !

GREED ISLAND ARC

Greed Island is to me the arc that lays down the nature of Killua and Gon's relationship. It's during this arc that we get to see a bit more of what Killua thinks, how he's lucky to have met Gon and that he feels really grateful. Gon’s behavior in this arc is also very affectionate, with him always reassuring Killua about his place next to him. While the scene where Killua thinks "You've got it backwards, Gon, I'm the one that's glad I met you." can't be considered as subtext, I think it's something that lets the reader know a bit more about how Killua feels towards Gon. 

But other than this scene, which can clearly be dismissed as platonic, there are 2 more moments in the Greed Island arc that are layered in subtext.

• The Rainbow Diamond (chapter 151)

During their time in Dorias, Killua uses Risky Dice to gain cards from the slot machines. The first card that Killua gains is called "Rainbow Diamond", the description of the card being "A diamond that shines in a rainbow of colors. Propose with this diamond and she is guaranteed to say "yes"". 

There are 3 different things we can take from this panel. First, the card is a marriage proposal card, so it's obviously romantic in nature. Second, the object is a RAINBOW diamond. And third, Killua, wanting to keep the card safe, gifts it to Gon.

In short, Togashi sat down at his desk, decided to draw Killua winning a MARRIAGE PROPOSAL CARD (it could've been any card, but Togashi CHOSE to make Killua win a marriage proposal card) that has a RAINBOW diamond on it and made Killua gift it to Gon. 

While I personally don't think that subtext can be used to 100% ascert that Killua has romantic feelings for Gon, I think it's a funny little touch from Togashi, and I'm even gonna say a sort of hint towards how Killua's feelings for Gon are going to evolve in this arc and the next.

• “It has to be Killua” (chapter 166)

Now this is a scene that I've never seen anyone talk about, at least on Tumblr, but when I read a bit of analysis on it I was 100% convinced this was intentional subtext. I'm basically quoting here what this article explains, so if you want more detail, I recommend reading it.

As you probably recall, during their deadly dodgeball game against Razor, Killua decides to sacrifice his hands to ensure that Gon could use all his strength. When confronted about it, Killua insists that it's nothing, and Gon shocks him by saying that he knew all along that he was hurting himself for his sake. 

Gon then says that it can only be Killua holding the ball, and that it has to be Killua, resulting in Killua being absolutely awestruck and embarassed. I'm also going to talk about the anime adaptation for this one, because it's perfectly executed and translates extremely well the nuance that the second sentence bears. If you want to rewatch it, this scene happens in episode 70. It's worth noting that in the anime, we see Killua not reacting to Gon's first sentence, but losing his composure entirely when Gon says the second sentence. But why ?

The reason was lost in translation. His exact words are "Booru wa Killua ga motte-kurenai to. Killua ja nakya dame nan da.". Both sentences basically say the same thing : It has to be Killua holding the ball. That second sentence can be translated literally as "If it's not Killua, that won't do." However, the second sentence, in a different context, can also be used to say a totally different thing. 

While it's certain that Gon used this sentence in the context of the dodgeball match, the sentence "~ja nakya dame nan da" also serves as a confession of one's feelings in japanese. It's basically the equivalent to "you're the one for me". When you google the sentence, it turns up romantic songs, forum posts asking what it would translate to in English and posts on how to confess to someone. 

The sentence basically drowns in romantic subtext. As mentioned before, Killua has no reaction to the first sentence "Booru wa Killua ga motte-kurenai to.", but loses his composure at the second one, and I think that was a very deliberate thing Togashi wanted to convey : this sentence has an additional layer, and clearly Killua is taking it to heart.

I will come back to this specific subtext in a bit, because we can parallel it with another subtext-y situation, so please keep it in mind for now.

CHIMERA ANT ARC

Now onto the sad gay arc! This arc is so RIDDLED in subtext and parallels that it's making me lose my mind.

• Gon, you are light. (chapter 199)

This scene is just... So romantic in nature. I’m not too objective on this, but I really do believe that this moment is the exact moment Killua fell in love with Gon and started to realize he felt a bit more than friendship towards him. It’s Killua respecting Gon for who he is, realizing that he’s light and he’s always been, he’s the one who saved him and who’s always been so bright and optimistic and always makes the best out of any situation. In this scene, Killua lets himself drown in Gon’s light, allows himself to feel this “wow” moment of pure admiration and love, and it’s absolutely beautiful.

It's extremely important to take the context of this scene into account. What happened is that Killua, who has been struggling mentally for the entire series with the fact that he's always running away, ran away once more, leaving Kite to die with Pitou. This ENTIRE chapter is literally adults absolutely DESTROYING Killua, first Kite's troupe bashing him for leaving Kite behind, and then Netero, Morel and Knov coming in like icing on the cake telling Killua that "After all, he's just a kid", and that he should hurry up to his mommy. 

Killua is beating himself up for running away again, got destroyed by Kite's team and 3 extremely strong pro hunters. His morale is down in the drains right now. He expects Gon to be mad at him for betraying Kite, for running away once again, for leaving Kite to die alone and ripping Gon away from Kite : he expects that he'll lose Gon for his cowardice.

HOWEVER, the first thing that Gon says to Killua after having been passed out for god knows how many hours is "Thank you". 

Gon woke up and instantly eased up all of Killua's fears : he wasn't a loser for running away, and Gon was actually thankful for him. Gon, at this moment, was the only one that showed kindness, understanding and gratefulness towards Killua. Gon even goes so far as saying that he knows that Kite isn't dead, and that they have to help him. At this instant, Gon is truly Killua's saving grace. He's the one that trusts him with his entire heart, and believes in his choices when even he can't believe in himself. Gon is truly Killua's light at this precise moment, because he was the only one who supported him, trusted him and reassured him in this awful situation.

How can someone shine so bright in such a terrible situation ? How can someone be so positive that nothing bad will happen ? 

Gon asserting all of this makes Killua respect him a lot. Keep this word in mind, because it’s going to be important in the next piece of subtext I’m analyzing, because those two scenes canonically follow each other and are basically Togashi highlighting that something special happened when Killua called Gon his light, and that his feelings deepened.

• Introduction to Palm's character (chapter 200)

This piece of subtext is very very easy to miss but it's one of the most important subtext-y scene, because coupled with the “Gon, you are light” scene, it’s very clear that this dialogue is deliberately highlighting Killua’s feelings.

This chapter introduces Palm's character (which, imo, is a character introduced for the sole intent of being a catalyst to Killua's feelings towards Gon, but I'll talk about it in my post talking about the CAA parallels) - edit: i talked about this briefly here.

So, Killua having looked into Gon's eyes for like 10min straight and concluded that Gon was the light of his life a chapter ago, is now chilling with Gon as they meet Palm. 

Palm takes them to a café and STRAIGHT OFF THE BAT harasses them about how much she's in love with Knov. Like when I say harassing, it's literally a whole page of her explaining her feelings towards Knov. 

There are two interesting things that can be drawn from this interaction.

First, it's extremely easy to draw parallels between Palm's situation towards Knov and Killua's situation towards Gon. Palm starts by saying how amazing her master is, that she probably has special feelings for him but the most important thing is to respect the other person. Remember how I talked about how this last scene was Killua having a surge of deep, deep respect for Gon ? Palm makes sure to highlight that special word, that it’s important to respect someone when it comes to love.

She then goes on to say that she hasn't said anything to Knov, and never will. All of this adds nothing to the story, it's empty dialogue, Togashi could've introduced Palm in virtually any other way possible, but he chose to drag her and the gay duo to a café and make her have a monologue about love RIGHT after the extremely emotional panel of Killua declaring that Gon is his light just a chapter ago.

But there's more. Not only does Palm monologue for a while about love, but after finishing her monologue, this happens :

This panel features ONLY Palm and Killua, her looking at him like the psycho she is, and straight up telling him that "love can suddenly spark out of nowhere, don't you think so?". 

What's so interesting about this is the fact that Togashi made the deliberate choice to have Palm say this to Killua and Killua ONLY, which after the gay existential crisis he had last chapter, can very much be applied to his situation. Love DID spark out of nowhere, and Togashi wants you to notice. Togashi could've made Palm say this to herself, with no distinct listener like the last panel, but he made the conscious choice to draw this panel with Palm adressing herself to Killua SPECIFICALLY. 

Those two pieces of subtext, that fit perfectly together, make me believe 100% that Togashi knows what he's doing and he's not unintentionally planting gay subtext in his work. The fact that Togashi sat at his desk, drew Killua calling Gon his light, and then followed this scene with the introduction to a character who picks Killua apart to tell him that "love is something that just happens, don't you think?" is 100% proof that Togashi knows what he's doing.

• Date with Palm (chapters 217 and 218)

I think this situation has many layers, but many people still dismiss it as bro behavior so I'm gonna try my best to counter argue. First of all, and although that's not proof of anything, Killua looks EXTREMELY distressed by the prospect of Gon going on a date with Palm, but that can be counter-argued by saying that Killua is just worried because Palm is completely crazy. 

What I want to talk about is the scene that happens right after, when Gon and Killua go to the gym (because theyre DUDES YEAH WE WORK OUT NO HOMO), and the conversation casually drifts to Killua asking Gon if he's ever been on a date before, valid question considering what just happened previously. There are multiple things here :

1) Killua seems distressed that Gon has been on dates before. While it can be argued that it's a normal reaction because Gon has and he hasn't, I believe that Killua - who is in no way a normal person who would get flustered about "not having been on dates before a certain age" - would not feel uncomfortable that his friend is more experienced than him - especially when literal seconds later, he monologues about how he doesn’t care about dates and just wants to stick with Gon.

2) Gon then proceeds to ask Killua if he's ever been on a date, to which Killua responds :

What I want to highlight is the panel where Killua says "And the truth is, I want to stay by your side... Always...". Basically, what Killua is saying, is that he doesn't care about dates, all he wants to do is be with Gon.

I don't think this can be counter-argued as bro behavior, but with all the subtext I've explained before, this right here is pretty gay. Togashi put this panel deliberately to show that Killua doesn't give a crap about dates when he can stay with Gon, and with the "gon you are light" scene and everything in mind, this is another intentional subtext.

There's also the fact that Killua stalks the date like a jealous girlfriend - but I'm not gonna count that as subtext because it can be argued that he's just worried about Gon because Palm is insane.

• Gon is my best friend ! (chapter 219)

Remember how I told you to keep the "It has to be Killua" subtext in mind because I was gonna come back to it later ? Well.

During Palm's date with Gon, Killua runs into Rammot, who would definitely have ran into Palm and nenless Gon. Killua is forced to confront his worst fear : this is the moment where he knows that if he runs away again, Gon WILL die. Killua is literally overcoming his "programming", the physical representation of years of abuse out of love and care for Gon. He's ripping out the needle from his forehead out of pure, genuine care for Gon, because if he doesn't, then he'll lose him forever. 

Now, what I actually wanna talk about is this panel :

What we see is Killua thinking happy thoughts about all his adventures with Gon because he can't - won't - doesn't want to run away anymore, and all this for his sake. But what I wanna draw attention to is the dodgeball panel that's bigger than all the others, and the only one where you can actually clearly make out what's written : "Killua ja nakya dame nan da". 

Now, isn't that interesting that the panel that takes a bigger place in the whole panel is the one with this particular sentence? Remember what I talked about a bit earlier, about how "~ ja nakya dame nan da" is a sentence with a lot of romantic connotations (would pretty much equal to "you're the one for me" in English). Clearly this particular sentence stuck with Killua. 

I'm not completely objective on this matter since I firmly believe that at this point, Killua has romantic feelings for Gon, but I interpret this as another deliberate thing Togashi did : putting the panel bigger so we can see that it has a particularly significant importance to Killua, and Killua's state of mind right now (not wanting to lose Gon). 

In my opinion, two things happened here: One, Killua remembers this specific interaction because he knows how much Gon trusts him and he doesn't want to betray his trust. But I also firmly believe that Killua remembered this specific interaction because of the romantic connotation the sentence "Killua ja nakya dame nan da" has. Those words clearly shocked him, and I think he remembers them in this life-threatening situation, after the "gon you are light" scene, Palm talking about "love just happens", the "i want to stay with you, always" because he realizes that he wishes Gon would say that sentence in a romantic context, and not in the context of the dodgeball match, thus leading him to surpass himself to prove his love and perhaps live to see the day where Gon could say those words in that romantic context.

Now, of course, all of this is my interpretation, so it's really up to debate, but I really wanna highlight the fact that Togashi deliberately CHOSE to highlight this particular interaction between Gon and Killua, this sentence with romantic subtext, to lead Killua to finally break his chains and be able to be protect Gon fully. It’s also interesting to note that the 2011 anime adaptation also makes it a point to emphasize how deep these words stuck to Killua by making it the last flashback that makes Killua effectively rip out the needle out of his head. 

Also let's quickly mention the irony in the situation here : while Gon is on a romantic date, Killua fights to protect him, overcoming his weakness to prove his love. It’s not Palm who deserves that date, it’s Killua.

• A lovers’ suicide (chapter 286)

Now, onto the most important piece of subtext, that can not be counterargued as platonic in any way, shape or form. During the palace invasion, Killua leaves Gon's side, proceeds to go kick Youpi's butt only to have to fall back because he used up all his electricity nen. When Killua is charging up, he meets with Meleoron, and tells him that once he's done charging, he'll go back to Gon's side. 

They briefly exchange information about the battle, and then Meleoron proceeds to ask Killua what's the plan for him and Gon. That's when Killua explains that "Once Gon is like this, he won't budge an inch. Worst case scenario, it'll be a double suicide.". At worst they both die, cool. They “go down in flames together”. It’s actually much, much more meaningful than that.

The specific word that Killua uses for double suicide is "心中" (shinjuu), which is a heavily romantically connotated word in japanese. Shinjuu, also translated as "lovers’ suicide", is when two people die out of love, by the same method, because there's a belief that this'll allow those two people to spend eternity together. Shinjuu is a major theme of Japanese literature, and it is always used romantically. It's a very uncommon word to use to refer to two people dying together, because of its heavy romantic connotation, and because it always refers to double suicide committed by people bound by love. In literature, it always refers to two lovers, in love. If you want to read more on shinjuu, i suggest this and this, those articles explain its historic roots and the definition, also emphasizing the feeling of "oneness" that characterizes shinjuu. If you’re interested, I also suggest reading the japanese article that defines shinjuu, and hitting the google translate button, it has some pretty interesting sentences like “Shinjuu is traditionally committed by men and women out of mutual love, in the hope that they will be connected in the afterlife because they can't be together in this world.”

So basically, what Killua is saying is that he wants to go back to Gon's side to die with him, committing a "lovers’ suicide" because he doesn't want to leave Gon to die alone, and wants to die with him.

I also want to emphasize how special this word is to Killua, and that he and everyone around him know the special meaning of this word - In chapter 300, Ikalgo literally says "We were... No, KILLUA was ready to commit shinjuu with Gon". Ikalgo is really highlighting the fact that this word holds special meaning, especially to Killua, and that it was HIM who was willing to commit shinjuu by staying with Gon. Ikalgo and company dying with Gon wouldn't be shinjuu, but Killua dying with Gon would be, and Togashi emphasizes this through Ikalgo's thoughts.

This is pretty much the gist of it, but I suggest reading the wonderful post I linked in the references below if you want to know more about this specific subtext.

(edit : i actually wrote a post going a bit more into detail on Killua’s shinjuu wish if you want to read it here ! :3)

• “The one that Gon needs the most is you” (chapter 294)

I will go into this subtext more in details when I write the post about parallels in CAA, but I still want to talk about it briefly here.

Like I said before, to me, Palm was introduced as a catalyst for Killua's feelings towards Gon. Togashi purposefully wrote Palm as having romantic feelings for Gon to foil Killua's feelings for Gon and make him show jealousy towards Palm. 

To Killua, Palm is someone who stole Gon from him, he sees her as a threat because maybe she'll make Gon happier than he does ? (ofc we all know thats not true but Killua is baby) - Basically, Killua thinks Palm might be more important to Gon than Killua is, because he believes they are romantically involved. That's why when he sees her again later on, after Gon rejected his help, leaving Killua helpess as to how to save his dear friend, Killua sees Palm as a saving grace. 

He knows that if Gon sees Palm as a chimera ant, he will spiral down even more, so he tries to reason with her to get her to be gentle to Gon, because if not her, then who could? Palm would clearly be able to comfort Gon, with whom Killua believes is romantically involved with, better than him, right ? If Gon rejected Killua, then clearly Palm could help, since she seems closer to Gon (BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THEYRE DATING), right? 

This confrontation between Palm and Killua closely ressembles a situation like an ex confronting a new girlfriend - and I think this is exactly why Togashi wrote Palm this way. He wanted Killua to confront who he thought was a threat to their relationship, making him believe that this person who's """"dating"""” Gon is more important to him than himself, only to have her openly admit that she means nothing to Gon. The only one Gon needs is Killua.

And that, my friends, coming from someone you believe is romantically involved with your best friend (who you probably have a crush on), someone you're jealous of, the one you thought was the person most important to him, that's a pretty meaningful statement. 

Basically, what's happening, is that Palm reaffirms that Gon holds Killua closer than a potential romantic partner. And that's why Killua is so, so happy to hear that. He was questioning his entire relationship, questioning if Gon even cared about him, because he rejected him a few minutes before, but then his "rival" comes in and reaffirms that even she knows that no one comes close to Killua to Gon.

I also want to mention that this act of pure love (Killua only thinking of saving Gon when in a life threatening situation) is what made Palm come back to her human senses. d'awwwwww

• Illumi and Hisoka’s parallel on lovers who die of Alluka’s requests. (chapter 323)

Now onto the final significant subtext - while I don't particularly think of it as subtext-y, I know a lot of people have so I still want to include it here.

When Illumi explains Alluka's powers to Hisoka, he explains that there are two different types of linked deaths when a request is failed : 1) the person who failed + the person they love the most 2) the person who failed + the people they spent most of their time with. 

When applied to Killua, Hisoka naturally comes to the conclusion that no matter the outcome, Gon would always be the one dying with Killua, because he's spent so much time with him, and because he's the one that Killua loves the most. In the panel where Illumi explains this, we see a romantic, heterosexual couple  demonstrating the effects of not completing one of Alluka's requests, and thus the "most important person dying". 

While not making any true parallels, the fact that Hisoka, and the readers, are drawn to compare a heterosexual, romantic pairing to Killua dying with Gon because he's his "most important person" is an interesting piece of subtext.

_______

I want to finish by talking about Killua's birthday and how significant it is in my opinion. All the main 4 characters have birthdays that fall on specific dates, related to Japanese tradition, and often with events that can be associated to their character. Gon's is 5/5, which is Children's Day. Kurapika's is 4/4, the number 4 being considered an unlucky number, and this being an unlucky day to have a child. Leorio's is 3/3, Hinamatsuri (not really any main parallels here but still). But Killua's birthday is 7/7, and is the Japanese day to celebrate Tanabata. 

If you are not familiar with Tanabata, the story is as follows : Orihime is a princess who works for her father, working hard and well, but she laments the fact that because of her hard work she can't meet someone and fall in love. Her father arranges for her to meet Hikoboshi, allowing Orihime to leave because he expects her to come back to work for him, but the two immediately fall in love and get married, and she never returns. I won't get into the rest of the story as it's this part that interests me the most, but if you want to read more about Killua and Tanabata I suggest reading the post I referenced below.

Does the story of Orihime remind you of anyone ? Killua also works for his father, but laments the fact that he can't go outside and meet someone. His father then lets him go, saying, and i quote: "he will come back, because he's my son". Doesn't this remind you of the tale of Tanabata ? Killua's story references the tale of Orihime perfectly, and I believe this is intentional : Killua's birthday isn't of any importance to the plot, so why make it Tanabata, a day that celebrates a love story that closely ressembles Killua's story ? The answer is simple : subtext.

With all this in mind, I think it's pretty clear that Togashi is writing intentional subtext to hint at Killua's feelings being romantic in nature. Togashi is a master writer, he has years of experience, and I strongly believe he knows what he's doing and not planting unintentional subtext. He's a very smart man, and knows how all of this can be interpreted.

I will finish by saying that Togashi is NOT an author that would deliberately queerbait his readers. So many people dismiss the possibility of having gay subtext leading onto an actual canon gay relationship because "it's not like the author would ever have gay main characters". While this holds true for a lot of manga authors, especially shonen manga authors, it does NOT apply to Togashi. 

Togashi has always displayed interest in queer subjects and queer representation, putting trans characters in all of his major works (Miyuki in YYH, Mikihisa in Level E and Alluka in HxH). There were also canonically gay characters in his previous works : Itsuki in YYH, and a character named Kuramoto in Level E. 

Togashi also always had interest in mangas having BL elements, citing Maya Mineo's "Patalliro!" as a manga he was attracted to during High School. If you're unfamiliar with Patalliro, the story focuses on the main character's love life as a gay man.  He also admitted to basing Hiei's (YYH) design off a character from that manga. 

Last but not least, Togashi mentioned in a note included in volume 1 of YYH that he wanted to write a sports manga, called The Trouble Quartet, where basically all the characters are gay. Togashi said he based it off his own interests as a writer, and that while it was refused by Shonen Jump, he got deeply attached to the project and that he would love to explore this project in a different shape once he made a name for himself. I suggest reading this post because the parallels between The Trouble Quartet and HxH are HILARIOUSLY accurate.

In short, Togashi has always had interest in queer matters, and was always interested in putting queer representation in his work. After YYH, which was a terrible experience for Togashi as a writer, he managed to snatch a contract that basically allows him to do whatever he wants with HxH. Having always held dear BL matters but never being able to explore it to his full intent, I believe Togashi is exploring queer identity further with HxH, because Shonen Jump basically lets him do anything.

To conclude, with Togashi's past experience and skill, his interest in queer representation, and the amount of subtext surrounding Killua, I honestly believe that Togashi is trying to explore further queer representation, and I wouldn't be surprised if HxH ends with Gon and Killua becoming a canon pairing, whether it be delivered in an ambiguous manner or not. 

Edit : I actually wrote a post on why I believe it won’t be ambiguous, and that it’s truly never been ambiguous, just developing : here.

I hope you enjoyed the read, thank you for reading all of this, and feel free to show this to anyone who denies subtext in HxH !

REFERENCES

- "It has to be Killua" - Medium article, "Impossibilities in Translating Queerness : The Dodgeball Dilemma" 

- Palm's Date Scene - Reddit post, "Togashi's love of Ambiguity: Chapters 217 and 218" 

-A thematic analysis of Palm’s character : ”The Issue With Palm”

- Shinjuu - Tumblr post by hunterxhell, "A lovers' suicide, I guess." :  + the post that mentions Ikalgo talking about shinjuu 

- An analysis on different subtext-y situations

- Illumi and Hisoka’s parallel : here and here 

- Killua’s birthday : "Killua, July 7th, and the significance of his birthdate”

- Togashi's interview mentioning Mineo's Patalliro 

#hxh #hxh meta #hunter x hunter #killugon #meta #my posts #my meta

[juneviews]

axelle judges bl shows > Lovely Writer

shitty summary: Gene has written a popular BL novel which is getting adapted into a series. He’s asked to be present for the casting, and that’s when he meets Nubsib, a handsome actor who seems to always manage to make a way through his life.

where to watch: wetv | youtube

grade: 7,5/10

pros:

- I loved gene as a character. I feel like he was a very relatable & interesting character who the viewer could definitely root for & definitely my favorite part of the show.

- the chemistry was undeniably good!

- the acting was great, I think everyone did a great job but up poompat stood out the most to me, him & aey.

- the story was just very interesting & well executed for the most part (see cons.)

- I find aey to be a great villain, if not the best villain I’ve ever seen in a bl. he was given a lot of screentime for the viewer to get to understand him & it’s impressive how I found myself rooting for him a couple of times. it’s very rare for me to genuinely care about the villain of the show, but here they definitely succeeded. (though they fumbled the bag towards the end, see the cons.)

- there are a couple of moments that I felt were very well done in regards to gene’s sexuality, and it was refreshing to see a bl show face that topic heads on instead of completely by-passing it.

cons:

- I didn’t love nubsib as a character. he’s one of those bl love interests that’s “perfect” and just too smooth of a character for me to get attached. his only complexity is that he’s manipulative as hell & that’s honestly a little toxic. it sucks bc with a few little tweaks I feel like his character could’ve been greatly improved.

- there’s too many characters that don’t get proper development. while the main ship did get the proper development they needed which is also somewhat rare in series, all of the other characters were either never developed or given crumbs in comparison. and I get that it’s probably to build up a second season, but gonna be honest I won’t be watching it so I wish they would’ve given the side characters a proper ending too. firstly tum & tiffy, who basically were on stand-by for most of the show with again, CRUMBS, before giving them a rushed ass conclusion. aey & mork are the biggest robbery of a lifetime, they had so much chemistry & that kiss was incredible but it was dropped a second later. even aey’s crush on gene was so random & never explained. as a character aey had SO MUCH potential bc he was given a lot of sympathy from the writers instead of making him unredeemable. but even then, they dropped the ball. and hin, who legit disappears for half the season without an explanation & seemed to have money problems with his family, doesn’t get any development either. and finally mork who truly has the biggest robbery bc he had 5 scenes & his only use was to pine after aey & get rejected... it’s sad bc I legit cared a lot about all of these side characters when I usually don’t, but they were forgotten by the writers tbh.

- I just... stopped enjoying the show in its last episodes tbh. and the sad thing is I don’t even know why, I just think the show dragged on too long & honestly the final episode was almost hell for me to finish.

- this is not a con, but I just wanna say I don’t agree with people saying that this show is revolutionary for slightly showing the ins & outs of the bl industry. I mean yes it showed that casting is ruthless & very anti effeminate-actors, and it showed that bl fans can be toxic as hell, but that’s it. (for info most bl shows already portray bl shippers as delusional toxic people which in itself could fuel a full essay by me lol.) and again this is NOT a con against the show, bc I legitimately don’t think they were even trying to make an expose on the bl industry when this show is a classic textbook bl which falls in legit all of the tropes, some that are even problematic themselves. I just wanted to say that I find it ludicrous to praise the show for that bc it didn’t put any effort in that aspect at all.

would I rewatch it: hm... not sure, maybe in a little while when I’m bored lol

I’m honestly very mixed about this show. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but by the end I frankly didn’t care about the relationship or the characters anymore. I didn’t even watch the special episode because I was so over it. I also feel like a lot of things outside of the main plot were rushed, and even though I liked the plot and chemistry, it’s definitely not one of my favorite series of the year.

#lovely writer #lovely writer the series #axelle judges bl shows #bypiningbisexuals

[yurimother]

Interview: Shilin Huang, Creator of Amongst Us and Carciphona

Shilin Huang ( @okolnir​​ )is a Canadian freelance artist and comic creator, known for her long-running series Carciphona. She has a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the University of Western Ontario. Carciphona is a long-form fantasy story set in a world where demon-magic is forbidden. The series follows a young sorceress named Veloce, and the mythical assassin assigned to kill her, Blackbird.

Shilin’s newest book, Amongst Us, based on the webcomic of the same name, is an alternate universe comic that reimagines Veloce and Blackbird as musicians and girlfriends in the modern world. You can support the physical release for Amongst Us book 1 on Kickstarter today.

The first book of Amongst Us is coming soon. How do you feel about the release?

Eager and relieved!! I had worked for so long to make the web format viable for print format, as well doing all the extra drawings that were necessary--like covers--that I had to keep under wraps, it felt great to know that that part is finally done and I can release my child into the wild. I was very worried too before the launch of the Kickstarter, because though I am the one who made this story, I am not quite a slice-of-life type of person myself, and it was hard for me to see value in this mundane, not-plot-driven kind of story as a printed book. But I was very lucky to have that worry dispelled!

What drew you towards creating comics and artwork? Was it a dream of yours?

I’ve been drawing since before elementary school because I enjoyed it, and somewhere along the way, I wanted to create my own characters, and then I wanted stories for them. It was always just me doing what I felt like doing, more so than something that I aspired towards achieving consciously. If I had to analyze the allure myself, maybe it was because people and the world are so interesting, I’ve always loved thinking about their nature and circumstances, and art/storytelling was the best way for me to explore and share those thoughts.

Could you briefly walk us through your creative process for making a page of Carciphona or an episode of Amongst Us?

Carciphona is a long, plot-driven story, and so the scale of preparation required before the page eclipses the actual drawing of the page itself. [A] small moment has some larger impact in the plot, character development, and accuracy of world-building. So I usually spend about half a year or more writing out an entire volume, read it over many times over the course of the years, before I do the same thing with sketching the entire volume on the computer, rearranging pages and panels and entire scenes for best delivery, before I finally commit to drawing out each page in detail on the computer. 

Where Carciphona is like an elaborate set course where I chop up and measure ingredients and time their cooking with a careful game plan so everything can be served as they should, Amongst Us is more like an omelette that I’m making to taste. There is still planning and writing ahead of time, but each episode is much more self-contained, and I do more of the planning of the episode within the episode itself, adding and taking away details as I see fit before I feel like it reads naturally enough for me to fine line, colour, and paint.

You talk about being a self-taught artist, how did you learn to create artwork? What are some of your favorite educational resources?

While I did come across many tutorials, they were mostly short ones here and there made by my peers, so I don’t have any favourites in my mind that I can share ): . I learned by just looking at the art of my peers at the time and drawing a lot myself, thinking about what I could learn from each time I see something great, and what I could try next time to make the next drawing look better to me. When I had just started drawing digitally, the internet was quite new, drawing tablets expensive and uncommon, with no social media to share art or find resources. Over time, I did try to learn more properly by doing studies and seeking out professional tutorials, but I found that I hated it and decided that I’d rather learn and make mistakes at my own pace and be happy than to commit to effective and efficient learning and make myself dislike drawing.

Amongst Us is, of course, an Alternate Universe comic featuring characters from Carciphona. What inspired you to put your characters into a GL slice of life work?

Back in 2006, when I started drawing Carciphona, I had no plans of this frenemies dynamic for the two main characters, Blackbird and Veloce, and when the thought had occurred to me as I continue to tweak the story, canon GL relationships were still rare and rarely accepted. I was even told on many occasions by readers that they hope the two do not end up with some couples dynamic, or they will no longer be interested in the story. Ultimately, Carciphona was a fantasy story about an entire world, and I wasn’t going to risk the story’s reception over a small detail like whether or not Blackbird and Veloce sleep together, so I just played with the ideas of their relationship on the side, in paintings of many different AUs. Eventually, all that did was make me become so attached to the idea that I decided to say, screw it, I need someplace where they could be together, and I’m drawing an AU for real.

Where do you draw inspiration from for your work? Both Amongst Us and Carciphona.

I love a lot of things, feelings, aesthetics, and I eat up all of that and take it back out in the form of my stories. The inspiration is everywhere, from beautiful imagery I witness in pictures and in real life, to [the] lives of people that I hear about or experience firsthand, to the ethics and structures of professions from mechanics to medicine… In feelings, knowledge, and perspective, there’s an infinite amount of things that makes me think, and that thinking is what creates AU and Carciphona, whether or not that line of inspiration can be clearly drawn back to the root of the thought.

What are some of your biggest challenges or fears creating Amongst Us? Was there any realization or advice that helped you overcome those difficulties?

My biggest fear is always in relatability because it’s a difference between me and the reader that I do not and cannot have a solution for because it involves another person. In such a relatable genre as slice of life/comedy/romance, where the readers have more experience and therefore more varied but stronger expectations of a version of life that is relatable to them, I know that even if somehow I become a master writer, I still would not be able [to] say whether I could story that others would get or would be interested in, especially because I am aware I am an oddball when it comes to how I think, how I live, and what I value. What helped me the most was simply seeing that there were readers who did enjoy the stories for what it was, and reminding myself that I’m telling the stories to find those who might enjoy it, not to avoid those who might not. It’s a different perspective, rather than a solution, so the worry constantly resurfaces, but I hope it becomes easier over time as I am proven wrong more often!

Amongst Us readers have gotten to see Veloce and Blackbird as an established couple, and now we are witnessing flashbacks to how they first met. Where do you hope to take the series in the future?

I intend to tell both of these timelines concurrently, so as the couple timeline ended at episode 20, I intend to end the flashback at around episode 40, and then switch again at episode 60, and so on. While this kills the momentum for each arc, I made AU so that I can have the cake and eat it too--I want both their back story and a happy ending at the same time without having to wait 10-20 years for it, like I do with Carciphona’s plot haha!

What is one dream or aspiration you would like to accomplish? Even if it is unrealistic.

My only dream right now is just to finish both Carciphona and AU before my time’s up! Funny how unrealistic is specified, it made me realize that I rarely consider unrealistic dreams/aspirations as worth thinking about as they are unlikely to happen when there are so many other things I want to do that are actually possible. Most of my unrealistic dreams actually revolve around music, a profession I had left behind with an aching heart. I dream to play a concerto with an orchestra someday, or even learn to conduct, but for now, drawing my dreams out feels enjoyable and fulfilling enough a compromise!

What advice do you have for people wanting to create artwork and comics?

The true challenge these days I feel like is rarely in the work itself; there are so many readily available free resources that anyone who is capable of working hard and thinking critically will sooner or later be able to master skills they acquire to some degree. What is truly challenging is finding, and then accepting, what paths work for you. Someone might find great joy in working in a studio with a group on something big, while someone else might only enjoy drawing what they feel. Both, in this current climate, will be compelled to adhere to the standards of drawing what others want to see in order to gain recognition and financial stability, one will thrive, one will not. 

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is understanding what you want out of drawing/creating, and why. Understanding yourself is often not as straight-forward as it may seem, everyone has different circumstances that subtly motivates them to sometimes misdirect energy and misinterpret what it is they truly want. Some people need to be understood, some people want an excuse to execute, and some people want fame, money, recognition, validation. Whatever it is, and all valid, understanding and accepting your own motivations to create can tremendously help you find the path forward that is suitable for you, not anyone else, even if it might mean following an impractical path that no one else recommends.

Finally, after the release of the first Amongst Us book, what is next for you? Anything special your fans can look forward to?

My game plan through the decades has always been to just keep going. I did choose long-form projects such as the comics that I draw, and the best thing I can do is to just keep it up and reach those exciting points of the story that I’ve always worked towards, no matter how uneventful that may make my work routine sound. However, I do have a little side thing with a(nother) recurring theme that I’ve been doing here and there for fun whenever I had time, people who keep up with my social media art posts may have noticed. If I ever accumulate enough material, maybe there will be some bonus snacks for my readers on the horizon!

Read Carciphona and Amongst Us online now and be sure to support the physical release on Amongst Us book 1 on Kickstarter today. Also, be sure to follow Shilin on Twitter @Okolnir.

#yuri #news #essay #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+ #queer #gay #shilin #girls love #gl #wlw #essays #interview #art #artist #comics #indie #carciphona #amongst us

[rallamajoop]

The Witcher: The Games vs The Books

Coming to the fandom this late, I can only assume the relationship between the Witcher games and the original novels has been long since talked to death by others. But I'm far too fascinated by the whole glorious mess that is this canon not to want to get down some of my own thoughts about how it all fits together.

See, on the one hand, the games (Witcher 3 especially) are arguably only too dependent on the novels to stand alone. They do a wonderful job of picking up a number of unresolved plot points the books left hanging, and a woeful job of explaining so much a player coming in cold would really like to know – Ciri's history with Geralt, Yennefer, her powers and the Wild Hunt itself just to begin with. This is an issue that only increases as the games go along: cliche as Geralt's amnesia may be, it's used to good effect to introduce the world to the player in the first game. By the third, Geralt has all his old memories back and two extra games worth of new experience, and good lord is it all alienating to the newcomer.

On the other hand, so much about the games (again, the third especially) contradicts the novels in painfully irreconcilable ways. That wouldn't necessarily bother me – adaptations are allowed to rework and reinvent, stories can and should evolve in the retelling – except, well, see point one above. So you're bound to come out of the games with a lot of unanswered questions if you haven't read the books, and just as many if you have.

Spoilers to follow, of course, for both the books and the games.

Here's one of the big ones: just how did the world – Ciri included – discover that one of her long-presumed-dead parents was actually alive and well and now ruling the entire empire of Nilfgaard? Fucked if I know. Neither the games or the novels have any explanation. In the novels, in fact, the world at large believes Ciri is married to the emperor of Nilfgaard. Naturally, this 'Cirilla' is a fake, but the scandal were the full truth ever revealed would redefine Emhyr's reign. Yet somehow, in the games, everyone seems to know he's Ciri's father, and that whole awkward incest angle is never mentioned. Continuity has been tweaked pretty significantly, and it's left to the player to guess how. If that wasn’t bad enough, the games apparently still included a Gwent card of the fake!Cirilla (artwork above) just to ensure maximum confusion.

Before I get too sidetracked with all that stuff that doesn’t add up though, there really is a lot to be said for what does work about how the games expand on the plot of the novels. The Wild Hunt itself is the big one. The spectral cavalcade appears several times through the novels and hunts Ciri across multiple worlds in the final book before apparently losing her trail and vanishing to make way for the 'real' big bad, never to be mentioned again. While TW3 left me pretty underwhelmed by the revelation that the spectral Wild Hunt were just a bunch of dark elves in skull armor, the books had introduced the Hunt and let us spend some time on the dark elves' world before we get the reveal that the two may be one and the same. So for all the ranting I could do about missed opportunities regarding the Wild Hunt, they're the natural candidate for the games to pick up on as their new big-bads.

To my surprise, Geralt and Yennefer's "deaths" and subsequent recovery in pseudo-Avalon also comes straight from the novels. That everyone thinks Geralt dead at the start of the first game isn't, as I'd first assumed, a convenient excuse to have him reappear with amnesia, but simply how the novels end. Why Ciri leaves them and goes world-hopping isn't clear, but "because the Wild Hunt was after her again" is as good a theory as any. So, another point to the games there.

And there's so much more. The Catriona plague has only just appeared at the end of the novels, but we know it's posed for a major outbreak – one that’s in progress by the time of the games. The second game in particular does a terrific job of taking the ambitions of the expansionist Nilfgaardian Empire and the still-relatively-new Lodge of Sorceresses and building an entirely new conflict around them – even taking two of the least developed members of the Lodge (Sabrina Glevissig and Síle de Tansarville) and expanding them into major players. Dijkstra similarly ends the novels on the run from those in power, and having already taken the same assumed name 'Sigi Reuven' he's using in the games – while the books assure us that prince Radovid will grow up to pay back his father's assassins (ie. Phillipa) and become Radovid the Stern.

The twisted fairy tale origins of the novels are something the games actually seem to have gotten better at as they went on: the 'trail of treats' to the Crones is the great example, the monster-frog-prince and the land-of-a-thousand-fables of the expansions are two more, and many more are hidden in sidequests. And I'd be remiss not to mention that in again asking Geralt to pick a side in the conflict with the Scoia'tael, the first two games not only recreate a scenario Geralt repeatedly deals with in the books, but a major theme. It's interesting too how much the broad structure of the third game feels like an homage to the books, with Geralt searching for Ciri, interspersed with sections from her POV. You can nitpick the detail of any of these examples, but the intent is unmistakable, and a lot of credit is due for it in the execution too.

Some of the detail that's gone into translating the world of the Witcher books into the games is just insane – not just in the geography and history of the place, but right down to the names of the wine you can pick up. There's the fact the Cat potion makes Geralt see in black-and-white, or the fact the basilisk and cockatrice monsters are clearly based on the same model, but the basilisk is reptilian where as the cockatrice is more avian – which is exactly how Geralt describes the difference between them in The Lady of the Lake. There's a point where Book!Regis recounts a detailed list of all the lesser vampiric species, ending with the only two violent enough to tear apart their victims: almost all can be encountered in the games, and the last two (Fleders and Ekimma) are indeed the most animalistic. This kind of thing is everywhere.

My favourite examples tend to be those that blend into the background if you haven't read the books, but will get a grin from those who have, such as a peasant in Velen who will call out to Geralt (paraphrased from memory, alas) "Sir, sir! We be up to our ears in mamunes, imps, kobolds, hags, flying drakes... oh, and bats!" – which is a lovely little reference to a couple of conversations from Edge of the World wherein Geralt explains that most of the monsters the locals want him to take care of don't actually exist. Or all those soldiers chanting "Long live King Radovid!" – natural enough, but it takes on a whole new life if you've read the passage in Lady of the Lake where the young prince Radovid grumbles internally about having to sit and listen to the city chanting 'long live...' to every other notable figure present except him.

Really, it would be faster to list the things the games introduced that don't come from the original source material in any obvious form, because it's a struggle to come up with very many. The villainous Crones of Crookback Bog and Master Mirror of the Hearts of Stone expansion are the biggest ones that come to mind, along with a great deal of the vampire mythology from Blood and Wine. To the witchers themselves, they’ve added mostly game mechanics: the use of bombs and blade oils, the names of most of the potions, and three new witcher schools (all with their own specialised gear). There are a number of new creatures and monsters – Godlings, noon-and-night-wraiths, botchlings, shaelmaars and so on – and though trolls are mentioned in the books, the games take credit for giving them so much character. Obviously, there are new characters, like Thaller and Roche – but not technically Iorveth, because a Scoia'tael commander of that name is mentioned in the books, if only in passing. And already, short of just listing off every new character the games introduced, I’m running out of ideas. Credit where credit’s due on that front: most of the new characters and locations they’ve created feel authentic enough that Kalkstein or Thaller would be right at home in the novels’ world.

But for all their dedication to the detail, it's hard to feel like the games have really managed to capture the spirit of the books in their storytelling: the mundanely corrupt bureaucracy that does so much to bring the world to life, or their cheerfully cynical sense of humour, or the flamboyant wonder that is book!Dandelion, or their enthusiasm for putting women in positions of power, or the bigger themes about the differences between the story that gets sung by the bards and what really happened – or so much else from the novels that came as such a surprise to me when I started getting really sucked in.

And if we’re going to talk about all the little things they got right, it’s only fair to point out there are just as many little things they got wrong, and sometimes pretty glaringly at that. "I thought you bowed to no-one" says Emhyr to Geralt – almost as if book!Geralt doesn’t happily bow in most every situation where it would be polite or diplomatic to do so. "This would never have happened if the council was still around!" says Geralt upon finding a sorcerer's lab full of human experiments – as if none of his experiences with Vilgefortz or the wizards of Rissberg ever happened, back when the council was very much still around. In TW2, he mocks the idea of a woman like Saskia leading a rebellion – almost as if women like Falka and Aelirenn haven't led some of the most storied rebellions in history (and we can't even blame the amnesia, because Geralt himself mentions Aelirenn later – oh yeah, this one annoyed me particularly).

 Book!verse 'Lady of the Lake' is basically just Ciri being surprised while bathing

Yennefer's studious aethiesm and willingness to desecrate Freya's temple is entirely in character – but only if we forget that she had her own personal religious experience with the goddess Freya herself in Tower of the Swallow. And then there’s the fact the Lady of the Lake is now a literal lake nymph who distributes swords to the worthy, as if no-one writing for the games ever got past the title of that particular Witcher novel (let alone got the joke). And the list goes on. It's easy to get overly caught up in contradictions like this – it's hardly as if Sapkowski's novels don't contradict themselves in places, as almost any long-running series eventually will – but it's going to stick out to those who’ve read the novels nonetheless.

While we're talking about how the games pick up where the books left off though, the big contradiction that has to be touched on comes in bringing Geralt back at all, at least in any public capacity. There's plenty to suggest that Geralt survives the novels' end and even goes on to have further adventures, but it's also pretty explicit that the history books record his death in the Pogrom of Rivia as final. The last two novels by order of publication (Season of Storms and Lady of the Lake) go so far as to feature characters far in the future with an interest in Geralt's legacy, and they discuss the matter in some depth. As far as the world knows, Geralt is dead.

  Book!Geralt fanart by Diana Novich

But it's hard to blame the games for ignoring this – true, thanks to Geralt's longevity, they could have set their conflict many more years after those future scenes – maybe even used Ciri's established time-travel powers to let you pop quietly in and out of the past (and, okay, now I've thought through all that, I'm kind of sad they didn't). But there comes a point where that kind of slavish devotion to preserving the source material really doesn't do a story any favours, and I'm not sure I could name any other successful adaptation that's bothered.

Besides bringing Geralt back at all, most of the bigger changes pertain to Ciri. In fact, as much as I'm about to get deep into the nitpicks below, you can make a surprisingly good case that the games have made only one really big change, and that's in simplifying the prophesies surrounding her. See, in the novels, all those world-saving prophesies aren't technically about Ciri, they're about her as-yet-unborn child. Who gets to impregnate her is the big driving force behind most of the villains of the books – one that all the main contenders seem to see as more of an awkward necessity rather than the inspiration for violent lust, but even so. To Emhyr, having to marry his own daughter is a bug, not a feature – but he's willing to do it to become the father of the savior of the world. But if Ciri is capable of fulfilling those prophesies herself, then Emhyr is already the father of the savoir of the world, and the revisions to his relationship with Ciri start to make a lot more sense.

Ciri's history with the Aen Elle elves seems to have been similarly revised – if not quite so cleanly. Avallac’h and Eredin are, naturally, both book characters – in fact, a lot of personality has been left behind in the books, since Avallac’h originally had a rather camp flair, and Eredin is less the power-hungry kingslayer you might imagine. When Geralt meets Avallac’h in the books – which happens briefly in Toussaint, for one of those "everything you're doing is going to make everything worse because prophesy" conversations – he's busy decorating a cave with fake prehistoric paintings in the hope of confusing future explorers. (Surprisingly, there does seem to be official art of this moment on one of the gwent cards – see above – though the Avallac’h who jokes about adding erect phalluses to the picture and admits his vanity won’t allow him to resist signing it hasn’t entirely survived the transition to the new medium).

We also meet the former Alder King, Auberon, whose death we see in flashback in the game. (Fun fact: Auberon is actually blowing bubbles through a straw in a bowl of soapy water when we first meet him in the books, hence the straw in the illustration below. The books just have more whimsy than any of the games would know what to do with.)

Ciri spends some time in the final book as a prisoner on the world of the elves, who are as keen as everyone else for their king to father her unborn child. Avallac’h eventually convinces her that this is all for the greater good: her child will be able to open gates to allow the people of her world to escape when the apocalyptic White Frost arrives. But their king, like most older elves, is impotent, leading to multiple nights where Ciri allows him to take her to bed (in some of the frankly more disturbing scenes of the series) to no result. Eredin, moreover, doesn't appear to have intended to poison the king: the vial that kills him was supposed to contain some sort of fantasy viagra, and even Eredin seems genuinely shocked to learn its actual effects.

Regardless, Ciri eventually discovers that Avallac’h and the Aen Elle have deceived her, and intend to user her child's powers to invade her world, not save it. Neither world is threatened by the White Frost for at least several millennia, it's just a pretext to make her cooperate. And so she flees, and Eredin (already leading his Red Riders aka The Wild Hunt long before he was crowned king) pursues her.

With the books as context, why Ciri would ever trust Avallac’h is very hard to understand. It's a little easier if that whole awful episode with her and the former king is subtracted out – Ciri's child is no longer necessary for Eredin's goals. So it's odd that the game still references the deadly vial Eredin gave to the king. Are we to suppose the vial genuinely contained poison in this version of continuity? I'd rather it didn't – Avallach's ruse is far more interesting if he underwhelms Eredin's support by revealing a half-truth – but the games aren't telling us.

And then we have to factor in that one last detail I'd forgotten when I originally started playing with this theory: TW3 does contain one last, dangling reference to the time the old king spent trying to impregnate Ciri, when Ge'els very reasonably asks why on earth Ciri would ever trust Avallac’h now. It's a damn good question, and the game offers no real answers. So in Avallac’h, we're left with a character who is vital to the final chapters of the games, who comes out of nowhere without the books as context, but whose role makes no sense with that backstory in mind. Frankly, the writers would have been much better off avoiding the whole mess altogether and inventing some new character to take Avallac’h's place.

The treatment of the White Frost is even more confusing. The books are ultimately fairly explicit about just what the White Frost is: a ice age, most likely caused by the same mundane climactic factors that produced the real ice ages of our history. The only escape is intergalactic emigration, as Ciri (or her children) might some day enable.

In the games, the White Frost has instead become some sort of nebulous, free-floating apocalypse which will eventually reach all worlds, which is basically fine – up to a point. We briefly visit a dead world that the Frost has decimated, and even the Aen Elle are now supposedly planning to invade Ciri's world because it threatens theirs as well (I mean, apparently – their motivations are so underdeveloped you could miss them by accidently skipping just one or two lines of dialogue). When the Wild Hunt appears, it's always in a haze of cold. Their mages can invoke its power still more dramatically through portals which can freeze you in your tracks. So obviously, the Frost has already reached their world, and time is running out, right?

Well, no – you visit their world too (again, briefly – to meet a character who has never been mentioned before and won't be again, for reasons which have also never been mentioned before if you haven't read the books) – and there's no Frost in sight, apocalyptic or otherwise.

So why does the White Frost follow the Hunt around? No idea. It's never explained.

At the very end of the game, a second "Conjunction of the Spheres" occurs (possibly because of the Wild Hunt's appearance?), and the Frost begins to invade (or possibly Avallac’h summons it, so Ciri can go into it and destroy it?) It's all painfully unclear. The game is too busy pulling a bait-and-switch over whether Avallac’h's betrayed you to tell you what's actually going on instead.

But if Ciri could destroy the Frost completely (at great personal risk, but still) why is this not more clearly set up? Why did the Aen Elle think that escaping to another world (which will ALSO eventually be destroyed by the Frost) was a better solution than sending Ciri to face the Frost directly? For which matter, why do the Aen Elle need Ciri at all if sending enough ships to carry an army is no problem? Why does Ciri spend so much of the game questioning Avallac’h's true intentions, if they were ultimately so noble? When did he tell her the truth? If Avallac’h did summon the Frost, why did he pick that particular moment? And if he didn't, and it all just happened spontaneously, we're back to questioning why invading that world ever seemed like a good solution to Eredin – it all collapses in on itself.

None of these questions couldn't have been answered with a little creativity, but then the game would've had to dedicate some real time to explaining its backstory and developing its core conflict – something it's bizarrely reluctant to do. And if you think I may be drifting from the point a bit in the name of getting all my gripes about the ending down in one place, you're not wrong, but I feel Avallac’h and everything surrounding him is pretty much the ur-example of what doesn't work about the way The Witcher 3 depends on the novels: the backstory the writers are building on doesn't actually exist in any format available to the rest of us.

There are plenty of ways TW3 could have incorporated its backstory into its own narrative (yes, even excluding the method "by expecting people to read many many more pages of text from in-game documents", because that's bullshit and always will be). There are times it does this brilliantly, such as in the quest ‘The Last Wish’: everything you really need to know is covered in Yennefer and Geralt's conversation in the boat, and without ever making the dialogue sound unnatural. In fact, TW3 has even more options here than many works with the same problem, because Geralt is famous and people already think they know his story. You could have bards singing Dandelion's ballads, you could have characters confronting him with misunderstandings about his past to force him to correct them. You could also have Geralt visiting people and places he knows Ciri remembers fondly because of the time they spent there together, or include playable flashbacks similar to the time you spend playing as Ciri. You could stick chunks of backstory in optional sidequests or scenes old-school fans can skip through quickly. So many of my questions (how did Ciri get so close to Yennefer if they were never at Kaer Morhen together? Why has no-one tried training Ciri in her powers before? What does the Wild Hunt even do while it's not hunting Ciri? Why is Ciri princess of Cintra if her father is Emperor of another country altogether?) could have been answered so easily.

Seriously, summarising the Witcher books is not that hard. Lots of things happen, but only a fraction of it is really relevant in retrospect, and you could hit all the major plot beats in a handful of paragraphs. (Heck, I’d do it here if this post wasn’t already ridiculously over long.)

But then, TW3 has a bizarre problem with leaving so much of its best material off screen, even from its own story. It's criminal that we never get to see any of Geralt's time (or Yennefer's) with the Wild Hunt, even in flashback or dream sequence. This is material that directly sets up the relationship between the main hero and the main villain, and the most we ever hear about it is a few vague allusions to it being like a strange nightmare. Really? That's it? What was it like? Was Geralt in a trance, unable to control his own actions – was he brainwashed into believing he belonged there, or was he merely unable to escape? What atrocities might Eredin have forced him to commit? Did he visit other worlds? Was he paraded among the Aen Elle as a captive? There is no way this isn’t a part of the story worth talking about!

We never see the moment Ciri rescues Geralt from the Wild Hunt. We never see how Avallac’h convinces her to trust him, we never see the moment he was cursed, or any of her efforts to save him – all these big, story-defining moments are left off-screen, to be vaguely recounted to you later in dialogue. Then there's the entire political situation in Nilfgaard – you hear about it second-hand, and it's all resolved off screen. And the list goes on. Yet you and Ciri still have time to run around Novigrad so she can thank a bunch of throwaway characters you've never even heard of before, nor will again. The priorities on display here are baffling.

The Witcher 3 was such a wildly successful game that it’s obvious these sorts of issues didn’t seriously hold it back, and it’s such a big game that I could have sat down and written just as many words focusing only on the parts that do work without much difficulty. It boasts stunning visuals, addictive gameplay and some truly wonderful characters, and so many parts of the story work brilliantly in isolation that it’s strange to come out of it feeling that it ultimately adds up to so much less than the sum of its parts.

I’m glad TW3 exists – if it hadn’t been such a runaway success I doubt I’d ever have discovered Sapkowski’s universe at all, but for myself, TW3 will probably always be remembered as a somewhat-overlong introduction to the really good stuff, in the expansions and the original novels it came from. I looked up the novels after finishing TW3 in large part because I’d been left with so many unanswered questions – and I’m glad I did, but I’m honestly surprised more people weren’t turned off by TW3′s scattershot approach to its own narrative. You’re allowed to change and rework in moving to a new medium, but I can’t imagine it would’ve hurt games’ success to tell a complete story in the process.

#The Witcher #Witcher Novels #The Wild Hunt #Geralt #Ciri #Emyhr #Avallac'h #Eredin #meta #long post is long

[hopefulobjectmiracle]

rank kurt ships: kalter, kurtofsky, hevans, kelliott, kadam, klaine, kurtbastian, kurt/chandler. also rank Blaine ships: klaine, blam, blainofsky, seblaine, blaine/jeremiah

Oooooh, okay! Fair warning - there’s going to be a lot of negativity in this one, so I’m placing it under a cut.

Kurt Ships:

Doing this list made me realize that I don’t like most Kurt ships. There are only two that I genuinely like - none of the others are good enough for him.

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8. Kurt/Karofsky - Y’all, Karofsky traumatized Kurt. He physically and sexually assaulted him, scared him to the point where he had to change schools. That would make for the most toxic and horribly traumatic relationship. I don’t judge 99% of ships, but if you ship these two then I genuinely worry about you.

7. Kurt/Chandler - They interacted in one scene. Chandler was in essence, a more annoying Tyler Oakley. Why does this ship even exist?

6. Kurt/Sebastian - Sebastian spent all eight minutes of screentime with Kurt insulting, demeaning, and trying to blind Kurt - no thank you. They get a spot higher solely because Grant and Chris have excellent chemistry.

5. Kurt/Walter - I apologize for being judgmental, but I find large age gaps extremely skeevy. Sorry. Kurt and Walter’s entire “relationship” made me very uncomfortable, and this is only higher than Kurtbastian because Walter never tried to hurt Kurt.

4. Kurt/Adam - They couldn’t have given Kurt a more bland and uninteresting midgame if they’d tried. Baby Got Back? Really? I was sorely disappointed by the lack of chemistry between the two and how Kurt barely had any interest in Adam.

3. Kurt/Sam - Listen, I don’t like this ship. It’s just that the options below it are so bad that I am forced to place this one higher. I don’t see the compatibility at all and I feel like more often than not, Kurt would be annoyed by Sam rather than endeared by him. I love them as friends, but I don’t see them in a legitimate relationship.

2. Kurt/Elliott - I love them! I love them so much! I will always maintain that Kurt and Elliott should have hooked up or had a short fling, and then stayed friends for the rest of the show.

1. Kurt/Blaine - I adore them with all my heart and more. They’re special to me because they were the first queer couple I saw that actually got a story, complete with all the ups and downs any straight couple would go through, and even after all of that they got a happy ending. It meant the world to me to see that. And even without the representation aspect, I love their story, imperfectly perfect as is.

Blaine Ships:

Oh, damn. I also hate almost all of these. Why didn’t either of them get legitimate midgames?

5. Blaine/Sebastian - Anyone who has spent any time on my blog will notice how much I loathe this ship. It’s one of two ships that I can never tolerate, and I really and truly do not see the appeal. What is it - no chemistry? Disrespect and refusing to take no for an answer? One-sided obsession? One half of the ship repeatedly stating that the other one means nothing to them?

Or is it the fact that people just want to see two hot men together? Yeah, that’s probably it. It’s funny, because I’ve heard people say that Klaine shippers are mlm fetishizers, but in my experience that term is much more suitable for people who ship Blaine and Sebastian together, because there’s nothing beyond the attractiveness of their actors that anyone could find appealing.  

Sebastian had zero personality beyond being a pretentious dick and doesn’t belong anywhere near Blaine (or Kurt).

4. Blaine/Jeremiah - Haha, I’m not really sure what to do with this. I have no opinions on this ship, but I do think it would have been hilarious if Blaine had ended up dating Jeremiah in S6 instead of Dave.

3. Blaine/Sam - I don’t ship them romantically at all, and I really dislike the idea of them in a relationship, but objectively speaking they would probably make a cute couple. I just don’t vibe with them that way, and that’s fine.

2. Blaine/Karofsky - I’m going to be honest, this is the one of the few instances in Glee where the execution is better than the idea. The idea of Blaine with Kurt’s former tormentor is so much worse than the reality of what we got - which was surprisingly a sweet, loving relationship that was (dare I say it) healthy for Blaine.

They’re overhated, IMO, and even though I don’t like them together, I will say that they were objectively not a bad couple. Had it not been for the baggage, I would have probably shipped them.

1. Blaine/Kurt - they’re why I’m here, y’all 🥰

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I really do wish Kurt and Blaine had been given actual midgame relationships. I love their story as is, but if I had to make some tweaks, genuine midgames would certainly be one of them. 

#anti seblaine #anti kurtbastian #anti hevans #anti kadam #anti kurtofsky #evelyn answers stuff

[whentherewerebicycles]

You seem to be really amazing at executing planned changes with food and exercise (and also generally better psychological habits) - can i ask for advice on this? I’ve finished up studying for now and realise my body has turned into a twisted up, pudgy, weakened wreck! Exercise hurts and sugar/processed food feels so cosy and I can’t seem to get through this part where i have to feel discomfort for a while before i feel better!

What works for you? Should i read that atomic habits book you mention? I saw another one recommended - the Kindness Habit - do you know anything about it?

(I tried journaling btw - but it didn’t get me anywhere)

hello!! i can share some things that have worked for me when it comes to implementing longer-term changes in diet and exercise. these seem really simple but i think that actually making big lifestyle changes is much less about summoning up colossal amounts of willpower and much more about making small but important tweaks to the way you think about/approach diet and exercise. here are five things that have been helpful to me.

(1) don’t think of diet changes in terms of restrictions (i.e., “what delicious cozy sugary things do i have to deprive myself of today to be Good”). instead, approach diet changes as a fun little game of adding in as many good things as possible (fruits, veggies, leafy green things, nuts of all kinds, whole grains, beans, etc.). every single time you are preparing a meal or looking for a snack, describe it to yourself as a chance to be creative and resourceful, as you think about fun ways to add in small good things every time you eat. especially in the early weeks, don’t restrict foods from your diet at all. focus solely on finding a creative way to add in something healthy and delicious every time you eat. (i really liked using the daily dozen checklist when i was starting out—they have an app and it’s very satisfying and fun to see how many things you can check off the list each day.)

(2) narrate this “adding-in” game aloud to yourself. for example: “oh—what if i eat a big handful of berries on top of that ice cream?”, or “i’m hungry—ooh, there are carrots in the fridge, aren’t there? i’ll eat three carrots with hummus before i switch over to pita chips”). and every time you figure out a creative way to add in a good food, stop and observe yourself doing it, and let yourself feel a little spark of delight at how clever and creative you’re being. this sounds silly, but i swear it works! part of changing your habits is changing self-talk & especially changing the kind of running narrative you have in your head about who you are and what you do. you can change that narrative in part by repeatedly reframing the way you tell it to yourself, ideally aloud (or aloud in your head) to help you can better “hear” and internalize the new story. instead of “ugh... i ate ice cream again. why don’t i have any self-control? why am i someone who just eats like crap?”, you’re offering your brain an alternate story, one that focuses less on things you perceive yourself as lacking, or on things you ‘failed’ to do, and more on the creative, positive things you did do (“i wasn’t going to eat any fruit today, but wasn’t it great that i remembered we had those frozen berries in the fridge? that’s pretty creative and resourceful of me, and plus it’s a good way to use up something i’d forgotten i even had”).

the “noticing and feeling delighted” part is just as important. to successfully change a habit, you need to find creative ways to make the new habit pleasurable in and of itself. the more pleasure you feel when you do it, the more self-reinforcing the habit itself becomes. you might not experience eating healthy foods as intensely pleasurable (at least at first, especially if you are comparing them with the intense brain-hacking pleasure that super sugary foods give us). so don’t try! instead, focus on making the choice a source of pleasure and delight. "look at how clever i was! look at how creative i can be! look at what a good choice i made! look at how good i am at this game of adding in!” that act of stopping, narrating, and letting yourself feel genuinely pleased with what you’ve just done makes the choice to add something in pleasurable, which in turn can help fuel your sense that this isn’t about having iron willpower or about cruelly depriving yourself of delicious things, but is about playing a fun little game with yourself, creating little challenges or puzzles for yourself throughout the day and then giving yourself positive reinforcement when you figure them out.

(3) manage your environment to set yourself up for success. to paraphrase the atomic habits book: the people who seem to have the best willpower are the people who have to exercise it the least. and they have to exercise it the least because they’ve very effectively managed their environment, arranging things so that the desired choices are easy and “frictionless,” while the undesired choices or habits are more inconvenient or introduce more friction (it’s harder to get to them).

the easy starter version of this (from atomic habits): put the things you want to eat in highly visible places and/or in appealing arrangements, and put the things you don't want to eat in places that aren't visible or that are inconvenient to access. ice cream goes in the very back of the fridge, buried behind all the other stuff. nuts go in a bowl on your desk so that you can idly snack on them while you work. apples and bananas go in a big brightly colored bowl right on the counter, so that every time you pass through the kitchen your eyes are drawn to them. chips go in the bottom cupboard, the one below eye level that you don't use very often, and when you get them out you pour some into a bowl and put them right back in there (instead of leaving the bag out on the counter). make the choice you want to make easy, and make the choice you don't want to make harder to get to.

eventually, the most effective way of managing your environment is just to exercise total control over what comes into your own living space. for me, if i don’t want to eat it, i don’t have it in the house. i typically also place a curbside delivery grocery order so that i don’t have to go into the store—anything that comes into my house is something i made a deliberate choice about ordering, not something i wandered by a shelf and added to my cart because i wanted a treat. something i’ve learned about myself over the years that moderation is just not in my vocabulary—i’m an all-or-nothing person, and it’s SO much easier for me to just not have stuff i don’t want to eat in the house. no ice cream in the house. no alcohol in the house. no fried things, no chips, no candy, etc etc. if someone kindly brings me baked goods that i did not ask for, i genuinely appreciate the gesture, but as soon as they leave i give them to my next door neighbor or dump them in the trash. (SORRY TO PEOPLE WHO BAKE FOR ME!) if it's in the house i'll eat it. if it's not, i won't, and i also won't miss it.

i did do this pretty gradually at first, though! when i switched to a primarily whole food plant-based diet, i focused on playing the adding-in game for a couple weeks, and then when i started getting competitive about it i decided to use my grocery order as a way of creatively boosting my fruit/veggie/etc consumption even more, and in the process i started winnowing out things that took away chances to add in a good thing. i would say it took about three or four weeks to get to my personal ideal state of Nope I Don't Have It In The House.

it takes time, but i’d say that within a month of having only things you want to eat in the house, your cravings will be gone, at least within your own managed environment (going to restaurants or traveling DOES require you to exercise willpower, but there are ways to prepare for this in advance). the good news, though, is that 6-8 months or so of eating like this usually brings with it such improved sleep, mood, energy levels, skin, hair, GI function, etc etc that you start to be like oh my GOD why would i want to eat that horrifying thing?? I KNOW HOW BAD IT MAKES ME FEEL!! I WANT TO POWER MY BODY WITH PLANTS!!!!! in other words, the pleasurable side effects of eating well becomes positively reinforcing in its own right, while the negative effects you experience when you reintroduce sugar or fried things tends to reinforce the idea that those foods Feel Bad.

(4) it's not exercise, it's movement. i too used to hate exercise and found it extremely painful and tedious and horrible. so instead of exercising i just started moving. i canceled my membership at the local dog bar, where i had been taking my dog almost every day to let him run off excess energy, and started talking short walks with him twice a day instead. if you don’t have a dog, offer to walk your friends’ dogs—trust me they will lose their MINDS with joy lol. i think that starting to build in regular walks is the best way to get active again, because walking is typically quite pleasant and it becomes positively reinforcing to like, wave at the same neighbors every day, and see the cute kids next door running around, and notice all the ways that the trees and flowers are changing, and so on.

if you do not find being outside inherently pleasurable (sometimes i do not lol esp if i’m grumpy about having to walk the dog), tie another pleasurable activity to your daily walk. i listen to about six hours’ worth of hockey podcasts a week and i am only allowed to listen to them on my walks, so i end up looking forward to the walk because i’m desperate to hear people talk about My Guys. you can also walk with friends, or call a friend while you’re walking, which is even better than podcasts!! social walks are so much fun and go by so much more quickly. i started out just doing daily 15 min walks, and over the past couple years have built up to walking between 60-90 min a day when i’m at home. sometimes i hate/dread my walk; sometimes i love it and look forward to it. but regardless of how i’m feeling, i do it every day and if i miss it once, i don’t miss it a second time. 

as far as activity goes, i think it’s totally ok to just be a person who walks a lot! but i’ve found that becoming someone who walked a lot helped change my own narrative of myself—I started to think of myself as a walker, an active person who moved a lot every day. and that made it easier to pick up other forms of activity too, or at least to adopt a curious, exploratory attitude towards other forms of movement. also once you start tracking your active minutes you tend to get quite competitive about it! or at least i do, lol. i keep a note on my phone where i write down the date + type of activity + total number of minutes I did after every burst of activity, then at the end of the week i add it all up and compare it to the previous weeks. it makes me want to do more, to beat my own numbers—or it makes me want to keep up a streak (like, if i have a five-week period where i’ve consistently hit a certain level of active minutes every week, i don’t want to break it!!).

my biggest suggestion for exercise, though, is to figure out what kinds of things you enjoy and what kinds of things you don’t, and then to spend all your time doing things you like. i HATE structured fitness classes and workout videos. i hate them so much!!!!!!!! but i love being outside, i love doing solo activities (as opposed to group workouts), and i love doing any form of movement that doesn’t feel like a Planned Workout, capital w. also becoming a hockey fan got me really interested in skating, so i picked up rollerblades and found that to be amazingly fun too (something i can do outside AND something that feels like gliding around effortlessly AND something that makes me feel closer to My Favorite Guys!!!!). you may not have passionate feelings about hockey fandom as i do, but i think it’s really just about being creative—finding a creative way to link something you don’t love to something you do love, or find pleasurable, so that you can start forging those positive associations. 

i spent my first couple years of being more active just walking walking walking, and then this past year during the pandemic when i really ramped up my movement i added in longer walks, hikes, and rollerblading, and i also looked for ways to “habit-stack,” ie attaching an activity i don’t much care for (running; exercise biking indoors; doing squats and lunges) to one i do enjoy (i take my tennis shoes when i go skating and then go for a run immediately afterwards, before i have time to talk myself out of it). there are still all kinds of things i don’t do—i really don’t love strength training + bodyweight exercises yet, and i hate stretching even though I Know I Should, and i know that if i want to get stronger and faster, or build up my endurance, i will eventually need to introduce some element of structured training into my daily movement.

BUT the idea of making those changes seems kind of cool to me now, instead of Horrifying and Dread-Inducing! i feel like all the positive associations i’ve forged have made me more curious and open to ideas i would’ve resisted with my whole being not all that long ago. i found a way to make movement pleasurable, and then (thanks to sports fandom + my tendency to go down research rabbitholes) i found a way to get myself intellectually and emotionally engaged in the general concept of being a highly active person. for me, that combination of real pleasure + intellectual/emotional stimulation is what i personally need to build & maintain good habits.

(also, just shoehorning this in at the end because i like it: the “it’s movement, not exercise” mindset shift was also really helpful to me because it stopped me from thinking of exercise as like, this highly structured, regimented, torturous thing you forced yourself through for a set period of time each day, and helped me instead think of movement as something that humans are designed to do & to naturally enjoy. instead of Forcing Myself to Exercise, i looked for more natural-feeling forms of movement that didn’t feel so artificially divided from my “real life.” i think that helped with reframing my self-narrative, too! it made being active feel more integrated into my daily life, which in turn made it easier to think of myself as an active person, someone for whom movement was just a normal part of daily life and not a thing i had to psych myself up to do every day.)

(5) it takes time to build good habits, but not nearly as much time as you might think, and eventually you stop thinking about how long you’ve been doing something and you just start enjoying it (ie it becomes a genuine change in your lifestyle/thinking, not an artificial thing you have to work hard every day to maintain).

i am not yet AN ATHLETE and may never be, but i often remind myself that it took me a little under 30 years to build up a PROFOUND aversion to exercise, so it’s actually kind of miraculous that in just two years i’ve become someone who genuinely, earnestly, enthusiastically enjoys being active and feels antsy/weird/restless when i can’t get out of the house and move. every small stride i’ve made has strengthened my trust in myself and helped me reframe the narrative i tell myself about what kind of person i am and what i do/don’t do. every time i do the thing (whether it’s exercising or making a delicious healthy dinner) & happily notice myself doing it, i reaffirm to myself that i’m the kind of person who takes care of my body and mind by eating well and spending lots of time moving outside. (as a side benefit, when i spend a lot of time happily noticing things and speaking encouragingly to myself, i also reaffirm to myself that i am a happy person who treats myself kindly and who is always eagerly seeking out experiences that feel joyful and life-affirming.)

plus, the more often you do something, the more opportunities you have to have positive experiences while doing it! not every walk is AMAZING, LIFE-CHANGING, DEEPLY FULFILLING, but like, if i am walking seven days a week, that’s seven opportunities for something cool or fun to happen on a walk (not to mention seven opportunities to reap all the physiological & emotional well-being benefits of exercise!!). and if i am really conscious and intentional about noticing and actively delighting in those positive experiences, i help wire in those positive associations more deeply, and my brain/body increasingly comes to associate movement with happiness, joy, and fulfillment. as the habit of being more active becomes fulfilling in and of itself, i don’t have to expend as much energy tricking or cajoling or bribing myself into doing it.

*

i hope this helps!! i am literally always happy to write extremely long essays in respond to simple anon questions, lol, so if you want to talk more about your own ideas for building better habits please do share!! i can also rec you specific books that i’ve found really useful—both for just like, helping me figure out how to make big changes, and also for providing that intellectual stimulation that gets me more engaged in wanting to eat well & be more active.

(also, on the extremely slim chance that you are also a hockey fan: over in my fandom sphere, we are organizing a fun summer thing inspired by one of our fave hockey players, where we’ll be planning lots of fun fannish community things to get ourselves moving this summer. it’s going to be a good time!!)

#food #movement #mw

[isitgintimeyet]

Just A Friend

Previous

AO3

Another Sunday, another chapter. Hope it’s a good weekend for you all, despite these uncertain times. I always intended this story to be a bit of fluffy light relief from the real world. Thanks for all the support for it.

There will probably be another 3 chapters after this, depending on how the characters behave. I cant seem to make them do what I want sometimes!

Thanks to @wickedgoodbooks for the beta

Chapter 11: From Marriage to Mackenzie

It’s 1pm and I’m in a hotel room, still in a bathrobe, sipping Buck’s Fizz whilst a hairdresser wrestles with my wayward curls, finally managing to corral them into some sort of recognisable hair style.

Geillis is sitting on the edge of the bed incongruously dressed in tiara and bathrobe, her hair arranged in an elaborate updo. I catch her eye through the dressing table mirror and smile before my vision is obscured by a miasma of hairspray.

A few final tweaks of my curls and it’s done. I am just amazed that my hair can be cajoled into such glossy, bouncy curls, held behind one ear by an ornately decorated comb. With suitable compliments and thanks, Geillis and I bid goodbye to the hairdresser.

The bride stands up and adjusts the belt of her robe. She seems the epitome of calm.

“Are you not nervous, Geillis? You’ll be walking down the aisle in about an hour’s time.”

“Weel, I am a wee bit worried about a couple of things,” she admits. “I dinna ken how ma cousin Janie will behave. She may try tae proposition every man under the age of seventy five. And as fer Dougal’s Uncle Eric—he has been known tae get steamin’ drunk and puke in the rose beds. But about the marrying? Nah, I dinna have any nerves about that. I want tae spend ma life wi’ Dougal and that’s what today is all about. I have nae worries about making that commitment. He’s the one fer me. When ye ken, ye ken. Trust me, Claire.”

The pocket of her bathrobe begins to buzz. She quickly pulls out her phone and reads the message.

“I’d best go. That was Mam, fretting about something or other. Are ye ok getting dressed on yer own?”

“I’ve managed for the past twenty nine years or so. I dare say I can manage another day.” I sigh theatrically.

“I ken. Ye can manage on yer own. Ye always do. But thanks fer being here with me today. It means a lot tae have the people who mean the most tae me around,” she leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “But remember what I said, Claire, when ye ken, ye ken. Dinna ignore it.”

Pausing at the interconnecting doorway, she does a quick body shimmy and grins. “Woo hoo! I’m getting married. Canna believe it’s here now,”

From the adjoining room, I can hear a shouted response. “Geillis Duncan, ye get here now. Yer mam reckons that makeup lassie has done her eyeliner wonky. It looks fine tae me. Can ye come and talk some sense in tae the daft cow?”

“Alright, Da, I’m coming.” Geillis yells back before leaving to deal with her parents.

I sit down and study my bridesmaid’s dress, now hanging on the wardrobe door. I’m getting excited about the day ahead. Probably not as much as Geillis, obviously, but a host of butterflies appears to have taken residence in the pit of my stomach.

I’m truly thrilled for Geillis to be marrying Dougal—they love each other so much. But, also, it’s scary to me. She is willing, eager even, to commit to one person, to base her future life, her future happiness on one man. If they should ever leave…well, I’m not sure I’d be able to cope with that. If you love too hard, you can hurt too much. Trust me on that, I know. People leave you. Don’t give your heart to anyone, keep it hidden away, protected…intact.

The ping from my phone diverts me from this somber train of thought.

I’m downstairs at the hotel. Can you come and say hello?

I quickly type:

Come up to the 2nd floor. I’ll meet you by the lift.

Making sure the keycard is in my pocket, I slip my feet into the hotel’s complimentary slippers and shuffle out to meet Jamie.

I’m already waiting as the lift door opens and he emerges. My first thought is oh wow, as is my second...and third. He has made an effort for this wedding, and it’s certainly paid off. Eschewing the more formal Prince Charlie style, he’s wearing a charcoal grey jacket and waistcoat, perfectly matching the grey in his kilt. A crisp white shirt and burgundy tie complement the secondary colours in the tartan. His sporran is black leather, heavily etched or embossed. I can’t quite make out the detail. Then I feel myself blush as I realise I have been clearly staring at his...er, lower body. I look up quickly.

Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to have noticed. He looks me up and down and smiles. “Nice outfit,” he comments drily. “Is the bride wearing white towelling too? What’s the theme? Salon chic?”And is that part of the design?” He points to an orange stain on the front of my robe. I pull a face and tie the belt tighter, trying to tuck the offending piece of material out of sight.

“Must have spilled a drop of my Buck’s Fizz.”

“Drinking already? Dinna be staggering down the aisle.”

He reaches out towards my hair and pauses for a second before making a random circular motion with his hand. “And this…I like yer hair. It’s verra…verra…” he searches for the word. “... asymmetric.”

“Thank you,” I hold the ‘skirt’ of my robe and bob a little curtsy. “That’s totally what we were going for—asymmetric.”

He laughs. “Nah, seriously. Yer hair and yer makeup look grand. I’m sure ye’ll look lovely in yer dress.”

I gesture to my room. “I’d best finish getting ready.”

“Aye, I’ll see ye downstairs.” He presses the button for the lift.

“By the way, you look grand too.” I try to say it in an understated way. It’s true, but I don’t want him to read anything into the statement.

The lift arrives and he steps inside. As the doors close, he fires a parting shot. “Especially the sporran, eh?”

*********

Now in my bridesmaid’s dress, I practice a couple of pirouettes in front of the mirror before hearing a quick knock on the door to the adjoining room.

“Ye ready, Claire? Mam’s jes’ gone down. Only us three left.”

I walk through to the other room to be met by a riot of open suitcases, bags and boxes. A variety of towels, dressing gowns and footwear seem to be carpeting the floor.

“‘S ok,” Geillis’ voice comes from behind me. “It’s no’ ma problem. I’m no’ sleeping here tonight. I’ll be in the bridal suite. This’ll be Mam and Dad’s room.”

I turn to see my best friend now fully dressed and ready. Her father is hovering next to her, clad in kilt and full formal regalia. I always knew she would win that battle.

As beautiful as she looks, the thing that really strikes me is the way her father is watching her, with such love and pride. She returns his gaze and brings her forehead to rest against his cheek.

I swallow hard, fighting the desire to shed a tear. It’s such a precious image, so intimate, but also, I realise that, since Lamb died, I have nobody, no father figure, to share something like this. I feel a momentary pang of, not jealousy, but a feeling of regret over an emotion that I will never get to experience.

And then, just like that, the moment passes.

It always does.

Geillis passes me a creamy white posy tied with a simple ribbon and gathers up her bouquet of peonies, roses and fragrant eucalyptus.

“OK,” she takes a deep breath and breaks into a huge grin. “I think I’m late enough tae get Dougal jes’ a wee bit nervous. Time tae roll.”

*******

The hotel’s orangery provides a perfect setting for the wedding ceremony. Softly diffused sunlight filters through the white muslin drapes at the large windows. A slight breeze wafts the fabric gently, giving tantalising glimpses of the formal gardens outside.

At the end of the room, Dougal and Angus stand beside a large arch of succulent green foliage, staring straight ahead as Geillis and her father begin the procession down the aisle with me following.

Even before he turns to look, I can spot Jamie — his auburn curls are head and shoulders above those around him. He stays still at first, but as we draw near he turns around and grins before doing his funny blink, screwing up his face and closing both eyes, which I have learnt, is Jamie’s attempt at a wink. I return his smile before focussing on the arch getting ever closer.

Dougal appears rooted to the spot, but Angus turns around and watches for a moment before giving me a perfectly executed wink. I smile politely even as I shudder inwardly. The sheer self confidence of that man is beyond belief. Then he disappears from my thoughts as Geillis reaches the arch and passes me her bouquet to hold. The joy on her and Dougal’s faces as they prepare to make their vows is wonderful and I’m so happy to be a part of it all.

***************

They say the sun shines on the righteous. Well, Geillis and Dougal must be exceptionally good, as it’s a perfect summer afternoon. It’s beautifully warm, but not too hot, as all the guests mingle in the gardens, admiring the beautiful surroundings whilst drinking chilled champagne.

The photographer has finished with the formal photographs, so I’m allowed to relax and enjoy a glass or two. I can still spot him wandering around, ready to take more natural, candid shots of the proceedings but nobody seems to mind.

I was initially worried about inviting Jamie to the wedding for a couple of reasons. The first was my friends. Of course, my friends are great, but Anna and Mary can sometimes have an issue with boundaries and I had visions of the ‘conversations’ they might try to have with Jamie — ‘nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition’ unless Anna and Mary are around.

The second reason was that Jamie would literally know only one person at this wedding —me. And that, when I was off doing official ‘wedding stuff’, he would be on his own, billy-no-mates. But, as I look around, I realise I had absolutely nothing to worry about on that score. He has the knack, it seems, to get on with everyone.

At the moment he’s talking to Geillis’s father, laughing and joking like they’re old friends. He notices me looking at him, lifts his empty glass up and points to me. I hold my glass up and nod. He excuses himself and strolls towards the bar.

There’s a slight touch on my elbow. “Hello, dear.”

I draw my attention to the old lady standing next to me—Geillis’ great aunt Frances. I’ve met her on a couple of occasions before and have always enjoyed her company. She’s a straight talker and makes no bones about it. “When ye get tae my age,” I remember her commenting to me “ye dinna have time tae beat about the bush, ye need tae say what ye think.” I like that in a person.

“Hello, how nice to see you.”

“Ye too,dear. I must say ye’re looking awfa bonnie in that dress. It’s a fine colour on ye.”

“Thank you. And you’re looking lovely yourself.”

Frances makes a self deprecating ‘hmph’ sound, dismissing my compliment with a wave of her hand. “Away wi’ ye. Ye do yer best wi’ what ye’ve still got. Which isna much in ma case.”

I shake my head. “Not at—“

But she decides to change the subject and moves on with her next question. “Is that yer young man over there?” She points at Jamie, heading towards us with two glasses of champagne. “He’s a handsome chap, is he no’? Mind ye, that’s no more than ye deserve. Sae, mebbe ye’ll be next?”

“No, we—“

I have no chance to say anything more, before Jamie is by my side and handing me one of the glasses. I take a sip as he notices that Frances has no drink and, without hesitation, he passes the second glass to her.

“Aren’t ye kind… er?” She accepts gratefully.

“Jamie.”

“Weel, Jamie, let me tell ye. It’s been a long while since a good looking young man has brought me a drink. I should make the most of it. Anyway, I was jes’ saying tae our Claire here, how bonnie she looks today. Does she no’?”

She fixes her gaze on Jamie, demanding an answer.

“Aye, she looks lovely.” His eyes meet mine for a second, before I look away and try to change the subject.

“Don’t you think Geillis looks beautiful, Frances?”

But, it seems that Frances has one line of conversation that she is keen to pursue. “Oh aye, she does. But, Jamie, I was jes’ saying tae Claire that mebbe she’ll be next. What d’ye think?”

Fortunately, I’m spared any response as a gong sounds and the maître d’ announces that dinner is served and that everyone should make their way inside to the dining room.

****************

Having narrowly avoided any embarrassment, I am somewhat apprehensive to see Frances at our table. Fortunately, Geillis’ cousin and baby are enough to divert her attention away from any matrimonial prospects that may or may not be on my horizon.

With Jamie sitting by my side, I catch him up on all the behind the scenes activity of my day and we fall into our pattern of easy conversation and gentle banter. From time to time, I can see Frances, opposite, watching us with a look of approval on her face, but she says nothing.

Once the speeches and toasts are over, there’s a palpable change in the guests. Jackets are draped over chair backs, sleeves rolled up and waistcoat buttons undone. I can spot more than one woman moving awkwardly in her chair, struggling to locate the shoes that were eased off out of sight under the table. Cheeks become flushed with an abundance of rich food and tongues become looser with a surfeit of fine wine.

I sip my whisky, savouring its peaty smokiness. Jamie is in a serious rugby related conversation with his neighbour. A rustle of fabric behind me announces the arrival of the bride, a look of frustration on her face.

She greets the table politely before whispering “Can I borrow ye, Claire?”

I make my excuses and follow her into a quieter room.

“What’s up, Geillis? Is everything alright?” I’m concerned that there’s something genuinely wrong.

“It’s his bloody family,” she hisses. “The Mackenzies, if ye give them an inch, they’ll take a fuckin’ mile.”

She takes a deep breath and continues. “Dougal invited his second cousin Gary and his wife tae our evening do. Jes’ the two of them mind. Sae they turn up an hour and a half early and try tae cadge dessert and brandies from the waiters.”

“Where are they now?”

“Och, they’re sitting outside wi’ a couple of spare bottles of wine.” She gestures angrily to the gardens visible through the window. “And they’ll be first in the queue fer the buffet this evening, nae doubt. And what's more, they took it upon themselves tae bring their three bairns too. Weel, I say bairns, but they’re all in their twenties so it’s no’ as if they dinna have a babysitter.”

She finally sits down and lets her shoulders relax.

I take her hand and try to look serious. If this is the worst thing that happens today, that’s not so bad. Although clearly, in Geillis’ eyes, this is a catastrophe. “It’s not going to spoil anything really is it? They didn’t gatecrash the meal or the speeches,” I speak in a soothing tone. “Are you ok now?”

She nods. “Happen ye’re right. I jes’ wanted tae get it off ma chest. And I kent what I was getting in tae wi’ his family. But tae drag Gregory, Alicia and Laoghaire uninvited wi’ them jes’ pisses me off.”

I stare at her. “Laoghaire? Laoghaire Mackenzie?”

“Aye, that’s right. Unusual name, is it no’? Ye dinna find many of them around—thank god.”