Woe, a flood of boops upon you

why does nobody ever talk about angel and spike fighting over the shanshu prophecy?

when spike points out that angel views his soul as a curse, as punishment, as being forced to live with the guilt of everything he's done, whereas spike fought for his soul. nearly died for it. the demon with no soul still wanted to do the right thing, to be a good man, so desperately he would destroy himself for the chance.

and then angel says something VERY interesting to spike. spike says he thinks angel hates him because he's a living reminder of his evil. "cause every time you look at me, you see every dirty little thing i've done. all the lives i've taken. because of you. drusilla sired me, but you made me a monster."

and angel, the man who, without his soul, tortures and kills people sadistically for fun and feasting, the man who insists he is not angelus, says, "i didn’t make you, spike. i just opened up the door and let the real you out."

SUCH an interesting thing to say, angel! let's talk about this. no, please—go on. explain how you are better than spike in any way. i'm fascinated. i'd love to hear how you and angelus are different people but the demon who possessed william the poet is somehow the same as the man.

you can't have it both ways, you horrifically catholic man. you aren't a better person just because you've suffered more.

i think in the hamster wheel of my mind a big part of where people go wrong with eddie and his shitty garage band as an extension is that they for some bizarre reason think he's gene simmons metal when he's jack black metal. heavy metal. he's tenacious d metal. he's school of rock. he's stoner lord of the rings metal he nearly wore blue jeans and plaid. jack black literally in real life once said eddie was the best character bc he's heavy metal like him. LOOK AT THIS

just want you to know: I would die for yer new alligator lady

she's bad with compliments

Soooo, Bee wants to chat with Earth life, but can't talk to humans (and horses are very rude and won't even say hello!)-

How would he feel about Parrots are other animals who can mimic speech? Or animals that can't, but are very friendly like dogs?

He's allowed to interact with humans who already know he exists. He's just not allowed to interact with any random humans he wants.

Bumblebee's favorite earth creatures are the ones interested in him. so he likes humans, dogs, cats and any creature willing to be friends with him. He's pretty indifferent when it comes to the creatures that avoid him, maybe a little disappointed at first.

As for a parrot he prob be super excited before he realizes that it's just mimicking words and doesn't have a full understanding of language.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but what are your thoughts on angel x buffy? :)

Hii i don't mind, thank you for asking 😊

So, I used to love bangel sooooo much when i first watched the show. I was 100% into it, (with a crush for Boreanaz too) and i cried so much for them in s2 and when Angel left the show in s3. And I truly, sincerely, unironically hated Spike too (I thought he was a great character but i just loved hating him, you know? Lol). When we saw Spike's dream of kissing Buffy I swear i felt nauseous.

... and then they aired Fool for love.

By the end of that episode I was left in utter existential crisis in front of my tv because i felt my whole world shift. There was a part of me that still liked Angel and Buffy, but there was also this new part that wanted her to be with Spike now.

So anyway, that's when i decided to switch teams and i became team spuffy, and for as much as i had been obsessed with bangel before, it was nothing compared to how deep i was caught into the Buffy and Spike relationship. I never looked back. They were just much more complex and real and compelling. And it made me reevaluate Angel and her relationship with him too. Angel never really knew Buffy, always treated her like a child, and let's be honest--and that's something that hit me only years later when I got older--she was a child when they were together. He was spying on her and falling in love with her when she was just fifteen years old and he was a 240-year-old vampire who had been sired at like 26 years old, and they got together when she was 16/17 and he broke up with her when she turned 18... I don't think that's something the writers did intentionally of course, because (as everything else in buffy) it's just meant to be taken as a metaphor for the ideals and struggles and the intensity of drama of a girl's first love, but it still comes off as icky.

And before anyone comes at me, I know spuffy isn't healthy either, but that's kinda the point and the appeal. First of all, it's fiction and a metaphor, and secondly, it's about two broken people that are supposed to be mortal enemies but are actually two sides of the same coin, so different and yet so much the same, who can understand each other as a whole, light and darkness, in a way that no one else ever could, who yes, hurt each other along the way, but whose love saved them from the deepest darkness, ultimately bringing them into the light.

This is what spuffy is to me, and this is why i think it's not only the superior ship, but one of the best ships of all time (thee best, until i saw destiel, now they're sharing the podium).

So anyway, to get back to your question, the moment i became obsessed with Buffy and Spike (and i have been ever since 2005, lmao, they've been my first real obsession, alongside btvs, until spn and destiel) Angel sort of became the enemy 😅. And I hated him so so so so so much when he appeared in 7x21 and kissed Buffy (pure fanservice, but okay) and brought the medallion that ultimately killed Spike. So i spent years very maturely holding my vendetta against Angel (like, rooting for every demon that fought against him when I watched Angel, lmaoo). In most recent years, I've (sort of) made my peace with the character, after rewatching Angel. I mean he's still the enemy (of course, duh!! Who am i if not eternally petty??) but i appreciate him in his own show.

So i don't ship Angel and Buffy anymore, but I can understand why someone would (as i myself used to), and more importantly, i respect other people's right to ship them.

If we're joking, I'm going to insult Angel and keep saying he's the enemy. But on a mature serious note, I think Buffy and Angel were a great first love (for Buffy), but they were supposed to be just that, the impossible teenage girl's dream of a first love, eternal but doomed to end and break your heart.

I think Angel was much more well paired with Cordelia (which is something I'd never think I'd say), and i found myself shipping them so much when I rewatched the show. It felt so much more mature and profound than what we saw with Buffy and Angel (and that's probably due to the fact that we got slow burn for them - as we did for Buffy and Spike- and could actually see the feelings growing, while Buffy crushed on Angel in the pilot and she was madly in love (as teenagers do) in 0.5 seconds for no apparent reason than the fact that he was hot and mysterious.

So when I say the kiss in btvs 7x21 makes zero sense, I'm not just talking about spuffy, but also about cangel. I feel like both characters parted ways and lived on in their own shows to grow and become their own persons, developing other relationships that were more adult and meaningful, and that kiss was just disrespectful for both (but anyways, it doesn't change anything).

I have so many thoughts about all this honestly, and I hope I haven't gone too much off the tangent with my reply, but i couldn't just give you a simple reply because that would've had to be something like "angel is the enemy and i don't like bangel" but as you can see my thoughts are a little more complex than that 😅

Ghost fans I swear I haven't forgotten about you.. the hermitcraft fixation just came back with a vengeance 😭

I'm still very much a fan of the band! It's just hard to draw all of my fixations at once, especially since I only post one drawing per week (I would post more but I want my posting to be consistent and if I drew more it definitely wouldn't be💀)

Zero (the one with tiny white horns and brown hair) is my ghoulsona :D

god its always so weird seeing a shot of amy from behind and seeing that her back just has nothing on it. put some spikes on that beast

How would you think Mario would react if he actually SAW Bowser hurt Luigi? He was ready to throw hands with Spike for just throwing some tissue at his bro.

Oh 👀

Well Mario wouldn't just stand there and let Bowser hurt his brother. If he had been there...he would've had to have been restrained.

Mario is held back by dry bones, shy guys, sniffits, and koopas, as he bites, kicks, shouts, and screams as Bowser proceeds to hurt Luigi. Bowser ignores him, secretly taking delight in hearing the red plumber losing it to the anguish, and the green plumber being so helpless.

Mario cries out again and punches hard at the minions, tearing himself away as best as he can. Trying to reach his brother and show that King just how far his rage can go.

Mario has never felt any worse than he has ever been.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment. I was reading your post about the Commando app Beta 2.1 vs 3.1 debate and whether there was an Alpha app or a Beta 1.1. What if there was an Alpha app and Douglas tried it with Adam, the original bionic but it didn’t work right and caused some brain damage which is why Adam is like that? Douglas then realized that if he was going to put the Commando app in a bionic’s head that he needed to completely rewire their brain to be able to handle actually having information downloaded like a computer. By the time he realized this Bree was too far along so he turned his attention to the next subject. He made Chase more computer like and did a bunch of stuff that would allow Chase to handle actual changes to his brain from outside influences. It’s why Chase has the Commando and override app. The other two can’t have actual apps in their heads like that because they weren’t created to handle things like that.

Yayyy another person to talk about Spike/the Commando App with!!

And this is such an interesting thought that I love!! These are all great connecting ideas too, the idea that Chase has these apps because he has a computer in his mind to process and handle it all unlike his siblings and not just because his main ability is super intelligence. After all, he does have more room for upgrades than his siblings. I love this idea!

I do wonder though if after Douglas were to hypothetically do this he went and gave Adam and Bree some from of compatibility to their chips since Chase can connect to them essentially through bluetooth. But him having the computer not only for his intelligence but also for his apps and to process the use and control of these apps alongside his normal brain is really something to think about. Not only that, but he does have a bunch of wiring inside his head and a bunch of different scanners from his bionic eyes that are also linked to his computer system too (identifying people, fingerprint scanning, etc.)

And with the Commando App, we see that in both versions, especially the first one we see in 1x03, that there is a bunch of coding that appears during the activation and deactivation of the app. This almost seems to imply too that the app truly is still not 100% complete, which matches with the Beta version we see.

We also see that the Commando App has an entire targeting system connected to Spike's vision. In the first version this comes in the form of Spike scanning the threat's face before completely locking onto the target as an "imminent threat."

In the second version, this just comes in the form of a literal target being in Spike's vision. He also has a gauge that measures his aggression level, which obviously varies for him. Not only that, but on the right side of Spike's vision he has gauges to measure speed and visibility presumably of his target, which is kind of scary lol.

A mystery however is why does the chip interrupter not only not work on the Commando App, but instead makes Spike more aggressive? It most likely has something to do with affecting the computer system in Chase. Maybe it doesn't work because Spike is an app and is potentially more linked to the computer in Chase than his chip? Is it just a glitch in general? Is Spike's aggression increase also a glitch or is it a defense mechanism against an outside influence? Who knows!

One last thing to note is the fact that after Spike takes a hard hit from Perry, it actually causes an error in Chase's computer system and glitches the Commando App out and forces it to disengage. Maybe this is something that would "naturally" happen or this is another example of the incomplete app being unstable (because one would imagine that this caliber of app and its purpose of fighting shouldn't be able to glitch out and shut down after a hard hit)

Another intriguing thought is that a few of Chase's abilities are apps but are considered "abilities" like the Commado App or his Magnetism App, if that makes sense. Some of his "abilities" are directly related to his computer system as apps compared to his normal "abilities" like his laser bo or forcefield. I just thought that that was interesting to point out because I never really realized that until now!

There's a lot to think about with this, and since we were never meant to dive this deep into because it's a Disney XD show, there's a lot to play around with!

Hi! Why do so many BLs have one character meet the other when they were a child and love them since then…. I’m watching History 5 and the second couple has this trope with the older one loving the child but loads of them have a child ‘loving’ the older guy for years (Minato, second couple in History 4, lovely writer)

Is this a common trope in non-BL Asian dramas? Maybe I’m missing some cultural aspect but it makes me feel a bit weird… I’m fine when they both meet as children but when one’s a child and one’s an adult it feels off to me!

We Met As Kids, Therefore I Love You

Yes, it's a super common trope in ALL Asian romances.

There's a human cross-cultural claim-to-care around having met someone "first" giving one person priority to another's affection and in their life.

For example, think about how many fans (of say a Kpop group or band or actor) will claim to be "better" or morally superior to other fans of that same talent, because they have have liked that group/person "since the beginning" or "before they were famous." How about those who claim superiority because they read the book before the TV series became popular?

To have loved something FIRST is often allied with being better at loving it, there is a value judgement to longevity of association. (This is also true around disliking someone/something first.)

There isn't a name for this logical fallacy, although there should be. I would say something like appeal to tradition argumentum ad antiquitatem (which is a red herring fallacy). So appeal to time, argumentum ad tempus?

(The 8th Sense is doing some VERY interesting things to philosophically battle this concept right NOW, actually.)

Narratively speaking, if you have only a short amount of time to unfold the story (for example We Best Love) this trope gives writers a quick way to justify pining and affection (usually from the seme character). So backstory can be cribbed for character development. That character is already in love, so we don't have to show him falling in love, only one character is in play for that.

In longer narratives (like Word of Honor, Lovely Writer) this is a secret that gets to be slowly uncovered and explored as a plot point. If you have them meet as children, or when one is a child then it justifies one character not remembering the other (because peoples appearances change from childhood to adulthood).

I think the popularity in Asian dramas in particular has to do with collectivist cultures and family obligation/intimacy priority. To have known (or met) someone as a kid adds a level of intimate connection that justifies any affection that much more than meeting later in life.

There's a very funny scene in Kdrama (noona romance) Thumping Spike (recommended) that directly mocks this trope. Near the end the main couple openly together and they are in the car with the (former) love triangle dude. He lost, even though he's the one with the childhood crush. He directly combats this concept by saying (basically): If longevity guaranteed romance, I should be married to the grandma who runs my local convenience store.

Another well known Kdrama that combats this trope is Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (recommended) which goes out of its way to have the love triangle character who would normally lose the girl, actual win her this time. (So the one who loses is the moot crush from childhood.)

In BL, I tracked this one for a while:

Also here are a few BLs that DO NOT use this trope:

(source)

I need to know about Brambleclaw in your Longstar au. Tell me everything about that traitor! Please.

Bramblekit was normal, as kits go. Small, maybe a little rough with Snowkit and a bit selfish, not noticing if others were affected by his misadventures or little clawed swipes, but no one save Speckletail and Goldenflower noticed anything amiss. When the fire struck camp, and Fireheart bravely saved him from the flames, he seemed starstruck. Wanted to be a brave warrior who saved everyone!

And then his Father left.

The clan seemed to turn on him all at once. They all hated him! Just him!! (He never saw Goldenflower shudder her tears away, never saw his sister flinch at the stares and whispers. He never saw Fireheart try to shield him, or Longtail glare down the elders. His greatest flaw was never seeing how others felt.) Darkstripe brought him to see Tigerclaw, who promised that HE was protecting Bramble from the horrors of a weak clan, and whispered to the malleable kit lies and half truths and just play along until I take control. So Bramble did.

Then Tawnypaw LEFT HIM TOO. How dare she, he would say to others, how dare she go to the terrible cat and his terrible clan! (How dare she go, he would say to himself, it was supposed to be me! Now I am watched, and cannot meet my fatherteacherleader!!

And in his dreams, Tigerstar came to him. For you, my true heir, the true training of a strong leader. The Miretrees welcomed him with grasping claws, and he relished it.)

(Any guilt or morals were lashed away by the thorns and the shadows of a thousand hateful cats.)

He played his part - saving Whitestorm, mourning the dead and verbally disavowing Tigerstar (he did not fail he still yet lives in the Mire of nightmares), becoming a Brawler (all the better to defend my clan, he says to Longstar) (give me Claws, he says, to redeem the naming of my father, he says), dotes on his mother, hunts and fights and returns in the night to his bloody-bellied fatherkingruler.

He becomes defined, in the secret bloodybeatingcloying spaces of his heart, in the shadows of his mind, by three things.

Pride. Envy. Wrath.

He is Proud of his prowess, of his acting, of his untouched pelt (the claws of the Dark Forest are too slow for him, only catching on his soul) and his place of honor - he is TRUSTED by the falsefoolishleader Longstar, to watch his kits and protect them from danger. HE is the danger that no one sees! HE will sink his teeth into the unprotected spines of the clan! But not yet. Brambleclaw waits. He is Proud to have a true leadershadowboundruler like Tigerstar, the cunning to Brambleclaw's battle skills. He is Proud. And that is a piece of his downfall.

He is Envious, of Longstar and Flamewish. Of Tawnypelt and Foxpaw and Swiftpaw and Darkpaw. And eventually of Hawkfrost and Mothwing and Crowfeather. He WANTS the power to command a clan to move, and be obeyed at every turn! (He does not see the elders balk, Whitestorm advising, the historians and tacticians guiding the clan as well) He WANTS the love of a mate, one who is devoted only to him (he misses the work that Longstar and Flamewish put in to their relationship, their arguments and apologies, the devotion going both ways) (He misses how his sister is loved, by her clan, truly trusted, how Rowanclaw is her FRIEND before her lover) He WANTS his father to be there, to be watching him grow effortlessly (he misses the little spats, the drama, the fears, and does not see the love that the family cultivates) (He could have been another son to the leader, or even the deputy, but it is far too late for that) (He barely recognizes that Goldenflower loves him, cherishes him, and is Proud of him. She does not matter. Mollies' opinions do not matter, his father taught him well) He WANTS a sibling relationship like Hawk and Moth, he WANTS to be cherished by many clans like TadpoleCrowfeather (He is blind to how Tawnypelt loves him, how Stormfur asks for his advice, how Feathertail flirts) (His plans for Foxpawflight are NOT ruined by her affections for ShrewpawLeg he WILL be her mate) He is Envious. And that is a piece of his downfall.

He is Wrathful, his hate of the Clan he was born into catching on his ribcage and twisting in his intestines, burrowing into his marrow. He claws the turf to pieces in fury, how DARE his father leave! He knocks eggs from their nest is rage, how could Tawnypaw leave him too!? He tears the pelts off of rogues and loners, MY FATHERLEADERKING IS NO FAILURE!!! He scatters stones on the cliffsides, why won't Foxpaw realize she's MINE!? He screeches as he drives rogues away, MY BROTHER!! MINE!! He is Wrathful, and that is one piece of his downfall.

He stands over the foolishfalseidiotLongstar, his truebrotheronlyally looking upon him and their prey. Join me finally, Brambleclaw crows, join me and we can be what we were meant to be!

(He has always missed how Hawkfrost looks at Tigerstar, looks at him. With building horror and regret)

And Hawkfrost

Says

No

Brambleclaw is Proud (he trust his battle prowess, but Hawkfrost is quick and lean and won't hoLD STILL)

Brambleclaw is Envious (you are MY BROTHER he screams, and the denial from Hawkfrost cuts through his blackening heart)

Brambleclaw is Wrathful (red tinges his vision, his father's voice in his ears stop him stOP HIM KILLHIM)

The silvery spike in his throat tastes like failure

boops you boops you boops you boops you bosp uo pobos fyuo baops yauo boosp you boosbps suiosuy bobops you boobps yoi bo

!!

Fjord

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

2. Favorite thing: so much, but I particularly like how good and effective he is at herding the cats of the Mighty Nein. There are many reasons why they bonded so tightly, but a factor was that Fjord early on was insistent that they figure out ways to work together. You can tell how carefully his backstory was constructed; part of why Sabian and Vandran are such beloved figures despite almost no screentime is because you can get such a clear an outline of them from Fjord’s behaviors and discussions that is honestly more thorough than that of some fully introduced NPCs. Getting back to the original point, you can tell from early on that this is someone accustomed to team dynamics under pressure (ie, a sailor). In general, everything we learned about Fjord, as it was revealed, made me go “ohhhhhhh yeah that makes sense,” which is in my opinion the sign of incredibly skilled storytelling and character building.

3. This is tough; this is a character I truly love and I am always team “this person’s flaws are an important part and erasing them means you do not fucking get it," so like, I am in favor of his perfectionism and control issues and closed-off-ness and in case it's not clear from my Midst blogging and which characters I'm drawn to there, nor my enjoyment of Vex, a particular vibe of which he is one of the best examples. I also, admittedly, am defensive because while people watching C2 now without all the fandom discourse of C2 tend to enjoy him, he got done rather dirty by the fandom and was the recipient of basically every single thing I dislike that fandoms do (he is not alone; Keyleth got this with the added complication of rampant misogyny, and Veth got shades of this too, and all have similarly been received much better by people watching without fandom influence). So, for example, while I would love to have seen more of his backstory in-game, I am hesitant to say that because, well, ever notice how Caduceus was sidelined by the party and we didn't explore his past but Fjord avoided his backstory? Ever notice how Caleb's asshole behaviors are because of trauma but Fjord (grew up in a Dickensian orphanage, bullied over his race to the point of willing self-harm from a young age, betrayed, stabbed, and left to drown at which point he was forced into a warlock pact he didn't remember) is just an asshole? (I'm saying this as someone who very much likes Caduceus and Caleb, but this was blatant from the fandom, and pretty constant too.) So to be clear I think he has plenty of flaws, as a complex character, but I do not dislike those flaws as canonical aspects of him.

Anyway. The joke but also kind of true answer is, as Laura herself pointed out, why did he wait 7 entire years to propose to Jester.

25. I liked him from the start but Beau was actually my favorite in early C2! I liked the top table (and what faint impressions I had of Yasha) from the start, but Fjord had the Percy and Vex trait of "guy who can act normal in a social situation when no one else can" for the first stretch of the campaign, which meant he was high up there but didn't move up in my estimation until he started to reveal how civilizedly (not a real word, but vitally important as a modifier here for a number of reasons) unhinged and insecure he was.