#can't believe this idea came to me because I was originally thinking about 2 very unrelated (but actually still very related 🤭) characters
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DEAD THINGS IN THE WOODS. DEAD THINGS IN THE WATER.
I was once again thinking about how Patchface has a tendency to say some rather odd things, and if you view the phrase "under the sea" as an indication of death/afterlife, the things he says take on a more sinister connotation:
Patchface rang his bells. “It is always summer under the sea,” he intoned. “The merwives wear nennymoans in their hair and weave gowns of silver seaweed. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
— A Clash of Kings, Prologue
Patchface was capering about as the maester made his slow way around the table to Davos Seaworth. “Here we eat fish,” the fool declared happily, waving a cod about like a scepter. “Under the sea, the fish eat us. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
— A Clash of Kings, Prologue
“Under the sea the old fish eat the young fish,” the fool muttered at Davos. He bobbed his head, and his bells clanged and chimed and sang. “I know, I know, oh oh oh.”
— A Storm of Swords, Davos V
They found Her Grace sewing by the fire, whilst her fool danced about to music only he could hear, the cowbells on his antlers clanging. “The crow, the crow,” Patchface cried when he saw Jon. “Under the sea the crows are white as snow, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
— A Dance With Dragons, Jon XI
Patchface jumped up. “I will lead it!” His bells rang merrily. “We will march into the sea and out again. Under the waves we will ride seahorses, and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh.”
— A Dance With Dragons, Jon XIII
“Under the sea, men marry fishes.” Patchface did a little dance step, jingling his bells. “They do, they do, they do.”
— A Dance With Dragons, Jon XIII
Patchface drowned but survived under mysterious circumstances:
The boy washed up on the third day. Maester Cressen had come down with the rest, to help put names to the dead. When they found the fool he was naked, his skin white and wrinkled and powdered with wet sand. Cressen had thought him another corpse, but when Jommy grabbed his ankles to drag him off to the burial wagon, the boy coughed water and sat up. To his dying day, Jommy had sworn that Patchface’s flesh was clammy cold.
No one ever explained those two days the fool had been lost in the sea. The fisherfolk liked to say a mermaid had taught him to breathe water in return for his seed.
— A Clash of Kings, Prologue
The previous passage almost seems to echo the following:
He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night’s Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. “And that was the fault in him,” she would add, “for all men must know fear.” A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.
— A Storm of Swords, Bran IV
That's not the only connection that exists between the merlings and the white walkers:
Mormont was deaf to the edge in his voice. “The fisherfolk near Eastwatch have glimpsed white walkers on the shore.”
This time Tyrion could not hold his tongue. “The fisherfolk of Lannisport often glimpse merlings.”
— A Game of Thrones, Tyrion III
Which of course reminds me of Cotter Pyke's ominous letter to Jon Snow:
At Hardhome, with six ships. Wild seas. Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water. Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods. Braavosi captains will only take women, children on their ships. Witch women call us slavers. Attempt to take Storm Crow defeated, six crew dead, many wildlings. Eight ravens left. Dead things in the water. Send help by land, seas wracked by storms. From Talon, by hand of Maester Harmune.
Cotter Pyke had made his angry mark below.
“Is it grievous, my lord?” asked Clydas.
“Grievous enough.” Dead things in the wood. Dead things in the water. Six ships left, of the eleven that set sail. Jon Snow rolled up the parchment, frowning. Night falls, he thought, and now my war begins.
— A Dance With Dragons, Jon XI
Dead things in the woods. Dead things in the water. Here's the description of the white walkers and the merlings:
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat.
[...]
A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took.
— A Game of Thrones, Prologue
They tell of pale blue mists that move across the waters, mists so cold that any ship they pass over is frozen instantly; of drowned spirits who rise at night to drag the living down into the grey-green depths; of mermaids pale of flesh with black-scaled tails, far more malign than their sisters of the south.
— The World of Ice and Fire, The Shivering Sea
Pale and black and grey-green. All frozen.
There is also this similarity of both being said to lay with human women to sire terrible offsprings:
He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.
— A Game of Thrones, Bran I
An even more fanciful possibility was put forth a century ago by Maester Theron. Born a bastard on the Iron Islands, Theron noted a certain likeness between the black stone of the ancient fortress and that of the Seastone Chair, the high seat of House Greyjoy of Pyke, whose origins are similarly ancient and mysterious. Theron’s rather inchoate manuscript Strange Stone postulates that both fortress and seat might be the work of a queer, misshapen race of half men sired by creatures of the salt seas upon human women. These Deep Ones, as he names them, are the seed from which our legends of merlings have grown, he argues, whilst their terrible fathers are the truth behind the Drowned God of the ironborn.
— The World of Ice and Fire, The Reach
We know the dragons are contrasted against the white walkers, but perhaps the merlings are too:
The big man looked out toward the terrace. “I knew it would rain,” he said in a gloomy tone. “My bones were aching last night. They always ache before it rains. The dragons won’t like this. Fire and water don’t mix, and that’s a fact.”
— A Dance With Dragons, The Dragontamer
Although no one can say for certain exactly what kind of creatures Euron (who, while not exactly THE NIGHT KING, is still very Night King coded) plans on summoning from the sea, but perhaps the merlings are part of his plan.
#valyrianscrolls#asoiaf#dragons#merlings#white walkers#the others#patchface#euron greyjoy#meta#asoiaf meta#text#I would say I'm back on my bullshit but I never did leave it#though this time I'm writing out my thoughts on this a bit more comprehensively#honestly if the merlings are the white walkers of the sea it would confirm quite a few theories of mine#also grrm is a genius but we all knew that#can't believe this idea came to me because I was originally thinking about 2 very unrelated (but actually still very related 🤭) characters
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What's your opinion on the anime? I find it pretty funny, but I can't say that I am not disappointed to see so many scenes missing.
For exemple, I wanted to see Dazai cry laugh at Chuuya's young mistress act, show that it was a joke shared by both of them, rather than one made to us at the expense of Chuuya. They took a genuinely funny moment and made me cringe SO hard for no reason T^T
God i could go on for hours about how Bones ruined this series. I'm obviously thankful we have an anime adaptation but. Well just compare bsd anime to jjk one or smth and yeah.
I will be complaining more under the cut,,
First the overall writing choices:
-Deleting or changing skk scenes to the point im not even shocked when ppl think these two actually somehow hate each other.
-The way they portrayed Sigma. They deleted half of his personality and backstory. And just speedrunned the Sky Casino arc like if seeing that place was giving them nightmares. No wonder he gets mischaracterized now.
-Tachihara's internal conflict about belonging to either Port Mafia or The Hunting Dogs? Bones never heard about it. It's not like IT'S A VERY IMPORTANT PLOT POINT.
-Akutagawa's whole character in the anime is just 'edgy and angry and bad grr'. In the manga he had some 'kind' or even seelf-reflection moments that were ommited in the anime. Like where he realizes defeating Atsushi didn't satisfy him (ship fight, season 1). Or when he gives files about the orphanage Director to Atsushi and says he won't fight him today because he lost someone impirtant to him. Sskk vs Fukuchi fight?? No scene where Sskk r helping each other walk. Instead we get Akutagwa just pushing Atsushi away. Won't even start on that last smile that looked more like another angry expression.
-THE WAY THEY CHANGED "DAZAI'S ENTRANCE EXAM" INTO SOME CURRENT TIMELINE EPISODES. IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY LIKE. THIS NOVEL WAS SO GOOD. Showing both Dazai and Kunikida's characters and partnership so well. But no. Let's just??? Put Atsushi there. Let's delete the fact this thing happened 2 years ago. And let's delete everything that was actually important about it, too.
-also some changes in the Dark Era arc. Like. Lord. Dazai is so much more emotional in the novel. His expressions r described so well. But the anime either shows him from the back at those moments (him finding out Oda was almost killed by a sniper in Ango's room) or just deletes/changes the thing (Oda dying. This scene is so emotional in the novel. From the description u can tell Dazai was crying/on the verge of it as Odasaku died. But in the anime he looks calm and then we get a far aeay frame and he just. Gets up and that's it yeah.) They also deleted the scene of him visiting Oda's grave.
-The way they rushed seasons 4 and 5. Just to give us an episode that goes further than the manga and has the shittiest writing ever when it comes to skk's plan revelation (im so angry about this u guys have no idea. I sincerely believe that if this episode never came out, the manga would go differently bc there's no way that Asagiri who wrote things like Stormbringer suddenly thought that some dollar store vampire make up will fool a guy who's centuries old and literally lived next to vampires. But well!! Seems like these two speeches Dazai gave weren't important at all and now we can just forget about them yippiee)
I could definitely mention WAYY more examples of that but this is already long af. Like guys. I know u cant fit everything in an animated show. It takes time to make it and all but. Bro. The character's in the anime r so shallow compared to their original versions.
.
Now onto the artstyle of the anime.
Lord. U know? It was actually pretty in the first 2 seasons. The official arts at the time were also really nice to look at.
No idea what happened later. Why did Bones suddenly decide that those ugly turtle smiles r gonna become the main thing in the character design. Why so many fisheyes. Atp sometimes i look at the official art and i go oh lord even i could fix it. It really feels like they draw some characters ugly on purpose now (Chuuya being the main victim for unknown reasons).
Tho i must say they have their moments even now. Some last episodes of season 5 weren't really bad, especially the Meursault part (love them for animating Dazai and Sigma dancing so well. And for that 101 animation. And maybe for the heartattack they gave me with 109 and Chuuya shooting Dazai so many times.)
.
On some other things, i really like the music! Bsd openings and endings never miss,,,
#sab q&a#tumblr crashed when i was half into writing that and i had to start from the beginning again but it's no longer as detailed bc >:(#my relationship with bones looks like that: i would like to see stormbringer animated but im actually scared of seeing it animated#not because its sad but because there r very high chances that Bones will completely ruin it too#if u want me to talk solely about the manga vs anime skk then yeah just tell me i can do that too muah#sab yapping
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A brief-ish Analysis on the most important scene in For the Future lore: The Collector's Story
I needed a place to ramble, so here we go
To start off with, the cover of the actual book is much simpler and more childish than the symbol we've seen in the past:
So this book was probably made for this Collector specifically, or any young Collector to learn about their species. I'd also like to comment on the fact that while the book may look impossibly long, the stone pages coupled with the large font greatly shorten it. This doesn't mean it's not long, just not as long as it first appears.
This isn't important, just thought I'd point it out.
Moving on:
The contents of the book
This scene confirms something very important, there were other Collectors
and from the looks of it, they weren't very nice. More on that in a moment
The people depicted here are probably the ancestors of the Titan Trappers, seeming to worship the Collectors. But considering the Collector's tendency to wipe out anyone in their path, this isn't surprising. They seem to gain followers through fear, the type of fear they twist into awe and worship.
I find this especially interesting because Belos gained followers in a similar manner, fear turned to worship. First of all, I'd like to acknowledge they are still very different. Belos's rise to power came about through manipulation and making everyone believe he could lead them to a better future, while the Collectors probably scared everyone into submission with the idea they could take down any who go against them in an instant.
But while their origins are different, they grow into something very similar. By season 1 and 2, Belos was forcefully gripping at control and using his powerful position to either capture any who rebel, and to invoke worship in the rest. Maybe I'm reading too far into it, I don't know.
Additionally, each group were trying to destroy an opposing species. Belos with witches and The Collectors with Titans
Long story short, The Collectors inspired fear and turned it into worship. Belos did something kind of similar. Also, Boscha and Kikimora also established a tyranny in this episode. Just some food for thought
Back to the book, the section that the Collector crossed out hold some heavy implications.
("But should they meddle in our affairs, we'll clean the planet and scorch the air")
Not just the ones who opposed them, the planet itself.
The Boiling Isles would be an empty mass of boiling sea if it weren't for the titan's carcasses. Without them, there would be nothing there. What if this is because the Collectors reset the planet, burning away anything that once rose above the sea and raising the ocean's temperature to boiling levels in the fire.
Or at least that's my interpretation
So, based on the information we have, the Collectors may or may not have had the power to wipe out an entire planet. Yet, they seem to have been completely wiped out alongside the titans, except for just one of their young.
We know a titan was the one that sealed away our Collector, so we can assume that it was an evenly matched battle, the two species wiping each other out. (King and our Collector probably can't reproduce, so their as good as extinct)
Okay, at this point, we've figured out a rough theory on the Collector's history, but how does our Collector play into this?
It's made very clear that our Collector isn't fond of his predecessors. He's a kid with a lot of power and was probably bored by the other's ideas of doom and gloom and the tendency to destroy anything interesting.
So our Collector decided to start doing things his own way. It's clear he didn't decide to step away from the old ways out of sympathy, rather, it was because he's a bored, lonely kid who wants to do interesting stuff like play and make friends.
Does he have any role in the destruction of his species? We don't know. Personally, I think he was placed in the mirror when he was really young, leaving him with nothing but vague memories and a book to get to know his predecessors by.
I believe this because it would parallel him more with King, both of them not being able to remember their species.
I think if the Collector learned to listen to king, they could form a really nice, genuine friendship
#wow this got longer than I excpected#Not super long#but still long#feather says some stuff#I know I called this the most important scene#but I think we all know the TRUE most important scene#that's right#STRING BEAN#JSHDHSJKDJFDKDL#In all seriousness#I freaking loved this episode#I am definitely adressing all the other stuff later#the owl house#toh#the collector#toh the collector#Ramble/anlysis#for the future#The owl house#Feather says some stuff
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Let's talk about hotd's deleted scenes
Soo hotd has a lot of interesting scenes that were deleted. Some people love them, others believe that removing them was for the best.
Today I'll check em out and tell you how I feel about them, and how I think they could have benefited the show if kept in.
1. The infamous Daemon hug scene
Uhh I have.. feelings towards this.
And I already hear you go:
"How could you not like this, it's so wholesome!" Yeah I know I know, trust me, I think this is adorable, just a weird scene.
From what we know this shot was completely improvised by Matt and it shows.
Cause almost all of his character's nicer scenes that make people think "maybe he isn't that bad" were ideas Matt came up with. We can see throughout the show how the poor guy does his best to not make Daemon look like a psycho and it's nice on paper, but the contrast between his improvised scenes and the scripted ones is jarring.
I mean we go from him violently beating his first wife to death with a rock, to him tenderly breaking the news of Luke's death to Nyra or picking up Vizzy's crown and gently crowning him.
It does work more with his book characterization though so that's cool.
It's cute, it makes casual viewers go awww, but it's a bit inconsistent in the grand scheme of things.
I guess some people will interpret it as the softer spot Daemon has for the people he truly cares about, but knowing how he also treats them in other scenes...
Cough cough Rhaenyra choke scene cough cough.
I'm just left a bit confused.
Overall, I like it, but there's better.
7-/10
2. Criston taking his Kingsguard vows.
God I wanted this to make the cut soo bad.
It's just that in the past I've already talked about how dirty Criston is done in the fandom, and I truly believe he deserves more screentime, he's a very interesting character.
So getting a scene like this would have been awesome, and by showcasing the pride and happiness Criston felt at achieving his dream thanks to Rhae, her eventual treatment of him would have hurt even worse.
Personally I'm not sure if it could have swung more people to feel for him and criticize Nyra, but it would have generally enriched his character and relationship with the princess and I would have looved it.
Only point against it is that it's probably one of the least important deleted scenes.
It sucks to say it, but I didn't really feel it's absence, you know?
If I had to cut a scene, I too would have chosen this one, but with a veery heavy heart.
Really solid idea though.
8+/10
3. The Rhaenicent fight at the end of episode 2
Finally, we're moving onto Alicent related scenes.
And this... is my villain origin story.
I can't believe it was cut, wtf!
I get that maybe they wanted to stay loyal to the rule "show don't tell" cause it was already obvious that Rhae was mad at Alicent when she ran out of council meeting room after the announcement of her father's betrothal, but like... The possible angst!
Alicent crying, trying to explain the situation and appealing to their friendship to try and get Nyra to calm down while she screams at her and calls her names for not revealing the truth sooner, god this would have destroyed me even further!
The missed potential drives me insane, I would literally pay money to see how this scene was supposed to play out.
10/10
This awesome interaction would have also perfectly set up the hostility and tention that would characterize the next deleted gem...
4. Rhaenicent preparing for Ali's wedding
Godd, this is another one of those scenes that, in my humble opinion, should have stayed in the show.
Not only because of the possibility of more Rhaenicent angst to break my heart,(Yeess) but also because this is one of those scenes whose absence is really felt in the story for me.
We go from Ali and Viserys's betrothal to them being already married with a toddler and another baby on the way and even though I'm aware that hotd has a lot of time jumps, I do feel like we should at least have seen the wedding celebration before moving onto the future.
This event being glossed over really left a bad taste in my mouth.
9,5/10
I can just imagine the sad and awkward silence during that scene, poor girls.
5. Viserys testing Daemon regarding Aegon's prophecy
Soo, time to talk about the most incompetent targ king and his very problematic bro.
This scene had a loot of potential.
Apparently it was supposed to be about Viserys toying with the idea of revealing the Conquerer's prophecy to Daemon, but ultimately choosing not to after his brother showed little to no interest in what he was saying.
It would have been great to set up Daemyra's fight in the last episode
(honestly it would have been quite funny to see Daemon have a meltdown after hearing of the prophecy that he thinks his brother didn't trust him enough to tell him of, when he literally had the chance of knowing about it but threw it away lol)
And it also would have showcased how unfit Daemon is to rule, and given Viserys yet another reason to pick Rhaenyra as his heir over him.
9-/10
In conclusion:
Yes I know there are a lot more deleted scenes to discuss, but I really don't want this post to get too long, so I'm going to end it here.
Personally, I think all of these deleted scenes were good, and there genuinely wasn't a single one I would have hated to see on screen.
But what were your favourites? Please tell me, especially if they weren't featured in this post, I'm super curious to find out about more cut scenes to learn what we all missed lmao.
#hotd#house of the dragon#alicent hightower#rhaenyra targaryen#viserys targaryen#daemon targaryen#ser criston cole#criston cole#pro criston cole#deleted scenes
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Women of Xal II Kickstarter: Delayed?
Hey, have you heard of the overly ambitious visual novel titled "Women of Xal" for Steam and Itch.io? (PC/Mac/Linux) Because that plays into why we might need to shelf the series for a few years. Full breakdown under the cut. (No spoilers)
For those who have gotten the True Ending, you should be fully aware that the story is about to vastly expand outside of Xuna's castle. It's a narrative must where everything that happens, happens well outside the scope of the original game in so many ways. And let's talk about scope! Especially if you have no idea what's so staggering about the original Women of Xal visual novel:
600+ optional choices we painstakingly programmed
Branching paths that people are still asking for guides on
A dozen romance options
Poly and gay options that interact with one another
Voice acting from now VERY popular voice actors
A 15 hour story full of mystery, lore, and tense politics
110 track soundtrack
4 Endings
Animations
Thousands of art assets (Bless Cat)
Years of hard work and long nights
No AI Art
100% positive reviews as of this post
Recouped $6000+, or roughly a fraction of the cost of development. After 2+ years of being released
Note that very last bullet point. Doing things for the art and passion is amazing and all, but I can't be investing literal thousands of hours into creating a game for a subset of a subset of a subset of people. I have bigger projects I want to finally get to work on. Ones I really hoped Women of Xal I would help a bit with funding. But it's not. And because of certain facts about the game, it may never be able to do so. To no fault of any of the players.
When I made Women of Xal I, my time was more readily available and I was quite a bit younger. The cost of running a company and creating a game like WoX as the first product hadn't quite hit me. I was also silly enough to believe "if you make it, they will come" to a degree. That part makes me grin in a not fun way.
But these days I have a job that takes me away from creating, but does pay the bills and debts. Debts I don't want to get into again in order to create the sequel that will undoubtedly come with far higher costs due to the game's scope. I have a better understanding of the costs of hiring returning and appropriate talent necessary to create a game better than the last. (I don't personally believe in being satisfied with an intentional steep downgrade.)
Yes there is the Kickstarter option for Women of Xal II, but there are plenty of costs and time investment that makes it an unviable avenue to explore during this point in time. After all, who but the people who sat down and explored everything the first game had to offer would understand how we came up with a $50,000 Kickstarter price tag for a visual novel's sequel? Especially since too many will look at the first Kickstarter and believe we made the first game with only $14,000.
I have thought about giving Women of Xal I a modernized facelift with a smaller Kickstarter, complete with a ton of new features and fun ways to streamline and highlight the narration's strong points, but there's a LOT of baggage that comes with that, including not wanting to go backwards when I still want to create my "pipe dream" projects.
So I'm thinking we'll give it a bit more thought these next few days, and if we can't think of a solution that we haven't already tried, we'll officially announce the delay (and before you suggest your own ideas, know that there's a 99% chance we've already tried it).
A long, long post just to say I do sincerely apologize for having people wait longer, but I am literally still a few thousand dollars away from paying off all my debt that came from funding the first game. It's a micro-trauma I do not feel inclined to repeating again. When the franchise is in a better place, or I am emotionally/physically, I will return back to Women of Xal to finish the story. If I cannot, I will release a summary of events that transpire after the first game's true ending.
But for now, I'm going to focus on financial and emotional healing, and creating projects that I feel will be more appreciated by both myself and people who are turned off by what "Women of Xal" offers.
Thank you all for supporting our small company these past several years. <3
-John
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From the depths of the studio - where darkness prevails and the voices of the puddles grow louder - a message is echoed to the rest of the world. A promise filled with hatred and,at the same time,with conviction. Words coming from someone who was more than confident that their blasphemy would come true.
A message that is directed to one creature,and one creature only...
"I will become the very being You never could be"
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"A Promise Sent from Below" - Return to the Studio AU.
Oh hey, I have an AU, I forgot about that (lie)
I've had a similar idea in my head for a month now. It wasn't possible to do it last month, but no problem. May would make more sense.
I did something with this little guy for 414 last year, and I wanted to do something with him again.
April 14th of this year would not be possible, but May 14th or 15th? Oh yes.
These dates are better because it was between these two (actually it was the 14th I think, but I consider both dates) days that I created this guy above! Consider this drawing a celebration made for…well, me. Of course, he wasn't created with the design above in mind. His original, main design is quite different from this alternative (and less original) iteration. The drawing above shows his current situation in the "current" moments of the RTTS AU.
His creation, which dates back to 2020, was the result of some Bendy-related thoughts of mine intersecting on the day. These being about new things in canon lore that came out at the time (plus speculation about this new information), a theory that at the time I started to understand better (which maybe based on the drawing, you probably know which theory I'm talking about ) and a funny bug found in one of the games (do you remember Ghost Bendy by any chance?) And then,boom.
I created Atlas. I remember at the time I was thinking of other names for him because Atlas was just a codename that I had in mind to refer to him while I thought of a definitive name for the guy. But the codename ended up sticking. Plus, Atlas is a cool name and I wanted to give an OC that name.
Even though some details changed over time, I think I eventually managed to solidify his place in the AU. Not that his story is 100% thought out and completed. Hell, my AUs that I have are still not 100% thought out either, so what to expect from their characters. But I think that, currently, I have at least decided on the general idea of his place and purpose in RTTS, and I am happy with what I have come up with.
I don't know when the next time will be that I will show him again. In general, showing things from my AUs is not and probably will never be my strong point lol. But I'd like to draw him again eventually. So uhhhhhhhhhhh, one day. When that "one day" will be, it's up to you to decide
Happy Birthday Atlas. You and your other 2 alternative versions are cool to think about. Here's to another 4 years of chaos for you. 🙌
I can't believe it's been 4 years now, damn.
#bendy and the ink machine#batim#bendy and the dark revival#batdr#return to the studio au#bendy au#bendy oc#crookedsmileart#I found new a way to indicate which specific drawing refers to an AU or not#also writing that...thing at the beginning (drabble????) took a bit out of me#writing things like short story descriptions is so difficult; imagine writing a real fic#How can you all do this; seriously.#fanfiction writers are the real badasses;fr fr#about the “other 2 alternative versions” of Atlas; there are 3 versions of him that I have#the first is the one above; from the Return to the Studio AU. His main incarnation; I would say#Then there's his version in the Toon City Adventures AU; which varies a little from the RTTS version.#There are things in this version of him that I still need to rewrite#and then there's his non-Bendy version;#where I remove all the Bendy connections; and he is practically an original character with no connections to existing material#and play with him in some original stories that I put together in the back of my mind#I admit that this version is what I end up going back to a little more in recent times#But in the end I like all 3 equally#since last year's 414 art; I changed a few little things in his design; but still keeping the general idea in place#I'll eventually have to create a reference sheet for him;i guess#rtts au
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Honestly? While there's no doubt that Luffy fucked up in Whiskey Peak? Like 80% of the outrage and 100% of the accusations of "ooc"ness come from 1) the misconception of Luffy being this super intuitive guy leading to him being put on an altar, and 2) a refusal to allow him any emotional depth.
To start off – Luffy's not that intuitive. The closest thing to it is what the crew call his "animal instincts" in Water 7, where he predicts that he will have to fight Rob Lucci, like he predicts other fights before and after. Only – is that really what happens? He "just knows"? Because, from what I remember, he very clearly identifies him as the leader and the strongest member of CP9 (#366: "of all the people we'll be fighting in a little while, the strongest is that pigeon guy! I'l definitely be the one to send him flying!"). Of course he assigns himself to fight him. That's his reasoning every other time, as well. At times (certainly not often, but sometimes), he demonstrates actual strategic thinking, like with Moria.
I think a lot of people want to think that Luffy "intuits" the Straw Hats' potential or even their pasts when he asks them to join, but we don't see any evidence of that. What we do see is a lot of instances where Luffy witnesses good things about his friends, both in terms of skill and of character. In Brook's case, he literally just went "talking skeleton cool cool cool cool cool". And that's all. It might be hard to swallow that some of the deepest and strongest bonds we see in the series, the most important ones and the cornerstone of the story, are based on something as flimsy as "hee hee I like you be my nakama", that Luffy didn't somehow know that they needed to be taken in. But that's just the way it is. Hell, if it had been solely up to him, Kureha, Iceberg and a bunch of random zombies without a will of their own who were trying to kill them would be part of the crew.
I think that what happens is that Luffy is very undiscerning and undemanding about who can join the crew or even sail with them (he also let Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 go with them without a fuss, same with the Franky Family, who he only knows from, you know, having beat up Usopp and stolen 200mil berries from them) and we want to think that there's some deeper reason for it. We know that it's nothing rational, because we're not so detached from what's happening on the page, so that leaves some kind of instinct telling him that these are the right people. It's a nice idea – it gives Luffy some unconventional wisdom to make up for his lack of it otherwise and fits well with his upbringing in the jungle.
But there's not really anything special about the people he picks up, except the fact that he picks them up. Not in the sense that they're special because of him, but that they become special to him. That's the real reason why he goes after Nami and Robin and Sanji when they leave. It's not that, oooh, he can sense how tortured and traumatized they are and that deep down they're good people. Nah – he just believes them when they say they are his people, so he refuses to abandon them.
And, okay, this might seem damning in the context of Whiskey Peak, because where was this faith when it came to Zoro, who arguably earned it more than anyone else in the crew? To be honest, that's one of the points where I'll concede that Luffy fucked up the most, but there is another matter at play here: everyone else claimed to be on his side, or at least be a certain kind of person, before apparently turning on him. He chose to believe that original impression out of loyalty.
Not only is Luffy not that discerning, he is known for being a sucker for deception. He can't lie, and he's so honest that most of the time he can't even conceptualize that someone might be lying to him. ("Are you going to betray me?" "No." *grins*) The idea that he could just... take a look at someone and divine either good or evil intent goes directly against canon. He gets taken in by CP9, by Kanjuro, hell, he buys that King Cobra betrayed Alabasta as Vivi is telling him of how Crocodile manipulated them.
And that leads me into Whiskey Peak and point 2.
Before we start, think back to Wano, if you would. (If you haven't reached Wano, don't worry, the spoilers in this paragraph are very light.) Imagine that, after spending the day with Tama, and Tsuru, and Kiku, and the rest of the village who gave up their scarce supplies to feed them, Luffy and Zoro go to sleep. The morning after that, Luffy wakes up to a massacre. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has been cut down. The people who helped them, the people who he was talking and laughing with just a few hours ago, dead or near enough. He recognized Tsuru among the pile of bodies and she still has some breath left, so he asks who did it.
Basically, imagine sympathetic victims to the Whiskey Peak massacre.
When we read Whiskey Peak, we know there's something fishy going on. For starters, it's Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9's town, which makes it suspicious enough. Then, before the attack, we see them writing a letter saying that they wanted the Straw Hats to go there, making it obviously dangerous. This is without even getting into the clear threat evident to us readers because we know this is a story and that there's no way the heroes will have it that easy. We mistrust and refuse to sympathize with the Whiskey Peak inhabitants from the start. Until the reveal that Vivi's undercover, they're enemies and future meatsacks to us. We forget that that's not the case for the Straw Hats. Especially, that's not the case for Luffy, who takes everyone at face value.
I think a lot of people maybe get too caught up in their image of Luffy as a sort of chaos, "do things for the laff" entity who'll liberate you from tyranny in exchange from food, so they don't realize that there might be emotional, non-transactional reasons for his behavior. That he feels thankful to the people who help him, because he's survived on the kindness of others all his life and he would've died without it (and if you think that doesn't apply now that he's a pirate, go back to read the Baratie arc). That he might get attached to the people who are kind to him and others. That, even if he doesn't feel affection for them, he'll still be outraged when their kindness is met with cruelty by others. We joke about his disproportionate responses to being fed (aka overthrowing the government for a bowl of rice), but that's because he's not acting under a perceived debt, but out of a bond he's created with his benefactor/s.
So Luffy, who couldn't understand duplicity if it showed up with a twin, gets to a village full of people who happily welcome him and his crew, who appear to do this for every weary traveler that has just passed through the harrowing ordeal of Reverse Mountain. They offer them food, drinks and shelter for as long as they need it. Not only that, they all spend hours partying together, chatting, having fun. Than, Luffy wakes up to find everyone either slaughtered or nearly – the people he was partying with not long ago, from the elderly to children, and, okay, gross, but let's recognize that One Piece is a piece of media with an antiquated system of gallantry that says that it's also an outrage that the women were also hurt. He walks up to one of them and asks them who did it. He says it was Zoro.
Take a moment to place yourself in his shoes. This was objectively a horrifying experience. You wouldn't be surprised if he went after the culprit if it was a stranger. And while I think he should have given Zoro the benefit of the doubt, there's something actually a lot more horrifying in the fact that it was one of his friends who did it: that means Luffy's responsible. He's the one who brought Zoro there, after all. Most codes of honor would have the leader of a group vouching, at least implicitly, for its members.
And it might have easily felt like a betrayal. Not because Zoro went against Luffy, but because he let him down.
A lot of people bring this fight back to loyalty – hasn't Zoro shown Luffy how loyal he is? (And, you know what, I think we could have an interesting discussion about that? About what's said, what's implied, also what's actually witnessed by the characters, but never mind.) Zoro promised him he'd be the best, and that he'd stick by Luffy in his path to achieve that... but he never promised he'd never cruelly cut down an entire village in the meantime, something which is not beyond what any other pirate would do, loyalty notwithstanding. And a good thing, too, because he did, in fact, do that in WP!
That's the other thing. Imagine waking up to a whole village of people who helped you and your crew cut down by a member of said crew. The children included. The idea of there being a good reason for it is actually more out there than a prideful and powerful man who agreed to become a pirate, specifically to establish himself as the strongest in his field, would lash out at the flimsiest offense to his ego, to be honest.
Basically, it all goes down to how this guy, so honest he can barely conceive of being lied to when he's directly informed of it, should have walked out to find bloodied piles of bodies and gone "this guy with violent tendencies I met like a month ago killed dozens of people, including children, who fed us and sheltered and fed us, who I like because of that, probably did it for a good reason". Forgive me if I bring up the children too much, it's just that, if there's one demographic you don't expect anyone to have enough of a good reason to maim, it's that one. Faced with this kind of scene, it makes sense to doubt your initial judgement of a person.
Of course, what he did see of Zoro before that should have told him enough to at least doubt. At the very least, he should have heard him out before killing him. Zoro did try to explain. (Then again, if someone admitted to slaughtering a whole neighborhood and then claimed to have a good reason for it I wouldn't be jumping to hear them out.)
That said, it's not about Luffy doubting Zoro's loyalty, it's about doubting his character when faced with incredibly damning evidence against it. One the one hand, maybe Luffy's the one who should've been more loyal. On the other, the fact that his loyalty didn't extend to forgiving one of his crew when they apparently go rogue and attack not just an entire village, but of full of people who helped them and continuously did the same for others, just goes to prove that he doesn't have the moral backbone of a wet noodle, in addition to checking out with his tendency to develop an attachment to people who feed him.
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Another Lightning Round!
This time, we're answering:
-Borb Feet
-Shadow Dedede and The Mirror World's Dream Fountain
-Kirby Royalty
-Soul of Kirby?!
-Forgiving the "unforgivable" Dream Friends
(a lo~ng post for an old ask!)
Hee hee! I'll tell you what, anon, at first, I wasn't sure how to take this comment (something I mentioned on stream) because getting good at drawing feet on the internet is... well...you know!
But given I myself started this by pointing out how bad I was at it with Galacta Knight, I really do appreciate the compliment! Next on my list.... borb hands. I've seen so many people draw Kirby's n-nubs (?) in ways that really make them look so marshmallow-y and fun!
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Hello?! That idea of the Star Rod never getting repaired after Shadow Dedede broke it?! Fantastic! Imagine it drying up, and of course, the effects something like that would have on the mirror world!
(Has anyone else stumbled across that gorgeous but haunting series of "bad end" pictures a certain Kirby fan artist did on Twitter? I remember one had Dedede with a dried up Dream Fountain. That's very much what I'm visualizing here!)
Now, I vague~ly recall that there's some debate about the "darkness in his heart" part of the Shadow Dedede pause screen? That the English version says it is Shadow Dedede who has to overcome his darkness whereas in the original, it is OUR Dedede who has to overcome his "shadow" that being Shadow Dedede.
...But just because it isn't saying that Shadow Dedede is trying to overcome something doesn't mean he doesn't represent a painful mark in both Dedede's histories. And such a "mistake" (unknown at the time) is an excellent possibility!
Lastly, thank you! The steady influx of lore and theories everyone drops into my inbox reminds me of my favorite parts of fandom in the old days and is a major treat!
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This is NEAT! While they may not have known about each other in the past, you bring up a great point that after so many games, these various planets (dimensions? in the case of Fluff) are forging bonds with each other. Everyone likes the Galactic Star Alliance from the anime, right? What's interesting is that we kind of have a basis for such an "alliance" forming in our current Kirby-game verse!
Kirby has helped these monarchs get in contact with each other, becoming a link across multiple planets. So I think the idea of them getting together and talking now, in the present~post-game of Forgotten Land is a possibility! Let each other know if any suspicious activity is happening or if everyone is still doing all right.
Although that reminds me of something that came up in the stream... Since King Dedede is the "self-proclaimed" ruler of Dream Land... is there an ACTUAL ruler of Dream Land/Popstar waiting in the wings? Waiting for their return? Or sealed away even? (D-Dark Nebula, is that you?)
Either way, a meeting between those 5 sounds both intense and fun! I would love to come back to this idea with a sketch or illustration of some kind!
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I'm digging into the backlog for some of these. Also, I can't believe I never answered this one?! Sorry if this ask is too old even for you, @emeraldcoloredwinter
(I'm also sorry in case I did in fact answer it in the past and can't find it - because Tumblr's search is really unreliable. If I repeat myself here, I'm sorry. If not and this turns out to be relevant...great!)
Frankly, I would love to see all kinds of soul lore expanded upon in future games. Partly because I have my headcanons as to why Sectonia/Pres. Haltmann died for realz versus why Marx and Magolor came back and if we get more tidbits, I can come closer to completing my conspiracy corkboard!!
(As well as figure out just where Drawcia lays in the current state of "canon." And maybe figure out some stuff about Zero, Zero 2 and the Dark Matters and what happened to them!)
On the one hand, I feel like Void did a rea~lly bang up job at feeling like you were battling the soul of Kirby. Or at least "a Kirby." I mean, seeing Kirby's face appear on Void, with all those childish movement patterns and that smile before defeat?
But Void was also composed of a variety of thoughts and feelings, so it wasn't exactly our Kirby. Then we've got the Shadow Kirby battles in Kirby Fighters 2, which also come somewhat close in concept, as you're fighting someone with the same ability set as you. That would be another good way to do it, I think.
But it still doesn't quite scratch that itch, does it? ... Now, I feel silly that I can't remember if this is a real thing or I'm just combining a bunch of games in my head (I-I may be old but I'm decades away from the point where I should have to fear being senile!!) but watching some Castlevania longplays... there was a part of one of the games where you go through one of the old castles, right? Maybe it wasn't in black and white, but it is in my memories.
And Kirby had a part like that too, in one of the games! At least, I think it did...? (Okay, maybe I AM going senile...)
:cough: That aside, something like those visuals above when combined with the feelings evoked by the 8-bit nostalgia portion of Void Termina's The Star Conquering Traveler Suite...
I can only imagine it would be sad. Maybe it would involve some kind of sacrifice or some kind of origin story. A time-travel game even? Something that takes us back to our favorite hero's beginnings. Despite it inevitably being THE penultimate fight, I can't picture it being a big dramatic battle so much as one of those interactive cutscenes, or something with never-seen-before-now gameplay elements. But it would feel like a true goodbye to the Kirby series. Oh, it might be able to continue on past that, just like things didn't end after the Star Allies completion picture either.
...But expect a lot of fears (and tears!) of something happening when it finally did.
Personally, I can't help but think Kirby's Soul would look like Retro Kirby or Popopo from Twinkle Popo. It might not even be called "Kirby's Soul" but have a more archetypical name like "Soul of a Traveler" or "Soul of Youth."
...Soul of the Spring Breeze.
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Another super old one. Gah, me and my slowness... The sad thing is, I had nine~ty percent of this written out a while ago but just didn't know how to finish it. I'm so sorry about that, @vexx-ation !
It was a really good ask though and I'm glad I gave it another shot. Now then, I think that in large part, this would boil down to who was most harmed by those characters and in what ways!
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[Dark Meta Knight]
Dark Meta Knight is the biggest mystery because... DMK refuses (or can't) talk to anyone so we know nothing about his feelings. And we don't even know how he returned the first time after death (?)
Meta Knight is the one DMK has arguably hurt the most (excluding maybe Kirby) but I feel like Meta Knight is also the one who needs nothing from DMK to understand forgive them. It really all depends on where Dark Meta Knight is coming from. Was DMK a willing agent in Dark Mind's takeover? Then Meta Knight would be more hard on/untrusting of his shadow for certain. But being his mirror counterpart, I think he would take it as a sign of something lacking in himself. That he is only one step away from making such a turn. But if you, like me, think that the placement of certain objects and events in Amazing Mirror (Radish Ruins as DMK's "stage" and Shadow Kirby showing up one last time before you face off against DMK) are indicative that something more subtle is going on, Meta Knight may not even require an apology from DMK at all. Either DMK was manipulated or was attempting to manipulate the situation in the Mirror World's favor. In which case Meta would just silently nod and go on with his day.
Then there's King Dedede, who, at least in his own parallel mode, was seemingly attacked at random by DMK. That certainly puts them off on a wrong start, but I also think that Dedede would be able to eventually laugh it off and compare it some of his Meta Knight's more belligerent actions in the past (something that would probably fluster Meta Knight, as he wouldn't expect that comparison, mirror counterpart or no.) IE: I find it hard to believe the guy with a wrestling ring in his castle would hold an ambush against somebody for long, especially as he won.
It would take Bandee probably a bit to come to terms with the scary version of someone he most likely respects, but DMK has his cute (?) side too (like in his idle animation) so I think Bandee could come to accept DMK, especially after both Meta Knight and Dedede express that they no longer hold any hard feelings toward the dark knight.
Kirby would probably be the closest thing to a "holdout" here, only because Dark Meta DID ambush two of his friends (depending on the timelines) and he'd want to know that's not going to happen again. Afterwards though? DMK's right to be a part of the group is never questioned again!
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[Susie]
Susie... ahhh, Susie. Let's just note that all the classic Susie discourse disclaimers go here and remind everyone once more that they're on a Susie-friendly blog and to some of you, what I am going to say may come off as being exceptionally "light" on Susie's crimes. It is what it is, however. If you want a brutal takedown of Susie, there are dozens of other blogs who will give it, I am certain. I can only go in-depth on things from my view of my Kirby-verse.
In random order: Bandee was the only one to not be incapacitated for large chunks of Planet Robobot's story and I believe that were the game to be remade in the modern style (or even had it been released on more powerful hardware than the 3DS) Bandee would have been a second player character just like in Forgotten Land. And if we assume that of him, then we can assume Bandee would have been exposed to Susie's entire plotline same as Kirby.
Bandee is, at least in the novel-verse (and it's not a bad HC in general) the most empathetic member of the Dream Team. Bandee can sympathize with and care about just about anyone. And Bandee might have been wondering if there was something going on with Susie before even Kirby started to see the cracks in the secretary's facade of corporate perfection.
While Bandee wouldn't like the things she, her father, and the HWC have done to Popstar, I think that once he sees where she's come from, his own anger would be tempered down. That everything reverts at the end (ironic (?) that everything is almost "magically healed" except the Haltmann's shattered family bonds) would be enough of a relief for Bandee that I think he could move on to looking at Susie as just a person. (And isn't he the one in the novel who gives her the pocketwatch back or am I mis-remembering that?)
I actually think Susie "as a friend" could be more intimidating to Bandee that Susie as an enemy. She's a sympathetic enemy. As a friend, she might be a considered too "extra" for the small warrior Dee! XD
On that note...I don't know why, but in most cases, I just see King Dedede as being very forgiving toward people in trouble. Oh, he will grumble about it to no end! But I don't see him EVER hurting anyone while they're down.
Of course, Dedede was also unconscious for 99% of Planet Robobot. Was he even awake when his DNA was stolen? Does he know? I mean, not knowing wouldn't be great at all, but I can't help but think that more than being harvested and bottled, his biggest concern, just based on his priorities, would be that his castle got destroyed AGAIN. Why can't the poor man keep a castle?! He didn't even do anything this time!! (Even the Halberd made it!) So, yeah, imagine a confrontation with Susie and Dedede and Susie tries to imagine all the things Dedede is going to call her out for and no, he's just upset about his castle getting wrecked. Susie is surprised he even cares about that "dinky, dusty old thing" and thus, a shouting match begins.
But again, I don't think it would last for too long. I think the things Dedede and Susie would clash on would be petty things. Dedede is pretty manly in his interests and Susie is very girly. They're blue and pink, even. I think Dedede would forget or just plain ol' not care about Susie's more "human rights" crimes and make MOUNTAINS out of the little things. Although they do share a love of machinery, and that might be something that would bring peace to the VERY petty disagreements. At least until Susie chastises Dedede for using "old parts" while Dedede goes on an old man rant about how those old parts are three times as reliable as all this easy to break new stuff! (Dedede is the equivalent of the guy who put his first car together by hand. Susie is the "born plugged in" type.) So, yes, they fight, but not for the reasons you think. ^^;
...As for Meta Knight, I think countless paragraphs have already been written on these two and most people know where I fall about now. Meta Knight, whether we saw it happen on screen or not, was able to figure out what Susie's deal was faster than anyone else, and while he didn't care for having his autonomy stolen (not to mention, I can't imagine he liked all the bulk of his un-asked for cybernetic upgrades. Mecha Knight is a tank. A stark contrast to Meta Knight's fast "here and away" style.) But if anyone in the entire FRANCHISE understands that sometimes your morals take a backseat for your goals, it would be him and now that the dust has cleared and the HWC was on the losing side with Susie as it's sole survivor (speaking brutally) there's no reason to be angry with her anymore. That said, I believe that, much like happens in the fandom, Meta Knight probably gets questioned fairly often (by people who know) if he's upset at Susie, with some not believing its possible he wouldn't be. But I really think to him, it's just something that happens when you're pushed into a corner.
What Meta Knight would care about is not what Susie has done in her past (to him) but what she does now.
...That said, I think he will find an "excuse" to be somewhere else when she looks at him with stars in her eyes and a wrench in her hand. (I am a firm believer that the Star Allies scene is meant to be taken comically, not seriously. I have nothing against Mecha Knight unwanted modification angst but that scene should not be your sole "proof" such a thing exists.)
And of course, as for Kirby, Kirby has already accepted Susie. He ran to her side when she was injured. He agreed with her request to stop Star Dream, and he accepted her invader armor. There's nothing else to forgive. Acceptance is freely given.
Lastly...
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[Marx]
Marx is the silly one. Very silly. I think, on my first draft of this post (I made the choice to write it again from scratch rather than base it on my previous version, so that it was up to date with my current feelings) I took the concept of Marx and forgiveness very seriously, but then I booted up Star Stacker (SNES) again and remembered that the story began because one day, Dedede saw a sparkling star flying through the sky and decided, "I'm gonna shoot it with a cannon!" So, in case this needs to be restated...
The people of Dream Land are absolutely buck wild.
Probably, due to the comparisons with his spiritual successor Magolor, there's been a casual attempt to try and make a bigger deal out of the "ship in a bottle" events of Milky Way Wishes.
I don't want to be a hypocrite here. I'm a huge fan of "Let's try to expand on Marx's backstory, personality, and motivations using every tiny scrap we've got" and I do so relatively shamelessly. I love the idea that there might have been buckets and buckets of angst and pathos behind his decision to trick Kirby into bringing Galactic Nova into Popstar's orbit so he could kick our beloved puffball into the darkness of space and wish to make the planet his own...
...but do I think that those acts in a vacuum are on the same scale as what all the other big, bad, last bosses have done?
Not really.
Well, not like the modern villains. Marx is a bit more like Dark Meta Knight or Daroach in the breadth of his bad guy-ness. His act harmed very few people in practice. It could have gone on to harm more eventually, had it succeeded. It might have even been devastating! Similar to if Dark Mind's reach was allowed to expand into the peaceful non-Mirror Popstar. Or if Dark Daroach went on to rule as the second coming of the Lord of the Netherworld!
But... it wasn't. The clown's dreams lasted only a few brief minutes. To the people on the surface, Nova exploding probably looked like no more than a shooting star. ("Everyone make a wish!")
...The only person Marx needs forgiveness from, then, is Kirby. And that is the story of several hundred different fanfics and fan theories and frankly, I enjoy all of them because the ~potential~ dynamic these two characters share is one of my favorite things in the series.
And, leaving the "middle" of that journey for we, the fan creators to come up with, I believe we can at least say that, in the end, the two seem to have made up successfully.
...Now, there's still the question of would the rest of the Dream Team LIKE Marx or forgive him upon hearing what he did! I think Meta Knight would be wary of him for a lot of reasons. He's unexpected and uncontrollable. He hopped in to attack the group during the Star Allies credit sequence. But Meta Knight also (in an alternate timeline) thought wishing on Galactic Nova for a ridiculously selfish wish was a perfectly sane thing to do so I gather he would have little issue with Marx's ambitions, if not his actions. And as for his attempted murder of Kirby, Meta Knight is :cough: also guilty of that so yeahhhh. Maybe he doesn't LOVE the jester's antics or even tolerate them, but he wouldn't decry them from a moral high ground...?
I personally love the idea that King Dedede is headache-inducingly familiar with Marx. I like the idea that Marx might have even gotten his title of "jester" thanks to King Dedede. According to the Dedede Encyclopedia entries on twitter, Dedede had no idea about Marx's attempted takeover of Popstar nor did he know about Marx's "true form." Thus, it's easy to imagine that to Dedede, Marx is nothing more than another cute, silly resident of Dream Land, like the Waddle Dees. He may even treat Marx with the same paternal kindness he gives the Waddle Dees. At least until Marx goes a step too far!
TLDR, I love the version of their relationship as implied in the Kirby Storybooks, where Marx is one of "those troublesome kids" who teams up with Kirby to play harmless pranks on Dedede. It's so crazy wholesome, something that you can't always say about Marx!
...Lastly, Bandee... Oh, empathetic little Bandee. I feel like Bandee would probably be the one to eye Marx the most critically. Because Bandee has eyes on the ground level to NOT be fooled like Dedede nor so extreme that he can't hold Marx accountable like Meta Knight. I think Bandee is probably the closest to Kirby in seeing Marx for who Marx really is, but doesn't have the "complex" relationship Kirby and Marx does that inspires Kirby to forgive him no matter what he does.
Not that I think they fight or don't get along, necessarily. (In fact, the sudden spike (?) in MarDee - am I spelling that right? - shippers has rekindled my interesting in their dynamic) But I do think that while Marx is giving everyone his "Who? Meeee?" eyes, Bandee is off on the side giving Marx a narrow-eyed look of "You don't fool me."
But again, I think that honesty may be something that could turn into a kind of closeness they don't have with others! Plus, biased, but I also completely love, love, love the idea that the one Waddle Dee who is tired of being "just a Waddle Dee" and the one Noddy who is tired of being "just a Noddy" have an understanding that none of the naturally over-powered residents of Popstar can ever understand.
It's possible to write them as rivals or enemies. These two, quite frankly, could be very cool together in a variety of ways!
#Kirby#Shadow Dedede#Dark Meta Knight#Susie Haltmann#Marx Kirby#King Dedede#Bandanna Waddle Dee#Meta Knight#Dess Rambling#Dess Theories#Dess Quick Asks
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Finally we've arrived at 52, the series that turned me from a casual reader of a few comics into a full-on DC fan and Question enthusiast. This is the reason I set out on this project in the first place. I love it so much.
#1
This is my fifth time reading this in full, I think, and I still get hyped at this opening issue. Look at my guys.
It's a miracle this came together as well as it did. The omnibus is great for giving some insight into that construction process.
#2
There's just so much in 52 and I can't believe they pulled it off. Part of that is that it's thematically coherent, despite how different the plots are. Grief, reinvention, self-destruction as a means to cope with loss... it all feeds into itself.
In a slightly different timeline I came out of 52 fixated on Booster Gold and stumbled back into the Question later through Blue Beetle, instead of the other way around.
It took 416 issues but they're interacting! They're together! It's paying off!
Renee's heartbreaking spiral into self-destruction is interrupted by this massive dork. I love them.
#3
I really need to read Steel. Captivated by these two.
Skeets nudging the gyro cart owner out of the way is a very good panel. Catlike behavior.
#4
Booster and Bea's conversation is so. Hhh.
In the omnibus, Mark Waid calls Vic and Renee's scene "one of the high points of the entire series", and I'm with him.
#5
Renee and Maggie...
The metahuman hospital's a really cool piece of worldbuilding.
The only plotline I don't care much about is the spaceguys. I still like them, but the bar's really high here and I want to see other characters more.
Wish this was less creepy about Starfire.
#6
Kind of obsessed with Bob the theatre teacher and villain-for-hire, conceptually.
It takes a while for the Black Adam plot to pick up steam so this part isn't quite hitting yet.
Booster having a normal one.
#7
Renee hasn't talked to her mom in three years by this point. Oof.
The exes of all time!
Booster... Ralph blaming him for Ted's death is brutal.
#8
Oh cmon girl you're smarter than this. It's Lex Luthor, when has he ever had anyone's best interests at heart.
At least Ollie's still doing his thing.
Clark hating Booster is so good.
#9
"Smart-ass." "Consistency is everything." He is so annoying!
The John and Natasha fight is great.
#10
Clark taking a page from Lois' book is so good. Ridiculous.
I like Will and Professor Morrow a lot, nice that they're back in focus.
Supernova time :)
#11
His anti-smoking rant...
"I don't owe you anything." Oof ouch my soul.
Big talk here from a guy who spent a decade hung up on Myra.
The one superheroine ass shot I respect is in the "that's a Batwoman" panel because Renee deserves to appreciate Kate's ass.
#12
Besties moment.
Black Adam's plotline is gaining speed.
Oh Ralph.
#13
Oh NO, Ralph.
#14
They both look so good here. Love his stubble.
Desperately want to hear Tot's side of their conversation, and also their previous phone calls, because I'm sure he'd have Opinions about Vic deciding to become a mentor.
Shaking him. You are so annoying!
"There's no such thing as crazy, just behaviour that society has deemed unacceptable." SO true bestie.
#15
BOOSTER...
#16
Oh god, Renee.
Billy officiating Black Adam's wedding is very sweet.
#17
Luthor's superteam is one of the series highlights.
Still very funny that there's just a guy named Hannibal on it. Zero subtlety here.
Oh Lobo. I do not care about you.
#18
He's so silly.
Renee is having truly awful time falling back into old coping measures and he's out here getting scooped and being made fun of for cockblocking.
Booster's shitty funeral still fucks me up. Choosing to believe Skeets intentionally didn't invite people for evil reasons because the idea nobody showed up is too much.
Once again, oh no Ralph.
#18/2
A backup with Vic's origins. It's about right, though I prefer him starting as the Question before moving back to Hub City.
It lists his "essential storylines" as Mysterious Suspense, The Question 1987, and Cry for Blood, which I mostly agree with. Mysterious Suspense is less important but reading a pre-DC story is useful background for the 87 run and it's his only solo option.
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Is every fandom this petty or just this one? My god. This is the second time someone has implied I've plagiarized the majority of my fics and i'm just...sick of it.
Both times this has come from the HEAD MODS of the daemyra, helaemond, and rhaegon discords and it makes me really sad that they might treat other people like this too.
Can I prove these tweets are about me? No. But the dates line up with when my fics were published, the accusations are very similar to ones I received from their friend. Come to your own conclusion.
I don't have a twitter so I'm posting this here:
I HAVE READ TWO OF YOUR FICS. TWO.
I didn't know about your work until I had written hundreds of thousands of words for the Daemyra fandom (which you haven't written any content for, btw).
I liked them! But I'm just baffled how it could extrapolated that they inspired all my fics. The only remotely similar fic is my OT3 fic which also features pet names and BDSM.
But where yours is an extremely abusive/unhealthy/dub-con dynamic mine is a soft consensual agreement with different characters.
Like:
and
I'm not hating. I really enjoyed your fic. It's just gross to ownership over an entire lifestyle and multitude of kinks within a fandom because you feature some aspects of it in one fic. And then use that to claim you inspired *all* of an authors work.
It's really frustrating as an author not to mention highly inaccurate (let me reiterate, I've read two of her fics).
Before this I was a reader and I can't tell you how many BDSM Reylo or Darklina fics I read. Was this pettiness happening behind the scenes? Or is it JUST this fandom where big fish act entitled over common tropes?
Let me say again: THIS IS A MOD OF THE BIGGEST FANDOM SERVERS.
Like fuck, how many writers are you discouraging and turning away from the fandom with this? Because you feel possessive over tropes that have tens of thousands of results on A03. Just be better.
edit:
I guess I do have an only fans inspired fic too but I wrote it before I knew theirs existed. You don't have to believe me, but it was published back in December.
Here is me finding out their username in February. At this point I hadn't read ANY fics for the HotD fandom outside of Daemyra (which as of now I still don't think they've written for?) so I didn't know who they were until they talked about expanding the AU to include Daemyra.
I guess i'll ALSO say that T accused me of stealing my idea for Gauche from Cor because it was published the same day as a discussion about Cor writing a petwife Daemyra fic...which is true.
But T brought this up as a response to MY idea for a fic with this concept.
Also for the record, in my fic, she is a magical human that can literally turn into a cat so I don't see the cause for comparison to begin with but OK.
edit 2: still bitter, adding more.
So I originally left the Daemyra discord because of the main mod, T.
I was part of a discussion about a prompt someone else had submitted to the prompt thread in march. Several people seemed enthused about the idea of a tattoo AU and the topic was on my mind since I just got one.
I wrote the fic using the major plot points I came up with in the conversation.
I credited the convo as inspiring me because we were all brainstorming, right? I guess not. About six people accused me of copying all her ideas and shared screen shots of my fic alongside her "plot points" which were like..."the existence of gloves", despite this being against the rules.
This was all instigated by T who publicly called me out for it. I was originally confused, and then apologetic because I thought it was a conversation and I used the ideas *i* contributed as well as the original prompt that she was not the author of.
Not to mention "Tattoo AU" is a trope with 10k+ fics on A03. It isn't an original idea.
During this pile on she:
-Said I had done this many times before, mentioning the kitten!fic by name and implying there were others.
-Mocked me for not having a life/writing quickly before other people could use ideas.
-Claimed I didn't *really* get a tattoo or have the idea because I hadn't mentioned it before....on a HotD discord?
(is this proof enough? i didn't think i needed a fucking alibi)
Anyway. It all got deleted so I have no evidence, but you can see her tweets about it.
The other day, I gather another author was bullied off the server. And this is how they responded. THE IRONY.
"This type of attitude is what drives active and creative members of our community away."
Since when is that your concern??
"I want you all to read t’s message and really reflect on it."
I want T to read and reflect on it!!
Again: These are the head mods and creators of the community servers for these ships. Maybe practice what you fucking preach?
....
adding this is an edit so there is no link back to them;
They claim the tweets aren't about me. Maybe I’m wrong and this isn’t about me. But from my perspective:
This was tweeted by Cor the day her friend (T) accused me of copying her plot line and idea for a fic, as well as doing this ‘many times before’ including with Cor’s pet wife AU.
Cor made a tweet accusing people of stealing ideas the same day as I reposted my fic that was, according to T, copied from Cor.
To be clear, Cor NEVER said she felt this way to me. But given her lack of participation in the conversation where I was directly accused, and support of her friend after the fact, I thought It was implied.
So given the date of this tweet and that, I assumed this was about me.
Cor's tweet implying an author stole all their ideas from her was posted the same day as my bdsm AU. Given the context and date, it kind of seemed like that could be about me too?
Cor sent me 32 messages this morning. In them she (among other things) insisted they were about someone who was line-by-line copying her fics. Despite the many messages, no proof of that was shown.
Maybe it is a big fucking coincidence but it sure felt targeted to me, which is why I made the post in the first place.
edit: I said she could send me screen shots of the plagiarism since she mentioned many times that she had them, and she blocked me so. Idk man.
Most of the messages were her calling me names and accusing me of outing her for writing a kink fic by mentioning it in the same post as her twitter.
For the record the account that fic is on was linked in her twitter bio while she was making those claims. The account has multiple fics co-authored by her other account that also has her full name.
The only thing that wasn't public was the discord convo which had no identifying information.
I didn't tag anyone in this post. I didn't want to start a witch hunt. I would LOVE for these tweets not to be about me.
But I thought they were (based on other experiences where they *confirmed* were about me) and wanted to share my side of things.
I now know multiple people who have had really bad experiences while writing for this fandom and it fucking sucks to be bullied out it.
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Interview With a Writer
Thank you @humanpurposes for your time to answer my questions about your amazing story 💜 This is just a continuation of my Interview With a Writer series. You can go to masterlist and read the other amazing, talented, wonderful authors that I have spoken with, getting a BTS of their brilliant minds and their stories on Tumblr and ao3.
Dividers by @saradika 💜
Name: humanpurposes
Story: My Heart Belongs to Daddy
Paring: modern!Aemond x step-daughter
Warnings: 18+, angst, smut, daddy kink, spanking, degradation, questionable relationship dynamics, infidelity, mentions of grief/loss, no underage elements.
So, when did you start writing?
I've always had an interest in stories, whatever form they take, books, films, plays, ideas in my head. Since I was a kid I've loved exploring different creative outlets, writing being one of them.
I think I first really started to realise I was decent at it when I did creative writing at school, it was the one subject I just 'got'. As a teenager I tried writing fanfiction and originals (which were all terrible and never saw the light of day), and to be honest, my interest in writing dwindled while I was doing A Levels and uni.
Then last year, out of nowhere, I managed to finish a one-shot for The Sandman (which I never posted and lost rip). Then House of the Dragon happened, Aemond Targaryen appeared on my screen and the rest is history! So really it's only in the last year I've considered myself 'a writer'.
Where did the plot for My Heart Belongs to Daddy come from?
One thing about me is that I'm highly susceptible to peer pressure, so when people were asking for a part 2, I was like "of course!" ...cut to me sitting in front of my laptop for hours trying to conjure up a plot.
I knew I wanted it to be quite an emotional series, because while hooking up with your mum's boyfriend is a fun gimmick for a one-shot, I really wanted to get deeper into all the dynamics and relationships at play. I knew I wanted Alys to have her moment, I was really adamant that she wasn't going to be a villain, and I had the scene outside the club on New Years Eve in my head. From there, I kinda came up with Aemond's backstory, him having a crush on her when they were younger and harbouring those feelings. It all just kinda fell into place from there.
I have to say as well, it was kind of inspired by Normal People; just two people struggling to navigate their feelings. And I love it because it sounds like such a simple premise, but there are so many complexities to it.
Expand on your interpretation of Aemond. What drives him? Why is he the way he is in MHBTD?
MHBTD Aemond is very much intended to mirror the Aemond we see in the show, minus the dragon and the war crimes.
He's studious, a perfectionist, a very imposing but understated presence. The relationship with his family is very much the same too. He sees himself as more capable than his siblings, is overlooked by his father and overshadowed by Rhaenyra and the Strong boys, so he is very much driven by a want to prove himself and live up to the legacy of his family.
He also takes on the burden of being Alicent's golden child, which he kinda botches when he messes up a contract with Storm's End, and ends up feeling more alienated by the only person who really values him. That's where Alys comes in and gives him a way to escape all of that.
So I really tried to translate his character into a modern setting in a way that would be believable, but I didn't want to lose what makes Aemond Targaryen, "Aemond Targaryen."
Was there anything in specific that inspired your Reader portrayal?
Well, this was actually the first reader/nameless character fic I've written. Generally I tend to write original characters for a series. I mean real talk though, a lot of her character is inspired by me, like her interest in history and the love for Lana Del Rey and Mazzy Star, but if you can't self indulge when writing a fanfiction, when can you?
But it was interesting for me trying to write her as someone who is easy to project onto, but also, I hope, has a lot of depth. She has a lot of conflicts going on in her head, her dependence on Aemond and her guilt she feels lying to Alys, knowing pursuing a relationship is wrong, trying to break away, only to be pulled back in... so the more I wrote, the more she became her own person.
What is your take on her relationship with Aemond? Do you feel she complements Aemond?
I think they compliment each other quite well, but there are a lot of things at play here.
So on a basic level, they have similar personalities, not particularly outgoing but not exactly shy either, they both have a quiet confidence. They have similar interests, did similar subjects at uni, that kind of thing.
But I think their differences go together well too. Aemond is ambitious and eager to prove himself, whereas she can be a bit more grounded. There's also an element of codependency to their relationship. True to canon, Aemond likes to be in control and she compliments that well (better than Alys does), and they both have moments where they struggle with loneliness and latch onto each other as a result.
There are a lot of external factors that make the whole situation very very complicated. They suck at communication and obviously, he dated her mother.
But ultimately, they both want each other enough to keep going back. I think it's like that age of question of 'is love enough?'
What was your outline process for this? Did you always know how this story was going to end?
I always write with an end point in mind. For me anyway, I need to know what I'm working towards. In my head it was always going to end with her knowing that while being with Aemond probably isn't the right choice, she does it anyway because she can't say no to him.
And again talking about realism, I really didn't see it having a fairytale ending, because even though they'll be in Oldtown together, they won't be able to hide their relationship from their families forever.
Do you think there will be a sequel? Or something else you are working on next?
As much as I've loved working on this series, I am ready to work on some other stuff.
I have two series which I'm currently updating, a canon era Aemond fic called Karma is a God, and a Tom Bennett mini series called Just for a Moment.
I also have some one-shots in the works and I'm looking to get back to updating an Osferth fic which I started in May and haven't updated since!
That being said... I did have an idea for an epilogue which I'm kinda obsessed with. But we'll see how long it takes me to get round to it 🤭
Last question! Do you have any fanfic recommendations?
That's so hard to just pic one!
I have to shout out my girl Sam @randomdragonfires and her story Invisible String. I love the dynamic she created between Aemond and the reader, only to leave me utterly devastated with the ending! Sam is so talented I love her writing style and the voices she gives the characters, everything she writes is gold.
Also, I feel like I'll never shut up about it but Now I'm Covered In You by @inthedayswhenlandswerefew was just incredible. I cannot tell you how much of a chokehold that fic had on me. The tension, the politics, the drama, the yearning between Aemond and Ivy! I was on the edge of my seat for all 10 Chapters.
I'm obsessed with medieval history, it is literally my perfect fic.
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Thoughts on 7x01 - 7x12 welp the best way I can describe it so far is weird, this is the weirdest this show has ever felt for me. The biggest issue is the heretics and how the show tried to make them the main characters without putting any effort into making us care about them. They tried to do what they did with the originals but the difference with that was we were slowly introduced to that fam, this was basically six new characters at once! And it doesn't help that it's very obvious by episode 5 Valerie is getting the screen time Caroline usually would have. Whether that's because Candice was preggo (like she doesn't do much but walk, sit or stand around) or Dries' sabatoge I don't know but I didn't like it! I do give the writers some credit for at least trying something new with the FF but I just felt like I was watching a completely different show for most of these episodes. The good news is once we move onto the huntress and the phoenix stone it gets better, again all my bitching below and accompanying meta about the bane of my existence!
7x01
In retrospect EL OH EL that right after Stefan talked to Caroline on the bench he walked by Valerie.
“She’s going to want to know how Ric died of alcohol poisoning” don’t threaten me with a good time Bonnie!
The whole bomb idea is incredibly dumb but the scene where Caroline and Stefan talk about it is great. I love that Caroline just picks up the bomb and Stefan is like "what are you doing!" like those memes of all the brain cells leave my body when I'm around my man LMFAO
This episode just feels off, I can’t really explain it, it’s kind of like 4x01 like the writing for everyone is just weird. Some stuff just sounds soooo dramatic and I just want to roll my eyes, especially the diary voiceovers.
“What would Sheriff Forbes do” let Damon kill everyone!
I do love the “you make me happy” scene and the kiss is great but it’s cut up so weirdly it feels rushed and choppy, fucking Dries.
I think my biggest problem with the heretics is that it was too many at once. They should have only had like 2-3.
See this is why I don’t fuck with Enzo!
7x02
Yo Stefan walked in mad! I love how NOT HERE for Damon he was in this whole episode lol he was so pissed off as he should be!
Damon and Lily crack me up!
What Bonnie sees when she touches the phoenix stone looks like a scene from Event Horizon which is the scariest movie ever. So I agree with Bonnie! Like absolutely NOT! GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!
"I'm just saying when a guy's willing to let another guy die so his girl can live, there's usually something cooking in the kitchen" that was 100% shade at Stefan letting Elena die so Matt could live, you can't convince me otherwise!
Why didn’t Damon just snap Enzo’s neck?
Who ever shot the scene of Stefan walking in to save Caroline, I hope you step on a lego.
The skin to skin contact joke was so cheesy, dork. I do love that Stefan is always teasing Caroline when he flirts with her, he's been doing it even before he realized he had feelings for her.
Bringing people back from the dead with a stone is just a line I would not cross. I know it’s a supernatural show but like nah, that’s too ominous to mess with. No thank you.
I agree with Matt this is all Damon’s fault!
There’s just no way I can believe Matt is letting Stefan and Damon live at the Lockwood mansion. I know it’s because of limited set pieces but there’s just no way!
I really love the “I don’t want to hear the name Stefan Salvatore EVER again” scene, like she is so mad! Then she walks away all dramatically until the moment she stops and catches her breath and breathes out to calm herself (like he taught her) and the look on her face where she thinks 'he came back' and all the emotion that hits her with that realization. So much credit goes to Candice on this scene too, she plays it to perfection.
7x03
Prime example of Dries weaponizing the FF, they had to have Stefan say the car line to Lily because he burned his car in the future (which why?) so he wouldn't say "tell those brats to stop torturing Caroline" first so it wouldn't hold as much weight. Hoe.
"So you know what it's like to have a completely unforgettable place in someone’s mind" I can't believe how much Val played herself with that line! Because she learned that Caroline had a completely unforgettable place in Stefan's mind (7x18).
I can’t believe they killed Oscar he was the only interesting one!
Stefan thinks showing a girl his mothers grave is romantic HE IS SO WEIRD!
You’re in trouble now Damon! Fuck Ric too! And furthermore why does ever Bamon scene have to have Ric there too!
They DEFINITELY hyped up the SV flashbacks lol. Apologies to the anon who said this and I couldn’t remember how OD the whole thing was, you were right. But it’s also so boring so it’s really hard to care as much they (Dries) wanted the audience to feel this. They tried to do what they did with the Stebekah flashbacks in 3x03 and it fell incredibly flat IMO.
Stefan and Caroline inadvertently worked together to get Caroline free by being honest with Lily. All the razzle dazzle of these flashbacks but the true team is still Steroline.
The fireplace scene is still one of my favs. I love how they each got zapped because they keep forgetting the spell because of their love language is touch. Lots of honesty in it and I really love that Stefan says "you're here and you're safe and you're with me" because that's the opposite of what's going on in the FF and it works as a full circle kind of thing that he gets that back in the finale.
7x04
LIZZIE AND JOSIE!!!
I remember I was so confused why Damon seemed so mad at Ric in the FF and now I realize he was just being proactive of his OTP!
Baroline you are both so adorable!
Stefan and Caroline’s other love language is shenanigans!
“Torture” this man wants sexy Caroline time SO BAD
VERVAIN NEEDLE AGAIN! CRYING
I am very here Stefan manipulating Mary Louise and being ready to kill her so he could have sex with Caroline! Then Caroline appears so we know it was their plan all along. The whole sequence too parallels with their no-humanity first time which was so important because it showed that their first time still had their essence. Like Steroline's relationship revolves around them being vampires, I always felt Caroline helped Stefan accept his vampire side more and that’s why the duo off arc was so great for them (and no other ship got that). This episode was so good for them.
Paul and Candice were so great in the scene where they burst into Caroline’s bedroom to have sex. Stefan sounds so out of breath lol and he’s smiling and so desperate like he needs to touch Caroline everywhere now! Candice does such an adorable look when Stefan says “I’m thinking about you” and like melts into his forehead. I love it, just wish the lighting wasn’t so dark, overall this season's lighting is super dark like S1 again.
7x05
Why does Ric think Bonnie is here to be his assistant GET AWAY FROM HER!
The morning after scene and even Damon barging in is all completely adorable and hilarious! Stefan teasing Caroline about how well he knows her, the kiss is super sexy and sweet. Damon picking up on Caroline’s ‘tude about Valerie and making Stefan more and more uncomfortable. The part where Stefan mouths “SHUT UP” at Damon clenching his fist then smiling up at Caroline! A+ comedy!
The lyrics to the song playing are “can’t forget the sex we had” this show is too much sometimes lol.
HA! Julian and Stefan both committed murder sprees on CHRISTMAS!
“Will you please just shut up” CRYING Stefan is ready to kill him!
Told you that stone was evil! The "who's soul is it really" was a cool plot.
The Bonenzo scenes in this episode were surprisingly good! I wish they had kept the momentum and not done Lily/Enzo. Then they could have teased Bonora too! This is how they shot themselves in the foot with the FF though, this show never operated on a structure of showing you what happens and building up to that. The timeline is always chaos, sometimes it’s a day between episodes sometimes it’s a week, hell the 2nd season was 3 months in total!
Valerie pretty much orchestrated all these dramatics so she could reveal the truth to Stefan and ruin his date with Caroline. She heard him making plans with her at the gas station and looked right over in jealousy so you know it affected her. And Stefan falls for it because he always has a weakness for a crazy bitch with a sob story. But I think there’s more nervousness over his kindness than when he would sympathize with Katherine or Rebekah because of the FF (and the sabotage against SC scenes). We know Caroline hates him but we don’t know why and we know he saved that journal.
Damon is diabolical! Do love this Bamon scene though and finally they get a scene without Ric!
7x06
The manipulation kiss scene reminds me of the scene in 6x19. The dopey lovesick face Stefan makes as Caroline puts her arms around him is so damn cute! Even though their scenes are too few and have been played down on purpose, it feels like them. I've liked every scene since the fireplace scene in the 3rd episode.
Stefan’s murder face!
Credit to Damon for figuring out his brother was an unhinged maniac with murder on his brain so fast.
“Wow that was a wonderful story Hemingway” CTFU
Matt working with unhinged Stefan! Plot twist!
Caroline so appalled at Valerie’s complete lack of tact lol.
Bonnie’s styling is at its best this season though so at least there’s that.
Beau’s character is… a choice… I S2G there’s never been more proof there’s no black people in the writers room than having a black character who can’t speak appear as a “servant” to a bunch of old white witchpires. The optics are HORRIBLE!
I do kind of dig Julian and Lily and that kiss was hot!
Really nice Defan scene where they talk about being Dads and Damon agrees to help Stefan commit murder.
Caroline’s scared BB face!
7x07
Still can’t believe after all that we never got to hear the broadcast!
I do not remember this plot with the people being compelled to sit around Mystic Falls on an IV.
Show why are we acting like vampires being “older” makes a god damn difference on this show now. As if 1000 year old Klaus wasn’t constantly being outsmarted by literal supernatural teenagers.
Stefan always has to do psychological torture with a theme, last season it was the B&B now it’s murder thanksgiving! I love how Damon just grabbed a plate ready to sit back and watch Stefan play his little mind games.
Matt’s face at pregnant vampire CRYING
Damon wasn’t really the best person to send to protect Lily Stefan LMFAO
Well Valerie you don’t make it easy to trust you!
Man this was some other Dries bullshit trying to fracture Matt and Bonnie’s friendship and for what!
This Defan scene is one of my favorites and Ian does such a fantastic job, I love how he says all three of them will never change. When he says “I don’t want to know the whole story!” CHILLS
I know everyone hates the baby plot but I really love that Caroline got to be a Mom and as someone who watched Legacies I love Lizzie and Josie and that the school and the girls were her endgame. So I’m just accepting the nonsense part of it because I do love what it gave to Caroline.
7x08
I find the huntress/stone plot line way more interesting than anything with the heretics. I also feel Defan/Lily wasn’t explored enough because so much time was wasted on them.
Oh here's an example of “Things Dries took from me” there was supposed to be a convo between Stefan and Caroline talking about the SV baby and it was cut because she’s the worst, and this goddamn scene was the perfect spot to put it in!
IDK why but this show just loved doing proposals in the final seasons lol. There’s been four so far and if my calculations are right there’s seven all together, Stefan had four alone!
Forever love how Julie retconned the greenhouse to be on the Salvatore plot instead of this random house in this random episode lol. This was a nice scene where Valerie tells everyone the truth, I honestly don’t hate Valerie at all she’s shady and crazy but she isn't annoying.
The Stefan and Lily scene warms my heart, it’s just so good! Stefan finally getting that one last day with his Mom and being able to ask her for advice about the girl he loves. And I always felt Lily’s words stayed with him about Caroline sacrificing everything for her girls, I thought it was a big part of why he sacrificed his relationship with her to keep the girls safe. Also LOL at Stefan being like “Damon give me the you’re dead to me look on a weekly basis” you get used to it.
The I love you phone call is great, I like that it was a subversion of what happened in 6x15, Stefan made sure to tell her in time.
My god it took Lily a long time to die due to plot contrivance!
7x09
Makes zero sense that Stefan wouldn’t take Valerie with him since she’s super powerful and all. So it was definitely because he didn’t want her there if he was going to get the chance to see Caroline again.
FUCK THIS SNOW SCENE! I will never not be bitter that Caroline didn’t go to Lily’s funeral for this shit. God they even parallel Stefan and Caroline with how they say goodbye to their mother with “I’ll make this all right” “I’m going to be alright” and how their choices after were anything but that FOREVER BITTER!
At least Damon makes me laugh.
God Mary Louise is the most insufferable of the heretics. We should have just had Valerie and Nora last past the 2nd episode.
BONORA SUCH SEXY WASTED POTENTIAL!
The theme of this episode is crazy vampire people who won't just sit and talk about their problems or feelings!
Caroline visiting her Mom's grave is so sad but I love that they're showing how conflicted Caroline is about the babies and what she feels for them. In her head she thinks it should be easy to give them up because their not hers but there's a part of her who feels something for them. I actually love the way Klaus phrased it as "it's okay to love something you can't explain" (it's a good line I cannot lie).
They needed to make it more obvious but Valerie was waiting for Stefan's call. Because in the next scene you see Caroline arrives at the boarding house because Stefan called Caroline instead after Damon was stabbed because he finally broke out of his revenge-fueled haze. He admits he should have let it go and Caroline assures him she knows what it's like to not be able to move on from your Mom's death. Really love the moment where Caroline touches Stefan's should and he has such a reaction to her touch, like he's been craving it to soothe him. That is at least back to the essence of who Steroline is, which was very much missing for most of these episodes, thank god it gets better after this. Eat shit Dries!
Honestly Stefan kinda needed to take a nap, in hell!
7x10
"They tell us to only send good news, but I cannot. The days grow darker in Mystic Falls, and my heart darker still." ADSFJSHBFEWGDG KILLS ME EVERYTIME! THE DRAMA!
See now THIS feels like the show I had been watching for 6 seasons, besides 7x04 this is the only episode that felt like the usual Mystic Falls shenanigans of yore. Neil Reynolds is the hero we needed this season.
The way Bonnie stood up ready to fight Stefan CTFU I told you she don't really fuck with him! Mama bear had to step in!
The groundhog day sequence is great, I am a sucker for that plot device.
The Defan scene with PS!Stefan is really great too, this is honestly a very good season for the brothers and their relationship and really dives into how off balance it is.
7x11
Caro with the vervain needle this time!
The whole derelict Mystic Falls taken over by Julian’s goons was not my favorite.
Two great parallels with 2x02 in this episode! One where Hallucination Damon almost stabs Caroline on the Steroline date is filmed like when he tried to stake her 2x02 (plus it’s literally brought up). Then the scene where Caroline takes Stefan into her room to calm him down mirrors when Stefan brought Caroline into the bathroom to calm her down in 2x02. Caroline even repeats some of his words like “you have to try” “it’s the only way” etc.
I cannot believe Damon killed Tyler. He deserved so much better.
Honestly I kinda dig watching Stefan and Damon go a little crazy pants this episode.
God this scene is so frustrating. Because I’m watching it and I’m like YES STEFAN YOU GET IT when he says he’ll never be happy until Damon is out of his life. And he makes so many god damn strides in doing that from the end of this season into next season and the finale just crushed all of that. Notice as well that Hallucination Damon keeps trying to kill Caroline because that’s Stefan’s happiness. This episode is a bright light in a sea of dark.
Ending FF with “you’re the easiest way to get to Stefan” while the whole episode the Phoenix stone was using Caroline being in danger to get him to learn the lesson. Good tie-in.
7x12
Bless this cute scene with Caroline eating fries and Stefan giving her heart eyes I haven’t seen the heart eyes since episode 4! It’s also very cute when he takes her hand and says she scared him for a minute.
Damon’s such a maniac lol.
You know what the Stefan Valerie coffee scene didn’t bother me I thought it did in the past. The Steroline coffee scenes were always about Stefan bringing a coffee to Caroline so doesn't feel the same.
Omg Julian never stops talking! Thank god Stefan kills him in this episode but like 3 episodes too late my lord.
The huntress stuff is truly interesting and I am enjoying Bonenzo way more than I did the first time I watched. I really like how front and center Bonnie is with that storyline (foreshadowing her becoming the huntress) and she’s getting dual attention from Nora and Enzo.
Oh wait the huntress was activated by Enzo I take it back he still sucks.
Again good FF tie in with Stefan not getting to Caroline in time both in the present and future.
Lines that made me laugh:
Damon: At which point, we kill said person, storm the castle and save your damsel (Stefan's right he was having so much fun at Stefan's expense it's so much better when they aren't in love with the same girl)
Damon: Bastard links his life to my mom's and then engages in a duel. What is this, Hamlet community theatre? (I love on the nose jokes!)
#tvd rewatch#tvd spoilers#S7 rewatch#7x01 - 7x12#anti caroline dries#because honestly that's the real villain here#I hate her#was still better than the second half of S5 though#because that was stupid AND boring#k rewatches tvd
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I'm in the middle of a twenty-show-weekend and I don't have any brainpower left to choose anything, so you wanna just tell me all the questions for The Fall Of Fulcrum?
Oh God, you're serious.
ABSOLUTELY!
1. Of the fics you've written, which is your favourite and why?
Since we're talking about The Fall of Fulcrum... No but seriously, it is. It'll always have a special place in my heart ♥️
2. Which scene was your favourite to write?
It's a hard tie between the rescue, the panic attack and the hand holding scene, I loved writing these so much!
3. Which part of it was the hardest to write?
So far I think the therapy sessions. I really enjoy adding them in, but because I study psychology, I have that impulse to make everything as accurate as possible and it's difficult to enjoy writing it (nevertheless I love these scenes)
4. If you could change anything in it, what would it be?
I would add a few filler scenes before the rescue and maybe during medbay stay, but overall I think I like the outcome so far
5. Did you make an outline for it? Did you stick to it?
I did only for the first 3 chapters and I stuck to it enough. The rest I write as I go, which sometimes kicks me in the ass
6. Which scenes did you cut and which were added?
I know for a fact I cut out at least one torture scene (I wrote too many) but I might still use it as maybe a flashback or a nightmare in the future 🙃
I also needed to get rid of one deep conversation between Kallus and Zeb but I might find a good time to add it in
I changed a conversation between Zeb and Hera about Kallus not wanting to stay with them and- in the fic he's having that talk with Ezra. Same for Kanera being parents and discovering the kids have the transmissions- Hera was originally the one who got up at night and joined Sabine in the common room, not Kanan.
As for the added scenes, I can assure you I did not in fact intend to have Kallus and Zeb irritated before the hand holding in chapter 12 (as in Kal was irritated at therapy and everything because trauma and Zeb at being helpless). I also come up with scenes with Kanan on the spot. I didn't plan the stuffed tooka, but I don't regret writing it ♥️
7. Who was your favourite character to write in it?
Kallus is a treat to write as always, but I absolutely love writing Zeb, Hera and Chopper. I also very much enjoyed the scenes with my OCs (so far we have Oasay, D'alier, Faddis & ✨the boys✨), I love coming up with characters
8. Which came first, the title or the fic?
Definitely the fic. In fact it didn't have the title until the day I decided to overcome my huge fear and publish the first chapter, because AO3 wouldn't let me do that wuthout naming the fic (ridiculous)
9. Which idea came to you first?
Definitely the rescue. To be honest I wrote the entire pre-rescue part just to reach it. I also straight up knew I wanted to include a major panic attack scene and one that is yet to come
10. What are some facts readers might not know about?
Oh buckle up
I like, totally forgot to add Rex into the story at the beginning, that's why he only shows up when they go to rescue Kallus (and it's thanks to @probablynot-john that he's actually in the fic at all 💕)
similarly to the above, Pryce was gonna be one of Kallus' captors responsible for his torture, she was even in the tags, but then I totally forgot to add her in (a bit because she's a bitch and I can't write her)
I explicitly changed my plans of sleeping late, to go to an extra lecture on Values and Growth after Trauma I found out about like 2 hours before it started, because it sounded like it would help me write Kallus' trauma (and it does, so be thankful)
I planned to write a scene of burning the Fulcrum symbol onto Kallus' back but I didn't believe in myself enough to do it (I thought it would be a little too graphic) but I might change my mind someday, because that plot will have a comeback
I originally planned to make Kallus not talk after the rescue, but it was too difficult to add to the plot, so I dropped the idea
the reaction to hearing the word 'Fulcrum' is actually a real thing and I believe it's connected to classical conditioning- Thrawn always used that name right before torturing Kallus, so now Kallus associates that name with pain
it'll be mentioned and explained in the future so heads up: ‼️spoilers‼️ but one of Kallus' coping mechanisms during torture was dissociation- it activates when someone withstands situations too heavy for their mind and body to handle and also can cause partial amnesia- that's why Kallus doesn't remember getting rescued (Kanan and Rex called it 'catatonia' in the fic, the actual name is dissociation but again, my guys are not psychologists so forgive them. However Ninna Faddis will use that name sometime in the future I think)
Thank you so much for asking! I had a blast responding! ♥️♥️♥️
#star wars rebels#star wars#alexsandr kallus#kallus#agent kallus#alex kallus#zeb orrelios#garazeb orrelios#hera syndulla#kanan jarrus#ezra bridger#sabine#captain rex#chopper#thrawn#my ocs my beloved#the fall of fulcrum
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neil clarified that it's not the fans he's upset with and that all he asks for is for people to either stop showing the leak or to at least mark it and the conversation around it as spoilers, which is more than reasonable. i still can't believe that what is possibly the biggest moment for the fandom has gotten out like this and that people are so insensitive when it comes to not putting up any warnings. i was hit by the image on twitter this morning and i'm still unhappy, hours later, about something that usually would've brought me immense joy, because the show means so much to me and i wanted to experience the season in the way it was intended. maybe just don't say that you're not going reveal the spoiler only to then talk about it in a way that leaves no questions. you can tag for potential spoilers on tumblr and there is also a read more option, so you're able to put things under a cut. it takes so little effort to be more considerate.
(Grouping all of the Anons that I got in response to my post together. Not included in this array is another Anon that I am not posting by request, but the tone is very similar to Anon #1, so that should give you an idea of things.)
Okay, so...wow. Obviously there are a lot of feelings around what happened, which is understandable. But what I'm a bit taken aback by is the seeming lack of personal accountability in a few of these responses. At no point was anyone obligated to continue reading my post if they thought a spoiler was about to be shared, and I find it peculiar that some folks are getting angry at me because they decided to employ critical thinking skills while reading my post (and also, why would you keep reading if you didn't want to see a spoiler but thought one might be forthcoming?).
There's also the notion that The Thing by its very nature is a strange thing to categorize as a spoiler because it shouldn't be surprising or a "twist" for these characters to be in a confirmed relationship...unless Neil was hoping to score brownie points with it after all of the "queer-baiting" accusations from last season. But blaming me for somehow adding to the sturm und drang around the spoiler news is not on, because while I realize I am an easy target (certainly easier than Amazon, at any rate), all of the above is also failing to take into account that I did not actually share the spoiler in my post.
That being said, I am certainly glad that Neil did indeed clarify (on Tumblr and Twitter) that he is not upset with the fans. The problem is, by the time he did so it was already too late, as the post he reblogged had received much more traction than the follow-up(s) and fans were already taking his word as chapter and verse and turning on other fans. This was also another point of concern, seeing how intense the parasocial relationship between some of the fans and Neil seems to be. As I've said previously, it is absolutely understandable for Neil to be upset/angry about what happened and we can, as fans, say that his wishes as the creator should be respected.
But where I saw things go way over the top was what you mentioned, Anon #3. People seemingly breaking down and falling over themselves to apologize to Neil, as if we are his friends whom he would have come over with a cup of tea or a bottle of wine to cheer him up after a bad breakup. So it was that particular response that I felt was really disproportionate to the events that occurred.
Anon #2, the link you shared does work, and I had to laugh at the highlighted comment, as well as Neil's original one, which now seems to have aged like milk left out in the hot sub-Saharan sun for an entire week. In a way, we can definitely say that Neil did warn us, and what he said came true--that if one hung around the official channels, little bits and things would be released into the wild. Amazon very much did fuck up, but it's hard not to find the hilarity (and irony) of them fucking up in the most Good Omens-y, "incompetent angel and demon losing the Antichrist" way possible.
To your point, Anon #3, the leak happened because a 2-frame clip was included in a compilation video that Amazon posted that included clips from multiple shows. But it's for this very reason that most fans didn't think or realize that it was a leak in the first place. So I think you could classify it as a poorly done promo, because whether it was intentional or not (and goodness knows I've seen plenty of theories floating around as to which is the case), it still generated buzz and discussion around the show, which is what promotion of any kind is meant to do.
As you said, however...in the end, is this truly going to make anyone not watch the show? I was away/nonstop busy last week and weekend, so I haven't really had time to process everything, but now that it's sinking in, I am SO incredibly excited. While, yes, it would've been lovely to learn this information in the context of the show and I do understand people who feel disappointed due to this, I genuinely cannot imagine how this news could make the experience of GO 2 less joyful, or why any GO fan would not watch the show because of it. I also have posts from as far back as a year and a half ago alluding to these developments only as a possibility, and I'd very much like to reblog some of those just because of how amazingly/hilariously well they have aged.
With all of that in mind, as I stated previously, any posts I do make from here on out that allude to the spoiler even slightly will be tagged as such (with the tag #go2 spoilers), and will be placed under a "Keep Reading" cut. Because I know there are folks who are dying to talk about all this, whose excitement may have been tempered somewhat in the wake of the fallout but who I am sure are feeling elated and full of anticipation now more than ever.
So those are my thoughts on the follow-up to last week's fandom implosion. Hopefully I've addressed some of the concerns people have, and while I know I likely won't change anyone's mind, I have plenty of other feelings and thoughts to share that I hope folks will stay tuned for...
#anonymous#phantomstars24#reply post#good omens 2#aziraphale#crowley#ineffable husbands#neil gaiman#go2 spoilers#trying to provide a balanced perspective#hopefully we can all chill out a bit from here on in#please let next week be better#fandom woes#discourse
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Do you headcanon Rooster as trans even though we literally saw his boyhood as a 2 year old 🤡
This is coming from a gender fluid so don't you try to label me as a transphobe💀💀💀
Thanks for the ask! I'm going to answer this kind of seriously.
Yes and no. Headcanons don't have to align with canon completely and given the small amount of canon we actually have, it's pretty natural to have multiple contradicting headcanons. So sometimes I headcanon him as trans, sometimes I don't, depending on the scenarios.
I think Rooster's 'boyhood' is actually the least contradicting part of the canon about this headcanon. The Bradley we see in the original TG looked very similar to how I and I imagine many kids born before 2005 did - he had that bowl haircut many parents believed could make the kid's hair denser, wore clothes that seemed basic and could be cheaply upgraded when he grew out of them, maybe even second-hand, with the exceptions of shoes (common with middle-class families before 2005, child fashion wasn't that much of a thing back then and money could be spent on better things in most situations). Kids before puberty don't have many anatomical differences, genitals aside, and given that said bowl haircut was commonly given to both boys and girls, I just don't think it means much. In truth, if you looked at my childhood photos from that age, I looked similar despite being raised as a girl - had the same bowl haircut, boyish cheap clothes (mostly secondhand from cousins), and given his dad's job, it's possible he had a fascination with planes from young age hence toy planes. His name (or 'Brad') is literally barely hearable once from Goose during the movie.
Realistically, the part that is troubling is he would not be in the Navy unless he came out after 2015/16. Like a monkey pilot is written semi-realistically, but there are still some parts I bent the reality with. Majority of armed forces have complete bans on transgender personnel to this day (hell, my country of origin disqualifies me from serving even in the state of actual war despite being fit, healthy, and educated). I like my fics/headcanons semi-accurate to the reality so...
Truth is, there aren't many transmasc characters and even fewer of them have a main character role, so headcanons like this (even if contradicting canon to some point) are a form of comfort first thing first. Bradley was dear to my heart in different ways first, the trans part came in later.
as a side note not aimed at the anon in particular, can we all please get off the idea that just because someone is part of the trans/nb/gnc umbrella it means they can't be transphobic? i know trans people who very much are transphobic or nb-phobic and I'm tired of explaining someone's queer identity doesn't mean you can't do no wrong and have a free pass. I think I see it more irl but still
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(Don't worry, none of this has spoilers)
When the one-eyed old man who took over the ink realm claims to have killed the most powerful and most unkillable creature in the studio:
See this post age very badly if we find out that Dapper and the Ink Demon are the same guy.
That was funnier in my head to be honest. But to be fair,he did said he "banished" the demon,yet the poster says he "killed" him,and the Ink Demon is clearly not dead.
So yeah,the part about him "killing the Ink Demon" really does seem like a freaking lie.
I like the idea that the Ink Demon's banishment wasn't something Wilson actually did,and he just took credit for it. Especially,the idea that Henry was the one who actually banished the demon instead of Wilson is to me interesting and ironic. Ironic for the fact that even after all these years after his departure from JDS, he (Henry) still ends up getting his credit stolen by a bastard no matter what.
I was originally going to draw Henry speaking the first sentence, but I couldn't imagine this man speaking that,sorry. And yeah,it's hard to think that little Bendy here would say that too. And on top of that having the ability to speak.
I needed to speedrun this thing before the game came out because I couldn't finish it sooner,so the quality isn't the best.
But yeah,last thing before the game comes out and I stay away from everything so I don't get spoilers. I can't believe the day has come. After all these years. These 2 weeks were really slow but we're finally here.
What can I say other than,yes,I'm excited. Hope everyone reading this has a great BATDR day,hope you enjoy the game,and see you all on the other side!
(And remember to tag your spoilers,this is very important!)
#Bendy and the Ink Machine#batim#bendy and the dark revival#batdr#dapper bendy#cartoon bendy#wilson batdr#crookedsmileart
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