#star vs the monstrosities of magic

[dappercritter]

Hey about that SVTFOE Rewrite...

I know it's been a fairly long time since I finally threw in the towel on that old thing, but me and @full-moon-phoenix were discussing that whole thing where making Eclipsa and Toffee a thing would have solved a whole lot of problems with the story.

...and that actually gave us enough inspiration to start thinking about trying again with the rewrite.

It has everything.

A chance to give the two most lore important yet underwritten characters in the show an excuse to stay in the foreground that gives them both more to work with!

More opportunities for a stronger conflict that ties together the plot lines about Mewni, the monsters, the queens, and the magic!

Ship drama that actually matters to the narrative!

So just out of curiosity...

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #svtfoe rewrite #monstrosities of magic #svtfoe fanfiction #svtfoe fanfic #star vs the forces of evil fanfiction #eclipsa butterfly #toffee of septarsis #svtfoe eclipsa #svtfoe toffee #thedappercritter #full-moon-phoenix #critter poll

[elliepassmore]

Never A Hero review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: time travel, morally gray characters, magic

Only A Monster review

Have you ever had a series where you liked the first book but didn't love it, but then read the second book and it completely elevated your opinion? That's what this book did for me. I liked Only A Monster but wasn't in love with it (even though I rated it 5 stars, don't @ me I have rating problems). But this book definitely hooked me. I liked where and who the characters were when this book opened, I enjoyed the adventure they went on, and overall I was more interested in seeing how it ended and was more desperate for the next book when I finished.

Joan was less naïve coming into this book and was still grappling with the implications of everything that happened over summer. She's obviously struggling with her heritage and has vowed not to time travel ever again, but is also still having fade outs where her mind dangerously tries to make her travel without time. As the action picks up, we see that Joan is still hugely protective and loyal toward the Hunts, despite the mixed emotions she feels toward them. She's determined to ensure that they're taken care of while at the same time she's trying to survive herself. We get to see even more of her complicated emotions regarding her monster heritage and her feelings of loyalty toward humans, which I liked. I wasn't so much a fan of how she decided to take such a morally high road that she didn't even use the trinkets that hold time. Like, girl, it's already been stolen, it's not going to become any less stolen if you don't use it and hurting yourself to avoid using it doesn't do anyone any good.

I loved Aaron from the get-go in book 1, but he does fall downhill here a little bit. It's not...entirely his fault, but I did hope he'd snap out of things faster. That being said, Aaron does make the right decision and returns to being his hilariously privileged but lovable self. His and Joan's friendship continues to be one of my favorite parts of this series and I'm very excited that he'll be in book 3 from the beginning.

Nick comes back in and I liked him again! I felt, in general, like he was much better this time around than he was in the other timeline. We get to see a different side to him this time around. He's gentler and more caring, and his protectiveness over humanity now gets extended to Joan and some of the other people they meet along the way. I think Nick is a more complex, nuanced character in this book than he was in book 1, and part of that is that he is able to make his own decision and come to his own conclusions in this one vs. in the first book when he was manipulated behind the scenes every step of the way (or almost every step).

I'm going to be honest and say I kind of had mixed feelings about the plot for a large portion of the book. Don't get me wrong, I really liked that Joan was forced on the run and there seemed to be this big mystery about the timeline. I also really liked how we got more insight into the true timeline as well as some of the other families we briefly came into contact with in book 1. That being said, I felt a little weird about Eleanor (new character), though I came around to her role in things toward the end. It's just, she felt cartoonish at first, but as more was revealed, more of both her complexity and her monstrosity became apparent. I like a good villain, even if I don't root for them, and Eleanor shaped up to be a good villain. I'm very interested to see where she goes and what she does in book 3 (also kind of scared at some of the implications for how the team is going to fix this).

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot more than the first one and it really elevated my opinion of the series as a whole. The villain in this one is more nuanced, and we get more nuance for our other characters and their past actions as well, which I particularly liked. The ending is definitely a banger and I'm looking forward to seeing how our protagonists get out of this one.

#book #book review #books #book recommendations #fantasy #bookstagram #booklr #bookblr #bookaholic #bookish #book addict #never a hero #only a monster #aaron oliver #vanessa len #ya fantasy books #fantasy book #time travel

[full-moon-phoenix]

You know I got to ask about my lizard bois! How are Toffee and Rasticore in your rewrite? Also Lobsterclaws? Thought he died??

Meet the Characters

Part 2 & 3: Toffee and Rasticore

You know Toffee. You know Rasticore. You know they're both rogue Septarian soldiers, one of which goes on to become Mewni's greatest adversary while the other becomes an assassin.

But what you don't know is that these two grew up together. Rasticore is the son of Seth, whose family took Toffee in as a child, so Toffee and Rasticore were practically joined at the hip for ages. They're very on and off both platonically and romantically, but somehow always find their way back to each other sooner or later.

Toffee used to live at the Monster Temple with Eclipsa, Globgor, and their peace advocates, once believing in harmony between Mewmans and Monsters. But he also had sought to flee Mewni's tyranny rather than fight it, going so far as to leave Rasticore and Seth behind. But when the Magic High Commission raided their sanctuary, Toffee was lost in the Nexabyss hiding from them, trapped in a nightmarish magic dimension just underneath the Bureaucracy of Magic for 200 years.

He came across the ancient Nexabyss Library, where the oldest and deepest secrets of magic and the universe were kept safe. The Librarians took him into their safe haven from the magic world, and with nothing else to do until he found his way out, Toffee read. And read. And read. Until one day he found out the darkest secrets of the Butterfly family, namely the child swap.

He came out of the Library a changed man, and a Librarian-in-training at that. He joined back up with Rasticore and the Monster Army and was hellbent on making Queen Comet confess to the crimes of her family. She knew, and she refused. The rest is history. But what of the present? Where is Toffee now, and does he have any reason to fight with Star now that Eclipsa is queen again?

(Also, yeah. Randall Clawford, aka Lobster Claws, is very much alive.)

#svtfoe #svtfoe au #star vs the monstrosities of magic #monstrosities of magic #svtfoe toffee #svtfoe rewrite #svtfoe rasticore #rasticore

[thecreaturecodex]

Hejkin

Image by John Stanko, © Wizards of the Coast.

[Originally, hej-kin was hyphenated, but the hyphen was dropped in 4e. 4e also gave these little guys electrical powers. This may seem odd in the usual 3e/PFRPG paradigm of “air = electricity, earth = acid”, but it makes sense to me. Crystals generate electricity, after all.]

Hejkin CR 1 NE Aberration This stunted creature has pointed ears, oversized claws on its hands and feet and a patchy, shaggy coat. Its body is distorted, as if some of the bones were too large and others too small.

Hejkins are strange earth-dwelling creatures, xenophobic and violent. They despise anyone and anything that disturbs solid rock, which they view as sacred. They live only in natural cave formations, typically around a water supply, and attack miners, stonemasons and any other entities that try to carve into the earth. Hejkins are awkward in motion, but surprisingly strong for their size. They never fight with weapons, instead using their claws and bursts of electricity. A hejkin can move through solid rock, but only slowly, which they use to escape from danger or gather reinforcements.

Hejkin society is theocratic, with a caste of priests that venerate beings of elemental earth, great old ones, and gods of monstrosity and deformity. These “priests” rarely have the cleric class—oracles and sorcerers are most common. Priests have the rare privilege among the hejkin of being allowed to go to the surface, which they do at night in order to read omens in the stars. Sunlight blinds the hejkin, but deals them no permanent damage. They are omnivores with a taste for insects and fungus. Hejkin value textiles and intricately carved wood as treasure, since neither of these things are common below ground compared to metals and minerals.

Hejkin           CR 1 XP 400 NE Small aberration Init +4; Senses darkvision 120 ft., Perception +3, tremorsense 15 ft. Defense AC 14, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (+1 size, +3 natural) hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +0, Will +2 Resist electricity 10; Vulnerable light blindness Offense Speed 20 ft., burrow 10 ft. (earth glide) Melee 2 claws +4 (1d4+2) Special Attacks static burst Statistics Str 14, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 9, Cha 13 Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 12 (14 vs. bull rush, trip on earth or stone) Feats Improved Initiative Skills Climb +6, Escape Artist +8, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +3, Perception +3, Stealth +8, Swim +6; Racial Modifiers +4 Escape Artist, +4 Stealth Languages Aklo, telepathy 100 ft. SQ earth walker Ecology Environment underground Organization solitary, pair, gang (3-6), pack (7-12 plus 0-4 warriors of 1st-3rd level) or clan (13-24 plus 1-8 warriors of 1st-3rd level, 1-4 priests of 2nd-5th level) Treasure standard Special Abilities Earth Walker (Su) A hejkin is rooted slightly to the ground. It ignores difficult terrain caused by natural or magical earth, mud or stone, and gains a +2 bonus to its CMD on all trip, bull rush and other forced movement attempts when touching the ground. Static Burst (Su) Once per day as a standard action, a hejkin can emit electricity in a 10 foot radius burst centered on its space. All creatures in the area take 2d4 points of electricity damage (Reflex DC 12 half). The save DC is Charisma based.

#hejkin #dark sun #D&D #creature codex #piezoelectricity

[symphonicmetal101]

Babysitting in the Devildom- Mammon and Levi: MINE! VS ME TOO!

You and Lucifer reached the livingroom, where everyone was supposed to be watching Solomon's magic show.

Supposed to be.

However the only thing that may have resembled a magic show would have been the smoke in the air.

Solomon was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, with a blackened pot of...something. You thanked the stars when you saw that Satan, was in fact not the cause of panic, as Simeon had taken it upon hinself to distract him with more cat videos. Asmo was in the corner, making faces at himself in a mirror you could only assume Solomon had materialized for him. Barbatos was trying to keep Luke calm and Diavolo looked close to tears as he sat on the floor near him. You could hear Beel and Belphie crying from the kitchen, but what concerned you the most were the two little demons quite literally throwing each other across the room.

"That doll is MINE!"

"First of all, she's a figurine, second of all, SHE'S NOT YOURS!"

Leviathan then used his tail to whip Mammon and run to you with what looked to be a plastic Ruri-chan figurine. However, his little legs didn't take him far enough, fast enough, as Mammon used his wings to propel himself forward and tackle Levi to the ground, where they continued to wrestle.

You felt Lucifer shift next to you. Before he was able to say anything to his brothers you knelt down to talk to him again. "Hey Luci. I know you wanted to help me with your brothers, but I need someone who knows how to be a friend. You see Diavolo? He seems kind of nervous being around so many kids he doesn't know. Do you know how you can help him?"

"Of course I do!" He huffed. With his priorities shifted, Lucifer made his way with confidence to Diavolo, as this was all too familiar chaos to him.

Now back to the other two, who were still going at it, however, it was clear Levi was getting tired. Mammon grabbed his wrist.

"Why ya punching yourself, huh? Huh? Why ya punching yourself? Ya see this doll?" Mammon ripped the figurine from Levi's other hand, dangled it in front of him and licked it. "It's MINE now."

"Eww! Levi don't touch it, it has yucky germs now. It has Mammon-cooties!!" Asmo piped up from his little corner.

"Shuddap Asmo! I got the doll now, I got the doll now, it's mine, all MINE!" Mammon danced around gleefully as he waved Ruri-chan through the air. Leviathan retreated to another corner in the room crying.

"What a crybaby! I bet he couldn't ev-"

"Mammon." Your voice rang with a clear warning.

"Uh-oh." Immediately, he started running away from you. You let him run. If he could still do that, then he wasn't badly injured, and Leviathan could be your priority. You gently placed a hand on his back, to which he flinched.

"O-oh, it's just you."

"Are you ok Levi? Did you get hurt?"

"N-no, not really. I just really like Ruri-chan, and Solomon summoned it for me because he told me you used your powers again to help him know what we like but then Mammon came over and tried to take it from me because he wanted to have the biggest toy pile in the universe, but I told him Ruri-chan was not a toy, and he said it looked like a doll and that I don't deserve to have cool toys so I should give it to him and that made me really mad because he does this all the time." Levi took a small, shaky breath. "I'm sorry I'm talking so much. You have better things to do than talk to someone like me.

"Levi, I need you to understand something." He turned so that he could see you a little better, despite having his head on his knees. "What is it?" He whispered, almost aftaid of the answer you would give him. "You are incredible, and I love and appreciate you for who you are. If there's anything you want to talk to me about- good or bad- please do! I love hearing your ideas and I want to help you, ok? Sometimes I might need you to wait a minute, but I will always make the time to listen to you, alright? Also, I can get Solomon to summon some more figurines for you, ok?"

He started crying again. He threw himself at you for a hug. "You're the best!" You held him for a moment before you registered that youstill had to find Mammon, check Beel and Belphie, make sure Lucifer wasn't smothering Diavolo, relieve Barbatos from baby duty, thank Simeon for helping with Satan, and reprimand Solomon for leaving them alone as well as ignoring what you said.

Ok Levi, I'm gonna go talk to Mammon."

"Ok." You stood up, but to your surprise, Levi latched himself to your leg. "If I stay close to you, nobody can spend more time with you than me! Lucifer already got time with you, so I need to have more time than him....even if it means seeing Mammon." You smiled down at him, ruffled his hair, and hobbled over to Barbatos. "Hey Barbatos. Thank you for helping with Luke. I know he can be fussy, I can take him back." Barbatos hesitated. "You know? I kind of like holding the baby. Maybe I can still hold him if I sit down?" You felt a bit of relief as Barbatos situated himself on the couch and reached out to accept Luke again. If he was content with the baby, it gave you two less children to worry about. You glanced over at Diavolo and Lucifer, who had found a deck of cards and were playing a game. They were fine for the time being, so you walked into the kitchen, where Solomon was still trying to make dinner despite the cries of the twins on the floor. You tried to keep yourself calm, as you didn't want to scare the kids by lashing out at the only other caretaker they had.

"Solomon." He stopped stirring the boiling monstrosity he had on the stove and turned to look at you. "What? You were taking a while with Lucifer, so I took the liberty to summon some toys and make dinner. You should be proud of me."

"Excuse me? I gave you very, VERY simple instructions to follow, and because you didn't listen, Mammon and Levi got into a fight, scared Diavolo, and the twins are bawling! Simeon and Barbatos are being more of an adult than you are! And your "dinner" isn't edible, not even by baby Beel standards!" You felt a tug on your pant leg. You hadn't noticed, but the twins had made their way to you, but Levi made it impossible for them to grab the same leg he was on.

Solomon was quiet. You sighed. "Look, I'm sorry for yelling at you. Let's just order some dinner. Also...do you know if the twins are wearing diapers?" Your face contorted in disgust as one of the twins sat on your foot, to which the texture was unpleasant.

"Uh..."

"Great! To make it up to me, you can change them and order dinner. I'm going to go find Mammon."

But I-" you walked away, and headed in the direction Mammon had run, stopping to thank Simeon on the way, and to have Levi readjust hinself on your leg so you could walk faster. You walked for a while, Levi still holding onto your leg. You sighed after about ten minutes of looking. You looked down at Levi. "I guess he'll come back when he's ready, huh?" Levi nodded, then shook his head, leaving you confused. He cleared his throat, tightened his grip on your leg. and whispered, "I have an idea." "I GET TO BE WITH MC AND YOU DON'T! MC'S GONNA GET ME MORE FIGURINES THAN YOU! I GET MORE TIME WITH M-" You were brought down from behind, Levi getting out of the way before you fell on top of him.

"SHUT UP LEVI! SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" Mammon stood up straight, ready to pounce again in his demon form, while Levi hid behind your recovering form. "MC IS THE COOLEST PERSON WE'VE EVER MET AND YOU MADE THEM ANGRY AT ME! NOW THEY HATE ME, AND LOVE YOU! I ALWAYS GET IN TROUBLE! I ALWAYS DO THE WRONG THING! AND THE ONE PERSON THAT I COULD HAVE TRIED TO BE OK WITH HATES ME! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING LEVI! JUST LIKE ALWAYS, JUst like always..." He choked out the last few words. His eyes were filled with tears he refused to shed in front of Levi. Tiny fists by his side, shoulders raised, and uneven breaths left him as he avoided your eyes. You could feel Levi bristling next to you at the weight of Mammon's accusation. You stood up and ruffled Levi's hair in an attempt to calm him down without using words. He locked eyes with you, and immediately backed down. He hid behind you again, glaring at Mammon, but he wasn't trying to kill him, so you considered it a win. Mammon still wasn't letting himself cry, using his sleeve to stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks. You knelt in front of Mammon and gently turned his face towards you. He stopped swiping at his tears, letting them finally fall as he held your hand in place on his face. You pulled him in to hug him, which he gladly accepted and buried his face into your shoulder. You gently stroked the back of his head while you held him. You stayed like that for a while before you spoke.

"....Mammon?"

He clung onto your shirt tighter, trying to hide his face even more. He started shaking, so you held him a little tighter, hushing him gently. After a few more minutes, you tried again.

"Mammon." His grip tightened again. "Hun, I'm not going to let you go, I just need you to know I'm not mad at you. I know it's hard for you to share. That's ok! I still think you're "THE GREAT MAMMON!!" Nothing will ever change that. I know that you're a good kid." Mammon hadn't moved at all.

"....why? Why are you being so nice? Even my own brothers think I'm a bad kid. I'm always the bad kid. I don't know why, but I always want more. I don't care what it is, but I always want more and I always end up upsetting everyone. So why even try and be a good kid? Lucifer's the good kid, Levi's the shy kid, Asmo's the cute kid, and the twins are the youngest, so it doesn't matter what they do! And they always tell me I'm dumb and scummy! And I am dumb because I don't even know what scummy means! Even Asmo knows! And he's four! I-....I need a friend. Lucifer is already talking to the cool kid in red, the green hair guy likes babies and I don't want to get close to the baby like the other guy......so guess what? You get to be my friend! You're not allowed to say no!!" You blinked a couple times. Kids are confusing. You weren't quite sure how Mammon had reached that topic after just spilling his guts, but you tried to keep up. You didn't want to bring up his other comments again, worried about making him upset. All you knew was that Mammon needed a protection squad, even if said "squad" was just you alone.

"Of course I'll be your friend! Maybe...maybe the "Great Mammon" will even let me be his best friend?" He pushed away from you, flashing his million dollar smile. "Oh, maybe. I'll have to think about it." Levi cleared his throat behind you. "Hey, I thought I was your best friend!!"

"YOU'VE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME?!" Mammon yelled. Levi just nodded. He bit his lip, looking unsure of something, then launched himself at Mammon. You were going to intervene, however, the fighting didn't ensue as you had thought. Instead a very emotional Levi had his arms wrapped around his big brother.

"....You know, if you can be nice, I can share my figurines with you. Then we can have the biggest...um..toy pile in the universe....and you're actually a pretty good big brother when you're not taking my stuff. Remember that time you got my comics back from Lucifer? That was really cool. I want to be cool like you, because I know I'm not anywhere near as cool and-" Your hand on his shoulder was enough to settle him down. Mammon was in a state of shock, then started to boast.

"Of course ya wanna be like me! I'm the Great Mammon! And...uh, you're actually not bad.....ok you're pretty cool too. Thanks for giving me another chance."

And audible sigh of relief left your lips as the three of you made your way back to the main area, where everything seemed relatively calm. Simeon was still keeping an eye on Satan, however he had been dealt into the game Diavolo and Lucifer were playing. Lucifer was sitting almost behind Diavolo in order to distance himself from Satan, and waved, smiled and gave a thumbs up when you walked in. You returned the gestures in turn, and checked on Barbatos, who was playing peek-a-boo with Luke. Asmo was still making faces at himself. Mammon and Levi strted playing nicely together with the toys Solomon had summoned for Mammon. You walked into the kitchen to find that Solomon had cleaned it. You found him on the floor "playing" with the twins. He was summoning food almost non-stop for Beel and Belphie was asleep on the floor next to him.

"Oh, hey." Solomon greeted you. "Hey. How's it going?" You plopped down next to Solomon as he summoned another snack for Beel. You watched in amusement as Beel worked his way through a slice of watermelon that was nearly double his size. "It's fine...I'm sorry, I didn't listen to you." You forgave him and just took in the stillness of the moment.

Again, the stillness of the moment.

And then the yell came.

From Asmo.

You turned to Solomon as Asmo's message rang loud and clear.

Oh boy.

Chapter 5

#Ahhhh this is really long I'm sorry #I didn't know how to break it uo #Babysitting in the Devildom #Om brothers #Om side characters #Om mammon #om leviathan #obey me shall we date #obey me

[bug-crimes]

I don't think we actually share many fandoms, so I'm gonna go with one I know we definitely do but might be a little tricky to answer for, so sorry about that...

The Arcanist

I don't mind at all!! he's a fun one :D Ty for the ask tsari~ 💜 also keep in mind I have not read majority of the official lore and also don't adhere to canon At All so all my opinions will be incorrect and this is neat of me <3 /lh

First Impression:

honestly I... don't remember for sureeee? three years feels like forever, but I do remember thinkin he was just a funky lil magic man and that he looked Cool jsjcj I think I honestly focused more on flight aesthetic than dad aesthetic for a long time?

Impression Now:

HE IS A MESS,

just a lil skrunkly scrimbo with too much power and the type of guy that can do math off the top of his head and tell u the exact distance to a star but keeps forgetting how to brew his own coffee

12/10 neurodivergent rep, a little bit of a mess of a dad but he cares a Lot and does his Best and we love him for it

I am so incredibly fond of spacedad in the way where u point at a character and go stinky <3 I love u

Favourite Moment:

Probably when he destroyed the world a few times or something idk that's pretty cool of him (I don't know what actually happened I've just gotten that question so many times in tomo that I know it's a thing he did lol)

Idea For A Story:

I can never get enough of stardad + exaltees drabbles!! I think it's so fun when ppl write about exalted dragons working under stardad and a story that's just a compilation of all the horror stories about the messes he causes would be very fun and silly I think :3

Unpopular Opinion: I think he should be So Tiny. Smaller than faes tiny. can put in ur pocket tiny. might accidentally squish him tiny. he Deserves It he's so bug energy

disclaimer: I don't actually know how unpopular this is but I'm pretty sure it's incorrect at least so I'm counting it

Favourite relationship:

i feel like I'd be betraying my own lore if I didn't say the arcanist and stormcatcher sjcjnsx

I don't ship any of the deities romantically, but I love the clash between their ideals and aesthetics and I'm obsessed with magic science lore it's just mwah, chefs kiss, I would pay so many dragon money to see the arcane Vs lightning flight lore develop more

Favourite Headcanon:

this is a hard one bc I love so many of the things ppl come up with!! but I think of my own Personal Headcanons, it's that his form shifts with changes in the magic in Sorneith. if one of his wings is particularly transparent and skrunkly one day? oop, looks like lightning is sapping magical energy again! he suddenly has manifested a flower clown? ah, greenskeeper gathering must be right around the corner. notn? you better believe he's some eldritch monstrosity of the shade (and won't stop getting shade goop all over his notes, it's quite annoying) he's just a funky lil magic guy !! and I love him !!

#ask game #flight rising #the arcanist #loved rotating him in my mind for a while ty for this 💜

[signofwolf]

Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – book review

Series: Throne of Glass #7 Genre: YA, Fantasy Theme: Fae, magic users, war Warnings: mentions of torture, imprisonment Star rating: 0,5/10

Why did I pick this up?: I wanted to end this horrible series once and for all.

[Heavy spoilers ahead]

To make myself clear, before this book I quite liked this series. It wouldn’t place in my top 100 books, not even close, but it was a pleasant pageturner to listen to in audiobooks when working.

Language

Let’s start slow. I lack the words to express how much I hate the words ‘male’, ‘female’ and ‘mate’ after this series. Not even gonna try to express my trauma. But these 3 gems aside, Sarah J. Maas needs a dictionary. Or compress her work to a manageable size. Everything sang, Everyone melted, Every man roared, Every woman trembled, Everyone was unleashing themselves at least once a chapter (number of chapters: 122) ). And now I know definitely too much about Yrene’s ‘womb’. I know so much…

Dynamism

I thought that was a book about a war with heavy action content. Oh boy, I was wrong. This 984-pages monstrosity has maybe 5 pages of action. If you squint.

Every sequence, where by design action should take place was followed by one of two scripts:

Few sentences of action and then a few pages long internal monologue. Often repeated with the same character after the next few sentences of action, or with the next character and then the next (sometimes the first character made a second appearance and then everything would go all over again). And the word ‘character’ used in these sentences is not because I’m rambling. This book is written that way!

Few sentences of action and then action stops, and we are graced by a few pages long conversation. In the middle of a battle. Or spying. Or in Erawan’s chambers, when his castle is going down, and he is running up the stairs...

Time

Leaving alone the fact that apparently all series took less than a year (till this book I estimated the plot for about 3 years, Wiki told me it was 2, but Maas knows best), because that is a can of worms in itself. Time in this one? I honestly have no idea. There were many ‘few weeks of travel’ parts with two main groups of POVs. Personally my only time indicator was ‘Orynth won’t fall till Aelin gets here’. But nothing just fit. And I saw Lost Song when in the last episode we as the audience realized that our two POVs parallel storylines are in reality millennia apart. Lost Song made sense.

Emotional loading

… there wasn’t any. Really, it was like reading a milk label. Every time the scene was potentially emotionally impactful, Maas went ahead to overexplaining EVERY. GOD. DAMMED. THING. And it was abso-fucking-lutely everything. ‘Emotional dilemma? Let’s current POV explain it! 2 pages should be enough… Damn maybe it wasn’t enough. I know! I’ll switch POVs and explain it through the other character!’ <= My impression of Maas’ thought process. I’m fairly sure that the record was 7 POVs explaining the same thing in the row, but I was blacking out a little, so I cannot be sure.

And if that wasn’t enough, this book had a second way to defuse tension: random-plastic-repetitive-badly_written-smut. Really badly written and really repetitive. How could you not feel the spicy bits, when Manon (cruel, self assured 100+years old witch-queen) reacts the same in bed as Elide (20years old, virgin, ex-slave). And the rest of them were the same, there weren’t ANY distinctions.Just copy-paste.

The next point in current case: Someone died, it was impactful, I really liked the character, so I got sad. But then 2 of our characters came out of the room with a body, and after a paragraph of grieving they started making out, and then I was regaled with 2-pages-long description of melting cores. That was the place then this book stopped being badly written, and started being distasteful.

Characters

Remember when I was writing about switching POVs (which is 15(!!!) In the whole book. Oh and an omniscient narrator in places when our current POV was grieving too much to overthink something, but Maas still wanted to inform us about something)? They were all savagely murdered in the worst way: character mutilation. Somewhere between books our maybe-not-that-original but colorful and interesting characters became carbon copies of each other. I have no idea how many times I didn’t realise there was a POV switch. The only indicator was a change of pronoun, or when Maas was telling us the name of a current narrator. These were the only ways. And if you can't distinguish if you are in Dorian’s head or in Manon’s, that is the sign of a really BAD writing.

Romance

…there wasn't any. In all this book there wasn't any naturally progressing romantic scene. There were Maas’ endgame pairings which were sexing or pinning. As the author Maas loves to write about soulmates. And it’s not a bad thing itself. When I want some fluffy story I often tag ‘soulmates’ in AO3 and voila, +10 to good mood. But God above, it is not cute when every pair you write about are ‘true mates’ just BECAUSE. It is the only way Maas sees a relationship, as a fated pairing, written in the wake of the universe by the God himself. There is no choice, nor the work to put in it. They are the author's OTP and that means that they are perfect and they should have children right now. Point in case:

Guy was treating a girl like a shit on his sole, including throwing her naked out of tent, on a snow, with their friends present, all the while abusing her verbally in a worst way. But it’s okay, because when she almost died he realised his mistakes and apologised. Two scenes later, he was forgiven, because... fated mates?

The pathos

I know that many people don't like this type of scenes, but it's not my case. I’m reading by picturing images and not repeating words. I like sequences that I can imagine to be grand and glorious, even if they are a little corny. That said, the pathos scenes were the most disappointing ones for me. Maas likes to write parts that are more picturesquely exalted than logically possible [point in case: meeting of 5 armies/forces in the random patch of sand in Empire of Storms, and it being painted as ‘an Aelin’s great plan’. I laughed myself silly at that. But not taking logic and all the plot holes into consideration that was a nicely looking scene. In Kingdom of Ash that wasn’t the case. I would say that the author wanted to paint us a renaissance painting every 20 pages or so. In my opinion, every time she failed miserably. Each and every of those scenes was or to farfetched to be even remotely realistic, and evidently written only for a sake of the picture, or just plainly stupid.

Example, and it’s so priceless a scene, that I just need to share it: Battle of Orynth, 25th day or so (time in this book doesn’t exist), the 13. sacrificed themselves (like thousands before them but hush). And then, time stops: grieving Manon is going through the city, they open the gates for her (yes, the siege is still on), she goes to the place where they died, after her come out all of our main heroes, and half the city itself with ‘flowers, rocks and precious possessions’ and they lay it there in a tribute to these brave (evil till 2 months ago) witches. I honestly can’t remember when was the last time I saw such an abstract scene. It’s a material for an essay in itself. No, I could not take it seriously.

Additionally, it's hard to make an impact as every damn sentence is grand and lofty. In the end it became truly pathetic, Aelin vs Maeve was unreadable.

Character deaths:

Let's make a quick count: main characters in a series at the start of KoA: 12 secondary characters in a series at the start of KoA: 20ish minor and total background: a lot more

Death count: main: 0 secondary: 3 minor: 2 (11 if we try very hard)

Resurrections: 1 (possibly 3, but not gonna analyze it)

Did you feel emotions of this impossible war against this all-encompassing, all-powerful, invincible, immortal, cunning Evil with armies from 3 continents and 2 worlds? No? Me neither.

Oh well, but there were a lot of deaths of ordinary soldiers. I’m quite certain that all of Terrasen’s army was at least twice brought back to life for them to die in these numbers.

Logic or lack thereof

Oh, and let’s not forget about the Deus ex machina army of unbeatable, magical elves on wolves, from legends, living for the past thousands of years in the unreachable lands of the north, because they managed to run from the surprise attack 10 years earlier. Did I mention that they came from portals, which the whole book was telling us were impossible to make in this scenario? After the previous saviour army was already fighting there for a day? And that Aelin didn’t know they would come for sure (how did she contact them again?)? Even though they were waiting in the full armours for these portals? Ah, and also: that army didn’t do anything. They just came and fought for maybe 4 minutes. And there were just so many things like that!

And if we’re on the topic of armies I present you: ‘My favourite absurd-list in the series: allied armies’.

(As a comparison, in A Song of Ice and Fire by J.R.R Martin, in 7 kingdoms of Westeros, at the peak of war there were 7 forces present, but not all were even engaged in a war.)

First the ones that made sense:

Armies of Terrasen’s Lords (counted as one, not gonna nitpick)

The Khaganate army (also counted as one)

Galan Ashryver’s armada

Whitethorn fraction

Rebel Ironteeth witches

…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’?

And there were some that did not:

Ansel of Briarcliff’s army

The Silent Assassins

Mycenians

Wild Men of the Fangs

Army of magical elves on wolves

And the ‘I don’t even know’ category:

Crochan witches

Overpowering and overreaching

Section title tells it all. The stakes were too high. I was honestly waiting for Aelin to become Super Saiyan and start to throw planets at Maeve and Erawan. I won’t spoil if this happened.

In my opinion it could be a really great series, if our list of villains ended with Arobynn and King of Adarlan, and the list of Aelin titles with an assassin and a princess. We could have had two main fight plots: one emotional with Arobynn, when Aelin would have to face a damage he had done to her, and overcome it. And the second one, with freeing Terrasen from Adarlan’s rule. That’s it. There was an asshole, power hungry king, who feared magic and wanted to rule the East part of a continent. A lot of plot, but not so much that we stopped to care, or didn’t have time to cover everything. We could really get to know what Terrasen and his people were like and not JUST GET TOLD that it was ‘the greatest place in the world’ every damn 20 pages.

Plus…should Dorian be counted as an ‘army’? It's a REALLY valid question.

Climaxes

IIf I have to write a list of things that disappointed me in this book, this review would be thrice its current size, but one of the worst grievances I have is the complete lack of acknowledging the plotlines that had been started. This book series has overall 4 372 pages (not counting novellas) and 12 main characters (still not gonna address this). All of them had their storylines and arcs but if they weren't tied up in the previous instalments they wouldn’t be in this one. I get it, Maeve and Erawan got beaten (in an extremely unsatisfactory way) but they were only a background in this series' plots.

Aelin Well, Aelin was one of 3 people (+2 paragraf-long insertion from Nesryn and Chaol) who got their own POV’s after the battle (second was technically Rowan, who was ‘Aelin’s POV outside of Aelin’.The third Dorian, who got almost a full two pages). And from this we got that: she got crowned, Aedion got his bond and that Maas have no idea how the city looks after weeks of siege. In her case what angered me the most was ‘Terrasen is my home’ subplot. Only in this tome we read at least 3 times that Aelin will be okay with dying, if only she gets to see Terrasen one last time, or if she get to die on Terrassen soil. But you know what? Maas forgot to write the scene where Aelin actually ‘comes in’.

Mannon Didn't get her own POV after the battle, but here’s what we’ve got: She is going to the Wastes with Croachans and Ironteeth. Whait. What? Yes, that was the ending of this 500+ years of feud. They fought together and they decided to unite their two species, completely forgetting more than half a millenia of slaughter. I can only hope that there were at least some talks behind the scenes… NO! F*** NO! This isn’t how it works!

Rowan, Dorian, Chaol, Yrene, Lysandra, Aedion, Lorcan, Elide, Nesryn, Sartaq Lived happily ever after

Secondary minor and total background characters Survived (I acknowledge that they would be ignored in most books’ epilogues, but this abomination is almost 1000 pages of nothing!!).

Good Scenes

That saying, this book actually had 4 good scenes:

Crochan witches go to war - gathering-forces-to-fight trope, which is my *love-always trope* so I’m not even sure if it was relatively good, or if I’m just a slut for this trope. It was still only a paragraph long though.

[recurring] The children’s tale Aelin repeated to herself to remember who she is.

‘Lorcan Lochan’ - the only marginally funny scene in the whole book

I actually found Darrel making Evangeline his heir charming. Even if circumstances were far-fetched at least.

But the words crime of this book? It was agonisingly, mind-numbingly boring. If the overexplaining and repetitions were to be taken out I highly doubt that there would be 300 pages left.

For these 33 hours of audiobook I suffered through I give it half a star. Because Abraxos exist.

Please see my garishly accurate cover on my instagram! You can also like it there :D

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#book #book review #bookworm #review #signofwolf-book_review #opinion #throne of glass #throne of glass series #throne of glass spoilers #sarah j maas #kingdom of ash #aelin galythinius #mary sunderland #tog #fantasy #fandom

[aion-rsa]

Mortal Kombat (2021) vs. Mortal Kombat (1995): Which is Better?

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This article contains Mortal Kombat (2021) spoilers.

“Test your might.” These are the words of a minigame in the original Mortal Kombat arcade fighter from 1992. They were meant to signal an interlude between the simple pleasures of digitized sprites spilling buckets of blood. Yet they’ve also become synonymous with a franchise that’s arguably the most popular video game fighter of all-time. The phrase is also a pretty apt description for the various filmmakers who’ve attempted the challenge of taming this crazy dragon on screen.

More than any other video game series, Mortal Kombat has seen a plethora of live-action adaptations, from Hollywood movies to syndicated television. This weekend marks another milestone in that history, too, with Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema’s hotly anticipated Mortal Kombat reboot opening in theaters and premiering on HBO Max. It’s the third Mortal Kombat movie released under the New Line banner, but let’s just call it the second serious attempt at putting this universe on screen after the 1995 cult classic directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.

That ’95 movie holds the dubious honor of being generally considered the best video game movie adaptation of all-time, thanks to a tongue-in-cheek tone perfect for its mid-‘90s moment and maybe the greatest use of techno music in film. Genuinely, how many other pictures have the soundtrack scream the title of the movie over and over again, and it seems like a good idea?

The new movie took a different approach to the material, and certainly a bloodier one. While both adaptations share the same basic premise of chosen “Earthrealm” guardians protecting our dimension from an invading force via martial arts fights, the executions diverge radically. Here’s how.

The Story

The starkly different approach to storytelling in director Simon McQuoid’s 2021 Mortal Kombat is evident during the film’s opening scene. Beginning in 1600s Japan with a gnarly, brutal fight sequence between Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) and Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada), this version of Mortal Kombat relies heavily on lore and world-building. If you know the video game backstory of Sub-Zero/Bi-Han, and how he was kidnapped as a child by the Lin Kuei cult so they could brainwash him into the magical ninja we now see slaughtering Scorpion’s family, the scene has a sense of fateful tragedy.

If you don’t, well Taslim and Sanada are such gifted martial artists that it still looks really cool. By contrast, Mortal Kombat of the ’95 vintage is pretty straightforward and to the point. This is basically an interdimensional version of the Bruce Lee classic, Enter the Dragon (1973), only with magical powers and the fate of the world at stake.

We’re introduced to three fighters in ‘95, Liu Kang (Robin Shou), Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), and Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras), who all get on a boat to the tournament for different reasons. And while Liu Kang was raised by his Shaolin monk upbringing to know what this tournament is, the other two act as our eyes and ears into this strange world of mysticism and Outworld menace. By the time they reach the island, they understand they need to compete with superpowered foes to save Earth in a structured tournament.

Conversely, Mortal Kombat (2021) is curiously both more secretive and open about its bizarre universe. For a much larger chunk of its running time, the new movie’s point-of-view character Cole Young (Lewis Tan) is completely mystified by the superpowered horrors happening around him while the viewer is keyed in early by scenes set in the evil dimension of Outworld. There we see the dastardly sorcerer Shang Tsung (Chin Han) scheme from a throne about killing Cole in order to prevent a prophecy vaguely connected with the movie’s prologue scene in the 1600s. So he sends Sub-Zero to kill Cole in his day-to-day life as an MMA fighter, slaughtering him before he understands he’s been chosen to participate in the sacred Mortal Kombat tournament, which is held in secret every generation.

In fact, there is no actual tournament in the new film. Rather the plot eventually becomes Shang Tsung’s chosen band of evil warriors attempting to cheat ahead of the conflict by attacking Earthrealm’s depleted champions before they even discover they have superpowers (or “arcanas”) and know what Mortal Kombat is. The film thus becomes a quest movie with Cole joining forces with other “chosen ones” (or chosen one-aspirants) to find the Temple of Raiden, a lightning god (played by Tadanobu Asano) who represents the interests of Earthrealm in the tournaments. From there the heroes must learn their powers and evade preemptive, cheating attacks from Outworld’s thuggish baddies.

Side by side, the approaches appear to be the differences between a traditional (if derivative) martial arts flick and a modern studio blockbuster that is trying to cram as much fan service and world-building lore into a two-hour movie as possible in the hopes of making fanboys happy. I hesitate to say the 2021 film is fully following the Marvel Studios template given its copious amounts of blood and (seeming) lack of interest in building a shared universe of interconnected franchises. However, the 2021 film was certainly released in a post-Marvel world where the focus in studio committee rooms is less on telling a single story and more on building a whole convoluted mythology filled with fan favorite characters who are begging to be explored endlessly by future movies. It’s less story-driven than it is content-driven.

As a result, it leaves the narrative lacking. Viewers know long before Cole or 2021’s Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) what’s going on, and all the anticipation for a tournament that never materializes feels anti-climactic. With its simple structure, the Anderson-directed movie in the ‘90s plays out much more satisfyingly with three heroes (plus poor dead meat like “Art Lean”) entering a tournament by choice or trickery and then trying to survive it while learning vanilla, if tangible, life lessons. Liu Kang needs to accept his destiny; Johnny Cage must look before he leaps; and Sonya has to accept she’ll be the film’s damsel in distress even though she kicks ass. It’s an Enter the Dragon knockoff but it still has more kick than fan service.

Round One goes to 1995.

The Tone

The tone and aesthetics are also jarringly different between the two movies. Released in 1995, the same year Pierce Brosnan became James Bond, and two years before Arnold Schwarzenegger chilled out as Mr. Freeze, Mortal Kombat (1995) is an unmistakably campy movie and it leans into that fact.

Working with a low budget for a Hollywood spectacle even before New Line Cinema cut his funds by another $2 million right before cameras rolled, Anderson directed a B-movie that accepted its limitations and had fun with it. Apparently stars Ashby and Christopher Lambert, who played Lord Raiden in the ’95 movie, improvised dialogue throughout the shoot and rewrote entire scenes. As a consequence, Lambert’s lightning god was more of a jovial trickster in temperament, reminiscent of Loki instead of Odin. Johnny Cage, meanwhile, was essentially the film’s Han Solo: a cocksure wiseacre next to the stoic hero (Liu Kang) and a no-nonsense woman who doesn’t like to be called princess (Sonya).

As again signaled by the almost funereal opening sequence of Mortal Kombat (2021), where Sub-Zero murders Scorpion’s young family, the 2021 film is going for a differing sensibility. There is actually quite a bit of humor still present, with the real reason the Johnny Cage character got cut becoming apparent the moment we meet Kano (Josh Lawson), a loudmouth smartass who takes on the comic relief role but with an added slice of thuggery. Hence his dialogue has a lot more F-bombs than it does cracks about $500 sunglasses.

Other than moments where Kano is allowed to steal scenes, however, Mortal Kombat (2021) plays it pretty straight. Asano’s Raiden is imperious and his fighters stoic. However, it’s also worth noting Raiden is played by a Japanese actor, as opposed to a white American-born Frenchman who was raised in Switzerland (Lambert has quite the international background). Indeed, one of the more admirable qualities of the 2021 film is the focus on a diverse cast that includes more roles for Asian actors and people of color, whereas the 1995 film whitewashed Raiden and left out the Black American character Jax for little more than a cameo.

The 2021 film also upped the gore quotient considerably. While the martial arts of the 1995 film were decidedly PG-13, the tone of the movie was only a few steps removed from Power Rangers in some respects, including its introduction of a horrible CGI creation known as Reptile. The Reptile in the 2021 film appears more convincingly, like the latest monstrosity out of a Jurassic World lab, and the violence he commits is visually gruesome (more on that later).

Honestly, preferences over the aesthetic differences between the two films comes down to a matter of taste. I prefer the tongue-in-cheek eye rolls of the 1995 film given how nonsensical this universe is, and how at the end of the day its target audience remains children. Yet I imagine many adult fans of the video games will prefer the blood-soaked earnestness found in 2021.

Round Two is a draw.

Chosen Players

Anyone who’s picked up a fighting game will tell you it’s all about finding a character or two you like and then training up with them. In 1995, Anderson had the advantage of primarily adapting the original 1992 arcade game with its limited collection of playable characters. Ergo, his film’s lineup easily focused on the three aforementioned heroes of Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade, plus the ambiguous Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto), and Lord Raiden. Meanwhile he divided his villain screen time between the sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and Shang Tsung’s minions, who were essentially glorified Bond henchmen with individual gimmicks.

Fan favorites Sub-Zero and Scorpion are present in the ’95 movie—with much more colorful, game-accurate costumes—yet they’re relatively low-hanging fruit in the tournament’s brackets. Their rivalry is given lip-service but they are dispatched by heroes Liu Kang and Johnny Cage relatively easily. Meanwhile Trevor Goddard’s Kano is more a hapless comic relief baddie who Wilson-Sampras’ Sonya kills with a great laugh line. “Give me a break,” Kano pleads with his head pinned between her thighs. “Okay,” she shoots back before snapping his neck.

Still, the movie largely belongs to Tagawa who makes a meal out of the scenery as the big bad. The guttural pleasure he has in so naturally turning all the over-the-top commands in the video game into his dialogue—“Finish Him!;” “Fatality;” “Test Your Might”—is infectious.

The 2021 film relies on a much larger cast of characters and, unlike the 1995 movie, attempts to give them each a moment to shine in the way Kitana and the original Kano could only dream. This surprisingly begins with the introduction of a totally new character in Cole Young as our point-of-view protagonist. While fan favorite Liu Kang was the hero in ’95, the character is now a supporting player played by Ludi Lin in 2021. And he’s not alone. The new Liu Kang’s cousin, Kung Lao (Max Huang), also gets enough screen time to show off his character’s beloved razor-rimmed hat, which he dispatches one of the movie’s villains with.

There is also the new Sonya, who may have the most complete arc as she strives to be accepted as a champion for Earthrealm, and Jax (Mechad Brooks), who is Sonya’s partner with the chosen one birthmark and who gets a new nasty origin story for his metal arms. And then the new Kano spends as much time working with the good guys as he does becoming a villain in an entirely rushed and unconvincing third act plot twist.

Read more

Movies

Mortal Kombat Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

By Gavin Jasper

Games

Mortal Kombat: Biggest Changes the Movie Makes to the Games

By Matthew Byrd

There are even more villains, most of whom amount to glorified cameos, including Mileena (Sisi Stringer), Nitara (Mel Jarnson), and Kabal (Daniel Nelson). However, they’re all even more perfunctory than Sub-Zero and Scorpion were in 1995. At least the ‘90s ninjas each got a few minutes to show off before being dispatched. Even the ostensible main villain of 2021, the new Shang Tsung, is fairly underserved, left to state banal dialogue from a throne without a throne room, and he’s never allowed to dominate scenes the way Tagawa did so gleefully back in the day.

Unfortunately, this is because the 2021 film has so many characters that it lacks any sense of narrative focus or cohesion. Tan’s arc of wanting to learn his power/arcana to defend his family is as broad and serviceable a hook as Shou’s 1995 Liu Kang wanting to avenge the murder of his brother. But Tan’s Cole Young gets lost in the shuffle after the first act and until the movie’s ending. Character turns like Kano betraying the other heroes similarly feels hackneyed because there is too much noise on screen to really care about who’s making it. Even Kang Lao’s death falls flat. It’s admirable that it’s a good guy fans theoretically should care about (unlike 1995’s token Black character created by the filmmakers to die), but the 2021 movie fails to make the uninitiated be concerned.

Of course there are exceptions. Namely Sub-Zero and Scorpion. Even though Scorpion ill-advisedly disappears for nearly all of the movie’s running time after the film’s terrific opening 10 minutes, Sanada has such presence, and such strong chemistry with Taslim’s Sub-Zero, that their opening salvo leaves you waiting the rest of the movie for Scorpion’s revenge. Taslim is also able to give Sub-Zero some surprisingly tangible, if only hinted at, pathos even after he kills a kid in his first scene and is then forced to act behind a mask thereafter. He’s the real villain of the piece you want to see go down, and his death scene is incredibly satisfying as a result.

It’s probably enough for fans of the games to favor this kitchen sink approach. But overall, less is more.

Round Three goes to 1995.

Fight Scenes

If there is one realm where the 2021 movie truly excels in over the previous film, this is it. And yes, a big part of that is the gore quotient. Whereas the 1995 flick was produced with a PG-13 rating in mind (my elementary school thanks New Line for that), the 2021 movie was able to embrace the gross out charm that made the original game stand out at the arcade all those decades ago. Street Fighter might’ve been first, but only Mortal Kombat let you pull the other player’s spine out.

While that effect doesn’t quite happen in the 2021 movie, almost everything else does. Nitara goes face first into a Kung Lao’s buzzsaw hat, which cuts her cleanly in half; Sub-Zero freezing Jax’s arms and then shattering them in a stomach-churning effect; and instead of going off a cliff, Prince Goro is disemboweled by Cole Young—which almost makes up for the fact that Goro is reduced to a mindless mute this time.

It’s like a highlight reel of fatalities from the video game. But the reason why this film’s fight scenes really stand above the 1995 film isn’t the bloodletting; it’s the action leading up to it. With brutal fight choreography, the new Mortal Kombat shines whenever it lets actors who can actually do the stunts take the arena. That includes Lewis Tan, whose Cole Young mostly fights other MMA types or CG monsters. But it’s especially true for Joe Taslim of The Raid fame. As the villainous Sub-Zero, his moves are lightning quick, even if his powers leave opponents frozen stiff. So when he shares the screen with Tan or Sanada, the action reveals an auhentic flair.

In comparison, the 1995 film suffers a bit from the sin Johnny Cage is trying to dodge within the story: it relies on stunt doubles and tight editing to make the fights exciting. It’s a shame too since Shou is an excellent martial artist, and the one scene he got to choreograph—Liu Kang versus Reptile—has an edge. But much of the time, Shou’s constrained by the direction and editing. Ashby and Wilson-Sampras, conversely, are not actual martial artists, though credit must be given to Wilson-Sampras for doing all her own stunts when getting the role of Sonya at the last minute.

Still, the fights stand taller in 2021. It’s a bit of a shame though that the movie is so heavily edited that it too often hides this fact. Unlike the 1995 ensemble, most of the cast has the moves in 2021, but the editing still feels stuck in the past with its reliance on confounding quick cuts and coverage. During our current era of John Wick and Atomic Blonde this is both a bizarre and disappointing choice. Nevertheless, this is an easy call.

Round Four goes to 2021.

Ending

The final fight was relatively satisfying in 1995. Tagawa is a preening villain, and when the Immortals’ techno “Mortal Kombat” theme plays, it’s a pleasure to watch Liu Kang wipe that smug smile off Shang Tsung’s face. However, the ending keeps going with a Star Wars-esque sendoff to Liu Kang’s force ghost brother, and then the movie undermines its catharsis by immediately setting up a sequel.

In the picture’s final moments, our three heroes, plus Kitana, return to the real-life Thai temple that’s supposed to be Liu Kang’s home. Lord Raiden waits for them there, getting some final sideways cracks in before Outworld’s evil emperor Shao Khan appears like a giant specter in the clouds. He immediately threatens an Earthrealm invasion, despite losing the tournament.

I can attest that in 1995, this was a stunning cliffhanger for eight-year-olds everywhere. But then… Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), one of the worst films of the late ‘90s, happened.

Meanwhile in the 2021 film, we have a much more satisfying death for its villain when Scorpion returns from hell to send Sub-Zero to the hot place. Their fight is much more technically satisfying, and the cliffhanger setup is a lot more subtle. After defeating Shang Tsung’s warriors, if not Shang Tsung himself, the heroes of Earthrealm saved us all without an actual tournament ever occurring. And instead of Outworld cheating in this moment by invading anyway, they retreat. It’s an odd choice since they’ve been cheating the whole film, so why start playing by the rules now?

Even so, it leaves a destination for a second movie to actually head toward. And to tease that fact further, it’s implied Cole Young will now travel to Hollywood to recruit movie star Johnny Cage for a sequel. It’s pure fan service, but the kind that leaves the possibility open for better things to come. Considering we know where the 1995 movie’s cliffhanger leads—to pits of cinematic hell worse than any faced by Scorpion in the last 400 years—this is a victory for 2021 by default.

Round Five goes to 2021.

Final Victor

Ultimately, neither of these films are high art nor do they aspire to be. In some ways, it’s a case of picking your poison between schlock or schlock. Each has advantages over the other, as laid out above, and each is a long way from a flawless victory. Nonetheless, due simply to narrative and tonal cohesiveness, and just more memorable lead characters, I’ll go with the one that actually gets to the tournament this whole damn thing’s designed around.

Game over.

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[davidmann95]

Your power is mine: thoughts on Kingdom Hearts’ newest, oddest character

Finished Final Fantasy XV over the weekend. Mixed feelings to say the least, but it does give me an excuse to talk about Kingdom Hearts again, specifically this weirdo:

And how it feels like most of the people discussing Yozora and trying to figure out what his deal is are missing half the point. Yes, there’s the apparent connections to Sora and Riku, and there’s his meta association with Noctis and the entire real-life corporate backstory there intertwining with the in-game narrative to an unknown extent. But when he’s discussed as some kind of fusion of Sora and Riku, or a literal reincarnation of Noctis, or that Verum Rex might end up a real game, or something similarly straightforward in terms of “he’s going to be a very important central character going forward”, the ideas or at least the tone of how they’re presented seem to miss an absolutely critical component of how he was introduced to us, in a way that shapes not only him but by extension the entire future of the franchise and its thematic concerns:

We aren’t just supposed to be surprised he’s important because he’s real where we thought he wasn’t. We’re supposed to be surprised because he’s introduced to us as a self-evident gag character.

Not that we’re not supposed to take him seriously where it counts: it’s clear he has an important role going forward and is a force to be reckoned with. But no matter what deep, foreboding connections to the Keyblade and Master of Masters may lie within his backstory that may determine the fate of more universes than one, he will never not have had the hilariously inauspicious beginning of being a toy played by Rex the Dinosaur. He doesn’t even have the dignity of being introduced as a game on one of the plot-heavy original worlds! He’s a throwaway gimmick to spice up one of the filler Disney segments, literally a child’s plaything.

Even before we learn the context he’s being presented in...well, look at him. He’s like Riku, who’s cooler than Sora, and Noctis, a Final Fantasy character and therefore cooler than all this Disney stuff, but also he has a LASER SWORD and a CROSSBOW - that are clearly functioning as cool future tech instead of dopey magical powers - and his eyes are MYSTERIOUS MISMATCHING UNNATURAL COLORS and he fights GIANT ROBOTS with a dude in a fedora in a city straight out of the REAL WORLD to save a helpless lady/prize: truly, let no mistake be made, he is VERY, VERY SERIOUS INDEED, AND ALSO, RAD. TO THE MAX. He’s every attempt at reframing contemporary Final Fantasy as slick and modern and cool dialed up and up and up until the tone breaks, without the barest hint of self-awareness even as it advertises its action figure tie-ins. I don’t think that his little Keyblade pattern on his jacket being near-impossible to spot unless you’re looking for it is just to preserve the surprise, but also because the sight of the big keys with the Mickey Mouse logo on them would be anathema to his entire vibe, so important as it may be it must be squirreled away where it can’t make him look dumb. Heck, when Dylan Spouse announced on Twitter he was playing this major character in a childhood favorite franchise of his, surely knowing more than we do about Yozora, his description of the part was “I have lived out my edgy JRPG character fantasies...I even got to say ‘Sorry, but I don’t lose.’” We’re supposed to receive him off the bat as Square Enix, and more specifically Tetsuya Nomura, poking fun at themselves, going ‘yes, we suppose this is all getting to be a bit much, isn’t it?’

And then he enters the story for real.

Obviously he’s much more than a joke now, but the idea of him as something off, something that doesn’t fit in these games, endures. His episode isn’t just in a modern cityscape but skinned in the graphics of the grittier, more detailed style of the Pirates of the Caribbean world meant to evoke photorealism rather than the look of the rest of the game. He interferes with the gameplay in ways no other enemy does, stealing your items and weapons (we’ll get back to that). When he casts you into a void to be attacked by the mechs, it’s not a pure empty white but a mass of abstract polygonal space, evocative of the visuals of early game development. What details we do get of his backstory frame him as a counterpart to Sora on a parallel journey all his own, but the associations with his other source material in Noctis are considerably more...cutting. Credit to @kitsoa, whose own extensive musings on Kingdom Hearts’ increasingly overt metafictional concerns brought to my attention the obvious parallel: that Yozora being changed ‘beyond recognition’ with his heart replaced by another’s is a reasonable, albeit scathing description of Noctis’s revised character in the shift from the Nomura-helmed Final Fantasy Versus XIII to the largely overhauled Final Fantasy XV (and by the same token, the Nameless Star’s identity being stolen comes across as a shot at Versus XIII’s Stella Nox Fleuret being entirely replaced by Lady Lunafreya. Who, by sheer coincidence, would have been corrupted in planned but cancelled DLC into a monster of darkness).

While the comparisons to his source material are not only intentional but textually overt - his introduction as a real boy is literally scored to the FFXV theme music - so is the distancing from that material, given that if Nomura simply wanted to use Noctis the very premise of Kingdom Hearts as a series could have allowed him to use Noctis, and even change him to fit his original vision however he wished given the design and backstory changes to the other Final Fantasy characters involved. Yozora has a distinct role in which he’s still meant to represent that tone and aesthetic, and all signs point to that being because as that representation, he hardly seems an endorsement. He’s a parody, offered up in a demeaning context and tangled up narratively in real-life creative bitterness before being placed as an antagonist, however well-meaning (though keep in mind every secret boss of his kind before - other than Julius, I suppose - went on to become an endgame boss later on), in the player’s path. He may not be a villain, but all signs seem to indicate he’s a figure to be regarded as a contrast to the heroes.

And it’s in that role as a contrast that I have my own theories about what his deal ultimately is, thematically if not plotwise.

For those who saw this in the Kingdom Hearts tag and aren’t superhero fans, that’s Superdoomsday, introduced in Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics about 8 years ago. One among many takes on an ‘evil Superman’ from a parallel universe, the twist with his world is that rather than a survivor of Krypton, he is literally the materialized concept of Superman - imagined by his reality’s Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen, who created a machine which could bring ideas to life - that when sold to a corporation was reimagined in service of wide public appeal into an all-powerful, uncompromisingly brutal monstrosity clad in armor somewhere between an iPhone, 90s Rob Liefeld battle gear, and Nazi regalia, who ultimately journeyed into the multiverse to stalk and kill other incarnations of Superman, seeing them as competition to his domination of the ‘market’. “The curse...of Superman...” murmurs the dying Kent of that world, “...he becomes anything you want...him...to be...our world...wanted that...”

Yozora is...probably not exactly a 1:1 to that. But as a counterpart to Sora, it absolutely seems as if the main factor by which he contrasts him is that he’s ostensibly the sleeker, edgier model, new-and-improved. He reworks Sora’s story arc and aesthetic into something theoretically cooler and more palatable, steals his power, ‘saves’ him by sealing him away to presumably fight in his stead and thereby take his place as the lead. He is the protagonist so many feel Kingdom Hearts has needed for years, the somber AMV-ready Secret Movie tone and aesthetic stepping into center stage at last rather than maintaining a sunshiney Disney-esque child hero lead to anchor the assorted conspiracies and horrors of much of the rest of the tale. The manner in which he is presented as to make metatextuality an in-universe concern (to call back to Grant Morrison again, his next work after Action Comics was Multiversity, where a major plot point was that the events of parallel universes were unwittingly documented in each others’ pop culture; in that case comic books, in here video games) for Kingdom Hearts to explore in the next main entry is I believe so as to ask what, in fact, Kingdom Hearts as a series should be; is it a Disney series with some incidental Final Fantasy stuff in it? A Final Fantasy spinoff with some Disney elements cluttering it up that should maybe be discarded as it grows up? Something all its own? Is it time for Kingdom Hearts to get Serious? Even if the Kingdom Hearts as imagined by a marketing executive vision of Verum Rex isn’t what’s next, what is, as things get darker and that vision is now part of the narrative whether for good or ill?

So yeah it looks like Kingdom Hearts IV is Kingdom Hearts vs. its own Gritty Realworld! Urban Fantasy AU fanfiction for the soul of the series, and I am extremely here for it.

#Yozora #Kingdom Hearts #Sora #Final Fantasy XV #Final Fantasy Versus XIII #Final Fantasy #Kingdom Hearts IV #Grant Morrison #Analysis #Opinion

[yeet-me-dad-dy]

Marshmallow Wars

Pairing - Loki x Reader

Summary - A marshmallow war breaks out in the Avengers Compound at Christmas time.

Warnings - Light swearing.

Word Count - 2,433

Note: This takes place after Civil War, in an AU where everyone gets along.

Prompts that inspired this piece:

“Well, that’s tragic.”

“Show me what’s behind your back.”

“What in all the nine realms is that monstrosity?” Loki stepped off the elevator into the common room to find a massive tree, decorated with all manner of lights and shiny baubles, looming menacingly in the corner. It was enormous, absolutely gargantuan, reaching all the way up to the compound’s ceiling, with the biggest, brightest golden star perched on top that Loki had ever seen. A chill went down his spine as he remembered the Fourth of July, and how Stark had nearly decapitated him with a very similar star. The god made a mental note to avoid the tree.

You chuckled and moved toward him from out of the kitchen. “That, my dear Trickster, is a Christmas tree.”

He gaped at you as you stopped in front of him, a sly grin on your lips. He lifted a finger and pointed at the tree. “That’s a Christmas tree? You said that Christmas trees were about six to nine feet tall.” He turned to gaze up at the monstrosity. “I’d say someone miscalculated the height of this one by about twenty or so feet.”

You laughed heartily. “Yeah, Stark went a little bit crazy.”

Loki scoffed. “Stark. I should have known.” You smiled mischievously at him and he narrowed his eyes as he regarded you. He hadn’t noticed it in his star-struck state, but you had both of your hands hidden behind your back. The corner of his mouth twitched up into a smirk. “What are you hiding behind your back?”

“Sure you want to know?” you asked, taking two steps back. Loki was uncertain now. He may be the God of Mischief, but you knew how to have fun as well. And your fun usually ended in fires and broken furniture.

He took his own step back and held his hands up defensively in front of him. “Show me what’s behind your back,” he commanded, noticing Sam, Bucky, and Steve snickering at the table behind you.

You grinned like the Cheshire cat as you said, “Okay,” and before he knew it, he was being pelted in the face by marshmallows.

“Marshmallow shooter, bitch!” you yelled as you ran away.

“Y/N!” he yelled, grinning as he chased after you.

You ducked behind a couch and his heart swelled as he listened to you giggle like a child.

“Hey, Reindeer Games!” He turned and Sam tossed him a shooter of his own as everyone pulled out their own from various hidden places around the room. All of the Avengers were here, and Loki’s formerly swollen heart stopped. What have I just gotten myself into? he thought.

“Vive la Revolution!” Clint yelled from the rafters, Natasha with him. Sam, Bucky, and Steve tipped over the dining table from their place in the kitchen. Peter was sticking to the wall, Vision was hovering up in the corner by the ceiling, Wanda and Pietro had upturned the pool table to use as cover, Stark and Rhodey crouched in the stairwell, Scott ducked behind a pillar, and Loki rushed over to you, sliding behind the couch just as he was assaulted by a hail of marshmallows. The only two not participating were Bruce and Thor, who were casually having a conversation by the tree, pretending that all-out marshmallow warfare wasn’t currently happening around them.

“Rules are, you get hit, you’re dead, no moving! Powers are allowed!” Stark shouted from the stairs.

“Powers are allowed?” you looked at Loki, and a huge grin spread across both of your faces.

“This is going to be such fun,” he said darkly.

You blocked a hail of marshmallows from above with a telekinetic field as Loki peered over the couch. Scott was completely visible from his place behind the pillar, so Loki easily took him out with a marshmallow to the side of the head.

“Aww, come on, man! That was right in the ear!” he shouted, falling to the floor.

“Who’s next?” he asked you, ducking back behind the couch.

You handed him your gun. “We need to take out the ones above. Go for Clint and Natasha, I’ll defend.”

Loki had to admit that you two made a good team. You were able to take out the Assassin and the Archer easily enough. Your powers made it easy to deflect the “bullets” and Loki was an excellent shot. Peter swung up onto a rafter and used his webs to pull the pool table away from Pietro and Wanda, leaving them exposed. You used your powers to launch some of the discarded marshmallows from the floor at Pietro, which hit him in the chest like a shotgun, and one of the soldiers took Wanda out from in the kitchen. Loki managed to hit Peter in the arm as he tried to swing away, the kid falling to the floor dramatically.

Vision was becoming a problem from his place up by the ceiling. “Loki, go for Vis,” you commanded, and he turned obediently to aim for the synthetic man, who seemed to be having the time of his life.

You blocked shot after shot from the kitchen and the stairwell, your arms quickly becoming tired.

“He’s just phasing, I can’t hit him,” Loki called to you.

“I can’t defend and keep Vis in his solid form,” you explained.

Loki ducked back behind the couch, breathing heavily, and you joined him, marshmallows flying over your heads.

“Here,” he said, handing you your gun. “Solidify him, take him out, then give me the gun back.”

You nodded and both sprang up from your spot. You raised both of your hands, your left keeping Vision still and solid, while your right pulled the trigger, sending a high-velocity marshmallow right into his chest. He laughed out loud and slowly floated down to the floor, where he leaned casually against the wall, defeated.

“Here!” You handed Loki your gun, blocking a marshmallow just as it was about to hit him in the face.

“This is stupid!” you heard Sam call out from behind the table. “They’re too good, we’re not gonna get them from here.”

The hail of mallows from the kitchen stopped and you and Loki took a moment to catch your breath, tucked safely behind the sofa. “I’m almost out of ammunition,” he said, smirking.

“Gotcha covered,” you grinned as you swept all of the discarded marshmallows up from the floor, depositing them in front of the prince. He took no time in reloading his shooter, just as there was a boisterous cry from the direction of the kitchen. You peeked up over the couch just in time to see Bucky charging full speed toward your hiding spot.

Panicking, you put your hands up, sending a bolt of energy right into his chest, which sent him flying backward… right into the Christmas tree, which toppled over with him engulfed in its branches. Everyone stopped, fear permeating the room. Stark and Rhodey came out from their spot in the stairwell, and Steve ran to his friend, worry etched on his face. Just as he reached the tree, a quiet chuckle could be heard, slowly getting louder, until it was a full-on laugh attack. Steve’s face twisted up into a grin as Bucky’s metal arm appeared to give the thumbs up. “I’m okay!” he yelled.

Thor and Bruce were still by the now-fallen tree, and they chuckled to one another before going back to their conversation.

Loki didn’t hesitate, bringing both of his guns up and pulling the trigger on each, one marshmallow hitting Tony in the arm, the other hitting Rhodey’s leg.

“Oh, come on!” Rhodey cried, throwing his hands up. “That’s not fair!”

“No one said this game was fair!” Loki replied, kneeling back behind the couch. He took a shot at Steve and Bucky, who were running back to cower behind the table, but the Captain had his shield and was more than efficient at blocking the assault.

“I have an idea,” you said to Loki, using your powers to retrieve two discarded guns. You were now each dual-wielding shooters. The prince grinned at you.

“Man, this is so not fair!” Bucky yelled from the kitchen, making everyone laugh.

“No, it’s not,” Stark said, smiling widely. “Two super soldiers and Sam vs two magic users. Who’s gonna win?” He leaned in toward Rhodey. “My bet’s on the magic users,” he said.

“No way, man,” Sam said. “We got this. For America!”

The three gentlemen in the kitchen sprung up from their hiding place, shooting violently and yelling a disjointed battle cry. You effortlessly blocked the hail of marshmallows, and with one swift wave of your hand, you flung their table to the side, leaving them completely exposed.

“Oh, shit,” Bucky exclaimed as they scrambled, trying desperately to dodge the hail of “bullets”.

“Language!” everyone yelled in unison, even Loki, who had been let in on the joke. You stopped Sam, rooting him to the ground and taking him out with a marshmallow to the arm… and then the leg, and the side of the head, and then another to the arm. “Alright! Alright, you got me!” he laughed. “Jesus!”

Loki got Bucky in the back as he was running, and he fell to the floor dramatically, putting his hand over his heart. “Uuughhh. Light… fading… Tell Steve… he’s… a punk…” he went limp, his tongue sticking out slightly.

“Very dramatic,” Stark clapped. “10/10.”

The soldier laughed and sat up. “Shut the hell up, Stark.”

Steve was the only one left, and he may as well have been a sitting duck, crouched behind that pillar. “I’m so sorry, Stevie!” you called before dropping your guns and waving your hands. He was pulled out from behind the pillar, his shield stripped from his arm, and Loki stood, aimed, and casually pulled the trigger.

“Ah, dang! Right on the nipple!” Steve exclaimed, eliciting loud laughter from everyone gathered. “Those things hurt a lot more than you’d think,” he said, grinning.

“Is that it? Did we win?” Loki asked as the group began to rise from their various places around the room.

Thor grinned and uncrossed his arms. “Not quite,” he said, giving everyone pause. He reached behind him and pulled two foam short swords out of an empty plant pot. With a mighty bellow, he charged at you and Loki, a sword in each hand. You scrambled, just barely managing to slide out of the way as he launched himself over the couch. Loki, however, wasn’t so lucky. Thor drew one of the swords across his chest before turning to you. The prince fell to the floor, laughing. He hadn’t had this much fun in centuries.

Thor stalked toward you and you jumped over one of the other couches to flee to the center of the room, where there would be more space to fight. Just as you raised your hands, Stark called out, “No powers!”

“What!? You can’t just change the rules!” you call back.

“Sure I can,” he shrugged. “My game, my rules.”

Thor was upon you now and you dodged back just as he swung at your head. You grinned. The God of Thunder was strong and an incredibly good fighter, but you were quick and nimble. The fight didn’t last long, as you used his weight against him, easily dodging his attacks and disarming him. Before he knew what was happening, he was on his knees, both of his weapons now in your hands, one pressed against his chest, the other dangling at your side.

“Please,” he begged, hands up.. “Mercy.” He grinned, enjoying the game. “I yield, Y/N, please.”

You returned the grin. “Does this mean I get to rule Asgard now?”

He nodded feverishly. “Yes, of course, but… Surely the new ruler would wish to have a king at their side? To help them rule?”

There were whistles and hollers from all around the room. “A king, hmm?” You lowered your sword. “You’re right, Thor. I do need a king.”

He put his hands down, still grinning. “I’m glad we could come to an arrangement-” he began, but you cut him off, turning toward the couch where you had hidden.

“Loki?” you called.

He sat up, smiling at you. “Yes, darling?”

“How would you like to be my king?”

He stood and walked over to you, taking the foam sword you handed him. “Aren’t I already?” he asked, pulling you in and pressing his lips to yours. The hollering erupted into full-blown cheering now.

Loki pulled away from the kiss and turned to the god on the floor. “Sorry, brother,” Loki shrugged and Thor nodded, knowing he was defeated. The raven-haired prince raised his sword to his brother’s chest and poked him lightly. Following Bucky’s lead, Thor crumpled to the floor dramatically, saying something about dying with honor. He was hard to hear over the raucous laughter filling the room.

After a moment, you pulled away from Loki, who’d wrapped his arm around your waist, to help Thor up from the floor, as the others did the same for each other. Clint and Natasha dropped down from the rafters and everyone clapped each other on the shoulders and shook hands in good spirits.

“I can’t believe I was the first one out,” Scott whined, then turned on Loki. “And you shot me right in the ear hole, man! Who does that?”

Loki chuckled. “My apologies. No hard feelings?” Scott grumbled, but smiled and then shook Loki’s hand.

Stark sidled up next to the tree, looking downcast.

“Well, that’s tragic,” Loki feigned concern.

“You gonna cry over your baby?” Sam teased.

Stark’s back was to the group, and a sniffle could be heard. “She was so young,” he whimpered, prompting more laughter. He turned around, pretending to wipe away tears. “No, I can’t be angry. Yeah, that took me hours and hours to put up, but she went out in a blaze of glory, so…” he shrugged, smiling. “I’m just glad Manchurian Candidate didn’t get hurt.”

Bucky scoffed playfully. “Uh-huh. Sure you are.”

Clean up was easy; you used your powers to gather all of the discarded marshmallows together and then deposit them into a trashcan. After that was done, some of the others suggested a Christmas movie marathon, which didn’t take much convincing to get everyone to agree to. You curled up on the couch with Loki, sitting on his lap, holding each other close.

“I love you,” you whispered.

“I love you too, darling,” he responded, kissing you gently on the forehead and pulling you closer to his chest as you dozed off.

#loki x reader #loki x gender neutral reader #loki x gn reader #loki fanfiction #avengers fanfiction #loki fanfic

[necromatador]

Couriers: VS Drakkar

Okay I am v. behind on Couriers summaries so I’m going to make a bunch of posts that summarize but also hopefully hit the emotions right.

Picking up where I left off: The big showdown vs Drakkar.

We made it to the Mouth of the World, a *MASSIVE* hole in the ocean, just literally a hole, like this: 

but like a mile across in the middle of the ocean.

Drakkar’s ship, the Maelstrom, is anchored near the edge.  Walker gives the party some temp HP and Bud gives us Water Walking just in case.  We come right up on them in a broadside, latching the Seahawk to it as we leap aboard. The crew of the Seahawk pushes forward to distract his sea-zombie crew, while the party cuts through to head directly for Drakkar himself. Aeron and Keyleth are slowed as sea-zombie hands literally reach through the deck and grab us, but Kaicis hits Drakkar with a Firebolt and Nimh charges forward through the sea mist surrounding us to get him with a Ray of Frost.

Drakkar reveals he has the ability to electrify the sea mist covering the ship, but Kaicis traps him in a radiant-damage Wall of Fire. This doesn’t hold Drakkar for long, though, and he Terminator walks through the wall to slash at Kaicis, who Hellish Rebukes him in response. Keyleth uses his glass-tipped arrow to escape the grab and double-marks Drakkar, and Aeron escapes and rushes forward to stab Drakkar, but we’re all grabbed again and he summons a massive wave to knock us all prone. Aeron uses his glass-tipped arrow to escape prone, and Nimh uses Misty Step to appear just above Drakkar and does a dramatic hammer-smash downswing coupled with a smite to do massive damage break one of Drakkar’s arms. After another round of hits, including another massive hit by Nimh, Drakkar finally grabs the still restrained Kelvayla and uses his control of the sea to escape the ship over to an outcropping on the edge of the Mouth of the World.  

We follow via Water Walk and on the way we are slightly waylaid by some water elementals, and arrive at the outcropping to find a heavily corrupted Drakkar who is now half tentacle and undersea monstrosity. The water around the Mouth of the World starts swirling and bubbling. Keyleth circles around Drakkar to get Kelvayla, who is tied up at the edge of the outcropping hanging over the precipice. Aeron and Nimh push through a fear effect and attack Drakkar, but Nimh is grabbed and thrown into Kaicis. Aeron panics and uses Hunger of Hadar, enveloping Drakkar, but Drakkar uses a blast from Kaicis to judge which direction to move out of it and swamps the outcropping with a wave that pushes Keyleth into the Hunger of Hadar. Aeron drops the spell, and Keyleth rushes Drakkar to hit him with the Sunblade. Nimh meanwhile roars, revealing their scales, and breathes ice breath on Drakkar, charging him and knocking him prone. Tentacles of some massive creature, barbed and thicker than any tree, start reaching out of the Mouth of the World.

Drakkar does another surge-step over to the edge where Kelvayla is and cuts her bonds, sending her falling into the pit of tentacles. But then, with a flash of light, she rises back up in the arms of a woman made of the same crystal as the Star.  Cilali.

She blinds Drakkar with her light and everyone rushes forward to attack him, knocking him back into the Mouth of the World, which screams and closes. We all move forward as Cilali and Kelvayla descend to the outcropping, and then pass out.

We wake up back on the ship, Nimh having a major breakdown about the fact that we all have seen their transformation revealed. Keyleth accidentally makes them feel more like a monster with an unintentional comment, while Aeron tries to assure them that he doesn’t think of them as a monster. Nimh doesn’t believe him, and spends the next while quiet and largely avoiding the others as best they can.

We loot the Maelstrom, which we notice has stopped magically repairing itself, and find a strange gilded bracelet and a load of raw mithril. Then we blow it up before we leave. Keyleth confronts Aeron about the magic he uses after having experienced Hunger of Hadar during the fight against Drakkar, and Aeron explains it as having come from a book he’s been slowly translating. Keyleth asks to see it, but Aeron’s throat tightens and he gives an excuse of ‘maybe later’ and leaves. Nimh spends a few days healing a comatose Cilali, who eventually awakens. We explain to her that something bad had clearly happened at the temple, but her people still exist on Ola Ola. After some small consideration, Cilali doesn’t want to go back to them, feeling some guilt for not being there for them, and also wanting to explore the world.

We head back to the Ossa Maria for restocking and some healing/relaxation. Before we get there, the Kuo-toa give Aeron one last basket of prayers and then leave. We were given special accommodations and were told a celebratory feast would be held that night in our honor. We were allowed to enter the sacred garden where their weather orb was located, and were told that the Great Mother wanted to talk to us in person, giving us her blessing and thanks; a massive honor. Afterwards we had the feast and fireworks and a huge celebration. Nimh and Walker snuck away for a bit during the celebration and pierced Nimh’s ears for them.

A bit later, we finally geared up to leave and Xel’bal joined the Seahawk crew officially. The final ride to Fangport took several calm and uneventful days, during which the Sunblade was given to Cilali as a gift. The night before we disembarked, Aeron snuck into Kelvayla’s room while she slept and stole one of her horn cuffs, putting it on as a bangle bracelet.

The next day we disembarked to a big fanfare of the crew of the Seahawk and another musical number, after which they attempt to hit Aeron with a cannon-shot made of fruit as a final friendly revenge for his previous shenanigans. As the Seahawk makes a quick retreat from the Fangport docks, Aeron waves them away with the arm that has the stolen horn cuff/bangle on it, and in the distance he sees Kelvayla squint, realize, and start to yell and make to jump off the ship, only to be held back by a laughing Walker.

#couriers campaign #D&D #nm plays D&D #dugeons and dragons

[dappercritter]

You’re laughing.

You left your students with no option but to destroy the most powerful source of life and energy in the multiverse, causing untold repurcussions, and you’re laughing.

(Things got a little more weird and wild than usual in the Monstrosities of Magic discord server today.)

#seriously what was glossaryck's deal even? #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #monstrosities of magic #glossaryck #sir glossaryck of terms #svtfoe glossaryck #memes

[elliepassmore]

Wrath Becomes Her review

4/5 stars Recommended if you like: historical fantasy, Jewish folklore, revenge plotlines

This book held so much potential and while it was enjoyable it also fell kind of flat for me. The main problems I had were that the plot kind of felt like it drifted along from beginning to end without really a main 'push' at any point and that it still felt like we didn't really know Vera by the end of the book. When a character grapples with their identity and who they are and what it means to be human (or not), you want to really be able to sink your teeth into that and walk away feeling confident that the character knows who they are. Unfortunately, in this book I think Vera was still kind of wishy-washy at the end of the book. Finding purpose is not the same as finding self.

Related to that is the fact I feel we don't really get to know any of the other characters very well either. Chaya's father isn't really in it for too long, Akiva is in most of the book but there's a distance between both him and Vera and him and the reader, and then other characters that pop in and out and don't really have much of a chance to develop. I do feel like I got a good grip on Miriam though, which is kind of odd since she really wasn't in most of the book.

Vera starts right off the bat as an interesting character. She is a golem made with forbidden magic in the image of her creator's dead daughter, Chaya. He built her with emotions so that she could feel the rage and grief Jews were experiencing at the hands of Nazis and be able to exact meaningful revenge. I thought her exploring what it means to be golem vs. human was interesting and I really enjoyed how she had a connection with the scribes of the past, Chaya and Ezra, and the river she came from. I definitively would've liked to explore more of her inner world and see more of her coming into herself. I actually thought Vera was plenty emotional, but I definitely would've liked to see more of it, more of everything re: Vera, actually. I think Polydoros had some really interesting themes and questions going and I liked seeing Vera figure stuff out about herself and the world, but I think that needed to be a bigger focus of the book, and maybe the book even needed to be longer, so that Vera felt more like a well-rounded and developed character by the end.

Akiva was Chaya's lover and is still reeling from the pain of her loss, as well as all the other losses he's suffered since the Nazis invaded Lithuania. He definitely had rage in abundance. I did at times feel like I felt Akiva's emotions more than I felt Vera's and it was somewhat of an odd juxtaposition between someone who said they were rageful and someone who actually is. While on the one hand I can understand that Akiva's trajectory and everything he does in the book is inevitable considering his past....I also kind of felt weird about how he ends the book.

The plot, as mentioned, is a bit drifty up until the very end, which made it feel kind of disconnected from the rest of the book. It's obvious from the beginning that that's where the book is going, there's no other option except for Vera to facedown some Nazis in a big showdown, but at the same time, so little of what happens feels active that it almost felt like a different book. I would've liked to see more partisan action leading up to the ending, and honestly probably more action at the end too. There's a good action scene or two in there, but considering the themes of vengeance and rage, I would've liked to see more.

In all, I think this is an enjoyable book that grapples with questions of human vs. non-human monstrosity as well as what revenge can look like when everything's been taken from you. I did like the characters but felt like there was some emotional distance between them and me that I would've preferred not be there.

#book #book review #books #book recommendations #fantasy #bookstagram #booklr #bookblr #bookaholic #bookish #book addict #wrath becomes her #jewish characters #jewish author #holocaust #golem #historical fantasy #ya fantasy books #ya fantasy

[full-moon-phoenix]

How're Eclipsa and Globgor changed?

Meet the Characters

Part 6. Eclipsa and Globgor

You know Eclipsa and Globgor. You know they're the Monster and Mewman that fell in love and fled Mewni. But what you might not know is that they didn't flee Mewni alone. They lived at the Monster Temple with both Mewman and Monster peace advocates, some of which fell in love with each other and had hybrid children.

But the Magic High Commission raided the temple upon hearing about this. While Globgor got the children to safety, Eclipsa gave herself up on the promise that they'd leave her people alone. They didn't keep that promise, and crystallized her along with all the adults, Eclipsa and Globgor's dear friends. Globgor came back to find everyone gone, including his daughter, and was confronted by Shastacan who told him he got rid of them. Enraged, he ate Shastacan and vowed to go after the High Commission next. But he never got the chance.

He remains crystallized for now. But what will become of him? Will Star convince Eclipsa to keep him crystallized out of fear? Will she let Eclipsa set him free? Will Star free him herself? All this will answered and more.

#eclipsa #eclipsagor #globclipsa #globgor #star vs the monstrosities of magic #monstrosities of magic #svtfoe

[writerofscribbles]

— the shadows have teeth -- wip introduction

- - GENRE: ya/na gothic horror/supernatural western, murder mystery, wynonna earp meets stranger things

- - SYNOPSIS: cursed. broken. frozen.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Mountain ranges beyond compare, waving towers of grass, spiked cacti, and a few singular homes that have stood the test of time. A ghostly town that to the rest of America, doesn't exist. Time moves strangely in this range of town, a fact that the residents just accept. The clouds drift, the saloon doors swing aimlessly, and the curse remains unbroken for another hundred years. Within a span of acres and acres, where the two rivers connect and split northwards and then trickle into streams, that's the boundary line. Crooked and wavy due to the rivers, and then abruptly going straight across the west bound railroad, this triangle of land has kept its inhabitants within their own personal western hell for the last hundred years.To step outside that boundary means hellish death for some, for some it means the unknown and abandoned railways. For the brave, it means a long stretch of highway that leads to civilization. But the ones who have made their home Copperhead since the early 19th century know that it is a little weird. Cursed in a way. Why does this curse exist? Who knows. Someone probably shot someone's daughter's boyfriend in the barn and a jealous witch cursed them. Who gives a fuck at this point? It keeps the demons within it, the witches safe from becoming government experiments, and the humans just live humbly. Maybe Copperhead is better off staying frozen in 1800.

But when a stranger, half-dead and bloody, arrives on the Quinn’s ranch, a series of unlucky and horrific events lead a particular group of teenagers to discover the dark demonic underbelly of their tiny western town. Shaken to its roots, Copperhead’s unusual residents must finally face the dark history that placed them in the frozen grip of their curse. 

You see, Copperhead has a demon problem. These demons are immortal, unlovable, monstrosities. Kinda. You see, about 140 years ago, a gunslinger, outlaw gang swept into town and murdered a bunch of people. Standard stuff, except the town was protected by a pact that the humans had made with the witches of the era. So, that gang was cursed, or something like that. Now, all of the members of that original gang must live eternally in the arid climate, and let's just say they weren't just cursed to live forever. Many of them have become twisted versions of their evils selves, the curse taking its toll and wreaking havoc on their humanity. Hating humans is the least of their problems, when they have to worry about stepping out of the boundary, keeping their demonic eyes hidden, and trying to keep their sanity. If they want it at all. The cursed can't hurt the humans or else they'll lose their grip on reality and on their sanity, and would be impossible to stop.

featuring: demons, a two-hundred year curse, witches, found family trope, queer characters, murder, horror elements, magic, a lot of strange description and a town that is definitely very weird.

- - THEMES: finding yourself, absolving guilt, revenge, forgiveness, what makes a monster?, free will vs. fate

- - POVS: it’s written in multiples povs and is in past tense, third person

- - STATUS: outlining / discovery writing

- - CHARACTERS: MADELINE ‘MADDOX’ QUINN, who finds the bloody, broken girl on their ranch and shoots at the shadows. ANNA DOE, the stranger who pissed off a demon and can’t remember her own name. JULIAN STEELE, a tired ™ witch who just wants a normal life. THE STEELE FAMILY (aka elliot, kieran, violet, & flynn) who keep fucking up Julian’s quiet life. ISA EROS, a four-hundred year old witch who keeps messing with everyone’s love life. CLEMENTINE THORNE, a precious cinnamon roll yoga instructor who is also a demon. AMBROSE WAINWRIGHT, a demon man who can’t make up his fucking mind. JACKSON S. CLARK, a horrifying monster who you do not want to piss off. DR. FRANCIS RADCLIFFE, the maker of the most horrible decisions. and finally, THE GRAY ONE & GRIM, two mystery figures who are at the epicenter of all this drama. 

more detailed character introductions to come.

EXCERPT UNDER THE CUT. please interact with this post in some way if you’d like to be added to the tag list <33

There came a point on any given night when the clouds rolled in from deep in the valley with a biting wind and sudden lack of stars. It was a telltale sign to the residents of Copperhead that the devils were out to play. Usually, the civilians knew by feeling when they were coming and either packed it on home or risked the chance of being ripped apart. As long as they went out with a whiskey in their hand, most of the men didn’t care. But the drunks came stumbling home as their wives pulled their curtains tightly closed and prayed for peace. The chatter from inside the warmly lit buildings of Copperhead seemed to quiet for a while, an unnatural, yet organic silence falling over the town’s center square. It usually took a few hours, but then the darkly clad figures would start to meander in. At a glance, they would have looked normal. Just a bunch of newcomers sweeping into the Crystal Snake for a pint and a hand of cards, but the air seemed to ripple around them as one or two entered, the atmosphere taking on a heavier and dimmer weight. Anyone who came too close was choked on the feeling of rot that coiled around them.

Outside the Crystal Snake, the clouds had parted to reveal the sliver of ghostly moon and its crown of stars. In a swirl of cream skirts and long red hair, Isa Eros exited the bar with a cigarette tucked between her fingers. Leaning on the post outside of the bar, her eyes scoured the dark night. Despite being late July, a chill had seeped into the air, spreading goosebumps down the bare skin of her arms. How easy it would have been to slip away from the bar and her shift and nip down to the Rattler. Refresh the spark underneath her skin, lit the flame inside her stomach. Life had been so boringly quiet lately, nothing a little spell wouldn’t fix. Copperhead had grown, many of the children grown up into young adults who would soon make even more babies. With a little magic under her fingernails she could weave a simple Cupid’s arrow and sling it at the most taken man in town in hopes of sewing some mischief into the town gossip pool.

Her spine tingled with the thought of it.

The clouds continued to shift away, the lights that hung on the houses illuminated the wide road into town flickered a few times. But then, July seemed to remember what her job was and the sticky warmth swept in again. And with it was a lone rider on a jet-black horse. Just as quickly as her goosebumps came and went, they prickled Isa’s skin again. She’d known that beautiful stallion and tall figure anywhere. He ambled up, reining his horse next to the others and swung gracefully off as if he’d been riding a horse for the last hundred and fifty years. Which, Isa knew, he had.

Before she could move back into the bar, a cold sweat broke out across her skin and the dew drops of sweat that had gathered on her forehead now made her feel clammy. With a slightly hitched gait, nondescript black suit and hat, Jackson S. Clark moved past the antique post and into the dim glow from the bar. “Isa.” His voice collided with her and made her shudder, his lightning blue eyes pinning her to the spot. He was slow moving, a cane in his hand as he climbed the stairs.  

“Jack of Knives,” She replied, her voice smooth, but clipped. He tipped the brim of his hat to her, and her heart jumped to her throat at the sight of his claws. Despite the inherent fear that tangled with her curiosity, she kept a warm smile on her lips, hip cocked out, and chest pushed forward. She looked away to snap her fingers in front of her cigarette, the end flaring with a sudden flame that ticked off her fingers. She inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly. The smoke clouded the air and just as it drifted away, Jack was gone.

She let out a sigh of relief and her trembling knees forced her to sit on the top step.

xxx

The bar doors opened and the laughter cut off. Except for a few gambling tables. The candle’s tiny flames shivered for a second, before returning to their cheerful glow and the chattered roared back to life. Jack lifted his hat off his head and slide his fingers carefully through his hair, smoothing the thinning dark waves. He stepped quietly up to the bar, smiling at the noticeable stiffens from the old men sitting closest to the door. The bartender wasn’t looking his way yet, and so he placed his hat on the counter and began to tap his nails on the hardwood.

Eyes darkened as they trailed to the source of the noise. Wicked iron claws tapped rhythmically, loud and sharp. The click of them would have faded to white noise, if they drew attention at all, had the nails not been tapered into perfect iron points. “Hey, Jackie boy.” A familiar southern lilt paused the tapping.

“Doc,” Jack’s voice was alluring, even if there was something off about him. He turned on his heel to face the dark clad figure he was sure would be grinning at him. The candles shivered again as another devil passed next to them, the light dimming around the two figures. Jack said nothing as Doc sidled up to him, leaning on the bar and clearly already quite drunk. Doc’s gray eyes already had a shimmer to them, a laughter on his lips. But Jack didn’t doubt that his fingers would be steady on his pistol slung on his hips.

Doc simply smirked, one elbow on the bar and the other on his hip. There seemed to be a stare down between the two of them, but the smile never faltered. Doc wasn’t afraid of Jack, he couldn’t be. He had no mortality to lose, his own southern charm matching the false gentlemanly wit of his darker counterpart. They’d be in this world for a hundred and so years, and had somehow, even though they lay on two sides of the coin, could respect each other.

A whiskey slid down the bar and quickly Doc swiped it just before it was caught in iron claws. “Jack be nimble, Jack better be quick,” Doc murmured as he straightened, about to saunter back to his table of poker. But right before he could get out of range, the cane swung out and the snake head topper bit into Doc’s shoulder and halted him. Doc turned slowly, removing his hat and facing Jack.

But the iron devil was already in front of Jack, grabbing onto his wrist and curling his talons into the soft flesh of his wrist. Jack said nothing, just went to pluck the whiskey from Doc’s hands when he felt something press into his stomach. “Don’t worry, Jackie, I’m not happy to see you,” Doc murmured, pressing the silver pistol into Jack’s stomach. “Wouldn’t want to do this in front of the ladies,” He jerked his head to a few scantily clad girls giggling by one of the booths and at Isa, who had just reentered to tackle her next shift of serving drinks.

Blood welled up underneath Jack’s nails, his grip becoming stronger. Doc’s smile twitched and a hint of pain shone in his darkened gray eyes. Sweat curled on the edge of his brow, the feverish pallor of his skin evident up close. Red flashed on the tips and Doc winced as Jack pulled away. Four crescent burns lay on the inside of his wrist now, the shallow slices cauterized shut. Doc twirled his pistol back into his low slung belt and headed back over to his table, pulling his sleeve down over the welts. Jack didn’t bother trying to conceal his wicked slice smile.

#the shadows have teeth #wip intro #western wip #old works being refurbished

[whenimgoodandready]

(trumpets sound) 👑Hear thee! Hear thee! You are cordially invited to the Coronation of Eclipsa Butterfly, Queen of Darkness to be legally declared as official queen of Mewni! The ceremony will be held at The Monster Auditorium where they’ll be food, drinks, music, dancing and even a play area for the children. Don’t be late!👑

*Cornonation-It’s Eclipsas Cornonation Coronation! (mumbles) Damn it Marco, would it kill ya to spell check!? And everyone’s invited! The Spiderbites, The Pigeons, Buff Frog, Hell! Even The Assassin's Guild! Cuz.............why not!?

Tomstar discovers the Yurt Village and Star invites her mom, Moon, hoping to see her there despite the fact that Moon still doesn’t trust Eclipsa and knows of the danger that’s to come, but is keeping quiet about it *cough*MinaLoveberry*cough*. Uh, Moon, I know you’re being “hands off” and everything, but I really think you should, oh idk, be with your daughter and warn her about Mina! Seriously, you just went ahead and straight up abandoned her with someone you don’t even trust! WHO’S THE TARGET OF A RACIST PSYCHO WARRIOR! WTF!? I know Eclipsas a bit shady, but she’s still a nice person, you saw it yourself! Star states that this’ll be last thing she helps Eclipsa with and then she can go back to being a teenager doing whatever the f*** it is teenagers do now-a-days. I guess this is the “growing up” that Star needed to learn from “Moon Remembers”, doing what you think js right. River isn’t goin’ obviously cuz he openly hates Eclipsa as much as the rest of the Yurt People.

It’s a full house. Phew! I thought it would just be a “small intimate get together” with only Star, Eclipsa and their friends and it would all be really depressing, but thank God People actually came! With 5 mins to curtain, everyone’s dresses up fancier than usual and getting everything in check such as who showed up, what song to play and why the f*** Janna is here (Ruberiot, idk!? I thought it was cuz of the Starco thing she was trying to speed up, but now, your guess is as good as mine!). Pony Head and her sisters dress up Eclipsa, elegantly this time and even Meteora and they’ll be a song to commorate the coronation too (Yes Star, we need a song! This is so we can hear more of Brain H. Kim’s good music!).

Star sees that her mother has arrived and signs that her father went Bog Beast hunting with Eddie (Great, that guy came back :P). Star reminds herself how she’ll finally be free of all this royal/political drama and go back to enjoying what’s left of her teenhood where Tom suggests a trip together. Eclipsa has gone to get a new guitar string earlier since one broke and hasn’t come back yet, so Star gos to the Monster Temple and finds out Globgor is loose! Don! Don! Don! She returns and finds Eclipsa announcing it as a warning and suddenly, the MHC jump into action restraining Eclipsa, caging Meteora and putting the whole auditorium on lockdown thinking Eclipsa freed Globgor, but she claims she didn’t. To distract everyone while Star looks for Globgor, Marco and the others put on a talent show (good thing Ruberiot married a prepared entertainer).

Eclipsa informs Star that Globgor might be at the bog since they used to hang out there and-Wait a minute! The bog! But that’s where River is! Don! Don! Don! Sure enough, he’s there and River mistakes him for the Bog Beast (okay, WTF!? River, you know damn well there’s no real “Bog Beast”. We saw that in “The Bogbeast of Boggabah” cuz its just a title given to someone! What an idiot😒). Star gos Mewberty to save her father and tries to stop Globgor from running off and he defeats her! This is why he’s the Monster King people! Mmmhmm. However, he lets her go since as I mentioned in my last review, he’s a family guy. Turns out, he was just trying to escape cuz he knows about the consequences of what’ll happen once the Mewmans see he’s been freed and turn against his family more.

Back at the auditorium, Mewni is introduced to Love Sentence when Tomco sings “their song” from “Friendenemies”. Ahhhh, so this was the other song ive been hearing fans talk about their voice actors doing again! How cute! Star comes back with Globgor handcuffed and tries to reason with the Mewmans on how harmless he is despite the fact that he willingly surrendered, but the MHC note that recrystalizing him again would be pointless as once Eclipsa is coronated, she’ll be free to use her dark magic and re-release him again, so Rhombulus starts crystallizing her! Globgor doesn’t take lightly to this and it’s him vs. The MHC. It was an epic battle there, we all their powers: Omnitraxus with his multi dimension teleporting and strength, Hekapoo and her cloning/scissors, Rhombulus with his crystal shooting and then there’s the Prince of Darkness, Plucker of Limbs! CRUSHER OF SKULLS Globgor and his Ant-Man powers! Now that’s a fight!

During all that, Meteora dips down to free herself and starts crawling toward Globgor. What was touching was she recognized him as her “Ba-ba” and the Mewmans were actually concerned for her well being as the whole place was practically on fire! Awwwww. Globgor stops to see his daughter whom he hasn’t seen in over three centuries and is happily holding her again :’). He still surrenders and just wants his wife and daughter left alone. Then River, actually shows up and vouches for him on how he’s a father like him and every other guy (well, fathers-to-be in this case). River! The idiotic wild man and former king of Mewni who wasn’t afraid to badmouth Eclipsa stood up for Globgor! Wow! That’s good character realization.

Star realizes that something doesn’t make any sense, why would Eclipsa free her husband, who was (formally) a Mewman eater on her coronation day when she knew it was a bad idea, from my last review as I mentioned, and tried to warn them to leave and stay safe locked in their homes? (intense thinking music plays) You know, when Star saw that Globgor was free, the chicken Eclipsa had that she was gonna use to free him in the last episode, by making it crow, still had its beak wrapped, so it couldn’t have been her! But who could’ve done it!? (intense thinking music grows more intense). Who else could’ve freed Globgor from his crystal imprisonment!? Wait a minute! Crystals! (Long GASP!) It was Rhombulus! Don! Don! Don!

He’s the “Crystal Guy”! He can put anything/anyone in a crystal imprisonment! That’s his job! But why!? He said he would never let him out!? Rhombuluses excuse was that he still believes Eclipsa is “evil” and that by officially making her the queen of Mewni, she’d be allowed to use her dark magic as she pleas, so he freed Globgor thinking he’ll be “dangerous” and prove it to them. FOR THE LOVE OF F***ING GOD RHOMBULUS! WE ALREADY SAW FROM “BUTTERFLY TRAP” THAT SHE’S NOT EVIL!!! The only thing we learned is that she’ll incredibably selfish! That’s it! And FYI, you were SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO dead wrong about Globgor being “dangerous”. He was only trying to save himself and his family! Are you still holding a grudge from what Eclipsa did to you in “Swim Suit”!? OMG! LET IT GO RHOMBULUS! Eclipsa apologized for that! C’mon! Even Hekapoo and Omnitraxus Prime call him out on his still impulsive behavior cuz even though they don’t like Eclipsa as much as he does, they’d never put innocent Mewmans lives in peril just to prove a point! Rhombulus! You’re under arrest for police brutality, unleashing a falsely accused monster of monstrosity without permission, framing a regal authority over it and just being a total a**hole! :P.

After that, Eclipsa really thinks about the Mewmans this time and let’s them decide on if they want Globgor to be free. Think about it Mewmans, Globgor did nothing but look out for his family and your authoritive MHC are a bit to extreme, sooooooooooo-Hey! Don’t ask Moon! SHE’S NOT THE QUEEN ANYMORE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! C’MON! She’s a nobody like Star now! Sheesh! Buff Frog vouches for Globgor as well bringing up his fatherhood and even Katrina says they should stop with the hate and start a new! With that, they agree and Eclipsa is happy at last. All hail Eclipsas! Queen of Darkness! Hit it Queeny! Woo! Group hug!

Twistity-TWIST! Mina did NOT show up to crash the coronation! OMG! I was for sure she would! I mean, she’s still running loose in Mewni after getting her soul back and wanting to eliminate Eclipsa (“Ghost of Butterfly Castle”) and she’s getting equipped with her inventory! (“Junkin’ Janna”) and yet, she didn’t show up! However, that doesn’t mean, she still won’t come around. Perhaps in one of the final episodes in May she’ll finally come in. Hmmmmm. Well, looks like the major drama is over, no more Monster/Mewman prejudice as they all finally see that no one means no harm and all is at peace. Yea! Well, the shows ending so it’s about darn time that they fixed it before the finale. Globgor is totally and completely harmless (unless you mess with his fam) and is just a lovable dorky family guy. Eclipsa now has the family she wants with the man she actually loves and their baby who’s the real heir to the throne and she can side with the Mewmans. I’m very disappointed in Rhombulus right now. He was the first member of the MHC to make friends with Star and come to some understanding with her (“Crystal Clear”) and the important was that Star told him to not be so impulsive (and it takes one to know one), but did he listen? No! He was still poisoned with the idea that all Monsters, and Eclipsa, were still evil and wanted them crystallized! (“Monster Bash”) not even thinking about what his supposed new friend Star had to say. HELLO! Rhombulus! It was you who first spoke out on what you and the MHC did to Meteora! (“Butterfly Trap”) and you even got to confess it too! What happened to that Rhombulus!? Okay, so it was wrong what Eclipsa did to him in “Swim Suit”, but like Globgor, she was only looking out for her family and was desperate and he wouldn’t cooperate! Because of his racist mindset, it ruined his nice friendship with Star and now she hates him (“Junkin’ Janna”). Well, it was over a compact, but still, their friendship went out the window. Tist, Tist, Tist, there goes your BFF. Now the MCH is a member short. I liked all the group hugs in the end. So nice to see everyone happy and at peace and so loving and caring putting all that nonsense drama behind them and coming to an understanding of what’s really goin on. No more “Yada Yadaing” The queen (“Yada Yada Berries”), no more relaying on Moon (“Down by the River”), no more Anti-Eclipsa hate (“The Ponyhead Show”), no more Globgor scares (“Surviving the Spiderbites”), no more anything! It’s all over now! Course, it’s still not over yet. There’s still a few more problems left in the show like Mina and if Tomstar is truly solid or even if Starco is endgame or not! We’re getting closer! See you guys later, Long live the Queen!✊👑

#svtfoe #cornonation #svtfoe cornonation