"You got the best of me."

Wips, different colours and context below the cut. (TW: Religious themes)

If you're curious, this illustration is based on a comic (which is based on a fan fiction) I worked on for a long time called "You Got the Best of Me". Yes, it's a BTS song. It's a good B-side.

The idea is that traveller!Antonio finds his way to a small, wayward tomato farmed owned by this grumpy man called Lovino. He's the son of the village's head priest who had passed away from cancer when he was a child, not long after his younger brother, Feliciano was born.

Feliciano was always sickly and couldn't do very much. He was a crybaby. He was kind of pathetic but always cheerful and Lovino loved him very much, and worked hard to support him.

Growing up, Feliciano became very religious like their grandfather and trained to become a priest. Lovino didn't exactly disapprove, since it meant Feliciano would be taken care of, but he didn't believe in God as much as he used to. Afterall, God let his grandfather—the epitome of Godfearring—die so painfully. Feliciano tries his best to reconnect but their difference in faith made it difficult.

In the present day, Antonio and Lovino met when Antonio just stumbles into a village party one day. He leans against an empty barrel, exhausted, until someone taps his shoulder. He turns around and sees a handsome, albeit drunk as fuck young man giving him a bottle of alcohol, telling him to cheer up and drink. Antonio fell in love at first sight. That smile was gorgeous.

They meet again the next day when Antonio walks into the church and sees the same young man sitting at the back. The young man didn't say no when Antonio sits with him, and doesn't do anything when Antonio talks to him and asks to share his Bible.

After service, they walk around the church in silence and they go to a quiet stretch of meadow where Antonio plays some childhood songs on his guitar. Antonio was surprised when Lovino knew the words and could speak Spanish. Lovino said the 'weirdos' his grandfather made friends with taught him whatever he knew, which was surprisingly a lot.

They continue chatting and without knowing, it had been hours.

"Brother, it's lunch time," Feliciano said softly.

Lovino screamed. "H-how the fuck did you find me?"

Feliciano laughed as he pointed to the footsteps in the ground. "There's coffee! No alcohol, don't drink so much." Feliciano acknowledged Antonio with a curtsey and a suspicious glance. Lovino did not always have the best judgement.

The three of them walked together, Lovino walked ahead because he was hungry and knew that he needed to explain himself. Antonio and Feliciano introduced themselves. Feliciano was not as paranoid as before—Antonio seemed like a nice person. Antonio liked that Feliciano took things well despite his sickliness and hoped that he would get better soon. Feliciano gave him a look.

Antonio understood immediately. Feliciano was unnervingly pale and skinny. The only thing about him that was strong was his will to live. Antonio promised to never talk about it again and Feliciano smiled.

A few months go by and Antonio was helping Lovino harvest tomatoes and that was when Lovino pulls him aside and asks, "Do you know about my grandfather?" Antonio said vaguely because he and Feliciano slipped it in conversations here and there. Lovino nodded and then elaborated more on what Antonio 'vaguely' knew. Lovino usually wasn't this open so what happened now?

"Doctors said Feliciano won't have longer than a year left."

Antonio felt devastated. He did not know them for very long and yet he knew Feliciano was one of the better sort of people out there. He could only imagine how painful it must be for Lovino—his own brother!

"Is God trying to take a piss at me?" Lovino said angrily. "For not believing? For fucking giving up? For calling Him a bastard? If He feels bad, then maybe He should stop fucking killing everyone I love! My own family, Antonio! What the fuck is wrong with Him?"

Antonio listened. Lovino started ugly sobbing, understandably so. Antonio nodded.

"Feliciano's a good kid. He's always doing his fucking best. He never whored around, he's always nice. He cooked for old ladies. He prays and reads the Bible every fucking day. Why do you Hate your own, God? Is it because he's dating some guy? Well, I don't like the blonde son of a bitch either but I won't kill them. What the fuck is your problem? Aren't you the good one?"

Antonio pat his back. And then, Lovino said, "Why can't He just kill me instead? Let Feliciano go. Let him be happy."

"That won't change anything."

"Yeah that fucking won't but at least I won't be sad."

"Well, I would."

Lovino looked at Antonio like he was crazy.

"But you'll fucking bounce in what? A week? Two weeks? I know your type. You idiots never fucking stay in one place, always running around, bumming around without doing anything proper. Piss off, Antonio. You'll find another one in China or some shit."

"No, Lovino. I care about you. I don't want you to die. Feli's not dead yet. What would he say?"

"He'd tell me to pray."

"Praying isn't dying, sí?" Antonio said. The sun was setting and the birds were chirping. Antonio picked up a plump tomato from the ground, wiped it with his shirt and gave it to Lovino. "Eating this beautiful tomato won't cure you or Feli of your pain but it sure tastes really nice."

Lovino laughed at that childish response. He ate the tomato and smiled. It was quite delicious. Antonio thought he looked like an angel when he smiled, especially now. They looked at each other with an unspoken emotion, something at the tip of their tongue. Antonio knew it a bit better than Lovino but it was still scary because it meant giving up his freedom to stay here.

Forever.

Of course, he can talk about travelling with Lovino but he knew lazy bastard wouldn't want to do anything. He could try to get Lovino out of the house. He could lose his dignity and leave and reclaim that freedom. He could... Lovino laughed again and that smile was gorgeous.

PLEASE talk more about DurgeWyll and Hozier, PLEASE... I am rotating the songs you posted and the vision is so good

thank you for asking me :) (the doors close sealing you in the crypt)

i joke. ok first of all i need to cite ten @bladesmitten as a resident durgewyll expert and direct you to his blog... she's written some incredible fic & analysis of the durgewyll romance and made a lot of gorgeous wyll edits and art in general, can't rec his blog enough.

i have sadly never played through the durgewyll romance & only watched it so there are undoubtedly story details i am unaware of. alas i have only played the tav version of his romance so far

some spoilers for durge beneath the cut. i tried to be vague but a warning there. also i didnt stick my oar into unreal unearth or any of the adjacent eps for that album .. sorry

all that being said here are my 2 cents

i think the main draw for picking hozier songs for durgewyll is that incredibly sexy dynamic they have of being each other's foil as well as each other's love interest. both wyll and durge are bound to an inescapable doom within the story: to pay with their body and soul for the fate of baldur's gate. durge must destroy it to please their father, wyll must save it. (wyll's saved it already, at the cost of his soul, and durge has to sacrifice their soul to destroy it as (redacted), but i wont go further on that tangent lol. its fascinating though.)

i think a core concept of wyll to focus on here as well is his faith. in his act 2 dance scene, in response to one of the dialogue options, wyll replies that he 'still keeps faith in the old tales of true love'- this is crucial. wyll is the man to whom the gods gave a cold shoulder. he has no love or faith for them. but he keeps faith in the old tales- he keeps faith, specifically, in durge.. 'his greatest adventure'.. and if durge chooses to resist their father's authority, they spurn a god for wyll's sake. there's an incredible amount of mutual devotion there.

there is also the monster hunter/monster dynamic. i haven't delved into it much here bc i am more interested in how eerily wyll and durge parallel each other as twin mirrors and exiles from the gate, the light and dark sides, sharing almost a common doom, trapped in the long shadows of their fathers.... man. but the monster dynamic should absolutely be examined and explored, it's fascinating. i think it's another compelling aspect of wyll's character. he's a man with a lot of resonant contradictions. a monster hunter who refuses to hunt the monster of baldur's gate and instead severs them from the one who made them .... a monster hunter who holds out his hand to the monster he is supposed to kill... wyll's love of the mysterious and strange and his kindness, i think, predispose him to see durge as an ally and a friend. not from naivete, but from an open heart

my hozier picks for durgewyll overall:

it will come back - i love the way the view shifts in this. one of my top durgewyll picks for the way it evokes a lot of the horror & tragedy that wyll looks into and doesnt flinch away from & the hunger durge has toward wyll extending his own lonely & friendly hand

shrike - i see this as primarily from durge's view. picked for the devotion & regret

NFWMB - applies beautifully to both of them. theeeee durgewyll song to me from andy's works... consider the lyrics from both person's perspective to feel the world open beneath your feet lol

as it was - ditto, i think it encompasses both perspectives. also one of my favorite songs he wrote so im biased lmao. i think this is another very resonant choice for the durgewyll dynamic

like real people do - feels an overly obvious pick but it could work especially well for a resist durge

no plan - could be an intriguing choice. i can't quite swing it but some of the lines in this for durgewyll... i like them...

you could definitely make a case for from eden for another from durge's view. gives me a feeling of a durge who's not resisting but idk

When Everything Has Lost PART I

@aschlindartroom here's another one from the lovely prompts! Even though it's not really going between frenemies or anything like that, becaues the character I could imagine the line is just straight out good friends with the other. But still. Fair warning: this one got veeery long lmao. Also huge thanks to my love @bloodlessheirbyjacques for beta reading for me! ❤️ Previous snippet to this ask | Prompts from this list

YOU BROUGHT ME ALONG BECAUSE I CAN DO THINGS YOU CAN'T HANDLE. SO JUST LET ME DO MY PART THEN, YEAH? | ADRAN COHREN | THADDEUS HOLTZ | EERIE UNDERWATER MISSION | WC: 2,475

Adran’s Deep Sight suddenly shut off, leaving him with nothing, but his own eyes to navigate in the Everocean’s endless depths.

“Thad, the… “

“Yes, I know. No Sight, no Vision. Even Zynx doesn’t answer, something might be blocking her signals.” Thaddeus needed to be close, because Adran could slightly feel the swaying of the water through his suit. “I don’t like the look of this, Captain.”

Adran couldn’t help but agree with his comrade’s crackling voice through the microphone. Somehow, even the sounds got confused, making the other’s voice feel distant and machine-like. They’ve met nymars that could perplex their devices for a little while, but the one they’ve escaped from wasn’t that kind. Which meant the only thing that could mess with them was their objective – that lonely, lightless cave that’s circular, yawning entrance reminded Adran of a black hole that Dane showed him in a picture a long time ago.

“Me neither, but that’s why we’re here. It turned into a Blind Mission then, that’s all. If we stick together we should be fine, as always,” he said, while his hand found his pendant under his suit. He needed to trust the Almighty’s guidance on this mission. They were no more than any man this time.

Buzzing and whirring made Adran grimace; he could best interpret the noise as a scoff, before a big hand grabbed his forearm. The faint light of their swimming suits shone bright enough to reveal Thaddeus’ slowly wrinkling face.

Their closeness made the sounds even worse for both of them.

That meant one thing.

“Communication off.” The words rolled off of Adran’s tongue heavily. All the connection broke in a blink of an eye, making place for that sightless, deafening silence the soldiers were trained for in the practice chamber. Sunken in a weighting liquid, trapped in a too open space. Feeling, hearing and seeing nothing, but their own projection of things they’ve expected to find.

There was no practice chamber, however. The threat was real around them somewhere, which if they wouldn’t want to bring upon themselves, they couldn’t use any more light then the suits’.

Thaddeus slowly blinked, signaling his agreement on Adran’s decision, then looked at the direction in the dark where they’ve seen the cave’s entrance the last time. It was unmistakable; a restless, unsettling pull emitted from it which might have felt insignificant if they would just swim by it.

But not this close, not this time.

Adran knew Thaddeus felt it too, he needed to. There was nothing like that feeling. And that was why he needed to know what’s inside that cave. Everything he’d done so far, those terrible things he was suspected with – all of it led to this place.

After setting a rope on his and his comrade’s belt, they began to swim towards the objective.

Without the sight of any rock, seaplant or sea life, Adran’s focus never wandered, so he could notice the difference when they finally were inside. The sensation of the pull became stronger, while the darkness somehow turned even darker. He experienced a completely blind state before, but not this thick, oily blackness that not only surrounded them; it swallowed them whole.

Guide me. He saw the cave outside, it was deep, but straight. There was no other sign, only that and only there. He needed to go forward, no matter what.

As much as the strange feeling felt as a pulling, Adran never met water this heavy, this… resistant. It almost seemed as if they tried to swim against a current.

Forward.

His helmet’s weak inner glow let him see his reflection on the translucent part of his gear. The face he saw had deep wrinkles on the forehead, lips forcefully pressed together, eyes desperately trying to find something to look at. He couldn’t see the ears, but he could feel and hear the pumping of the blood in his eardrums. That look on the reflected face and the sound of his own throbbing blood flow reminded Adran of someone who was afraid.

He almost stopped from the realization. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt fright in the water. No, of course not. This was his job, his domain. He knew the Everocean as someone knew his own home. He's been on Blind Missions a million times now, and however unusual this sensation felt, there was nothing he couldn’t handle. He needed to remember his training.

If you can’t see, you listen.

And so he listened. The murmurs of his and Thaddeus’ gear almost sounded calming despite their distant echoing. Echoing. There was no such thing like that underwater.

Shiver ran through Adran’s spine when the temperature dropped. There was no transition, one second to another, he just found himself inside an ice cold darkness with no room for the heating layer of his suit. A thousand ants scuttled around on his skin, their hurried steps hurting more and more as the cold bit into every inch of his body. Then, it was as if something had brushed past his arm.

Adran tried to turn on his Frost-Vision by squeezing his eyes, while his hand automatically pushed the water farther from himself.

He did not get back his sight, nor he encountered anything in the water. Nothing attacked him.

But he couldn’t be sure.

Adran panted in his helmet, blood loudly drumming in his ear, while the cold tried to trick his mind again. Or something was brushing past his body every second.

He needed to remember his training. He's done similar things hundreds of times now. He couldn’t fail now.

Adran pulled on his rope twice, not slowing, nor stopping to let his helmet clear from his breath. The rope almost immediately moved twice again with a little force to pull him backwards.

Thaddeus was still here and okay.

The captain closed his eyes, as he always did in the chamber too. He needed to feel. He felt the brushing on every part of his body, an attempt to scare him, make him change direction. He felt it. It wanted to… guide him.

All the constant crawling on his skin wanted him to let his resistance go. This thought made Adran very aware of the pendant pushing into his chest. He squeezed his eyes even more together, holding onto the holy symbol, and then, he let everything go.

Guide me.

The sensation embedded into the strange pulling. They made Adran feel dizzy, his stomach hurled back into the pit of his core and twisted so tight, he could sense bile rising up in his throat. It lasted for seconds or minutes, he couldn’t tell. Ghostly pulling sensation swayed him left, then right, to every direction it wanted to. His throat began to dry out from the freezing cold, he was gagging, choking as if every air would have left the suit.

Then, the coolness started to melt away with a faint, dim light that hit his closed eyes.

He did not open them, so long as he finally felt the pull release his bones, scamper out from under his skin and let him reach the surface.

Adran emerged from the water so quickly, he almost fully leaped out from it. His eyes shot open as his helmet pulled back into his suit, and he hurriedly gulped down air like he’s tasting it for the first time in his life. He did not look around so long he could hear the throbbing in his ears and feel the bits on his skin.

A short time later the rope loosened on his belt and Thaddeus arose from the water beside him.

He reacted the same way, jumping out as if something was chasing him. So he felt it too.

Adran couldn’t deny the relief of not being the only one, while he scrambled towards his comrade, grabbed him by the neck of the suit and with a powerful yank, he helped him get out of the water before he followed him.The movement came to him instinctively, not caring what they crawled up onto.

Both of them breathed heavily, laying on the ground, trying to collect themselves.

Thaddeus looked up at Adran, leaning on his hand beside him.

“This is no simple Blind Mission, Cap. That path was worse than those grosslings’ inside. Are you sure you want to proceed?” His face seemed to be made from shadows under the strange, blue-orange light that lit the space. Adran gave this a little thought, but he already knew his answer. He nodded eventually. “Fine. Don’t waste any more time then.”

Thaddeus was clearly deeply concerned, which Adran understood completely. He had a lot to lose if something turned out to be dangerous. He, unfortunately, was also the only one who the Captain could fully trust to make this mission through with him. Adran debated a lot to include him, but he also knew if Thaddeus wouldn’t be here, then he could never find out the truth about all the confusing things recently – and about himself as well.

They both gave themselves an extra moment, before they got up and took a good look at where they were exactly.

The place seemed to be a round cavern, water pooling inside where they came in. The water’s crystal blue texture let Adran see the glowing of some kind of organism close to the surface, which apparently also brightened the whole place. It stuck to the rock formations… or it was part of them. There was no way to tell.

It shone in a faint blue-orange colour and unfolded a tunnel before the soldier’s eyes, as Adran realized little patches of the organism were trapped and attached to the walls in glass bulbs.

The walls also had a very unusual appearance. Adran thought what surrounded them was a stone he hadn't seen yet. But he soon realized, he saw no stone; not even close to any kind of rock.

What he faced was metal.

“What the hell is this place?” Thaddeus’ rumbling, deep voice echoed through the tunnel, while he frowned at the other side of the place, keeping a fair distance from it.

“I don’t know, but it’s sure far from natural.”

The two exchanged glances. Adran reached for his laser blade on his back, at the same time Thaddues grabbed a grip from his belt and let the massive Blastergun build up piece by piece, then fall into both of his hands.

Whatever layed far inside this place, better to be prepared.

The captain signaled with his free hand, what his comrade acknowledged with a nod before he began to creep forward. Adran mirrored him sticking close to his side of the wall, while he also brought up his arm to glance at the popped up holo screen. All the emergency bombs were intact on his suit, and the oxygen level in his tank barely dropped down. Which meant whatever he experienced in the water wasn’t caused by lack of air.

A familiar, sickening sensation pulled on his bones.

Adran jerked towards Thaddeus and he could see the big man tensing up everywhere. Something was wrong.

As they prowled inside carefully, this feeling only deepened. The cave – or more like a hallway appeared to be endless and empty. Yet, the pulling made it feel…full. Full of… something.

Little rocks rubbed against their feet, quietly crackling underneath. Adran stepped on a small pile of them one time, causing a slightly louder noise, when movement coughed his eye on his right.

Hand gripping his blade, he glared at the metal wall beside him. It beared the colour of bronze and gold, but the blueness of the glowing organism hasn't shown on it. In fact, when Adran inched closer, it seemed as if the orange part of the brightness was coming from the wall. But, what dried his throat out was the surface of the metal… which was waving.

Like water.

Adran felt sick. His mind tickled as if a finger just tenderly would have caressed it. The longer he looked at the wall, the stronger the pulling in his bones grew. There was something deeply unnerving staring at it. The colour, the material, the structure. The hue. Sinister, black hues gathered around where the light hit the metal.

Wrong. This place felt nothing, but utterly wrong.

“Captain.” Adran spun on his heels, striking down on the one who called after him. Thaddeus immediately leaned back and grunted while he caught the captain’s hand in mid-air, iron grip closing over the arm. There were mere inches between his face and the buzzing blade. “What are you doing?”

If he hadn’t been a much bigger and equally trained soldier, Thaddeus would be only half a man already. The hardening concern on his features, the shock and warning in his voice snapped Adran out of his state. Confused, he stopped resisting and let his comrade forcefully bring his hand down from before his face.

“It’s just… I don’t know. I got surprised by you. I was inspecting that wall and…”

For the Almighty’s holiest name, why did he do that? Was it instinct or a reflex because he called for him too suddenly? He couldn’t remember, nor could he feel anything else beside the shiver running back and forth on his spine and the wild rhythm of his heartbeat. Or that profound unease in his mind.

Whatever was the reason behind this, it just didn’t make sense. And it was dangerous.

Thaddeus’ frown deepened, yet he let him go.

“Right. Look, it’s okay, I believe you, but you’re clearly not well. I should probably carry the blade for you,” before you start a rampage again. The words hung in the air like lethally sharp spikes over one’s head.

“Those weren’t me. It’s just this place… something is not right here. If we stumble upon anything dangerous with me being unarmed…”

“Then I’ll pass the blade back to you, or deal with it myself. It’s not like you couldn’t fight without a weapon, either way, you brought me along because I can do things you can’t handle alone. So just let me do my part then, yeah?” Thaddeus said, then extended his free hand.

For all the resistance in his body, Adran knew his comrade was right. He knew how his recent doings looked and even though Thaddeus believed him not killing innocents for no reason, caution was the best he could offer. Reason. It was hard to grasp for Adran what that word meant at the moment.

“Here.”

He handed his weapon to Thaddeus anyway, who kept it safe on his back in the same way Adran would do it. Then, the big man put a massive hand on his shoulder, squeezed it reassuringly and nodded to their left with his head.

“I’ve found something over there.”

World building hcs no one cares about? Sign me tf up

Anemo users are more sensitive to temperature , they get hot/cold easily.

Be prepared for the random zaps when you touch an electro user lmao imagine standing next to an electro user and all your hair is sticking to them cause those mfs have too much static.

Geo users don't get scarred easily due to their tough skin, but when they do its always due to some real harsh thing and the scar is really prominent and won't ever fade no matter what treatment or ointment used a geo user after a near death experience gaining a scar and it won't fade no matter what they do, and every time they look at it they are reminded of that event and oh god they just can't forget, the panic, the fear it all just keeps coming back.

hydro users can suffer from dehydration easily, brighter side is they can just produce water so they probably won't die from dehydration but the excuses they have to make during events/meetings on why they need a water break so often can get annoying. Childe just chugging gallons of water before his Fatui meetings lmfao

Anemo users are just generally sensitive to their surrounding and can hear sounds from a greater frequently range. Goodluck trying to sneak up on them. They can also use this to their advantage which in turn makes them harder to detect. I stand by my point with anemo sneak = 100%

Cryo users can behave like reptiles™ at some times, they like to soak up the heat of the sun given the chance. While they have a hard core resistance to the cold, in cooler temperature their response time can be slower and they may become a bit lethargic.

Pyro users tend to be more on the energetic side, they spring into action quickly, like their counterparts they too have a resistance to hotter temperature but being in intense heat for a prolonged periods of time can lead to them overheating, which in extreme cases can be lethal.

Might add more

I would honestly love to have an anemo vision

Thoughts You Definitely All Asked For on ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Finale!!

These are in chronological order for the show.

One of my biggest fears about them reintroducing Boba Fett was that by removing some of his mystery, they would make him less cool. Thank god that has not been the case. He’s still an aloof and nasty piece of work but with dimensions added.

We all know the Empire is most often a metaphor for America right? At least when it’s not being Nazi Germany? The Imperial pilot talking about destroying an entire planet (of peaceful weaponless civilians no less) to stop terrorism hits a little too close to home of the nuclear bombs the US has dropped and the endless destruction of the Middle East in the “war against terror.” And of course we frame all our wars in similar language like “our troops died to keep our country safe,” which hasn’t really been true since WWII.

I do think it’s worth noting that this is the first time SW has had someone acknowledge the human losses of the Death Star blasts. Usually it’s framed as a loss in construction time, strategical advantage, and power. The Empire proved time and time again that the lives of its soldiers were utterly expendable, which always made me question why people remained loyal outside of fear. Through this pilot’s phrasing, you can see the propaganda Imperial superiors used to twist the truth to their followers, always blaming those deaths on Rebel aggression instead of prideful Imperial neglect (I.e. not abandoning ship when there was still time) or even direct Imperial aggression like Operation Cinder where they fired on thousands of their own (discussed in S2E7.)

You can’t tell me Din wasn’t into it when Cara shot that asshole pilot. That cold faced revenge shot? 100% Mandalorian style, and also very very hot.

I appreciate that it was a pretty equal match between Boba and Koska Reeves. So much of Boba’s advantage comes from his suit, but since she also has one, it’s a battle of wits on how to use it, and they even out. This both maintains his legendary badassery and also that of highly trained Mandalorian warriors, and hopefully avoids asshole chauvinist SW fans on the internet complaining abujt “pandering to feminism” (fuck off @ all of them, especially since Mercedes Vernado who plays Reeves is a WWE champ and could kick all of your asses.)

Din point blank asked how many Death Troopers there are and Dr. Pershing never answered, and that annoys me.

Why is no one suspicious why Dr. Pershing is being so helpful and revealing so much information? He totally did not have to tell them about the Dark Troopers or any of the specifics of locations on the ship. He’s still with the empire post-fall, implying he’s a loyalist, so... wtf on his part (since no tricks come of it), and “be smarter” on the part of everyone else. Unless he’s been captive as a clone engineer all this time. But couldn’t he have made his escape back in Season 1 when Din killed everyone at that lab to get the kid back?

Bo Katan really could’ve just told them how the retrieval of the dark saber needs to work in the flight before the mission instead of being vague about “he belongs to me.”

Boba Fett’s usage of “Princess” and “don’t worry about me” are a good throwback to Han Solo and the culture they both grew up in. You can never quite tell if it’s based in misogyny or resentment for upper classes, but both of them seem to use it as a shield for begrudging respect they hold for a woman they think is brave but following a fool’s errand (the Rebellion and retaking Mandalore).

The Comms Officer (Katy O’Brian) assisting Moff Gideon will forever and always look like Ilana Glazer to me, and then I get swept up imagining what would happen if the Broad City cast accidentally got transported to Star Wars.

The launch tube sequence has some amazing cinematography.

The second I saw Boba was cut off from the pack, I really thought they were going to kill him again and make his return bittersweet. Glad they didn’t.

God this team of Bo Katan, Koska Reeves, Fennec Shand, and Cara Dune is SO BADASS. I’m just obsessed with all these characters and their various motivations to get shit done. I honestly didn’t even think about the fact it’s all women until my re-watch, showing that the writers made it feel natural, the way women deserve to have their representation done. You can bet I am SO EXCITED for my future daughter and the wealth of possibilities she’s going to have of characters to play pretend as, action figures she can relate to, Halloween costumes to wear, etc. It’s so validating that we’ve gone from only Princess Leia as a female main character to all these women + Rey, Jyn Erso, Ahsoka, etc. etc.

Can’t wait for the trap remix of the Dark Trooper activation noises. (And the transition from that to the minimalist flute theme is perfect.)

The spy movie version of the main theme music is sick.

The Dark Trooper droid faces have a lot of similarity to Darth Vader’s mask. That callback is especially apparent when the one is literally lit from the inside with fire. He was already a martyr/legend to the Imperial remnants, Kylo Ren didn’t start the trend of ignoring his redemption.

Cara’s “excuse me” right before shooting up Stormtroopers is hilarious. Literally “can’t talk rn, doing hot girl shit and murdering space Nazis.”

Finally an Imperial ship got some frickin security cameras. Truly- the amount of times people just wander down hallways they’re not supposed to be in with no one being able to find them throughout the course of Star Wars is ridiculous when you think about the degree of surveillance our real life society carries out. I also love that this means The Mandalorian characters have also seen The Mandalorian.

The storytelling does such a service to Pedro Pascal and his already heroic efforts to portray emotion through a helmet. For example: Din easily could’ve killed the one stormtrooper outside Grogu’s cell much more efficiently, but instead, to show his absolute rage, they wrote in Din choking him out with a spear.

Moff Gideon would have been the BIGGEST pain in the ass in philosophy class. “Assume I know everything” my ass. I want to hear about his backstory (he would’ve been “coming of age” at the time of the Clone Wars) mostly just to hear about him getting bullied at school.

Smart move honestly, to try to tempt Din with the Mandalorian throne, given the Mandalorian power struggles of the past. Proud of our boy for keeping his priorities straight.

So has the blood from Grogu been transferred out of the ship and back to the remnant empire already, or do they have to find a new “donor” to help with building Snoke and Palpatine’s clones? Will they continue to go after him with Luke?

Lmao Din being so annoyed by Bo Katan being stringent about the tradition of winning the Dark Saber through combat is HILARIOUS, coming from a man who up until like a day ago hadn’t shown his face to a living being in decades.

The dark troopers can punch in blast doors but NOT Din’s helmet?? That’s a wild testament to beskar. Somehow that’s the comparison that sticks out to me, more even than its resistance to lightsabers.

This show works because of the cynicism of so many characters adding contrast to the moments of heart. Cara Dune is not a “fan” the way Rey was (for the record I love Rey, don’t come at her, it’s just different). Cara doesn’t see an X-Wing and go OMG THE REBELLION I LOVE THEM. She’s been through too much to believe in the magic saviourism of the “good guys,” and is instead thinking strategically when she, the one Rebel present, brushes off the usefulness of “one X-Wing.” The only positive things she seems to feel in battle situations are moments of relief and brief satisfaction in hurting the empire, with a dark knowledge that it will never make up for the hurt they did to her.

How do you keep a cloak hood on while fighting? Both from a technical standpoint (my hats fall off without me even having to move- is he expending force energy just to keep it on and look cool lol?) and also because idk, maybe it’s just me, but peripheral vision is helpful when surrounded by killer robots on a thin bridge above oblivion. I know his first lesson was to “see” through the force, but every resource helps, right?

Now that she has the ship, I wonder if Bo Katan can reprogram any salvageable Dark Troopers to help with retaking Mandalore?

There is nothing like seeing Luke’s fighting style, with its efficient choppiness and twinge of darkness. I always wonder how much is natural and how much is influenced by his first fights with Vader (that Skywalker diva flair). I love how they’ve advanced his technique but also kept him extremely “grey” here- like to straight up COMBUST a Dark Trooper takes some violent energy lol.

How tf is Moff Gideon alive after threatening Grogu’s life twice directly? That’s a wild testament to Din’s regard for Cara.

I love how seeing Luke slice through a bunch of murder droids like butter probably was a huge point in his favor for Din actually letting Grogu go with him. Like he will only send his child to boarding preschool if he knows the teacher will be a certified killing machine.

Oh my god they finally brought in some OG Star Wars theme music for Luke to take his hood off to 😭 It felt weird seeing him fight to different music, so the emotional payoff is huge when his themes come back for the face reveal.

Whoever added the digital young Mark Hamill face NAILED those classic shining Luke eyes and the earnest eyebrow lift.

Whoever shines the glass of Baby Yoda’s lil puppet eyeballs each day deserves a raise. The light caught in those babies is devastating.

Din is shaking as he takes off his helmet. This is the most enormous show of love he could give him, and possibly the last he’ll be able to for a long time. He only just got Grogu back and is desperate for a moment of real connection before letting him go once again.

This is the first time anyone has touched Din’s face since... likely his parents as a child.

Whoever wrote this scene clearly actually has kids. Anyone who’s ever had to leave a young child even just to go out for a bit or to drop them off somewhere knows that heartbreak of seeing them look in your eyes and hold on to your leg, trying to keep you with them. Especially when they can sense your mutual separation anxiety. The one thing that starts to make them feel better is something fun like a new toy or friend who can be their guide in the new environment, and R2’s friendly introduction is exactly that (since digital Luke isn’t being particularly emotive or child friendly... I hope that’s just because he’s reaching into Grogu’s mind while also keeping an eye on the multiple people with guns trained on him, not because he’s going to be totally unfeeling raising this kid.)

I love that Grogu and R2 are immediately buddies in contrast to Episode 5 when R2 was like “fuck this guy” @ Yoda stealing food and hitting him with a walking stick lol. I would imagine Luke must be reminded of that first introduction too and entertained by this display of playfulness in a *positive* light between R2 and mini-Yoda.

I need to know if Luke and Ahsoka have met- it is KILLING ME.

Does this mean Grogu will get killed by Kylo Ren when he fucks up Luke’s academy??? I will reincarnate Ben just to kill him again if that’s the case.

How does Luke not even fully SMILE at Grogu?? An adorable little baby version of his beloved master Yoda, and you’re telling me he doesn’t have the same heart stopping gasp we all did when we first saw him?? Maybe he did when they first connected through the force. He has a bit of bemusement on his face, and also wonder in his eyes, but I want a grin of recognition and welcome, dammit.

I really wish Luke had somehow acknowledged Cara Dune. Everyone else seems to see the tear drop Rebel sign and know it means Alderaan. He could’ve been like yo I have a badass warrior sister from your planet that you should meet. Or just “thank you for your service.” (I know this actually wouldn’t have been cinematically good but my heart wants it.)

Luke didn’t tell Din his name?? Or ask for any details about the kid and his care?? I could literally never let my kid go with someone, regardless of how worthy, and not be like, “Excuse me sir who are you and where tf are you taking my tiny beloved green goblin in case I need to find him? Here is my contact info. He likes to eat frogs and eggs, and he can have macarons as a treat. He’s 50 years old and his favorite toy is still a ball. Bedtime is 8pm and he’s allergic to dairy.”

Another reason I wish Luke had identified himself would be to see the mishmash of reactions that would ensue. Cara would be like DAMN IT’S THAT GUY WHO BLEW UP THE DEATH STAR AND KILLED THE EMPEROR, ACT COOL (and she would indeed act cool). Fennec would be like ugh it’s that guy who helped kill my best paying client Jabba the Hutt and then fucked over my boss Boba, I helped save the kid for THIS? And I would LOVE to know how Bo Katan feels about him, assuming she’s heard of him, and especially if she knows he’s Anakin Skywalker’s son. That confusion is probably the reason WHY the writers didn’t have him reveal himself- they didn’t want to break the emotion of the scene.

Let‘s all be real I’m just being needy about wanting things from Luke because of what he meant to me as a kid and my resulting innate need to have more canon of him, whatever it is, whenever I can get it. Especially in this form that’s so similar to ROTJ, a movie I watched on endless repeat. Even getting this was incredible though. Who else could we trust this lil heart-stealing green bean with so fully? Yet who would be so arrogant as to try to train a baby yodling (see: Ahsoka’s wise refusal)?

R2 is reckless as hell lmao. Not that we don’t already know that, but for him to just head on in, effectively abandoning Luke’s ship (how can they know if there are more troopers or not who might blow it up?) and also putting himself in the path of the ridiculously deadly Dark Troopers is NUTS. I’m usually on his side but he absolutely deserves a scolding by C3PO for this one.

I wonder if Grogu has any memories of R2 or vice versa since they did occupy the Jedi Temple at the same time. Can Grogu understand droids? They could swap stories about mutual acquaintances.

Does Din pretty much have to go with Bo Katan now since a) he’s shown his face and may not be able to go back to the Watch, and b) because he has the darksaber and has to figure out how to get it back to her without dying?

How in the hell did Bib Fortuna (whose chins age was not kind to) go from being butler to being boss? Were all the henchmen just like, “Fuck yeah, no Hutt parents no rules, let’s do what we want!!” And then they’ve spent the last ten years living off of whatever money they could salvage from Jabba’s non-banked wealth? Why has no one challenged them for that prime real estate and loot? I would love to hear that story.

Fennec Shand says “respect sex workers” so you better fuckin’ do it.

Idk dude Bib Fortuna really was a good butler, and he seemed pretty willing to comply with whoever’s in power. Did he screw Boba over in his attempt to return from the dead and earn that killing shot somehow? Or was this to make sure there was no one left who would have a claim to loyalty? Or maybe Boba just really wanted to sit in that chair.

Does “The Book of Boba Fett” mean we’re not on Din Djarin’s story anymore? Or is it a new show? I would much prefer the latter. I want to see Din help retake Mandalore or at least get a hug.

Some TF lore I read through the lines.

Because I don't always read through the lines, but when I do, it's about science.

So I like thinking about the small bits and bobs of TF lore that are put out there but not quite explored. Specifically the scientific ones, I love them. And I have realized one just now.

For example, there is no mention, that is, to my knowledge, of Cybertron being made out of one single, specific metal. But we have hints that different types of metal are specific to one region or at least encountered there in bigger than usual amounts. Which means different mecha will have different elemental compositions in their bodies. Another thing that isn't mentioned at all probably, yet I find it incredibly cool is that the planet is literally buzzing with life and that the planet's core might feel like it's covered in ants. Why is that? Because, for instance, take Earth. Due to high electrical, human, etc. activity, Earth is vibrating. It always did, but now more than ever. Cybertron is a huge, electrical, robotic planet with inhabitants that are constantly engaged in different activities. The planet literally vibrates, so, when the war started, the vibrations were really intense. When the war moved offworld, I assume the living part of the planet would have felt like a parent relieved of their parental duties for the while their kid is on a school trip so they probably went to sleep. Hence the idea that Primus, the Primes themselves and such other powerful entities could contact Cybertronians through guiding visions, yet did it so rarely. They were asleep, enjoying the silence and would occasionally check in with the inhabitants to make sure they aren't bullying each other too hard. Which didn't work but that's another story, for another time because my rambling is getting too long. Putting this aside, we're back on the different metals thing.

Rodion is a play on the metal named Rhodium, which is magnetic. Most likely all natives from Rodion can be picked up with giant magnets. But since there are metals that are not magnetic and are even repelled by magnets (silver) you can stick some magnets on some mecha while others might get flung out of the orbit by really powerful ones. We do know that Cybertron, while not looking like it has an actual atmosphere, it does have a magnetic field strong enough to capture and keep around two moons.

Mecha with silver frames might get sick or paranoid if they live around the planet's poles. Got a bit of silver in your head? Too bad, on the poles you'll have GPS troubles. Is your brain full of silver components? The poles are you malfunction areas, your Kryptonite. Is your whole head out of silver? Boy, what a headache you're in for. And this might mean that, while Cybertronians seem to adapt so well to their environment, some can never see the magnetic poles of planets without different problems being triggered by it.

On another topic imagine wanting to run away and hide from the police and your safest bet is at the poles. Except you have to have several surgeries and replace the repelled components.

Now, different metals also mean different melting points, colours, acid resistance and proprieties. We know, for example that Rodimus can swim through a small sun and be ok. I may or may not recall well when I say he's lived in the Dead End near Rodion, but since rhodium has a melting point of 1964°C, that might mean he's not originally from Rodion and, therefore, his body is made out of a yet-unknown-to-humans metal. Or, maybe, Cybertronian bodies produce a layer of heat protecting alloy, who knows. For miners, they were probably made out of higher density metals so they could survive mine collapsings over them. Cargo ships are made out of highly-tensile steel. The list of ideas goes on.

And since allergies can be to anything, I can imagine some mecha being allergic to one metal or a substance others produce. So imagine being literally allergic to an entire city's grounds or allergic to your crush.

Another bit of lore is that since they need to scan vehicles in order to get the hand of their soon-to-be-alt-mode and mimic their components, Cybertronian bodies can grow ceramic, leather, plastic, glass and many other things. Take keratin for example. Mesothulas became Tarantulas and, well, he became hairy. Or as close to a keratin wearing life form as possible. Cybertronians are ultra-adapted chameleons, more so than just imitating their surroundings via transformation. They are doing a bit of Kafka's Metamorphosis here.

There are so many more things I want to write, but it's getting too long and it might bore people lmao.

Survey #378

“come as you are, as you were, as i want you to be”

Have you ever dreamt in another language? No. How long will you try out something you don’t enjoy before giving up on it? It really depends, but in most cases, admittedly very quickly. What’s something you recently realized or discovered about yourself? *shrug* What’s the most interesting news you read or received recently? What about the most depressing? Not in a good way really, but it was certainly interesting to learn I have such severe sleep apnea. Like, I was certain I didn't. The most depressing would be uhhhh... I guess Jason's mother's death, but I don't know how "recent" you'd consider that by now. Would you let politics get in the way of a relationship? It depends. Some beliefs I absolutely would not tolerate (like anti-LGBT), others I would just agree to disagree with. What is one way in which you need to learn to control yourself? I need to get better at controlling my mouth when I'm extremely upset. Do you use a photo editor? I use Lightroom and Photoshop for photography. Is your dad overweight? No, I think he's actually underweight. Ever been honked at? Yes. What’s the name of the most recent baby a friend has had? Easton, I think? An old middle school friend had him. Have you ever taken medication to help you fall asleep faster? Yes, but they never work for me. How did your parents pick your name? I dunno. If you had to move to another country, where would you move? Canada. Do you have a balcony? No. Who is a singer that has given you chills? Man, I get chills easily with music. David Draiman from Disturbed, his cover of "Sound of Silence" is BREATHTAKING. That's number one. There are many others, they're just not coming to me at the moment. Do you have a drone? No. What was the spiciest thing you’ve ever eaten? Some wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. I got some crazy hot sauce. Have you ever discovered something gross in your food at McDonalds? No. What was the last thing you used sliced bread to make? A sandwich. How long did your shortest relationship last? Like a day lmao. Would you rather have a trampoline or swimming pool? A POOL!!!! I've talked before about how I want one so, SO very badly to exercise my legs without having to worry about sweat, and I can take a break the very moment I need to. Do you own a Snuggie? Yeah, somewhere. Do you listen to any unsigned bands/singers? Who? Yeah, quite a few on YouTube, but my favorite in Jonathan Young. He is SO damn talented. Who is your favorite video game character? Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill franchise. What kind of pictures do you post on Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat most frequently? Mostly of my pets lmao. Have you ever been on vacation with a significant other? No. Have you ever considered “unplugging”/taking a significant period of time away from technology? No. I know I'd never stick to it. Do you prefer to watch a documentary that is about a situation/event or a documentary that is more of a personal character study/biography? The latter. Meerkat Manor comes to mind with that, and everyone knows how much I adore that show. There was also one about rhesus macaques I fell in love with. Basically, I love animal docs, haha. Can you think of a recent time in which you might have been better off resisting, but you did something because you “just couldn’t help yourself”? Probably eating something. When you are getting to know someone, do you tend to worry that the other person will lose interest in you once they get to know the “real” you? Yyyyep. What is something that you would like to do, but really aren’t able to because of your location? (e.g., see art or get a certain job) Man, a lot of things. Photograph meerkats is a biggie. What sort of job do you think is best suited for your skills? Is this an in-demand position or something you’re unlikely to actually get? If I could actually handle the heat and was in good shape to traverse the outdoors, I think I'd be a great wildlife biologist. Even more though, if I could beat my social anxiety, I would ADORE being an animal educator with kids. Do you believe it is the responsibility of businesses, or prominent business leaders (think Bill Gates) to take the lead on social issues whether by using their influence or their money? Saying it's their "responsibility" sounds unfair and puts a lot of weight on their shoulders, but I do feel they should by their own volition and kindness use their position for good, such as through monetary assistance and other things. Have you ever gone to a job interview and realized that you didn’t want the job? Yep. Have you ever asked that someone sacrifice something (a habit, relationship, job, etc.) for you? A habit, yes. Looking back it was stupid as shit. What would you call your body type? Ew. Has anyone ever hacked your accounts before? Yes. Do you enjoy big holiday dinners? Considering I spend them with my sister's bigoted, homophobic, and racist in-laws, not especially. I always feel very uncomfortable and disliked among everyone for being the "black sheep" among 'em. Is your vision good? God no. Even with my glasses, it's very poor. I need a new prescription badly. Do both of your parents have jobs? Mom has something of the sort, like she cleans a local church for a small pay, but it's not really a "job." She's still recovering from cancer, getting her strength back up and such before she can handle a consistent job. Dad's had a job for as long as I've lived. What is something you’ve always wanted a boy to do for you? How heteronormative. But whatever. It's so fucking cheesy, but singing a cute song to me while slowdancing sounds so super adorable to me. What food are you craving right now? I am craving something sweet like you wouldn't believe. It's annoying. Have you ever been in a car accident? Yes. Do you have a lot of scars? Yes, but most are very negligible. I just scar extremely easily. Last person you saw other than your family? My primary doctor. Last movie you’ve seen in theaters? The The Lion King remake. Who was the last person you played a video game with? Ummm I think Girt. Last game you played at an arcade? Zero clue. What was your favorite nursery rhyme as a child? I THINK I particularly liked "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider?" None stand out strongly, though. What is your favorite cousin’s first name? I don’t have a favorite cousin. Would you prefer to travel around the world by yourself or with a friend? I think with a friend to prevent loneliness, but at the very same time, I see a great beauty in traveling on your own. Just taking new things in, seeing so many different cultures, beautiful scenery... I feel it'd be a great chance for exploration of insight. Remind yourself how small you are, that there's a much, much bigger picture than your own problems, that people are so unique but hopefully share common morals... I see a lot of poetry in it. Do you like the smell of coffee? It's one of my favorite smells. If you have a favorite photographer, can you describe their work? I can't possibly pick. I watch literally hundreds on deviantART, and many of them absolutely blow my mind. What’s one aspect of your life that did not turn out as you expected? My lack of a career. Outside of school, have you ever used a thesaurus? Well, online ones for writing. When you see a good-looking girl in skimpy clothing, what is your initial thought? I envy her confidence, like gotdamn girl. Have you ever been in a lighthouse? No. Are you on a laptop or desktop? A laptop. What color is your shower? White. Where do you order your pizza from? Domino's or Little Caesar's. What was the name of the last dog you pet? We've been calling the dog we're holding right now Zoe. Have you ever had anything stolen from you? Yes. Have you ever seen the White House? I don't think so, but it's possible I have when we've driven up to New York, but from a distance. How about Niagara Falls? No. What do you like in your salads and what dressing do you prefer? I just like regular iceberg lettuce with some bacon bits and ranch. Man, that sounds good right about now. Any posters of a band on your bedroom wall? Yeah, Metallica and Marilyn Manson. Do you think it’d be cool to have your body mummified after you die? No. I couldn't rock the mummy look even if I tried, haha. Can you tell the difference between a Scottish & an Irish accent? Not really, no. Can you read music? I used to be able to. Do you work the night shift? I don’t have a job, but if I did, I absolutely do not want to work the night shift anywhere. Have you ever slept over at your best friend’s house? Yes. Is your mother diabetic? Are you? She is, but I'm not. Would you like to learn how to make ceramic pottery? It'd be cool, sure. Ever sang someone to sleep? No. Who did you last kiss? My cat. Why did you last lie? I don't recall. Probably to just avoid confrontation with Mom. What do you put on your hamburgers? Cheese, ketchup, and mustard, generally. Who do you think cares the most about you? My mom. Have you ever sent a dirty picture? No. What’s at the center of your dining table? Honestly, we sit in there so rarely that I don't even know. I think we might have nothing, actually. Have you ever started a rumor? No. Do you like being outside? If it's cool, yes. What’s your favourite condiment? Maybe ketchup. Or honey mustard. Who sang/played the last song you listened to? Chris Motionless is the singer of Motionless In White. I don't know if that's his real last name, though. Do you like yoga? I used to. Now all the bending and shit would make me dizzy as hell with my "how are you still alive" level of low blood pressure. Do you always carry breath mints? No, but I do carry Tictacs with me, but they're for my dry mouth. It forces you to salivate, so it helps. What do you think your reaction would be upon entering the White House? I don't really know. I honestly don't even know how it looks inside. Thinking about it, I'd probably be more scared than anything, waiting for a bomb to drop or some shit lmao. Have you ever grown your own sea monkeys or dinosaurs? OH MY GOD I LOVED those!!! I definitely did! Have you ever thrown a game controller (or the game) and broke it? No, I've never been the type to do that. If I'm SERIOUSLY getting mad, all I do is tighten my grip. Did you ever own an Etch-a-Sketch? Yes. Do/did you ever have glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling? I believe so. What movie were you really worked up for that ended up disappointing you? My answer is Warcraft, but only because the fucking orcs' voices were so baritone that I couldn't understand them almost ever lmaooo. Like I had a mild idea of what was going on because of the game, but still. What part of a paper is hardest for you to write? The intro, or the conclusion. Both are difficult to me. Like I want to compose a gripping beginning as well as an end that doesn't just repeat everything I've already said and ends on a strong note. Does it bother you that almost everything is done on computers now? No. KFC Chicken: original or extra crispy? I don't like fried chicken. Think about your first kiss. Did you have any idea what you were doing? I mean, I guess? Like I'd seen kisses enough to know how to give someone a peck. It just came naturally. Did you get Happy Meals just for the toys as a kid? Not just for the toy, but it's the main thing I wanted, sure. Have you ever seen your parents cry? If so, how did it make you feel? Seeing my mom cry absolutely destroys me. I don't want her to hurt EVER. Especially if it's seriously unfair bullshit that has her upset, I also get very angry (not at her, of course) and protective. I've seen Dad tear up once, back when he was telling us about his mother's funeral, and I felt immense surprise more than anything. He does NOT cry. How do you feel about animal testing? It's fucking disgusting and barbaric. Find a different goddamn way. Do you add condiments to your ice cream, or just eat it plain? If I'm having vanilla, I'll usually add chocolate syrup. Have you ever witnessed a crime? Yes. What’s the coolest personalized license plate you’ve ever seen? I'm forever gonna get a kick out of this one that just said "omw," haha.

having watched TROS for the second (and final) time in the cinema, here’s my full spoiler abundant review, also with comments on the nonalogy as a whole.

the movie works a lot better aka is more enjoyable the second time. we know what’s happening and i could relax and enjoy even the dumb moments and allow myself to feel, to be washed into the music and just feel my good feelings towards the finale.

the plot is still dumb as rocks, with the new old villain, resurrected. who not only is back but is giving our heroes a chance to find him before all shit breaks loose. why is the emperor so fucking arrogant?? why did TROS/JJ keep arguably the worst plot from TLL namely the race against a certain but exact time to do something to save the day?

the rey as palpatine still makes no sense. why did the jedi (in particular obi wan) call to her when she has the first force vision back on takodana if rey’s a palp?? JJ truly pisses on his very own movie isn’t he? and the emperor himself, he wants rey dead, twice he tells this verbatim to KR and then comments the rey killing plot was foiled to commander pryde...but then he actually welcomes her with open arms? or did he foresee his new death by rey should she reach exogol still alive? why should this death stick? ugghghgh.

the movie moves at record pace, no time to grieve, no time to catch your breath. the falcon/poe does impossible feats. the trio is united only to trail rey, finn in particular acting like a puppy. the only scene with finn that had any weight and developed his character was the scene with jannah when they’re fixing the falcon. BUT even then...i thought it was fine for the Force to guide finn out of his servitude. but maybe let the other former stormtroopers have some fuxking free will. not the force guiding them. there were so many moments when finn could’ve inspired former fellow stormtroopers to put down their weapons, but no. the spy could’ve been a stormtrooper, not the ridiculous hux doing things out of spite...

the worst scene in the movie? rey going on a fucking stroll on pasaana to meet kylo ren’s ship...and before that, the knights of ren literally posturing on a rock. i laughed out loud in the cinema it was so utterly ridiculous.

it’s all fucking plains, the fucking audience could see rey advancing through ochi’s ship screens. but somehow chewbacca gets captured and there’s a second transporter. the whole scene plays just so we can set up rey’s sith lightning abilities..?? fucking hell.

c3po’s sacrifice works for me. it’s the first moment of the rewatch where i got truly emotional and shed actual tears. and it’s not really cheapened by his memory being restored, since Finn actually mentions r2 might have a backup which 3po dismisses in his usual fashion. so 3po actually believed he was going to be fully erased. and that’s what matters. i found the 3po humour almost on par with the OT, although sometimes poe’s wayyy too aggressive with him. (i mean, poe loves droids, or at least his droid bb8, but is awfully dismissive of both 3po and D-O, just to fill in the han role i guess? it’s overdone)

the fight on the destroyer/kimiji is ok, again rey with the aggressive stance and the reveal is....nothing. rey has NO fucking reaction. she like scrunches her nose a little. she was just told the JJ equivalent to luke finding out vader’s his dad and rey’s just like. oh okay. bummer.

she should’ve fucking jumped like luke did. and maybe be retrieved on the falcon somehow. she should’ve expressed some pain. but no. rey’s just as calm as before. maybe even calmer, now that she knows the whole truth.

the death star sequence. dumb as hell to imagine the dagger has coordinates to the fucking wreckage of DS2??!??! who made it and when??!?!??! but let’s not overthink this. you get force powered rey making the ride with the skimmer and finding herself attacked by dark!rey..and then kylo come by and apparently knows this? because he tells her that now she’s tainted and can’t go back to leia either??!

WHAT THE FUCKKKK does JJ not know how the fucking force works??? i mean was it a fucking inside joke when han says that’s not how the force works in TFA??? uughghghgh. i know TROS is trying its best to almost completely retcon TLJ, but the way the Force was described there, like a balance, decay from where new life spawns, THAT WAS A GOOD THING FFS!!!!

no, JJ thinks that jedi are all pure beings and sith are dark brooding monsters and if a jedi or equivalent has even the faintest connection to the dark side, they’re fucking done!!!!!! (when the FUCKING OT SAYS THE FUCKING OPPOSITE, even a shred of goodness can help you get back to the light)

and if that was SUPPOSED to be KR’s way of getting rey to join him on his fieldtrip to exogol...my god he’s fucking dumb as hell. rey’s resisted his offer every fucking time (altho during the force call on pasaana he tells her he will turn her and she says we’ll see. she didn’t say no lmao), why would she fucking say yeah sure now? just because she had a fucking vision of dark herself??!?!?

still, dark!rey is fucking hot and i will probably cosplay her sometimes soon.

then comes the kylo - rey fight on the death star wreckage, where she attacks him, she’s aggressive, and is bested. and he’s about to kill her (even though he told her he has other plans, LOL) and then leia calls. or her call to her son finally reaches him (no more voicemail) and he falters, drops the saber and is impaled by rey.......who also senses leia’s passing.

and we have ben again and the scene with han solo plays and it’s pretty fucking emotional. but i wish he had said father and not dad. dad feels unearned. father would’ve worked best, especially for such a serious, stoic char like ben, dad is far too playful. i would’ve wanted a moment more of ben mourning his mother too, but the movie’s gotta be done in 30 mins so we have no time for allowing emotional moments to sink in. note: finn & poe are in such a rush to get to leia they don’t even have time to wait a sec to be told properly that she’s fucking dead. fuck you movie.

the scenes with luke are good. of course, luke backtracks all of his development in TLJ (because fuck you that’s why) and apparently everyone knew she was a palpatine but they still trained her because fuck logic? this is just like the PT where they end up training anakin because they made a promise to a dead guy. lmao. and how convenient is that there’s another lightsaber, otherwise how would rey make an x at the end to (presumably) end palpatine?? hmmm. i said the jedi leia scene/flashback worked for me the first time i saw it, but in hindsight, the scene and motivation really takes a steaming dump on leia’s character, a mother afraid of her son and unwilling to help him. fuck you JJ. we never needed leia wielding a lightsaber. we only wanted leia using the force in some way that felt organic to her character. (sidestep: up until attack of the clones? when yoda first uses a lightsaber, i assumed he was enlightened and didn’t need actual weapons to wield the force. well, i hoped leia could be like that enlightened master yoda. but like all bad things in the SW universe, she ended up being as awful as puppet yoda with a toothpick lightsaber, cause how would we know she’s a jedi otherwise????)

so. because she refused kylo, and ended up alone on exogol and with the resistance trapped there, she’s actually considering palpatine’s offer??! and realises she has maybe another option when she senses ben’s there too??! then why the fuck didn’t they go together??!?! oh wait. i forgot she wanted to exile herself on ach-to LMAO.

and still. the whole palpatine plot train-wreck could’ve still worked had they actually used the pretty cool concept of Force Dyad for something good. i mean, KR tells this to rey on the destroyer. but apparently palp can’t do the math and is surprised when he takes a sip of their life essences??! like what the actual fuck, why isn’t palpatine aware of this?? if he (+plagueis) made vader and then he conceived his son. and then vader had leia and leia had ben and palp’s son had rey........why is KR able to put this together and not the FREAKING MASTER PUPPETEER of the whole fucking galaxy??!?!

anyway. back to the force dyad. we have awsome ben solo and rey reunited. ready to fight palps. but no. he freezes them and sucks the life force out of them. maybe the power of the force dyad of light users could be harmful to a sith?!??! maybe the power of a force dyad would help ben & rey resist palp?! maybe the power of a force dyad could be used to defeat palp?

but no. we get ben solo thrown into a pit so that palp and rey could reenact whitney houston’s hit

or, even worse, the year’s most anticipated battle of one liners: endgame. yeah, it was cool to hear all the jedi clamouring for rey, but this could’ve still worked as the jedi finally supporting ben skywalker organa solo for fucking once in the guy’s lifetime.

but no. JJ said fuck ben solo. he’s only good to give the life back to rey, then he can fuck off. i am not a reylo and i am not too bothered by ben’s death, as much as i am by his misuse. i mean, in such movies, we never really have to deal with reformed bad guys making amends. vader died, and so in a way, ben dying too and not having to be courtmartialled is actually convenient.

i have read some analysis where ben & rey being happy together is the undoing of anakin’s sad demise and brings peace to the skywalker line rather than pain and despair and that’s a valid premise, but realistically, ben’s death makes sense. they’d never be happy together in a hut somewhere, because ben still has to pay for a lot of damage. BUT his death is nothing but the crippling of the skywalker line, after a palp had defeated the palps. his death has little meaning in the story. them being a force dyad has little meaning, apart from powering palps back to his rots appearance. lmao

and finally, the death of ben is never mourned, never acknowledged. no-one is even told on screen about his return to the light (maybe maz felt it, when leia’s body vanished...) and his deeds. that kinda sucks. because luke took a moment to have a ceremony for vader, the force ghosts came through. here...we get nothing.

and then rey buries the anakin saber and leia’s saber on tatooine in sand no less (we need a sketch of anakin loudly complaining to rey about this)... and instead of finally accepting herself as being sufficient, she tacks on the legacy name. well done JJ.

(that was me when the credits rolled).

now, i love the OT more than life itself and the films give us meta to fill libraries. they are not perfect movies, but they are good, they tell a wonderful story with amazing characters and i will never stop loving them.

then the PT is made of really bad movies that now, in the light of TROS, surprisingly still come together as a trilogy far better than the ST lmao.

i still believe that the PT undermines and ruins Vader’s redemption in ROTS, because now you know exactly what he did (reminder: killed 30 children) and it’s hard to swallow. in the end, he dies to save his son and takes down the big bad so we can accept that he gains redemption in luke’s eyes alone and not necessarily in the audience’s. but ben solo didn’t even get that. he got thrown into a pit and crawled out only to give rey life lol.

anyway, TFA was okay at first, but i always had a huge gripe, aka the misuse of Leia and the complete silence on her being a Force user. like don’t even need ligthsaber fights from her, just gimme something explicit of her using the Force. she could’ve at the very fucking least sensed KR when he swoops in and abducts Rey on Takodana. but no. JJ fridged Leia from the get go, because he had no clue what to do with her. and then he fucked her character completely with what he believed was the flashback the fans wanted....UFHGHGHGH

JJ also and truly fridged Luke, because he had no idea what to do with Luke and the whole Force legacy either. he wanted to write a fun Han Solo adventure and by gods he did.

so, Luke. the guy vanishes the opening crawl tells us. he wasn’t abducted, so he must’ve exiled himself. people hating TLJ’s so called character assassination when it comes to Luke should point fingers at the real culprit, JJ. how could Luke do such a thing and run away (like JJ wrote him do) if he hadn’t done something significantly wrong?? it had to be FUCKING HORRIBLE. and so it is. because what Luke did was horrible and it set up for the fall to the dark side of poor, conflicted, manipulated and unloved Ben Solo. but had it not been THIS awful, then Luke’s self imposed exile, shame and guilt wouldn’t have made any fucking sense. so, TLJ haters, think again WHO was the person who wrote Luke running away for 10 years and allowing all that shit to happen?? it wasn’t Rian Johnson, that’s for sure. he merely justified the absence in a way that made sense plot-wise and actually character-wise too.

on repeated viewing, TFA isn’t that good, it’s a rehash of ANH and the stakes are never as good as the original movies. we all kinda know the heroes will save the day

TLJ, i liked, but the canto bight plot really falls flat. this is where RJ did some char assassinations: Poe. Poe is the cocky pilot who singlehandedly destroys the Resistance’s arsenal LMAO. and next scene he turns into sexist macho asshole trope itself, with his immediate and unfounded disdain of Holdo and her plans to keep our heroes safe. so he concocts a harebrained plan that doesn’t work. maybe it was intended as a refreshing look over this trope of barely a plan of the heroes always coming to fruition at the very last second, but the way it’s presented, it somehow really undermines all the characters involved, including newcomer Rose. at the start a breath of fresh air in the age of mindless heroics, the voice of reason,  soon enough she too is pulled apart and becomes a sudden love interest...?? she is then reduced to a side’s side char in TROS, but she has space buns, so that’s cool right? that’s what SW is all about, women in space buns. fuck!

and yet, TLJ handled Luke, Leia, KR and Rey wonderfully and laid down some great ideas, Rey having no lineage, the Force Bond between her and KR, the catalyst for KR’s fall to the dark side, the little good in him, as sensed by both Leia and Rey...and set up a finale where, i believed and hoped, KR would be the main villain.

with the trailer spelling the probable return of palpatine, i kinda lost faith in TROS before it even hit the theaters. in fact, my faith in the movie was shot the moment JJ was brought on board.

we had a new villain, another race against time to save the day, and our heroes tell us again and again that it’s fine to share the burden, that they are not alone, that there are more good guys than bad - and when the ARMY OF PEOPLE came to exogol, it’s a wonderful scene. it works for me and it did both times. i know it’s awful that no-one came to leia’s call on crait, but here lando picks up (when lando says hello there, it’s not only panties that drop) half the galaxy, but somehow it still made me well up.

but, despite this very explicit message, our heroine fights alone. she faces palps alone and almost makes a bad decision, is alone in her final battle, is alone at the end. how truly horrible. instead of having ben and rey defeat palps together, rey has to do it alone, out of faux-feminism. it’s sickening. it’s stupid. and that’s not star wars and the star wars message. luke was not alone at the end, he was with friends, with family.

but she’s from a bad bloodline and she should die childless. ughhh. totally not hopeful, totally not satisfying message to have for the finale of the skywalker saga.

Nurse Café - Chapter 2/6: “Of Fogged-Up Screens and Downgraded Sensors“

PREVIOUS CHAPTER / NEXT CHAPTER

Fic Summary: Life could have honesty been simpler than that for Hokuto, a second-year Liteature major. There’s, however, someone out there willing to just make it easier on him.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars! (College/Coffeeshop AU) Ships: HokuAn (Anzu/Hokuto)

AO3 version available here.

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Chapter Summary: Waking up in someone else's bed with no real recollection of previous events is bound to confuse everyone out of their already confused mind.

Chapter Wordcount: 1.5K words

Chapter Notes: Ya boi's bacc after working for like 2 days in a row non-stop on not-so-secret-anymore project BWI, please excuse me for the late update. But hey, it's HokuAn fluff and a visit to my roots so! hell yeah! This is frankly cheesy but hey what more can I say? I just really like shippy, simple sickfics dude lmao Also was I supposed to find out on my own that Subaru's surname is "Akehoshi" and not "Ahehoshi"? I even transliterated it in the Greek alphabet wrong because of that, peak dumbassery

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Despite the lack of clear memories, he knew something was weird the moment it all felt fuzzy around him as soon as he woke up. It just wasn’t something that happened to him often: usually, getting up in the morning was merely a task to accomplish, a minor thing he wouldn’t have thought even once about and, clearly, wouldn’t have had any difficulty handling said task.

It wasn’t limited to just a weird case of short-term amnesia. As it stood, his entire surroundings were unfamiliar: through his slightly clogged nose, he could tell the sent around him was familiar, but not his flat’s, not even his grandma’s. His visuals were blurry and inexact, but he could still swear under the oath that it was unlike anything he had ever seen, let alone slept in. Where was he, exactly, and why?

 Right as he thought about sitting up and sightseeing the room for himself to determine where he could possibly be, a pounding headache came back with all of his previously lost memories. Oh, right, he had gone out to get a coffee, got mistaken in his cafés, and Anzu had asked him if he was fine. After that, nothing: in the end, had he drunk his coffee? Presumably not, considering he was waking up and not working on this presentation he had sworn to finish tonight. Mission failed there. He’d have to retry next time, perhaps now, even if…

He had to admit defeat there. His entire body felt like lead. In fact, on second thought, he wasn’t even sure if he could hold a pencil or even sit up. If a tight-knit schedule, a mile-long of obligations and excessive amounts of caffeine of a questionable quality had managed to keep him afloat for a short while, the inevitable happened: he was experiencing an exhaustion crash leaving him to be even less productive than a broken computer whose keyboard had been smashed into a wall, bearing an interface that had gotten corrupted during a forced shutdown.

 He could continue on the metaphor for a while, considering he wasn’t feeling able to even lift a finger, with his head as the only part he could tilt. It had felt like a shutdown because he had run out of battery, completely cessing to function until he could recover what he had lost in great quantities over an extended period of time. Not that anyone could have been able to do something against the issue that wouldn’t have taken time: in these moments, he was finally understanding how much people were frustrated when their phone was discharged.

Time sure seemed like a nice thing to have and not just endlessly run out of, huh…

 Voices in the distance. Echoing footsteps from far, far away, perhaps from a corridor nearby. Like everything else, they felt distorted and unfamiliar, until they weren’t: once the distance had reduced between him and the rest of the world, he could distinguish Isara and Anzu’s voices chatting about something, tone impossible to identify. He wasn’t even sure if those actually were their voices or someone else’s, albeit Anzu’s voice had left an important-enough impact on his mind for him to be certain he wasn’t getting mistaken there.

Trying to grasp onto the last of his memories and the few clear thoughts he could produce, Hokuto realized one thing: if he wasn’t at his place, he had to go back there, no matter what crazy and improbable situation he had found himself in. Akehoshi and Yuuki had dragged him in enough weird affairs for him to know exactly what could happen: in a way, this is just yet another wacky situation his friends had gotten him in.

But, when he tried to get up and get moving, his body didn’t bulge from a centimetre, his arms having failed him, his head having become too heavy for his neck to transport across the campus. Wherever he was, he was there for a while. Now if that wasn’t just amazing.

 “You’re awake!” Anzu’s voice had suddenly teleported right next to his ear, almost making him jump (or, at least, making him bob his head in surprise. It was weird to jump from getting scared when your body couldn’t otherwise move).

She put a cold hand on his forehead, brushing loose strands of hair aside. It was one of the oddest feelings to get: when he’d have the occasion to touch her skin, for any reason, she’d have the warmer fingers of them both. He had always been told to have been born a cold-blooded person, quite literally so: was this what Anzu felt every time he worried about his blood circulation? It had no right to have felt this soothing.

 “A… Anzu…?” His voice sounded groggy. Awful. Dry. The shadow of its own self, truly. He was almost ashamed to speak in such a fatigued, slowed-down tone. It sounded no better than absolute trash. “Where’m I…?” His words were slurring too, how delightful.

“At my place. I guess it must be confusing you to wake up in someone else’s bed…” She shone him a timid smile, shoulders rising a little with a nervous twitch. “How are you feeling?”

“…t’rble…”

“I’d have guessed… You really have Mao and me a scare! He told me you should be all good in a few days, but as your friends, we can’t help but worry, you know?”

“I… Isara was…?”

“Mao was passing by the café right after you passed out. He helped me get you to my place. He’s just left though and gave me some advice, so you should be fine!”

To be fair, Anzu was the one he trusted the most after his grandmother about anything serious. Better be vulnerable in front of her than in front of anyone else. He guessed he should have felt lucky he hadn’t stepped in his usual café, then, if it was to lose consciousness like that…

 “Can you say “aaaah” for me for a bit, Hokuto? I promise it won’t be for long.”

Not like he had any other choice than do as she said, allowing her to put a thermometer under his tongue. Needless to say, it still wasn’t a pleasing feeling. Fortunately (or unfortunately, he’d decide about that when the fog in his brain would have finally let out) for him, the thing beeped quickly after she had first inserted it in. The face she made (from what he could see of it, at least) when reading the result wasn’t exactly conveying him a great feeling about it all, putting her hand back onto his forehead as her eyes stared at the numbers.

“This fever’s no joke, how were you even up running such a temperature?!” Oh God, she sounded angry and worried all the same.

Not that he had any explanation to give about it or justification as to how it had gotten this bad. He didn’t know what number it was. He tried looking it up from the stick directly, but his eyes could only read something finishing in “9.7”. That wasn’t very useful to say the… Oh. Oh.

 “I-I mean, you’ll be fine if you just rest for a couple days! I didn’t have fever reducers anymore, but Mao gave me some from his flat, so it should be just fine… Can you swallow anything? You need to down the pills with a glass of something, so I’ve brought you just that!”

Gathering all his forces, he pushed his upper half with feeble arms against the wall behind him, the back of his head hitting the hard material. That lethargy poisoning his entire body was no joke either. At least, he could now take the glass of water and pills Anzu was handing him. How was he supposed to resist against her bright smile and concern, huh? Not that reducing what had to be the prime source of his discomfort, especially now that the chills were knocking at the door, was bothering him in the slightest.

Downing the glass had been painful. It seemed like he hadn’t just worked himself to complete exhaustion: in the process, his immune system had weakened considerably. This whole situation kept adding on points onto his internal list of why he should never try doing such a thing ever again.

 As usual, Anzu had come all prepared to a fight, putting shortly thereafter a wet washcloth on his forehead and gently pushing him back into her own bed, hands on his shoulders and opposing no opposition whatsoever from his side of the equation.

“Wait, n’zu…” He managed to squeeze out of his pained airways. “Wher’re you goin’ t’sleep…?”

“I’ve got a futon prepared on the floor; I’ll be fine. Just rest, okay? We’ll see if you’re good enough to go back to your flat tomorrow. You’ll only get better if you sleep.”

He merely nodded, sinking back into the covers. Their scent was nice, soothing even. It made the endeavour a bit more enjoyable, even if the word suddenly sounded too strong on his tongue.

“G’dnight then, I s’pose…”

Through his blurred vision turning to black, her smile shone again.

“Goodnight, Hokuto.”

Episode 8: Replies

i think i skipped last episode’s reply post :x but anyway:

@harmoniouspixels​ replied to your photo “Wallace-Hensley BCx2: Episode 8 - We’re Halfway There...”

My tiny gremlin brain at the title: Wooaaah, livin’ on a prayer

~~~~~~~~~

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “[Heraklea]: …and yelled “Ah! No! Wrong tape!!” as footage of his own...”

My soul also hurts for this guy 😬

this story hurt to write tbh (but coming up with stories was Hard so i had to take whatever my brain threw at me)

harmoniouspixels replied to your photoset “[Heraklea]: …and so we now have a bunch of young teens who think...”

MMBC deniers are a group I don’t really consider all too often in-universe, but knowing their existence is. Hmm. Big yikes

i mean... in the case of these kids, it’s not that they’re actively denying it, but that they were misled... which is at least slightly better?

but then again my own canon had students learning about hawthorne mmbc in school in 7th grade so maybe they should’ve known better. or maybe that was just at the boatschool, a very weird school that sometimes taught things early because common core doesn’t matter when you’re a private school on a boat

@autistichatkid​ replied to your photo “[Angelo]: Should we go look for them? [Jez]: Maybe we should wait a...”

if the bacheloret doesnt show up within 15 minutes we're legally allowed to leave

step out a second early and Island Community Justice will yeet you into the ocean

@bountifulberries​ replied to your photo “[Angelo]: Should we go look for them? [Jez]: Maybe we should wait a...”

dead at the tags

Island Community Justice has claimed a rulebreaker

harmoniouspixels replied to your photo “Soon… [Zeinaba]: Hey, sorry we’re late– [Saturday]: Hey, January’s not...”

My brain is like “oh this is like the first song of Heathers when the Heathers are introduced, except their cats here” so that’s a thing

i know nothing about heathers but im showcasing this reply for the enjoyment of followers who do

harmoniouspixels replied to your photo “[Zeinaba]: Alright, now one of you can take it away! [January]: You...”

Oh same, Marisa, same

marisa continues being The Relatable One

@tiny-tany-thaanos​ reblogged your photoset and added:

Look it’s Jez! And they’re still in game! I kinda awaited it but I’m still glad that two eliminations of my contestants in the row didn’t happen. Last time it didn’t end well (right, Phoenix and Cornelia?)

they’re actually doing Really Well! (they’re the first contestant on either side to become friends w/ their bacheloret!) u should be proud of them

though it’s gotta be hard to keep track of how your contestant is doing when i only update this damn bc biannually, lmao

@geezsims​ reblogged your photo and added:

seeing a sprinkle always makes me ;~; but i’m so glad ze’s off on an adventure

carryin on that family legacy... even without the actual legacy part

geezsims reblogged your photoset and added:

bringin’ those constructive ideas to the table!

this island really needs zer Eco-Friendly trait

geezsims reblogged your photoset and added:

i’ve definitely said “literally literally” before to emphasise that i do in fact mean the word i’m using and not the exact polar opposite… same hat

it’s a necessary clarification to make sometimes, lmao

geezsims reblogged your photoset and added:

hell yeah! militant resistance!

war is bad UNLESS it’s us on the island resisting The Man

geezsims reblogged your photoset and added:

i have nothing to say about this post but i want it on my blog bc dew is being awesome and bless you for writing zir this well :’)

akdfghkdfhkas thank u... i sometimes worry about how well i’m writing the sims in this bc because the gaps between episodes are so long and i’m like oh no have i forgotten everything about these sims

geezsims reblogged your photoset and added:

!!!!!

welcome to the Totally Not Government, dew!

geezsims reblogged your photo and added:

FEAR DOT JPEG

...yeah, honeydew’s face in this shot is basically how i externally present fear/worry

geezsims replied to your photo “Soon… [Zeinaba]: Hey, sorry we’re late– [Saturday]: Hey, January’s not...”

THIS SQUAD

😎😼😎😼😎😼

geezsims replied to your photo “[Islander Cat]: ([to self] Ohhh dear. The cats think I’m a cat.)”

is this an animorphs situation clover

it’s... a situation, alright

geezsims reblogged your photo and added:

r i p </3

i’m so sorry....

geezsims reblogged your photoset and added:

ouchie!!!!

I Am So Sorry

geezsims reblogged your photo and added:

hey… yeah! wholesome!

geezsims reblogged your photoset and added:

this is actually very blessed :3 my heart has been patched back together

eliminated contestants gotta stick together!!!

geezsims reblogged your photo and added:

these actually aren’t as same face-y as i thought! they’re cute!! also thanks for having dew ♡

i try. i reroll Play With Genetics thru nraas mastercontroller over and over and over until the kids are 1) not clones of either parent and 2) sufficiently unique irt each other. i roll and i roll and i roll. sometimes the portraits of the rolled kid don’t render and i have to guess which features are from which parent. my wrists start to rot away. the ts3 loading cursor burns itself into my retinas. my game threatens to crash and i see my life flash before my eyes, with the ts3 loading cursor over everything. my right wrist straight up breaks. finally, i have sufficient maybe babies. i can hardly see them through the ts3 loading cursors clouding my vision but i know i’ve met my goal.

(ALSO thank u for sending me zer!!!!)

bountifulberries replied to your photoset “[January]: I– [Honeydew]: You knew, didn’t you? [January]: Knew… what?...”

:(

I’m So Sorry, Everyone

harmoniouspixels replied to your photo “We’re Halfway There! THAT’S RIGHT–OF the twelve initial contestants,...”

Penelope sweetie you’re doing great! (Also staff killing the horizontal bars is why the posts in Froot looked weird alfnlsmdla. Why take that out when people actually used it)

RIGHT like what was staff even thinking??? “hey, let’s take something out just to fuck with our users”??? hey tumblr users we’d like to announce that we’ve gotten rid of the bold text option

@theworstsimblr replied to your photo “We’re Halfway There! THAT’S RIGHT–OF the twelve initial contestants,...”

if you change the editing mode to html and put in <hr> where you want a bar that usually works!

i’ll have to try that next time... my fear is that it won’t show up on the dashboard dfkjghksdf

Headcanon were s/o lost/broke her glasses and the following guys seeing her first time without them ? Kuro, Keito, Koga & Rei

The askbox has been taken over by angsty requests….. you know what that means…… I’m gonna make everyone sufferohoho….. but before that have some harmless fluff ! this was a very specificrequest lmao but it’s pretty cute ! I hope you like these headcanons ♥ - mod mademoiselle

Keito :

You literally have no clue whereyour glasses went. Well, this is a problem… You look for them by yourself atfirst, but then Keito starts wondering why you’re methodically searching theplace and making a mess, and he ends up joining you. (Mainly because he can’tconcentrate on his book since you make so much noise.)

He freezes when he sees you withoutyour glasses. His face is immediately overtaken by horror. Could it be….. thatyou lost your glasses…. ? He immediately starts looking for them with you. It’san emergency. You need them back assoon as possible. He won’t stop at anything and will literally overturneverything in the house.

It’s just become personal to him.He’s ready to go with you and retrace your steps downtown if needed, especiallyif you’re afraid you may have dropped them somewhere by accident. He absolutelydoesn’t want them to get damaged ! Glasses are so important to him, and hewouldn’t wish anyone to lose theirs !

Maybe he’s a bit too serious aboutthe whole thing, actually. He’s on the verge of panic over a pair of missingglasses. You’d never seen him this agitated… He was shocked when you told himyou didn’t keep several pairs of spares, and offered to lend you some of his.You still don’t know why he keeps glasses for your prescription around, but atleast now you’re aware he does…

In the end, you managed to get themback, thanks to your overzealous boyfriend. (He’s the best at finding loststuff.) He did scold you a bit, asking you to be more careful next time, butwas relieved you’d found them. “These areimportant to you, so it’s for the best we found them. Besides, you do looklovely with them.”

He didn’t even understand why youwere flustered and kept wondering if he’d said something inappropriate for theentire day.

Kuro :

If there’s one thing Kuro doesn’tlike, it’s seeing you troubled. And when you damaged your glasses, you just sohappened to be troubled. Kuro sure didn’t like that, and you can count on himto come to your rescue immediately.

He didn’t particularly comment onit, but he thinks you look adorable without your glasses ! Well… if only youdidn’t actually need them to see. He’ll sneak glances at you fromtime to time, hastily looking away and pretending he’s doing something elsewhen you notice.

Fortunately, the lenses of your glassesweren’t damaged, only the arms was a bit bent. Expect Kuro to insist he can tryand repair them himself ! He doesn’t want to see you panicking, so he’ll tryhis best to fix them at home. He wouldn’t want you to have to buy new ones !

Kuro’s ridiculously good with hishands, and after a bit of experimenting, he managed to get your glasses back totheir original state ! You’re still not sure how he did that, to be honest. Hedoesn’t want to tell you, joking that it’s his secret. The truth is, he had noclue how to do that either and had to look up tutorials to figure it out…

He’s just glad he was of help toyou, although he couldn’t help but gently remove your glasses to compare howyou looked without them. “May I… ? Yep,as I thought. You look good with and without them. I love both.” He’ll geta bit flustered afterwards, wondering if he always had it in him to say cheesystuff like that.

To him, your glasses are a part ofyou ! And he just so happens to be madly in love with every single part of you.

Rei :

Rei does need reading glasses, buthe usually doesn’t wear them. Apparently, he already looks like a grandpa enough.Well, he does get your glasses problem, and will empathize should you damagethem.

While his priority is making sureyou can get them repaired by a professional as soon as possible, he won’tresist the opportunity to tease you a bit. Expect him to sneak behind you,hands ghosting over your waist or hips to “guide you” as you walk. You didremind him you were in fact not blind, but he pretended not to hear.

“Please, do take my hand. The footing is ratherunstable. I would not want you to hurt yourself over a careless mistake likethis.” And that’s how you ended up holding hands for the entire day. It’s not even like you needit, you can see just fine… Yeah, Rei’s terrible once he gets in a teasing moodand he never let go of your hand, in the end.

He even considered spoon-feedingyou for as long as you’d be “impaired”, but fortunately, you got your glasses repaired soon enough. Oh, don’texpect him to stop though. He’s had way too much fun seeing your flustered facetoday, with each of his increasingly embarrassing chivalrous or helpfulgestures.

“You truly have me under your spell,my love. I just could not help but wish to see your troubled face, today. You did look even more breathtaking than usual…” Andhe’ll smirk proudly, happy he got to tease you some more.

Well, he was happy the usual you wasback. He thinks you look gorgeous with your glasses too, and he’d grown to missthem a bit…

Koga :

This boy wouldn’t ever notice somethingchanged about you. He gasped when you told him you weremissing your glasses, eyes wide for a moment, then barked with laughter. “Hey,that’s all ? Don’t’cha get worried ! Yer gonna find them soon enough.”

He won’t stop chuckling to himselfwhile watching you look around desperately. He didn’t offer to help you,seemingly having a lot of fun with the situation. Eventually he did roll hiseyes and join you when you gently asked him to, helping you look for them.

He’ll try to test how bad yourvision is, mockingly holding out three fingers and asking how many you can see.Maybe he’s secretly convinced you’re blind and literally helpless without yourglasses. Who knows.

You found weird the fact he’d beensmiling a lot on that day, and started to suspect he was actually making fun ofyou. When you confronted him about it, he admitted it all, grinning widely. “Y’know,it’s hella weird to see ya without those damn glasses, Four Eyes. But the goodkind of weird.”

All in all, he treated the wholething like a game but did give you a hand, and you eventually found yourglasses thanks to his help. He wouldn’t stop smirking like an idiot, though,even briefly stealing your glasses to try them on. “Whoa, yer eyes suck, yaknow that ? Yeah, just take them back. Ya look kinda cute with those, FourEyes.”

Yeah, that horrendous nickname’sgoing to stick with you for a moment, now.

Fighting the Good Fight [Ch. 2]

Alec Lightwood just wants to run his Institute in peace.

This is the story that could’ve unfolded if Jace didn’t exist.

Rating: General Audiences (may change later)

Pairings: Magnus/Alec, Clary/Izzy, platonic Simon/Alec

Tags: Jace doesn’t exist, transgender alec lightwood, retelling of the TV show, 

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I might update the summary because it’s TRASH lmao

#recastjace #firedom

Oh also, Alec is transgender in this fic, but he’s already out, so if you’re looking for angsty coming out fic, you’re looking in the wrong place!

Previous Chapter 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Episode 2: The Descent Into Hell is Easy

The next morning, Alec was honestly surprised to discover that Simon The Mundane was still hanging around the institute. He stuck to Clary like a limpet, and Alec was surprised to see that Izzy, rather than regarding the guy as competition, seemed oddly enamoured by him. Alec ate his breakfast quickly, not wanting to get caught up in the drama of Clary looking for her missing Mom. Izzy and Simon were both cooing and patting at her hand, each of them trying to comfort her and gain her attention. Alec pursed his lips as he cleared his plate off in the bin.

“I can’t believe of all the people who’d betray me, Luke… I thought he was family. I thought he cared about us!” Clary sucked her lower lip into her mouth, shaking her head as she looked down into her breakfast.

“It’s fucked up, Fray,” Simon nodded gravely, putting his arm around her shoulder. “But we’ll get through this. We’ll get Jocelyn back from this dickhead Valentine, and then we’ll…”

“Jocelyn? Valentine?” A voice from behind Alec asked, making him turn to see Hodge, the weapons master, standing in the doorway looking like he’d seen a ghost. Alec stepped over to him, resisting the urge to take his arm but not before he’d lifted his hand like an idiot. Hodge looked at him out of the corner of his eye for a moment, but he quickly looked back at Clary.

“You know who he is?” Izzy asked.

Hodge nodded, his eyes taking in Clary’s face with disbelief. “He was the head of the circle, he… He’s dead. He’s supposed to be dead.” The blond winced as his circle rune burned, and this time Alec put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He tried not to take it personally when Hodge shrugged it off.

“He didn’t look dead when I saw a vision of him holding my mother captive!” Clary pointed out, green eyes wide.

“Her mother Jocelyn was taken by him,” Alec murmured, folding his arms tightly.

“Her mother…” Hodge looked between Alec and Clary, scratching the back of his neck. “If Valentine is back and he’s got Jocelyn, it means he’s looking for the Mortal Cup. She took it at the end of…”

“The Mortal Cup has been missing for…”

“What the hell is the Mortal Cup?!” Simon shrieked. “And what the hell does Clary have to do with any of this?!”

“So you’re saying,” Alec said, ignoring the mundane completely, “that Clary, this new shadowhunter, is connected to the circle? The people who’ve been buying mundane blood?”

Hodge nodded, grabbing for Alec’s shoulder and leaning on him heavily as his rune sizzled on his neck. “I can’t tell you much with my punishment rune… But if Jocelyn hid the cup from Valentine, she’s in more trouble than you can even imagine.” He was panting in pain, and Alec’s face screwed up with sympathy.

“You could die if we continue like this,” Alec murmured, and helped Hodge sit down. “Look, if you mother has had the cup all this time, she must have told you something!”

Clary shook her head. “I’ve been trying to remember, but all… All I can see is this big, empty blackness!”

Izzy squeezed her shoulder gently. “You know what that means, Alec.”

“Memory magic,” Alec sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. That meant that a warlock was somehow involved, too.

“Is that possible?!” Clary demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

“If you know a warlock.” Izzy shrugged.

“A warlock?” Simon snorted, raking his hands through his hair.

“Half demon, half human. They can control magic, they always have a mark, something not quite human.” Alec explained, stepping towards Clary. “Think. Have you ever met anybody whose fingers sparked? Who could do things you couldn’t explain?”

Realisation dawned on Clary’s face, and Alec breathed a sigh of relief. “Dot. Dot made this hole in the wall that took me to the police station.”

“Wasn’t that who the demon in your apartment looked like?” Izzy asked.

“There was a demon in your apartment?!” Simon shrieked.

Alec huffed. “We need to find this… Dot. The real Dot. No doubt she’ll have gone into hiding with the other warlocks; latest intelligence suggests Magnus Bane is rounding them up.”

“I’m on it,” Izzy promised, taking Clary by the wrist. “Come on, sweetie, you look like you’re good with computers.”

Simon looked at Clary with wide eyes.

“It’s alright, Simon. I’ll be fine with Izzy. And Alec will look after you,” she assured him, though Alec barely repressed a scoff. “Show Alec all our hang-out spots, yeah? Dot could show up at any of them looking for us.”

“Alright, okay,” Simon nodded, though he didn’t look best pleased when Izzy tugged Clary away, swinging their hands between them without a care in the world.

Alec turned to the map of New York City, leaning against the table, and waited for Simon to start talking. When a few seconds passed in silence, he glanced over at the mundane to see him still anxiously watching the hallway that Clary and Izzy had disappeared down. “Hey, mundane,” Alec snapped his fingers in front of Simon’s face, “fill me in.”

“Oh. Right. Does Clary look good with computers? Because I feel like if anyone here looks like they’d be good with computers, it’s me.”

“Don’t take it personally, Izzy just wants to make your friend feel welcome.” Alec sighed, “look, my sister isn’t about to kill your girlfriend, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Girlfriend?!” Simon spluttered, shaking his head. “No, no, we’re just friends. Best friends. Since kindergarden.”

“That’s a beautiful story,” Alec’s smile dripped sarcasm, “now can you give me the information I need to save the world?”

“Right. Hang-outs. Got it.” Simon nodded, scratching behind his ear as he looked at the map.

~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, uh, Izzy? Could we…? Could I change, first? I feel naked walking around like this,” Clary admitted as the rounded the corner, blushing under the stare of a random shadowhunter as he passed them. Izzy shot him a dirty look, and he hastily redirected his gaze to his feet.

“Of course, whatever makes you comfortable,” she said easily, tugging Clary to her room. “I sent someone out to get some jeans and t-shirts for you this morning.”

“Thanks, Izzy.” Clary smiled, following the shadowhunter into her room. She was relieved to see a bag from Forever 21 on Izzy’s bed, and rifled through it eagerly. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“I’ll just be in the bathroom, let me know once you’re decent.”

“You don’t have to do that…” Clary insisted.

Izzy laughed, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. “Sweetie, you know I’m into you, right?”

“Uhh… Oh.” Clary flushed pink, a little shiver running down her spine. She didn’t think anyone had ever been so blunt, before. “Oh.”

“Are you into girls?” Izzy asked, tilting her head to the side. “My brother says I tend to fall for straight girls, and I really want to prove him wrong.”

Clary cleared her throat a little. “I’ve… Dabbled.”

The grin on Izzy’s face was downright adorable. “Cool. Well, then, I’ll be in the bathroom.” She said pointedly, “let me know when you’re decent.”

“Right,” Clary shrugged, turning away to take off her dress as she heard the bathroom door click into place. “So, your brother…”

“Yeah?” Izzy asked, pausing where she’d been reaching for the tube of toothpaste.

“He’s…”

“Alec is the sweetest man I know.” Izzy told her through the door, a warning tone creeping into her voice.

“Sweet! Sure, I mean… He doesn’t seem to like me much, but uh… Is he…? It looked like he was wearing a binder.”

“If you’re asking if he’s transgender, the answer is yes.” Izzy rolled her eyes a little, squeezing some toothpaste onto her toothbrush.

There was a pause. “It’s really nice that he has you to support him. My friend Maureen had a lot of trouble with her family.”

Izzy sighed in relief, sticking her toothbrush in her mouth. “He’s always been my big brother. Our parents could be better, but… I love him for who he is.”

“I’m decent!” Clary told her, and Izzy wandered back out into her room, absently brushing her teeth. “He seems… Focussed.”

“He has to work a lot harder for acceptance from the other shadowhunters, and he’s ambitious. Wants to run this place one day, officially. Right now he’s running it by proxy since our parents are away.” Izzy explained, voice a little garbled from the toothpaste. She held up one finger, and went to spit it out.

“I just don’t feel like I’m gonna fit in here. Alec really seems to know what he’s doing, and I’m…”

“Is this the part where I tell you that you were born to be a shadowhunter? That this is as much a part of you as it is of me and Alec?” Izzy half teased, putting her hand on Clary’s shoulder. “You’ll learn, just like we did. I promise.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Alec, we’ve located Magnus’ portal. He’s evacuating warlocks from Pandemonium, his nightclub in Brooklyn.”

Alec nodded to one of the computer lackeys as she ran up to him, clapping a hand onto Simon’s shoulder and effectively cutting off his story about the time that he, Dot and Clary got kicked out of a shisha bar. “We’ve got our lead,” he told the mundane, “but thank you for your insight into ordinary life, it really was fascinating.”

“You know,” Simon started, following the taller man as he walked over to the weapons cabinet, “I see through your sass. I’ve seen it all before.”

“Yeah?” Alec asked, pursing his lips as he looked over the bows.

“You don’t have to be an asshole just to assert that you’re a dude.” Simon told him, tucking his hands into his pockets. Alec froze. “You’d be just as manly without the attitude.”

“Listen here,” Alec hissed, an inexplicable rage building up in him, “you keep your mouth shut, alright? Don’t patronise me, you jumped up little…”

“Alec!” Izzy scolded him, and he snapped his jaw shut. Simon looked downright terrified, mouth hanging open.

“Dude, I was just saying that I’m not gonna be an asshole about it!” Simon said quietly, “you don’t have to do your bravado with us. We’re your friends.”

“We are…” Alec swallowed hard, looking between Simon and Clary. “We are not friends.”

“Go and check it’s clear outside,” Izzy told him sternly, “I think you could use the air.”

“My van is a couple of blocks away,” Simon volunteered as Alec walked away.

He’d really thought he was starting to pass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As they all jumped out of Simon’s rickety old van, Clary gasped loudly, staggering back against the red and yellow vehicle, clutching at the necklace around her neck. Izzy and Simon both rushed forward to help her, and Alec hung back, still licking his wounds from the blow Simon had dealt to his ego.

“Dot,” she murmured, pushing through Izzy and Simon and breaking into a run. Alec tutted, and took off after her. They skidded around the corner into Pandemonium, Clary stopping dead when she realised that the club was empty. “They’ve taken her. She was just trying to help me!”

Alec looked around, the hairs on the back of his neck on end. Those Circle members could be anywhere. “We should go back to the Institute. If they get their hands on you…”

“We can’t just give up, Alec!” Clary insisted, eyes alight with unshed tears. “They have my Mom and Dot, she’s like my big sister!”

“What else do you expect us to do?! We have no leads!”

“What about her memories?” Izzy suggested, stepping between the two of them. “We could go to the Silent Brothers.”

Alec scoffed, throwing his hands up in the air. “Right.”

“Who are the Silent Brothers?” Simon demanded, “they sound creepy.”

“They’re powerful shadowhunters who possess the ability to recover memories.” Izzy explained, putting her hands on her hips. “Do you have any better ideas?”

“It could kill her!”

“She’s strong,” Izzy jutted her chin up in the air. Alec just shook his head.

“I’ll do anything it takes to get my Mom and Dot back,” Clary insisted, folding her arms. “I’ll be fine.”

Simon went to stand next to Alec. “I’m with Tall, Dark and Handsome. If it could kill you then it’s a bad idea.”

“Do we have any other options? Does anyone else have any other ideas?” Clary demanded, her green eyes determined. Alec sighed. “Right, well… Let’s go to the Silent Brothers.”

“Fine, whatever. It’s not like we’ve already broken 18 Clave rules, let’s just go on a little trip to the City of Bones, too! It’s not like I’ve got an Institute to run!”

“If we get Jocelyn back and stop Valentine from getting the Mortal Cup, the Clave will understand, Alec.” Izzy scowled. “Besides, this isn’t about the Clave, it’s about doing the right thing!”

Alec pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright. Alright. Fine.”

“That settles it.” Clary nodded, strutting back towards the van. Alec rolled his eyes slightly and followed, Izzy and Simon taking up the rear.

~~~~~~~~~~

The City of Bones was uninviting by design. Clary looked visibly afraid as they approached, but Izzy and Simon waked close to her, one on either side. Alec hung back, checking that there were no circle members following them.

“I can do this,” Clary whispered to herself, squaring her shoulders, and Alec wondered where in her mundane life she’d gotten the stubborn determination that she possessed now.

“Of course you can,” Simon enthused, “you’re Clary freakin’ Fray, you can do anything!”

Both Izzy and Clary beamed at the mundane, and Alec just wished he had their optimism.

As they reached the entrance, Alec turned to Izzy and Clary. “One of us will have to wait out here with the mundane, there’s no way that he’ll survive out here alone.”

“No way, I’m going in with her!” Simon insisted, “I’ll be fine!”

“You need angel blood to get into the City of Bones, sweetie,” Izzy told him, putting her hands on his shoulders. “I promise you I’ll look after Clary.”

The two of them held eye contact for a long moment, and Simon, hesitantly, nodded.

“I’ll go with Clary, you stay out here with Simon.” Izzy confirmed. Alec gave her a look which begged her to reconsider, but she shook her head. “She’ll need emotional support in there. You aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy, big brother.”

Alec huffed, but relented, grasping Simon’s shoulder and pulling him away from the entrance. “Be careful,” he warned the two of them, giving each woman a stern, searching look. Izzy held out her hand for Clary to take, and the redhead wound their fingers together, determination on her face.

“Go be a badass shadowhunter, Fray!” Simon called, and Clary threw him a smile over her shoulder.

“So how exactly does this work?” Clary asked, walking close to Izzy in the darkness. She could hear water dripping off the walls around them, and wrinkled her nose at the smell of damp.

Izzy hesitated. “The Silent Brothers have this artefact, called the Soul Sword. They hold it to your head, and carve out the truth.”

“Sounds delightful,” Clary muttered, shaking her head. Why was this all so… Difficult?

“If you’re not strong enough, you could die,” Izzy admitted, “you can still back out if you feel like you’re not ready, maybe I shouldn’t have…”

“I’ll be fine, Iz,” the redhead squeezed her hand, and Izzy sighed. “I was born for this, right?”

Izzy smiled. “Right. Oh also, the Silent Brothers are seriously creepy. Don’t show fear. They look weird but they won’t hurt you. Aside from the whole… Carving out your memories thing.”

“Good to know,” Clary couldn’t help but laugh. Maybe she was hysterical.

Izzy just tugged their joined hands to her mouth, kissing Clary’s knuckles. “I’ll be here, okay?”

A warm, swooping feeling made Clary stop laughing, and she nodded. “I know. Thank you, Izzy.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m sorry if I pissed you off before,” Simon started the second that Clary and Izzy were out of earshot. “I just wanted you to know that…”

“I don’t need to know anything about you,” Alec snapped, examining his arrows to give himself something to do.

Simon sighed. “Alright, alright. Just… I’m open to being friends with you. If you want. Just wanted you to know that.” He sat down next to Alec, folding his arms and staring around at the darkness.

“I get it,” Alec said quietly, feeling a little heat seep into his cheeks. “How… What gave me away?”

He didn’t know why he bothered to ask, and regretted it the second the question escaped his mouth.

“Your binder,” Simon smiled, “the seams. One of my best friends is a trans woman, and she’s dating a trans guy, so… I kinda notice these things now. Sorry if I… I didn’t mean to like, make you feel like you don’t, y’know, pass. But that shouldn’t matter anyway.”

“Of course it matters,” Alec hissed, clenching his jaw. “No-one in the Clave will take me seriously.”

Simon shrugged. “I don’t know what the Clave is, but if they can’t accept you, fuck them! You have a really great sister, and at least two friends who don’t care what you look like. As long as you know in your heart that you’re a man, then… What difference does it make what other people think they know or see in you?”

“I won’t have a normal life if the Clave doesn’t buy it,” Alec said quietly, looking down at his feet.

Simon sighed, and put his hand on Alec’s shoulder. “Normal lives are overrated. Trust me, I’m as normal as they come.”

Alec cracked a smile, and looked at the entrance to the City of Bones. “You know, for a mundane… You actually know some shit.”

Simon grinned at him, and the two sat in silence for a few moments. “Hey… Do you like music?”

“Uhhh… I guess?” Alec didn’t really listen to much music, though he did tend to work out with earphones in. He mostly just downloaded the top 40 mundane songs of the month; he didn’t have the time or energy to research stuff like mundane music further.

“Wanna listen to my EP? I’m in a band.”

Alec shrugged.

“Wait right here, it’s in the van.”

“Simon!” Alec yelped, watching the mundane run off. “You shouldn’t…” He watched carefully as Simon scrambled up to his van, fiddling with the keys for a moment.

“Alec!”

He turned to see Izzy and Clary appearing in the doorway to the City, the redhead’s face pale and withdrawn. She had a tiny cut in the middle of her forehead, and Alec breathed a sigh of relief. He gave Izzy a questioning look, but she was too busy comforting Clary, her arms around her.

“Valentine is my father,” Clary whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “My father is a monster.”

Alec’s eyes widened. “What?! Izzy, she’s Valentine’s daughter, you know what this means?!”

“Wait, where’s Simon?” Izzy demanded.

“He’s in his van, getting his EP,” Alec shrugged, stepping closer to Clary. “What do you mean your father is…”

“Alec, he’s not in the van.”

“What?!” Alec spun around, breath catching in his throat as he took in the sight of the van, the driver’s seat door ripped clean off its hinges, Simon nowhere to be seen.

“I believe you’re looking for this…”

The three of them looked up at the bridge overhead, and saw a vampire holding Simon by his foot, dangling him over the edge like a worm on a hook. Izzy quickly yanked her whip from her wrist. Alec put his hand on her arm.

“Careful, shadowhunter, you wouldn’t want to break the accords,” the vampire taunted, and Alec clenched his jaw, lowering his bow slowly.

“You’ll be breaking the accords if you kidnap a mundane,” Alec yelled back.

“Give him back!” Clary screeched.

“I’m afraid your little mundane pal is coming with us,” the vampire explained. “The Night Children have broken no laws; we’re negotiating. We want the Mortal Cup. We’ll give the mundane back if you give it to us.”

“We can’t give you the Mortal Cup…” Alec snorted, folding his arms.

“The clock is ticking!” The vampire warned, before disappearing into the night, quick as a flash.

“Fuck!” Alec shouted, the sound of it echoing back to him in the empty night.

“Well, yes,” Izzy muttered, winding her whip back around her wrist.

Next Chapter

Saw The Rise of Skywalker, and I have thoughts about it.

Honestly? I didn't hate it. In fact, I'm kind of embracing it purely for the absolute disaster that it is. There were a few things that were bad enough to actually take away from my enjoyment of the movie, but overall, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. I think it helped that I watched Revenge of the Sith the night before seeing it. ROTS is a mess, but it’s a fun mess, and TROS isn’t all that different.

So with that said, I guess I'll start by talking about the stuff I liked:

Sheev Palpatine is an absolute delight in this movie. His addition to this story is so blatantly thoughtless and embarrassingly shoehorned, but every one of his scenes was just a joy to watch. I spent every second of his screentime trying not to laugh out loud in the theater. His scenes completely took me out of the third act's otherwise grim tone, and I'm so grateful for that because it made everything—including the forced r*ylo kiss—look like a total joke. I was dreading that moment, but once it happened, it was not only bearable, but completely forgettable thanks to Sheev Palpatine being extra as all hell. What a fucking hero. I'm sorry, I just... I genuinely cannot get upset about the asspull that is this character's presence in IX, lmao. I know he was only thrown in because Snoke was killed in VIII and the obligatory #Bendemption would mean forfeiting Kylo as the main villain, and we needed SOMEONE for Rey to fight. It was the result of inexcusably poor writing and planning, I get that. But Sheev truly took this movie from mediocre to so-bad-it's-good territory, and God bless him for it.

Finn remains my fav, but TLJ didn’t leave him with much to do in TROS. And his TLJ arc wasn’t bad, exactly, but it definitely could’ve been better. There was nothing about his Force sensitivity, nothing about his family, nothing about him being an ex-stormtrooper who could inspire more to turn against the First Order (something that could've developed very naturally from his conversations with Rose). You probably could’ve given that arc to any other character because so little about it was unique to Finn. But I think TROS did okay with how it continued that (generic) arc. Finn's actively working for the Resistance and even takes on a leadership role near the end. I kept waiting for there to be something alluding to his past as a stormtrooper aside from a couple of throwaway lines, and I was convinced that nothing would really come of that, but no! He ends up meeting another ex-stormtrooper named Jannah, and they have this nice conversation where Finn learns that there are a lot of other stormtroopers who defected. And... it almost seems like Jannah's already had the character arc that I wanted Finn to get, lmao. Like she's already in this little band of ex-stormtroopers helping the Resistance fight the First Order. I wish we learned more about her and her allies (like does Jannah help other stormtroopers escape? Maybe she purposefully traps them and then tries to help them deprogram themselves?). I'd totally be down for a Jannah spin-off series, tbh. But anyway, Finn doesn't have much of an arc in this movie; it's more like TROS just caps off his arcs from TFA and TLJ with him becoming a Resistance general and fully trusting in the Force (because Force-sensitive Finn is CANON 🎉🎉🎉). Again, it could’ve been better, but for what TLJ left him with, it’s fine.

I loved seeing Finn, Rey, and Poe work together. They have a great dynamic, with Rey and Poe always butting heads about the ship or BB-8 or who's leading the mission, and Finn tries to be the peacemaker between them. I loved their reunion hug at the end, too. But there is this odd running gag where Finn wants to tell Rey something when they all think they’re about to die, but doesn't want to say it in front of Poe later, and it just really sticks in Poe's craw. And we never even find out what Finn wanted to say. I mean, I like to think Finn was going to tell Rey that he loved her, but that's just me. 👀

Rey's character arc definitely has some problems, but there was also lot of stuff I liked. It was interesting to see her grapple with the reveal that she was a Palpatine and start to fear her own power and purpose. There's this great scene where she tells Finn that no one really understands her, and you know how afraid she is of what she could become, but it also hurts Finn to hear her say that. She eventually tries to isolate herself completely by running away to Luke's sad seagull island, but Luke's Force Ghost shows up and gives her this little pep talk that wouldn't ring so hollow if, y'know, TLJ had actually bothered to develop their relationship beyond Luke being afraid of her, but whatever. I also liked seeing her opt to heal the sandworm blocking the cavern's exit rather than kill it. She has this very natural chemistry with Finn and Poe through their treasure hunt. I also loved her interactions with Leia and their master/apprentice relationship.

Rose unfortunately has very little to do in this movie, but she does have a couple of nice moments with Finn that I really liked. One was when she says that something will happen if Finn & co. succeed in their mission, and he corrects her with “when.” I just thought it was sweet that her faith in the rebellion rubbed off on him, to the point that he uses it to encourage her, too. The other moment is near the end when she tells Finn they need to retreat, and then she hesitates when he says he’s staying behind. But instead of trying to stop him like in TLJ, she accepts his choice.

I can’t lie: seeing OT-era Luke and Leia spar with lightsabers got me. I’ve always loved their relationship, and I’m glad we got to see it in a flashback.

Call me petty, but I find it very satisfying that at no point in this entire trilogy does Anakin make any effort to contact Kylo. Not to advise him, admonish him, soothe him, or anything despite Kylo borderline praying to the guy at different points in this story. But once Rey starts faltering against Palpatine? Anakin finally wakes his Force Ghost ass up long enough to yell some encouragement to her. That is hilarious. Also, all the jedi calling out to Rey was just a great moment, period.

Hux's death is such a non-event, lmfao. He's outed as the mole, gets shot in the chest, and that's it. He's gone for the rest of the movie. It’s such a fitting ending for a character like him.

Kylo’s turn to the Light is... bad, but there is a nice bit of dialogue between him and his vision of Han where they echo their last conversation in TFA. I did like that.

I liked Zorii, and that she immediately takes a liking to Rey when they meet, lol.

I missed like half the shit going on in the post-battle celebration scene because I was watching the background for that one instance of two fourth-tier female characters kissing. Cheers, Jeffrey. 🎉

Rey choosing to carry on the Skywalker name was nice. Again, it would’ve meant more if she and Luke had had a better relationship in TLJ (and given how much closer she is to Leia, Rey Organa would’ve made more sense), but whatever, I’ll take it.

As for the stuff I didn’t like:

I think most of my gripes with this movie start with the #Bendemption that happens around the halfway point, so... I’ll just start with that. So Rey and Kylo are fighting on the ruins of the Death Star, Kylo starts gaining the upper hand, and Leia senses that her time has come to... help Rey? “Save” her son? I’m not sure, but whatever it is, she uses the Force to call out to Ben and distract him so that Rey can kill him, and it costs Leia her life. I’m actually okay with this little plot point because the way it’s framed makes it look like Leia sacrificed herself for Rey’s sake, not Kylo’s. I’m not sure if that was the intention, but that’s how it read to me. But then, Rey heals Kylo because... ???? I dunno, I guess the plot needs her to. And with that, I feel like we’re right back in TLJ, where Rey just does shit for the sake of Kylo’s character arc, her own thoughts/feelings/motivations be damned. There is a moment where she and Kylo are just sitting there taking in the shock of Leia’s death, and maybe if Kylo was shown to have some significant relationship with his mother (aside from opting not to kill her that one time), the scene would’ve had some emotional weight to it, but he wasn’t, so it doesn’t.

Kylo Ren is just a waste of a villain, honestly. TFA presents him as this petulant, overgrown child, and if it weren't for the fact that he's extremely powerful, most people would just laugh him off. He throws temper tantrums, wears that stupid mask in attempt to look more intimidating, Rey tells him to his face that he's just a pathetic Vader fanboy, Hux can barely keep himself from rolling his eyes when he's in the room. No one would take this clown seriously if their lives didn't depend on it, and this is a fact that he is clearly aware of, as evidenced by every instance of him doing something over-the-top evil whenever he feels the ~call to the Light a.k.a. whenever he feels weak.  I liked having that sort of villain in this trilogy, and honestly, you could keep all that and still have him helping the good guys in the end; he’d just need a compelling reason to switch sides, and TROS just doesn’t give him one. None of these movies did. There’s no moment of clarity for him about power and the Dark Side. His main motivation of “finishing what [Anakin] started” is never even brought up. Kylo just becomes Ben after Rey runs off, and that’s it. He’s Good now because the plot needs him to be.

The Knights of Ren sure were..... there.

Like I said above, the r*ylo kiss is nothing. Yes, it’s garbage that a male character can spend multiple movies killing and hurting a female character’s friends, torturing her, invading her privacy, yelling at her that she’s worthless outside her relationship to him, and still get to snog her in the end. But in the midst of all the coocoo clown shit going on in the third act of this movie, that moment barely pings my radar. And I’m sorry, but I have to complain about this again: Why couldn’t Rey have just been one of Luke’s students that survived the Jedi School massacre? That way, she’d have an actual relationship with pre-Kylo Ben and therefore a reason to believe he could change back. They could’ve been close, like family, which could’ve made for an interesting parallel to their Force bond in that it’s an undeniable connection they have that Rey doesn’t want. You could then have Rey decide to use their pre-established relationship against him, and it would’ve made her decision to go to him in TLJ a lot more understandable. It would’ve made her calling him “Ben” at the end of TROS have some actual weight to it because in this scenario, she actually knew him as Ben.  But no, I guess their forced connection in TLJ (which was contrived by Snoke, just for the record) is all the convincing Rey needs. Yeah, okay. I don’t know. TROS just makes it so apparent to me that Rey was originally intended to be a Skywalker, and they just threw in the Rey Palpatine twist because it’s 2019, and if your audience can follow the clues you set out for a plot development and draw logical conclusions, that means it’s predictable and therefore Bad.

Sheev Palpatine is a right dumbass. If he’d just shut up and let Rey kill him, he would’ve gotten what he wanted, but no! He had to explain to her his entire stupid plan, thereby giving her a very compelling reason NOT to kill him. And you know what, he did the same thing to Luke and Vader in Return of the Jedi. Luke attacked Vader and almost had him when Sheev cut in just to be like “YESSSS, DEWIT, KILL HIM.” And then Luke pulled back! Just let the heroes play into your hands, Sheev, fuck!!!!

TL;DR version: It’s... definitely a mess, but it’s not irredeemable. I think it’s worth watching just for the main trio’s moments and Sheev Palpatine hamming it up. I did think there were a lot of would-be emotional moments that just felt totally unearned (like Luke’s Force Ghost, Kylo’s vision of Han, Rey saying “Ben”), but there were others that were very effective (like the trio hug at the end, Finn sensing Rey’s death, Poe thinking about having to lead without Leia).

I think I liked it a little more than TLJ (which I didn’t hate, just found it very whelming), but TFA’s definitely going to stay my fav.

SPN 2x21: “All Hell Breaks Loose (Part 1)”

I’ve got my tissues and water bottle for re-hydrating my tears. Let’s do this.

“Foreplay/Long Time” by Boston. The best song to set an extra long recap to.

Goddamn, I love this song and I love this show and its music.

On first viewing, I knew everything was gonna go to shit the moment Sam went into the diner alone. You never separate, damn it!

RIP everyone in the diner.

Sam’s gone.

And there he is.

Let’s get this show on the road.

Andy! I’m gonna love you for as long as I can, bud.

LMAO.

Ava. I’m not buying any of this...

“Andy. Also freaking out.” How I lowkey want to introduce myself to people sometimes.

Jake *internal screeching* and Lily.

So we have two psychics, one who can put thoughts/images into others’ heads, one super strength guy, and one who can kill just by touching.

Andy, you’re a gem.

Dean and Bobby.

“So get here now.” Ash’s final words. (Onscreen, at least.)

Poor Sam has to convince 4 indifferent non believers.

Fuck off Jake.

You might want to leave now.

“I will not kill.”

Sam had to save your ass.

Cold Oak, South Dakota.

Lily accidentally killed her girlfriend. :( 

“The best way out of this is to stick together.”

Damn it, Lily.

The Roadhouse is destroyed.

RIP everyone inside the Roadhouse, including Ash. You deserved better, bud.

No, it’s a “i’m summoning a demon and it’s making my head hurt” thing. I see you AVA.

RIP Lily.

At least Jake and Sam are on the same page when it comes to not leaving.

I love the tone that Sam takes when he talks about Dean’s sometimes. It kinda says “Yeah, my brother’s a dork but you gotta love him.”

Don’t resist, Dean.

Well now Dean got the tiniest taste of Sam’s visions.

“That was about as fun as getting kicked in the jewels.”

Bobby figured it out.

There’s 18 minutes left, I am on edge.

An actual nice moment between Sam and Jake that I can’t even enjoy because I know what’s coming.

I CAN’T STAND ALL THIS FORESHADOWING

Sam breaks the bad news to Ava. (Did she already know, tho? Was her reaction part of the act?)

The yellow eyed demon makes an appearance in Sam’s dream.

(When does his name finally get revealed??)

“You’re the one I’m rooting for.”

Since this was pre-Hunger Games, we don’t get a “this is the Hunger Games” line.

Of all the Princes of Hell, Azazel was probably the best one.

“You’re my favorite.”

“It’s always been about you.”

Ha, “charitable”.

The demon blood and little baby Sammy.

“It’s you.”

“She knew you.”

The seed is planted.

Ava’s “missing”. Sure.

Andy, nooooo.

RIP Andy Gallagher. :(

Cut this shit out, Ava.

GRILL HER SAM.

How many people did Ava kill??

“I had no choice. It was me or them.” B U L L. There was a choice, and you chose yourself. Just say that!

“I’m sorry Sam, but it’s over.” Ava’s last words.

RIP Ava Wilson.

5 minutes left. I’m not ready.

Dean and Bobby are arriving. They NEED to haul ass.

FUCK YOU JAKE, GODDAMNIT.

Sam’s fatal mistake. That one tiny little decision. Dropping his weapon.

Sam spared Jake’s life.

Shit, it’s gonna happen.

RIP Sam Winchester. Fuck everything.

Survey #377

“you’re such an inspiration for the way that i will never, ever choose to be.”

Have you ever dreamt in another language? No. How long will you try out something you don’t enjoy before giving up on it? It really depends, but in most cases, admittedly very quickly. What’s something you recently realized or discovered about yourself? *shrug* What’s the most interesting news you read or received recently? What about the most depressing? Not in a good way really, but it was certainly interesting to learn I have such severe sleep apnea. Like, I was certain I didn't. The most depressing would be uhhhh... I guess Jason's mother's death, but I don't know how "recent" you'd consider that by now. Would you let politics get in the way of a relationship? It depends. Some beliefs I absolutely would not tolerate (like anti-LGBT), others I would just agree to disagree with. What is one way in which you need to learn to control yourself? I need to get better at controlling my mouth when I'm extremely upset. Do you use a photo editor? I use Lightroom and Photoshop for photography. Is your dad overweight? No, I think he's actually underweight. Ever been honked at? Yes. What’s the name of the most recent baby a friend has had? Easton, I think? An old middle school friend had him. Have you ever taken medication to help you fall asleep faster? Yes, but they never work for me. How did your parents pick your name? I dunno. If you had to move to another country, where would you move? Canada. Do you have a balcony? No. Who is a singer that has given you chills? Man, I get chills easily with music. David Draiman from Disturbed, his cover of "Sound of Silence" is BREATHTAKING. That's number one. There are many others, they're just not coming to me at the moment. Do you have a drone? No. What was the spiciest thing you’ve ever eaten? Some wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. I got some crazy hot sauce. Have you ever discovered something gross in your food at McDonalds? No. What was the last thing you used sliced bread to make? A sandwich. How long did your shortest relationship last? Like a day lmao. Would you rather have a trampoline or swimming pool? A POOL!!!! I've talked before about how I want one so, SO very badly to exercise my legs without having to worry about sweat, and I can take a break the very moment I need to. Do you own a Snuggie? Yeah, somewhere. Do you listen to any unsigned bands/singers? Who? Yeah, quite a few on YouTube, but my favorite in Jonathan Young. He is SO damn talented. Who is your favorite video game character? Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill franchise. What kind of pictures do you post on Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat most frequently? Mostly of my pets lmao. Have you ever been on vacation with a significant other? No. Have you ever considered “unplugging”/taking a significant period of time away from technology? No. I know I'd never stick to it. Do you prefer to watch a documentary that is about a situation/event or a documentary that is more of a personal character study/biography? The latter. Meerkat Manor comes to mind with that, and everyone knows how much I adore that show. There was also one about rhesus macaques I fell in love with. Basically, I love animal docs, haha. Can you think of a recent time in which you might have been better off resisting, but you did something because you “just couldn’t help yourself”? Probably eating something. When you are getting to know someone, do you tend to worry that the other person will lose interest in you once they get to know the “real” you? Yyyyep. What is something that you would like to do, but really aren’t able to because of your location? (e.g., see art or get a certain job) Man, a lot of things. Photograph meerkats is a biggie. What sort of job do you think is best suited for your skills? Is this an in-demand position or something you’re unlikely to actually get? If I could actually handle the heat and was in good shape to traverse the outdoors, I think I'd be a great wildlife biologist. Even more though, if I could beat my social anxiety, I would ADORE being an animal educator with kids. Do you believe it is the responsibility of businesses, or prominent business leaders (think Bill Gates) to take the lead on social issues whether by using their influence or their money? Saying it's their "responsibility" sounds unfair and puts a lot of weight on their shoulders, but I do feel they should by their own volition and kindness use their position for good, such as through monetary assistance and other things. Have you ever gone to a job interview and realized that you didn’t want the job? Yep. Have you ever asked that someone sacrifice something (a habit, relationship, job, etc.) for you? A habit, yes. Looking back it was stupid as shit. What would you call your body type? Ew. Has anyone ever hacked your accounts before? Yes. Do you enjoy big holiday dinners? Considering I spend them with my sister's bigoted, homophobic, and racist in-laws, not especially. I always feel very uncomfortable and disliked among everyone for being the "black sheep" among 'em. Is your vision good? God no. Even with my glasses, it's very poor. I need a new prescription badly. Do both of your parents have jobs? Mom has something of the sort, like she cleans a local church for a small pay, but it's not really a "job." She's still recovering from cancer, getting her strength back up and such before she can handle a consistent job. Dad's had a job for as long as I've lived. What is something you’ve always wanted a boy to do for you? How heteronormative. But whatever. It's so fucking cheesy, but singing a cute song to me while slowdancing sounds so super adorable to me. What food are you craving right now? I am craving something sweet like you wouldn't believe. It's annoying. Have you ever been in a car accident? Yes. Do you have a lot of scars? Yes, but most are very negligible. I just scar extremely easily. Last person you saw other than your family? My primary doctor. Last movie you’ve seen in theaters? The The Lion King remake. Who was the last person you played a video game with? Ummm I think Girt. Last game you played at an arcade? Zero clue. What was your favorite nursery rhyme as a child? I THINK I particularly liked "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider?" None stand out strongly, though. What is your favorite cousin’s first name? I don’t have a favorite cousin. Would you prefer to travel around the world by yourself or with a friend? I think with a friend to prevent loneliness, but at the very same time, I see a great beauty in traveling on your own. Just taking new things in, seeing so many different cultures, beautiful scenery... I feel it'd be a great chance for exploration of insight. Remind yourself how small you are, that there's a much, much bigger picture than your own problems, that people are so unique but hopefully share common morals... I see a lot of poetry in it. Do you like the smell of coffee? It's one of my favorite smells. If you have a favorite photographer, can you describe their work? I can't possibly pick. I watch literally hundreds on deviantART, and many of them absolutely blow my mind. What’s one aspect of your life that did not turn out as you expected? My lack of a career. Outside of school, have you ever used a thesaurus? Well, online ones for writing. When you see a good-looking girl in skimpy clothing, what is your initial thought? I envy her confidence, like gotdamn girl. Have you ever been in a lighthouse? No. Are you on a laptop or desktop? A laptop. What color is your shower? White. Where do you order your pizza from? Domino's or Little Caesar's. What was the name of the last dog you pet? We've been calling the dog we're holding right now Zoe. Have you ever had anything stolen from you? Yes. Have you ever seen the White House? I don't think so, but it's possible I have when we've driven up to New York, but from a distance. How about Niagara Falls? No. What do you like in your salads and what dressing do you prefer? I just like regular iceberg lettuce with some bacon bits and ranch. Man, that sounds good right about now. Any posters of a band on your bedroom wall? Yeah, Metallica and Marilyn Manson. Do you think it’d be cool to have your body mummified after you die? No. I couldn't rock the mummy look even if I tried, haha. Can you tell the difference between a Scottish & an Irish accent? Not really, no. Can you read music? I used to be able to. Do you work the night shift? I don’t have a job, but if I did, I absolutely do not want to work the night shift anywhere. Have you ever slept over at your best friend’s house? Yes. Is your mother diabetic? Are you? She is, but I'm not. Would you like to learn how to make ceramic pottery? It'd be cool, sure. Ever sang someone to sleep? No. Who did you last kiss? My cat. Why did you last lie? I don't recall. Probably to just avoid confrontation with Mom. What do you put on your hamburgers? Cheese, ketchup, and mustard, generally. Who do you think cares the most about you? My mom. Have you ever sent a dirty picture? No. What’s at the center of your dining table? Honestly, we sit in there so rarely that I don't even know. I think we might have nothing, actually. Have you ever started a rumor? No. Do you like being outside? If it's cool, yes. What’s your favourite condiment? Maybe ketchup. Or honey mustard. Who sang/played the last song you listened to? Chris Motionless is the singer of Motionless In White. I don't know if that's his real last name, though. Do you like yoga? I used to. Now all the bending and shit would make me dizzy as hell with my "how are you still alive" level of low blood pressure. Do you always carry breath mints? No, but I do carry Tictacs with me, but they're for my dry mouth. It forces you to salivate, so it helps. What do you think your reaction would be upon entering the White House? I don't really know. I honestly don't even know how it looks inside. Thinking about it, I'd probably be more scared than anything, waiting for a bomb to drop or some shit lmao. Have you ever grown your own sea monkeys or dinosaurs? OH MY GOD I LOVED those!!! I definitely did! Have you ever thrown a game controller (or the game) and broke it? No, I've never been the type to do that. If I'm SERIOUSLY getting mad, all I do is tighten my grip. Did you ever own an Etch-a-Sketch? Yes. Do/did you ever have glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling? I believe so. What movie were you really worked up for that ended up disappointing you? My answer is Warcraft, but only because the fucking orcs' voices were so baritone that I couldn't understand them almost ever lmaooo. Like I had a mild idea of what was going on because of the game, but still. What part of a paper is hardest for you to write? The intro, or the conclusion. Both are difficult to me. Like I want to compose a gripping beginning as well as an end that doesn't just repeat everything I've already said and ends on a strong note. Does it bother you that almost everything is done on computers now? No. KFC Chicken: original or extra crispy? I don't like fried chicken. Think about your first kiss. Did you have any idea what you were doing? I mean, I guess? Like I'd seen kisses enough to know how to give someone a peck. It just came naturally. Did you get Happy Meals just for the toys as a kid? Not just for the toy, but it's the main thing I wanted, sure. Have you ever seen your parents cry? If so, how did it make you feel? Seeing my mom cry absolutely destroys me. I don't want her to hurt EVER. Especially if it's seriously unfair bullshit that has her upset, I also get very angry (not at her, of course) and protective. I've seen Dad tear up once, back when he was telling us about his mother's funeral, and I felt immense surprise more than anything. He does NOT cry. How do you feel about animal testing? It's fucking disgusting and barbaric. Find a different goddamn way. Do you add condiments to your ice cream, or just eat it plain? If I'm having vanilla, I'll usually add chocolate syrup. Have you ever witnessed a crime? Yes. What’s the coolest personalized license plate you’ve ever seen? I'm forever gonna get a kick out of this one that just said "omw," haha.