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smolie · 3 years

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in december i wrote a 2020 year music review for myself that i intended to post here BUT...because i was infamously restricted twice last year, i didn’t bother since you wouldn’t be able to read it anyway because it was not possible to view my blog hjfdhfd

now that my restricted era is (hopefully forever) over i just want to post it here for the sake of completion since i want to do the same thing this year

this is really long so if you actually read it ... idk you are insane in the membrane and i love you... but i genuinely don’t expect anyone to read this hjfdhjf i just like reflecting on the music i have listened to and be able to look back on what i enjoyed in certain stages of my life! okiiii bye 💗

january

mac miller - circles (album) it’s a bit funny that i worried putting my thoughts down about this album and now it turns out to be first on the list, chronologically of course … oh bittersweet irony </3 listening to this album is such a double edged sword, either way i am always hit with a truckload of feelings when i turn to this release.

this album came to me in a time of my life where i was slowly but surely sliding down towards rock bottom again just after i got out of it and thought i was okay. the times i’ve listened to this crying in the bathtub with a glass of wine….girl let’s not lol…. it’s almost strange how much i can relate to the thoughts another person brought to paper. the comfort this album brings me is otherworldly, i feel so understood by mac’s words and it’s my go-to “wallow in self-pity for a bit then come out stronger than before” album. then again, i feel a little sting when any of mac’s songs come on shuffle. a friend of mine said she cannot listen to artists who have passed because it feels too strange and most of the time i agree but this time, it’s so so different. this album would have been mac’s salvation, i can feel it. everything would have been a bit brighter and lighter for him after this, it would have had to be. i feel like i would do him a disservice if i did not listen to this album, so i will cherish this final gift from him as his legacy and my comfort. i miss him incredibly and am all the more thankful he shared his heart with us.

album favs: circles, good news, surf

tiny meat gang - broke bitch (single) MAN I TELL THAT BROKE BITCH IF YOU WANNA GET IN TUNE BETTER CHANGE YOUR WHOLE PITCH LIKE WOAH !!!!!!!!!! did that give you whiplash? hehe funny to say this about a song called broke bitch by a duo called tiny meat gang but this song actually means a lot to me! it came out shortly before their show in berlin and i almost exclusively listened to it on my 7+ hours train ride from one side of the country to the other to see my meat boys. this played out of the fat ass speakers at the venue when they stepped on the stage and i will never forget meeting them :’) also the song fucking slaps obviously

february

loona - [#] (mini album) ah yes, the most controversial loona release to date! i’m not gonna lie and say this sounded anything like i expected it to. but also, i have come to terms with the fact that loona release noise music now and personally i am here for it. why not did not have the endless energy of hi high or otherworldly vibe of butterfly, but it’s a hype song and i am always there for hype. i also have to say the b-sides were not as strong for me as on previous releases but i think i have to come to peace with the fact that loona will never top their debut mini for me. though if i can wish for one thing…… let loona have title tracks with a chorus in 2021? pls? crumbs?

album favs: so what, oh (yes i am)

tame impala - the slow rush (album) *lights cigarette* i’m listening to pretty underground music….i don’t think you’ve heard of this band….they are called tame impala *intro of the less i know the better starts playing* yes i am a basic white bitch and listen to like 3 alternative bands but damn i listen to them religiously. like any other basic bitch on this planet i found out about tame impala through the less i know the better and checked out their music. i wasn’t too much into this album as i was into currents but towards the end of the year, i was in a moody alternative music slump that took me back to this album and i like it a lot more now! most importantly, tame impala fulfills my primitive urge to listen to songs that exceed the 4 minute mark. something clicks in my brain when i see a song that is like 6:34 and chances that it ends up as one of my faves on a album are high. i enjoy tiktok like everyone else but this trend of 2:50 long songs needs to be stopped immediately.

album favs: borderline, lost in yesterday, it might be time, is it true, posthumous forgiveness

honorary mentions: onlyoneof - dOra maar, everglow - dundun

march

nct 127 - neo zone (album) ah, yes. the album that fundamentally changed me as a person <3 i’ve been listening to nct for a while, matter of fact i checked my top tracks 2019 playlist on spotify and cherry bomb was on there lol. i remember trying to get into them in 2018 when they released their regular-irregular album but the endless member & unit concept scared me off, so i only listened to a handful of songs without looking into them march 2020, the fateful month in which they released kick it and screencaps of jaehyun’s sexy ass tiddies in the kick it mv landed on my tumblr or twitter and i HAD to look up who this man is…...remember when i thought jaehyun was my ult for like, 2 weeks? me neither, johnny suh only in this house <3

anyway, i checked out this album and by god, is this pure kpop perfection. last time i listened to a god tier no skip album like this was … maybe the perfect red velvet? hype songs, well crafted ballads, love songs that make me wanna learn the lyrics, genuinely fun and interesting pop songs, this album has it all. somehow, the way this album is crafted greatly reminds me of brown eyed girls’ sound-g, it has the same vibe, concept and mix of genres to me, i’m not entirely sure how to explain. anyway, this album is one of my favorites of all time and even though i’ve obsessively listened to it (lastfm says 1.4k scrobbles as of today, december 7th…) i am still not tired of this. i recommend this to anyone who loves kpop tbh, you will have a good time with this!

other than being just a musically solid album, the emotional ties i have with this are …. isabel stop making albums your emotional support 2021 challenge. i’ve listened to this release all spring lockdown, this basically played at every waking hour for all of march and april. the promotion time of this era and lockdown are deeply intertwined for me and so i am always remembered of all the nct content i consumed during that time which inevitably cheered me up so much. this album really means a lot to me :’)

album favs: kick it, mad dog, love song, boom

honorary mentions: itzy - wannabe,

the weeknd - after hours (album) my dear melchanoly, was one of my favorite releases of 2018, so i had been desperate for a new release by abel and boy did he not disappoint. the perfect thotty, dirty emo 80s, making it clap while crying in the club album! this is a no skip from top to bottom and all i can say is that the grammys can go to hell <3 abel aoty! there is really not much i can say about this album, the flawless production, lyrics and sound speak for themself. my only criticism is that i feel overwhelmed by 14 songs, especially when some of them are really long. a few songs greatly overshadow the weaker tracks on the album for me but i still love this to death.

album favs: escape from LA, blinding lights, after hours, faith

dua lipa - future nostalgia (album) after the weeknd’s masterpiece of an 80s inspired pop album i was really looking forward to this. i greatly enjoyed the pre-releases, i played don’t start now and physical up and down, they are still some of my favorite songs released this year! when i first listened to the album i really liked it, songs like boys will be boys or pretty please sound like fillers to be but the rest is solid. yet a month after release you couldn’t catch me listening to this and i cannot even really tell you why. i think it was a combination of the following: 1) i greatly overplayed dsn and physical to the point where i didn’t want more of the pop 80s sound that the album has 2) there were other releases at the time that caught my attention and interest more like neo zone or after hours 3) dua herself….girl….she really gave it her all this year to make herself as unlikeable as possible. nationalist propaganda and the constant traveling during a fucking pandemic were really the kicker. i can barely stand seeing her on my instagram feed anymore, much less listen to her album. her having the nerve to go “we’re in a pandemic lol” when people asked about an animated music video …. if you don’t shut the hell up lmao … also, she takes the crown for the corniest album opener of all time. i nearly closed spotify when i heard future nostalgia (the song) lmao

album favs: don’t start now, physical, levitating, hallucinate

honorary mentions: megan thee stallion - savage

april

apink - dumhdurum (song)

listen, i’m not gonna sit here and pretend like this mini album interested me in the slightest but god, the title is such a banger.i’m so sick, eung eung and dumhdurum are a holy trilogy that i will defend until the end of time! i really hope apink stick to this mature, elegant concept, it suits them so well and goes well with their new sound. come back soon queens <3

rina sawayama - xs (song) i feel like i’m gonna catch some hands here … xs is an absolute banger, the guitar riffs and disruptive sounds really get me going every damn time! but the rest of the album … tell me why it doesn’t catch me?! i literally cannot explain. i need to take an hour, sit down and do nothing but listen to the album from top to bottom once again and see if my thoughts change but right now i only care about xs.

chungha - stay tonight (song) drama! vocals! dance break! choreography! this release served it all. i listened to this obsessively during the time of the release and it still holds up today. can we talk about the run chungha had with gotta go > snapping > stay tonight? lord have mercy.

honorary mentions: april - lalalilala, nct dream - ridin’

may

lady gaga - chromatica (album) the immense disappointment i have in this album is tough to put into words lol. any other artist might have gotten away with this release but gaga having the discography that she has, well … she doesn’t get away with it. this has underwhelming all over it. i enjoyed the pre-releases and my hope was high but the rest just doesn’t live up what i expected, i can’t even say why. it’s just underwhelming pop for someone of gaga’s calibre. i listened to this album during release week and then never again till december to write this list and i can see why.

album favs: rain on me, sour candy ft. blackpink, stupid love

baekhyun - delight (mini album) it’s confession time … this is a name i never would have expected on any of my music lists to end up. exo has always been one of those boy groups i casually listened to. i greatly enjoy their title tracks and a handful of side tracks, i have a few members that i keep an eye on more than others but that’s about it. baekhyun was never one of those members i had any interest in, matter of fact i always thought he was kinda vanilla and boring 😭 i didn’t even plan on listening to this release if it wasn’t for his association with superm and thus nct, so i gave it a shot and we have no choice but to stan. his voice is like butter and can cut sharp at the same time, his versatility is insane. i dived a bit more into baekhyun related content and he is so likeable, it’s almost ridiculous. this production is absolute god tier, not a single skip on this mini. late spring/early summer i had this weird urge to listen to songs with mellow voices but still a banger instrumental and i wholeheartedly blame this release. matter of fact, this album is so good, i had to buy a physical copy. Y’ALL. THIS IS A BIG DEAL. i haven’t bought a kpop album of anyone that’s not holy top 3 (brown eyed girls, loona, nct) in like … idk, 5 years?! baekhyun’s impact. i’m a fan now <3

album favs: candy, r u ridin’?, love again

ak aussenkontrolle - in meinem benz (song) this … is very unrelated to this entirely list but i had to put it on here. i miss my ex boss and our 3 hour drives to meetings in the south of the country where we would blast trashy german rap music </3

nct 127 - neo zone: the final round (repackage) *airhorns* REEEPACKAGE TIIIIIME!!! my first nct era that i experienced from start to finish! i remember watching nct 127’s beyond live with luna where these mfs performed punch and we finished the concert having no idea what this song sounded like. the structure is so unusual and the intro catches me off-guard every time just to hype me up beyond compare. not gonna lie, the fact that johnny has exactly one (1) line hurts but! it’s my favorite line of the entire song! possibly related to the fact that it’s his line but let’s ignore that ….

album favs: punch, make your day

kim woo seok - red moon (song) i’m not even gonna lie to you. i have not a single idea who this man is. you could put him right in front of me and i wouldn’t know … all i know is that he has a banger song. i saw him perform this on a music show that i watched for nct and i ended up loving the song … thanks for your service sir, whoever you are ...

june

stray kids - go live (album) 2020 was kind of the year of boy groups for me, i’m so sorry … stray kids promoted simultaneously with nct 127 so i ended up hearing their title track and holy hell, is that a song. god’s menu is hype from start to finish. it reminds me of good ol’ 2nd gen noise boy group song a lá b*g b*ng fantastic baby. just pure hype and fun noise. i am forever grateful to witness the birth of the line cooking like a chef, i’m a five star michelin. the title track impressed me so much that i ended up checking out the entire album which i rarely ever do with boy groups and what is even rarer is that i enjoyed the b sides lmao!!! it’s not an album that i would put on and just enjoy from start to finish but it has some really solid tracks! this release made me want to keep an eye on stray kids, they seem like a really fun bunch.

album favs: god’s menu, TA, airplane

seventeen - left & right (song) the boy group run continues … same thing with stray kids, seventeen promoted during punch era so i heard their song while watching some music station show for nct and i heard this and was sold. solid, fun pop with the catchiest pre-chorus in history and a banger chorus. i listened to the entire mini and can’t say it really caught my interest so this is a title track only release for me.

dishonorary mentions: twice - more & more (i hate this song so much lol)

honorary mentions: ryu sejeong - tiger eyes, monsta x - fantasia, chloe x halle - do it

july

irene & seulgi - monster (mini) this is a weird release because it’s good. the title track is fun enough, the b sides are dope. but my issue with this is that it’s nothing new. this sounds exactly like a red velvet release. i get that they didn’t want to a joy, seulgi, irene, yeri release only and went for the sub-unit route instead, but why not be experimental and stray away from the usual sound of the group? also, whoever made monster and not naughty the title track deserves to be spat on. at least the choreography here is more interesting and “experimental” for kpop standards. also, why only a seulgi solo and no irene? i have no idea how reveluvs reacted to this release but this has rushed written all over it.

album favs: monster, naughty (i’m counting this to the mini idc), uncover

exo-sc - 1 billion views (mini) doing my part as a filthy casual exo listener. this release goes in the same category as baekhyun’s delight where i like the album so much that i HAD to get a physical copy. i don’t know what they put in the title track for it to be so diddly darn addictive but it clearly worked. the only bad thing about this release is how criminally mismanaged it was by sm, when i get you lee sooman ...

album favs: 1 billion views, on me, say it

baekhyun - garden in the air (song) i told you i’m a loyal baekhyun fan now <3 king releases and i listen, that’s just how it goes now! this is a cover of a boa song and i really love his version. there is not much to say except that it’s a really smooth song and his voice absolutely carries the track. i enjoyed this much more than i thought i would!

hyoyeon - dessert (song) YOU KNOW WHAT I DESERVE??? DESSERT!!!!!!! *insert tik tok challenge here* imagine if miryo featured on this instead of the ethnic hip girl … why can’t we have nice things. anyway, a banger!

johnny - sunny side up episode 1 set (spotify playlist, actual set) johnny being the skilled, talented, multi-faceted king that he is has been dj-ing since before debut (not me acting like i was around at that time lmao) and thus he decided to bless our quarantined, lockdowned asses with an online dj set! that was the most turned up sunday morning i ever had in my entire life. this set kicked off an edm/house/techno affinity that i had for the following couple of weeks. this set is an absolute banger, i would go insane to this in the club. he has an amazing ear for transitions and drops and i still just put on this set on the regular when i have cleaning to do or so. he could fill the void that rona and thus no clubbing in 2020 left in my heart and i’m so happy he decided to share this with us <3 now … john … sunny side up episode 2 pspspspspsps

honorary mentions: gfriend - apple, jessi - nunu nana

august

cardi b ft. megan thee stallion - wap (song) late summer 2021. we are vaccinated, icu beds are free, barely any new cases, clubs are open, this song plays and i can finally make it fucking clap.

troye sivan - in a dream (mini album) a cute mini album! nothing life-changing or as exciting as previous releases but easy (haha!) to enjoy. i really, really enjoy easy, can always count on troye for a dreamy sound.

album favs: easy

honorary mentions: itzy - not shy

september

wonho - love synonym pt. 1: right for me (mini album) honestly? i know like, 3 monsta x songs. i never bothered to get into them and maybe i never will, but it was difficult to ignore the whole wonho & monsta x mess that went on. i have absolutely no memory of why i decided to check out this release, i guess i was curious what he was going to do and … i was positively surprised lol. open mind is the exact time of song i had been so desperate all summer (remember mellow vocals with banger instrumentals? yeah) and uhm … can’t ignore the obvious … mr wonho is fucking fine. sir, you just gained a fan … now, where is love synonym part 2?? huh?????

album favs: open mind, i just, losing you

joji - nectar (album) this one is on tiktok. i heard gimme love in a bunch of tiktoks and had to look up the song and here we are. what an album! it came right as seasonal depression started to hit and accompanied me for a good chunk of autumn. at this point one has to ask if joji can ever really miss? the entire album is a no skip, it’s almost difficult to narrow down my favorites if my favorites weren’t so damn god tier!!!

album favs: gimme love, ew, tick tock, pretty boy, your man

super m - tiger inside / 100 / drip (songs) okay, listen. technically tiger inside & 100 were already released in august. instead of those three songs i was gonna write about the entire album until i realized i really don’t give a fuck about it 😭 i really only care about those three songs. and YES, i unironically like 100. is it a good song? no. but neither is jopping and that fucking bangs. i don’t turn to superm for life-changing, profound music, i turn to them for a good time LOL and that’s what they deliver every time! that being said, taeyong’s VROOM VROOM, UHMM UHMM, GRRRAHHHH verse is life-changing and profound! speak your truth king! also i wish drip was a b side for nct 127 that song is so damn sexy

taemin - never gonna dance again act 1 (album) this isn’t kpop, this is taemin pop. taemin never misses and the fact that hw*s* won dance performance over taemin is a literal hate crime. i will never forget the industry for this daylight robbery … anyway, nice album!!!!

album favs: criminal, black rose, waiting for

stray kids - in life (repackage) *airhorns* REPACKAGE TIIIIME 2.0!!!! i was on the edge of my seat waiting what stray kids were going to deliver after i greatly enjoyed god’s menu. i was still not over listening god’s menu when the repackage came out so i didn’t listen to it right away and now i greatly regret the few days i could have listened to back door earlier </3

album favs: back door, any

jackson wang - pretty please (song) i’m not gonna pretend like i ever listened to a song by jackson ever before. he is short king from got7 in my head and that’s all! i don’t even remember why i listened to this song but all i know is that it slaps severely. i love the wong kar wai inspired music video and the choreography is fun too! i’m gonna check out more of his music <3

honorary mentions: fromis9 - feel good, knk - ride

october

blackpink - the album (album, duh) i don’t even know what to say about this … this might be the weirdest release on the list for me. there are song i absolutely fucking hate (ice cream …) and songs i get my life to (pretty savage) on here and the discrepancy just gives me massive whiplash. i would never put this album on and listen to the whole body of work, i just cannot with the brain damage it gives me. i am still stuck in 2016, begging for bp to release music like whistle/boombayah/stay/playing with fire but i think i need to give up on that wishful thinking … i am just grateful we a got a title track with actual lyrics in the chrous for once.

album favs: pretty savage, lovesick girls

nct - nct 2020 resonance pt. 1 (album) this era was … a ride. nct 2020 happening was near inevitable but with covid it got pushed back so far, i started to believe it wasn’t even going to happen. i was semi-terrified of what was going to happen during a comeback with 21 (now 23!!) member group since i only experienced nct 127 comebacks so far and uhh … a LOT happened lmfao but let’s keep this about the album … i had no idea what was going to hit me. johnny having effectively 3 lines in nct 2018 did not give me much hope and after he got denoted to no line treatment in punch again, i was ready to not even have any expectation but this release changed everything. make no mistake that most of my favorite songs are units with johnny, we knew that was gonna happen lmaooo they dropped the teaser video for misfit and i thought i had my favorite song in the bag and then faded in my last song happened. y’all. JOHNNY SINGS? LIKE? ACTUALLY SINGS? DOESN’T GET FORCED TO RAP OR TALK-SING? MY MAN’S VOCALS??? OH MY GAAAAHD! this song is dramatic, theatrical, emo, it serves vocals and rap, it has catchy english and korean lyrics, this is THE song, the ULTIMATE song. i love this song so much, i want to belt it on top of my lungs in the pouring rain. apart from fimls, i also loveeee misfit, that was to be expected after i was going completely insane over the track video. johnny has like 3 lines but again they are iconic (WARNIN’! NCT WE MOBBIN’!) and i just enjoy the track too much to be upset over that. nectar. holy fuck. nectar!!!! wayv never disappoints with their thotty songs, they now have an absolute god tier hoe-ly song trinity with love talk > bad alive > nectar. the first chorus and hendery’s first verse (CHOP CHOP CHOP!) get me every time, this song is so insanely good i am severely upset i cannot sing along to it :( music, dance has nct 127 written all over it in bold letters, it’s so inherently 127’s sound!!!! i love this song so much, it’s so fun, upset and has massive dance-ability, i wish we had gotten a stage for it but i guess you can’t have everything in life </3 make a wish……………………………..the cursed unit. i don’t want to say anything about this except that, unfortunately, the song is fun and i enjoy it. the end. overall, this album is so insanely solid. i know i talk about my favorites A LOT but i genuinely do not dislike a single song on here, this is an absolute no skip album! that’s it. see you for resonance part 2!!!!!

album favs: FADED IN MY LAST SONG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, misfit, nectar, music dance, make a wish

loona - 12:00 (mini album) controversial loona release 2.0! i don’t know what it is, but somehow they managed to lace the words di da dam di dam di dam dam dam dam di dam (yeah) with pure crack. i fucking love why not, i would even go as far to say it’s my 2nd favorite title track. that is right, i think it’s better than butterfly (btw: hi high > why not > butterfly > so what). so much was strange this comeback, from the inexplicable concept + teasers, the outfits, the styling (yves….i mourn your hot girl era) but the title track is just SO good, SO fun, SO catchy that i am willing to ignore it all. i also enjoy the b sides much more than on #, they are much more memorable to me. and now … HASEUL RETURN…………….i purely live to see the next loona comeback at this point

album favs: why not, voice, universe

twice - i can’t stop me (song) thank fuck twice released a good song this year. if more & more had been the only 2020 release, that would have been the real tragedy. not gonna lie, i still haven’t listened to the full album, it just keeps slipping my mind. but! i’m going to! until then i’m gonna bop to i can’t stop me.

ariana grande - positions (album) the way this album has people upset is so funny. i am a huge dangerous woman fan myself, it’s my fave ariana album to date but she has said repeatedly that this is not the sound she is striving for. now she has her coin and can do whatever she wants in music and if that is r’n’b then fuck! we have to live with it! lmao! i can live with the sex theme of the album because it’s delivered in a fun way? but it’s getting a bit old...if the next album is about riding dick only too idk how much i would enjoy that. i would probably always come back to ari because i like her voice so much but girl, there are other topics to sing about, i promise! anyway! i like this album, it’s one of those where i can hit shuffle and enjoy it in the background while doing other stuff.

album favs: positions, 34 + 35, love language, my hair, pov

tiny meat gang - sofia (song) ayyy, it’s my meat boys :’) ending the year the same way they started it, with a banger! i absolutely love the guitar instrumental, the melancholic love song type sound paired with the theme of singing about loving a robot … yup, that’s creativity and talent right here! this makes me so freaking desperate for a new ep and i genuinely have no idea how far or close we are to one but!!! i am always waiting!!!

noel - push (ep) this is something i absolutely did not expect. noel (of tiny meat gang!) released his first ep ever and i was absolutely wowed. noel has it all, the voice, the talent, the creativity and all it took him was the confidence to finally put something out and i’m so happy he did. he gets real personal on bus back, more than ever before and i always get a bit emo listening to this track </3 this man is gonna go places and i’m so happy to witness his journey.

album favs: crow, head sunk, bus back

honorary mentions: sam smith - diamonds

november

taemin - never gonna dance again act 2 (album) i’m gonna say it. idea is better than criminal. the chorus drop???? when he goes MY AH AH MY AH AH MY AH MY IDEA MY MY IDEAAAAAA A-A-A A-A-A???? bitch … tell me you can sit still, i won’t believe you. i like part 2’s title track more, but part 1’s b sides are more interesting to me. either way, taemin delivered as expected!!

album favs: idea, impressionable, exclusive

nct - nct 2020 resonance pt. 2 (album) part two, baby! we made it! part 2 had more mellow, ballad-y songs with my everything, i.o.u. and all about you, overall less drama than part 1 but i still enjoyed it. work it is one of those controversial songs where you despise it with your entire being or you defend this top tier noise till the end and i am absolutely the latter. the agony of not being able to listen to it and seeing the timeline so divided nearly killed me, but i have concluded that people who hate work it have never felt joy in their life <3 honestly my opinion cannot be counted because i eat up anything johnny participates in … biased ass… what i’m not gonna talk about is resonance (the song), this absolute mess of a “remix”. the audacity sm had to release this as a single is insane. anyway!! this era was a rollercoaster ride. all the interactions truly made me interested in members of other units more. hendery (the rise and fall …), yangyang my beautiful son, jeno aka blue hair guy, chenle the chaos kid and xiaojun after he made make a wish his bitch in particular! all the interactions between the units were so fun to witness and it was fun while it lasted but i am … so glad it’s over lol. i miss nct 127, i miss some peace, i hope the boys get to rest for a bit and so does my bank account.

album favs: work it, 90s love, i.o.u., raise the roof

miley cyrus - plastic hearts (album) not in a thousand years would i have expected a miley release to be on here. this girl does everything to be absolutely unlikeable in my eyes but after severely banging out to her heart of glass cover, i was really excited for this and it did not disappoint. what is disappointing is that it took her so long to find a sound that fits her like a glove. i believe many people miss out on this release after her previous history and i nearly would have done the same. this alt/rock influenced pop does her voice so many favors and i really hope she sticks to this direction, i love this album greatly!!

album favs: heart of glass, midnight sky, night crawling ft. billy joel, wtf do i know

kai - kai (mini album) just. imagine debuting with an album like that. lol. what a god tier big dick move. we all knew whatever this release was gonna be, above all it was going to be sexy and boy were we RIGHT!!!! mmmh is exactly as thotty as i needed it to be and the b sides give me everything from r’n’b to trap. i love this release and i love that it’s only the beginning of kai! like!! he is only gonna gain even more experience and become even more powerful!! what the fuck!!!!!

album favs: mmmh, ride or die, hello stranger, nothing on me

honorary mentions. gfriend - mago

december

nothing? wtf?? 😭 no interesting release happened,,,,half the time i listened to christmas songs anyway lol

pre 2020 releases i only found this year

mgmt - little dark age (album, 2018) & oracular spectactular (album, 2007) another tiktok serve. i found little dark age through a tiktok trend and ended up really liking mgmt. they fit perfectly into my autumn/winter moody alt/rock mood that i had going on and i’m happy they have so much more music that i can check out!

artist favs: little dark age, electric feel, time to pretend

tame impala - currents (album, 2015) everyone’s favorite basic alt bitch album! i enjoyed this more than the slow rush for a good chunk of time, it also fit right into my alt rock autumn mood. i really love this album, like previously mentioned it has my favorite long ass tracks on there but also a good amount of short or medium long tracks. i’m still busy enjoying currents and the slow rush but i can’t wait till i finally take the leap to dive into their other releases because i’m loving everything i’ve heard so far.

album favs: the less i know the better, let it happen, new person same old mistakes

joji - ballads 1 (2018) after liking nectar so much, checking joji out was a given and i just love this album. only when i listened to this i realized i heard slowly dancing in the dark a few times on tiktok lmao that cursed app man … i would say i love nectar a bit more but this is still a fantastic album!!

album favs: slowly dancing in the dark, attention, test drive, yeah right

jus2 - focus (mini album, 2019) in my “mellow moody bangers” phase i was scouring playlists for more songs and i think i found focus on me first which fitted right into the niche i was looking to fill and i ended up enjoy this whole release! only later i realized this is a sub-unit from got7 lmao how come i enjoy solo or unit releases by got7 members but their group discography never interested me? anyway, very sexy ep!

album favs: drunk on you, focus on me, love talk

knk - sunset (song, 2019) part of my mellow bangers playlist. very sexy, i can imagine this as a runway song! i have no idea who knk are but given the fact i enjoyed two of their songs so far maybe i should look into them lol

baekhyun - city lights (mini album, 2019) i am repenting for my sins of missing out on baekhyun releases by consuming his music at an exorbitant rate. un village is one hell of a title track that i didn’t appreciate before, but i feel like in 2020 my music interests started to vary and i love the groovy r’n’b and string sound of this song so much. i also love stay up to death, the vocals baekhyun serves here are unreal. his BABY WE CAN STAY UP!!!!!!! gets me every single time!!!! what a mini!

album favs: un village, stay up

mac miller - swimming (album, 2018) i’ve listened to this album before 2020 but i had the urge to put this on here. this is going to sound so corny, but if i had to pick one song to be my life’s title track, it would be ladders. the hope this song gives me is unreal, it feels like a light at the end of the tunnel. this album is so fantastic, i love the upbeat instrumentals paired with sometimes gloomy lyrics are so incredible, mac was truly one of the greatest artists of our time. this album is so outstanding and i miss him every day.

album favs: ladders, jet fuel, 2009, self care, perfecto

doja cat - hot pink (album, 2019) i can never decide if i like doja or not but the album slaps lol that’s it come on tiktok queen

album favs: say so, juicy, like that, streets

my fav 2020 playlists

slapping mellow

neo culture technology

malcolm

why go to therapy when this playlist exists?

top songs 2020

(by spotify)

#again a heads up: this was written in december 2020 and there are a few names mentioned here that....i want nothing to do with anymore lol #like h*ndery of gfr*end #but i'm not gonna delete them because at the time i enjoyed their releases and no one knew they were ignorant asswipes <3 #also not me thinking i'm gonna get vaccinated this summer LMFAOOOOOOO #i can consider myself lucky if i even get them this year #german government my detested <3 #about me

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johnmurphysreddit · 4 years

Text

Collected spoilers and predictions

And my steaming hot takes on them

Lexa comes back to tell Clarke it’s OK to move on.

8/10 on the likely scale. Could be the actress. Could be a tech handwavium.

Lexa downloaded into Russell along with Sheiheda and they’ll fight for control of the body

And then Jason will say something incredibly awkward about his Ultimate Bisexual lead.

Sheiheda is Cadogan

Scarred emo boy in a hood looked too young for that to me, but if Indra is about 50 and Sheiheda was an evil overlord when she was a girl and we’re 100 years post apocalypse when Cadogan looked about 40 in his anti-tech videos.... Eh, the timeline was broken this season anyway. Continuity has never been a hard limit, and maybe that “each season is a movie” thing was to tell us this season’s even more off than others.

Sheiheda is the Shepherd

TBH I don’t understand this theory. How’s an emo teen murder boy from Sangeda who was on earth 50 years after the bombs simultaneously supposed to have lead a bunch of culty space mercs?

Cadogan is the Shepherd. The level 12s of his cult found the wormhole on earth and that’s why the bunker was empty.

Intriguing.

Cadogan is the Shepherd and they put him in cryo when his “tech is bad” philosophy conflicted with their use of mind readers, invisi-helmets, and wormholes that they got from the aliens.

We’re 25% of the way into the season. If we were going to see aliens I hope we’d see them by now or be focused on building tension around the “ooohhh aliens!” issue. But yeah, I think they iced down the Shepherd when his philosophy was no longer useful but having him as a focal point was.

Orlando was Cadogan.

Unlikely. Jason loves his own mythology and Orlando was a one episode character who’s dead now.

Clarke and Bellamy will wormhole back to the destroyed earth and restore the soil with Monty’s algae

In what continuity are they the people most inclined or able to tend and restore the soil?

Bellamy will be an amnesiac cultist when they find him and he’ll try to kill Clarke

My eyes just rolled so hard I saw my own brain, so yeah, 9/10 chance it will happen.

The way wormholes work and the planets are shown positioned on the diagram Penance is running at normal time it just seems faster compared to Sanctum. Sanctum is incredibly slow and Bardo is unknown. Bellamy could be anywhere from a few years older than when he left to dead of old age.

I don’t think Jason knows or cares how wormholes work and we’ve seen pictures of Bob looking well scrubbed but more or less the same as when he left but in a new outfit.

Under the Sanctum is the slow one theory earth has had thousands or millions of years to recover and they can go back to a lush green planet.

Gotcha. And bumping this up to plausible.

No no no that’s wrong. Earth and Sanctum are on similar time scales because we know Josephine and Russell’s age and.....

You guys are in too deep. “Time is misbehaving but there’s no time travel” means to me that counting the timeline is useless but no one is going backwards.

Bardo is Earth but after recovery time has passed. Cadogan’s people won (sort of) and they did inherit the earth. They were chilling in some other bunker still while the Grounder-Arker apocalypses were rolling.

I think that violates Jason��s no time travel statement, but I’m here for the idea that there are still bunker people on earth who skipped the entire Grounder and power plant melt down phase.

Bardo is on Earth inside a bunker. Boom. No time travel.

This theory is from reddit thus the hostility in the phrasing.

Clarke and Bellamy use the portals to go back and stop the apocalypse.

That would make a spin off about the apocalypse really awkward. Also when have Clarke and Bellamy jointly ever deescalated a situation?

The timelines split.

I love infinite possibility stories but they don’t seem to be doing that.

“The last war. A war to end all wars” is their attempt to kill Clarke. Clarke is Athena.

That would be a loud scream in the direction of BSG and I wouldn’t put it past them.

Our heroes have been the bad guys all along.

I mean yeah. Does anyone not know by now that “bad” is a matter of perspective? If not the Sanctumites who would really like to go back to organic farming and only losing people occasionally instead of in bulk and by fire would like to have a chat with you. All that “my people” stuff was to establish that there are multiple sides to a conflict.

It’s going to come down to a battle of Heda!Russell and the Sanctum collective against the Shepherd and his cult.

I don’t care about any of that at all, so 9/10 likely.

Gabriel and the Primes knew more about Bardo and the Shepherd than they’ve let on

We kind of got hints of that from some of Russell’s final dialogue about “ok you deal with it” and TBH I still don’t trust Gabriel. 200 years of intellectual curiosity just isn’t a strong enough reason for me to buy that he’s super zen as they’re hopping through time and space.

They guy who kidnapped Gaia is Bellamy.

If Bellamy had an invisibility suit I can’t see him using it to grab Gaia. Doesn’t matter if he’s brainwashed or not. Gaia just wasn’t a major player last time Bellamy saw her. It was an opportunistic grab and it doesn’t matter who does one of those.

There are six planets. Sanctum, Skyring, Bardo, Nakara, Ethera, and one offline. The offline one is Earth.

Maybe? Where did these planet names come from.

There are six planets. Sanctum, Skyring, Bardo, Nakaro, Ethera, and one offline. The offline one is ALIE’s world. Or Ethera is ALIEs world. Either way, ALIEs world is back in play.

Sounds plausible.

The cult is similar to the church in book 4 of the book series.

I don’t think Jason has read the book series and if he did he’s not going to admit it. He may have had an intern give him notes on it so he can throw some kibble to people who have but I wouldn’t expect the similarities to run deep.

Elligus 3 sold crew space to Cadogan’s cult, so we’ve got a coming conflict between the Elligus 3 descendants and the Cadogan people

Plausible. The people on sanctum are, in part, Elligus 3 descendants so this is already set up.

(BTS gossip and spec)

NOPE. Not getting into it. But I will say that the excessive use of day rate actors and greenscreen may be keeping the budget per episode down but it isn’t enhancing my enjoyment of the season.

They’re all going to disperse at the end. No more “we’re the last of the human race.” The human race can’t be stopped because it’s not in one location.

That’s very BSG. Steal from the best.

Clarke will pull a lever and die at the end.

That would be very on brand of her.

(character) x (character) endgame.

Every decision from the writing room at this point needs to be framed as “what gets them on a list to generate long term viewer dollars and relevance in five years.” I don’t believe shipping is part of Jason’s calculation. Some people very strongly disagree. We shall see.

It’s all a dream / Clarke’s been dead since (point) / none of them ever left ALIEs world / they’ve all been in cryo in underground bunkers the whole time.

This could be done really well or really poorly depending on the specifics of how they handled it

That’s the end of my list but I know I missed a lot. Comment or send me asks with others. It looks like we’re in for a ride.

#the 100 #spoilers #speculation #tbh I have no idea which are spoilers and which are spec

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atopearth · 4 years

Text

Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3 - The “Death” of Avalanche (Ch 12-14)

Seeing an extended version of the Avalanche members’ dying is going to be terrible. I think the fact that Wedge calls Cloud “aniki” is so cute, so it’ll be sad that this is the last time we’ll hear it. My heart kinda broke for Biggs tbh. Seeing him entrust the future to Cloud, and for him to think about the Leaf House orphanage kids even during his dying moments was saddening. I remember being so surprised at Ms Folia (the orphanage teacher + Honeybee dancer) saying that the one who taught her everything and inspired her to be who she is was Biggs. I knew he had a big heart and cared for everyone, but it was nice that they added in all these other little things about him. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle Jessie’s death tbh. It’s going to be heartbreaking!!

Aerith going to save Marlene is something I looked forward to seeing, and I think it showed really well how gentle of a heart Aerith has, and how self sacrificing she is. Especially when she encouraged Wedge to not give up and allow himself to have regrets for not doing more. I like that the Shinra soldier Wedge passionately convinced into opening the gates to leave Sector 7 for everyone to escape was the newbie soldier that was kinda in training and couldn’t be mean to anyone (when you talked to him before this). It’s understandable that he would be the one to go against orders. Nice to see Tseng! He looks pretty good. On the other hand, Rude interfering with Reno so that his gun would miss Tifa was hilarious. I love that they kept the idea that Rude likes Tifa, I guess they’ll be keeping the idea that Tseng likes Aerith too then! Elena liking Tseng is something expected though since it’s a big part of her character imo haha. Btw, I’m glad that Reno recognised how tasteless it was to have to do the pretend act that this whole destroying Sector 7 thing was done by Avalanche. Anyway, Aerith convincing Marlene to come out and leave with her was adorable~

It was hard to see Jessie go again, especially when she talked about how she kinda “deserved” it considering the amount of people she killed with her bombs, which was something that always stuck with me in the dialogue of the original. Despite Jessie’s hopes for the future and everything, she knew what what she was doing involved the deaths of a lot of people, innocent and guilty alike, she always felt terrible about it, but she wasn’t as soft as Tifa to think about giving up on it. She took those burdens with her to achieve what she needed to, so it’s heartbreaking that she had to die thinking that. It was saddening yet cute when Cloud said Jessie owed him a pizza, so she can’t die haha. It’s too bad that it’ll never happen. Sometimes I wonder if the reason they all like pizza is because of how Barret refers to the plates above them as a “pizza”, so they like to eat them up hahahaha, nah just kidding, pizza is good, everyone loves pizza.Seeing Reno and Rude tag team fight was so cool! I loved how Reno still had that skill that puts you into the triangle barrier to kinda immobilise you. Otherwise, Reno is so difficult for me to handle lolll, I suck fighting against him. And Rude hits Tifa when you control her!! Although he kinda just does a light chop to her, not sure if it’s specific to her but it was kinda cute lol because it honestly seemed like he was taking it easy against her compared to other battles when we faced him. Seriously though, I think it’s so annoying how those “ghosts” always interfere at crucial moments, it’s like, it wasn’t in the original game and it’s honestly unneeded here. The truth is that Cloud and them were unable to stop the plate from falling regardless of whether those ghosts were there or not, it’s annoying to make it seem like they could have stopped Rude if they weren’t there, when in reality, it shows (in the original) a much crueller way of looking at things when you try your best but you’re still too late. We don’t need no supernatural phenomenon to make it seem like it’s at fault and that’s why Cloud and them failed! Yes, I rolled my eyes when they appeared because at this point, I’ll admit that I’m sick of them. It’s like how they ruined Aerith and Cloud’s first meeting with them! I only wanted sweetness and curiosity towards a flower girl, not mystery with these supernatural things I don’t care about! Sigh!

Anyway, seeing Tifa and Barret broken over not being able to save their home and its people was saddening. Maybe it’s nostalgia or whatever, but I think it hit me harder in the original though. Btw, it’s kinda funny but understandable that instead of Tseng flying near the explosion to kinda show that they’ve captured Aerith etc, Tseng tells them through the screen haha. Gotta protect the Ancient! Oh, and Sephiroth honestly appears way too much, I honestly don’t remember him being so apparent, I know they’re really just the numbered black robe guys, but I feel like back then it was mostly just Cloud feeling the effects of something, but not being very clear on what it is. Now we’re just stuck with an overbearing Sephiroth zzz, yes there’s such a thing as too much Sephiroth. I guess it’s nice that it kinda explicitly tells you through them that Sephiroth thinks/believes/insists he’s got Ancients’ blood running through him, so he’s the rightful ruler of the planet though. Really though, with the plate falling, you can really understand the helplessness and fear of the people under the plates (through the NPCs talking in the background), it’s like, wow, they can actually fall and destroy everyone?! It kinda shows that regardless of how great Shinra is in giving people “better lives”, Shinra is also essentially in control of their lives. Oh yeah!! And Cait Sith!! Did not expect to see him! It felt weird without his white doll (since I used to think the white doll was him until I realised there was a cat on top lmao), but it was nice to see how *spoilers* Reeve tried to do something about Sector 7 in both forms. Seeing Cait Sith devastated at the sight was pretty saddening. But I have to admit, imagining Reeve controlling it and making it fall to the ground is funny yet interesting loll.

Omg, how old is Tseng?! Aerith is like this little kid and he’s an adult already?! I never realised there was such a big age difference.. Anyway, kid Aerith is adorable. Elmyra’s story is always saddening to hear, but I think the original showed it a bit better, mainly the train station part. I remember in the original, you could really feel the sadness of Elmyra through the contrasted happiness of the people beside her at the train station who were overjoyed at seeing the people they were waiting for come home to them. And it slowly shows how nearly everyone who was waiting there was able to reunite with their loved ones, everyone except her who waited every day there. I feel like she even asked the train station attendant if there were any more trains or people too. Her taking in Aerith healed her and herself, so honestly, I’ve always been happy that they both had each other to lean on for so many years. But yeah, otherwise, seeing Ifalna (HD) and everything was nice. It’s interesting that Aerith needs to be willing to go to them in order to help with their quest in finding the Promised Land, because how exactly do you make her willing?? Hahaha. I mean, she just did it for Marlene so she’s not exactly “willing”. It’s so weird that they didn’t bother adding the line where Barret asks Elmyra to take care of Marlene for him. It’s like, you can’t make him a “caring dad” and not even say something like that before he leaves lol! It’s important!

Okay, I’m glad Wedge is alive, but at the same time, I have mixed feelings towards it haha. It’s nice though, gives Cloud and them more hope I guess. We should all thank cats, they save lives apparently~ On the other hand, Aerith appearing in Cloud’s dream was…very interesting. Like, it was nice, but at the same time weird loll. Especially when she told him that if they seemed like they were attracted to each other romantically, it probably wasn’t real. I honestly didn’t need that, especially when I feel like the Tifa fanservice coupling is everywhere and more apparent than with Aerith imo. I felt like the romance with Tifa was more vague in the beginning for the original. Anyway, Cloud was right, Aerith can’t just one-sidedly say all that and just leave, he should have his say too, especially since these are his feelings! And tbh, although Tifa and Cloud are super comfortable with each other and rely on each other, I feel like a lot of the times, they feel like trustworthy friends more in the remake imo. I think what solidifies (for me) how much Cloud cherishes Aerith was when he said he’d take her home again (lmao) after she showed him the way to Sector 7, enough concern over her safety with Don Corneo that he would cross dress, and his reaction when Aerith shows up with the extravagant red dress. He was so stunned at how beautiful she was! To be fair though, I was pretty stunned too, until I realised I better take screenshots lmao. Overall though, Cloud is constantly saving and taking care of all the girls, it’s kinda crazy. Like, I know he may be Prince Charming but c'mon! Only Tifa gets to be cool whereas the other girls get saved wayyyy too much whether it be from random falls or whatever. I also feel like Elmyra stopping them from going to save Aerith felt more like an unnecessary plot delay to squish in the Wedge part, but oh well lol, time for Shinra building time! Can’t wait to see Red XIII!

Or not, I’m stuck doing side quests lmao. Those pull ups were more annoying than squats zzzz, but they were okay I guess. Didn’t take that long to win the pro. The most annoying thing was that letting the pull up timer go on (when I obviously failed) was faster than the stupid loading screen when I press give up lol. Mireille being the Angel of the Slums was expected I guess, although I was never curious anyway haha. Kyrie is kinda cute but annoying lol. Kinda sad that I don’t actually get to ride on a Chocobo though….like I found all those lost chocobo and yet I don’t actually get to ride them? T_T Wow, I can’t believe the behemoth horn was used for medicine!! What kind of medicine are they making??! It was a hassle to kill that guy! Lmao tonberry is as cute and deadly as it usually is! Kept stabbing me lol! I know I could have probably thrown magic at it, but I thought it was hilarious to see it stab me lmao. The Colosseum battles were pretty easy, I was kinda worried but all good! Whack-a-box was super easy for the hard mode btw! I was like ohh noo when I saw hard mode thinking it’ll take me a while like the pull ups but dang, third time was the charm! Smashed it!🥰 Hmm, pedometer materia was interesting…lol, super easy to get the 5000 steps since I had to look for those annoying chocobos, but yeah I guess it was worth it! AP Up would be useful. I’m glad the side quests didn’t take too long because I really started considering just dropping them lol.

I’m glad they delved more into Leslie’s backstory, but I guess it was expected since he was the only pretty boy out of all the lackeys lmao. I found Leslie really endearing though, mainly because of his looks and how kind he was to keep warning Cloud and Aerith that they shouldn’t go to the audition haha. It’s saddening that his fiancee was chosen by Corneo and now she has disappeared. I kinda liked how his story interlinked with Cloud and Aerith though. Tifa told Leslie that the flower pendant his fiancee gave back to him before she left meant “we’ll meet again” in flower language, and that’s the flower Aerith gave Cloud, so it’s nice to see how Cloud linked that, and sorta renewed his resolve into finding her asap. It’s nice to know that rather than focusing on finding Corneo to exact his revenge, Leslie is now instead looking for the girl. Good that he’s got his priorities straight. She’s much more important than revenge! Hope we get to see him actually find her in the later parts or something~

Overall, not much to say about these few chapters. I think the running up the stairs/pillar part to save Sector 7 + Wedge, Biggs and Jessie were pretty faithfully done, and it was done pretty nicely too. It felt just as annoying with the monsters/soldiers, whilst being just as saddening with seeing the death of the Avalanche members lol. My only gripe with it was the Whispers popping up ruining the whole mood of the event, it really made it seem like Cloud and them could have changed the outcome that ended up happening but was stopped for “reasons” beyond their control, so they shouldn’t feel too bad about it kinda thing, it just changes the whole “feel” of it. Anyway, the changes with Wedge being alive and the “dream” with Aerith are things I have mixed feelings about. Wedge being alive really, as I kinda said before with the pillar, it changes the mood and atmosphere of everything. Like, it’s not terrible, but what solidified a lot of my feelings towards Avalanche and the dropping of the plate in the original was done with the impact of the deaths of our Avalanche members because they’re the main people we’re familiar with. Anyway, gotta love how (aside from Biggs and Jessie) a lot of the people we’ve seen are alive and well, and lol even the item shop etc people have good stock! Kinda miss the days in the original or in other older JRPGs where shops would follow the story and be lacking in supplies or whatever during times of disaster etc. Anyway, that’s just me being picky as usual lol. And yes, I’m starting to see how A LOT of the scenes involve Cloud and the others saving each other, mainly Cloud saving all the girls, and it’s nice but honestly overdone considering the amount of scenes where it happens. This time around, the changes (from the original) are half half to me, not better, but not exactly terrible I guess. Anyway, now that I’m going through this and reading my thoughts again, this was probably the point when I started thinking about whether I liked the remake for what it is or was I really just banking in on the hype and nostalgia of a favourite game? Honestly, it’s mainly the latter (sadly).

#final fantasy vii remake #ffvii remake #ffvii

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upslapmeal · 6 years

Text

The Tsuranga Conundrum

It’s funny how I saw everyone raving about the first two eps this series while I thought they did their job well enough without Grabbing me, and then when I finish an episode and go into the tag expecting to see people agreeing that it was solid and the series has hit its stride I............don’t see that.

I can’t believe we’re actually halfway through s11

@BBC pls fund the show enough to get all thirteen eps at this rate in a few years we’ll be getting miniseries that are six eps long

at least Chibbs’ speciality is character but we’re still missing out on spending time with them and getting to expand on them

glad to see the tardis in its natural habitat: and junkyard planet

ah yes the thing you do when you see a bomb is......not move.....

there are two Docs on board

geddit

bc Doc Brown

I think this is the first time I’ve seen him do acting rather than standup/panel shows but imdb tells me he’s done a fair bit

‘I'd say it was more of a volume than a chapter’ that line just felt so Doctor™

always the show off

but I do wonder what was in that volume

I saw someone talk about how the people on the ship’s reaction to the Doctor suggested that it was not all good but there was enough to know that they can let her take charge

I like that we got to see the Doctor have a moment of just....kinda blind selfishness

I’m just waiting to get a moment where the companions are scared of her, when they realise some of the stuff she’s done and what she’s capable of

I’ve said it in p much every review so far but I’m can’t wait for the Doctor to be furious

the jettisoned escape pod felt very 42

except Martha came out of that a fair bit better than Astos

man there was a moment there when I thought the sonic might be a goner

but then I remembered about merchandising

‘oh yeah sync the old ocular recorders it's obvious’

lots of good quality Thirteen Hand On Hips Leaning this ep

Yaz basically gently police interrogating Ryan about his life lol

Ryan :((

poor guy saw both his mum and his nan die

I made a note at this point in the ep that I was genuinely curious about how they were going to solve the p’ting issue

OH YEAH THE P’TING

I saw a review say it was too cute to be a serious threat but I thought it was just right

and man....the cgi was top notch

and the post-explosion p’ting was a level of happiness I aspire to tbh

its little fACE

though could they not have just ejected it when it was stunned? I guess it would have come back

but yeah I thought the p’ting problem gave a very engaging narrative framework for the ep

like there was lots of good character stuff but the plot that linked it all was solid too

'bit Poirot’

while I love Thirteen primarily being a Doctor of hope I do hope it’s kinda....something she’s telling or reminding herself to keep herself on track

and that we get to see that slip a bit later on

‘yeah we're blokes aren't we’

the scenes with Yoss and Ryan and Graham were so good

Ryan encouraging him was <3

'while you've been mucking around on youtube I've been learning useful life skills’ Graham really makes me laugh

and him always looking away at the squeamish bits is #relatable

(why is this the second ep of tv this week I’ve watched that has involved operating to get a baby out....though at least this one showed nothing)

I can’t believe I’ve not seen a gifset yet comparing Thirteen’s antimatter speech to One’s speech about the birth of stars

that’s the second time Thirteen has mentioned siblings (though not directly about herself this time) and it does make me wonder........

HAMILTON

‘I'll be so embarrassed’ ‘and dead’

again nice seeing that glimpse of the Doctor a little too focussed on their brilliance (in the context of helping people)

ok listen I honestly do not think I have ever laughed at this show as much as I did about baby Avocado

idk if it was actually that funny or just the way they played it but genuinely I think I had to pause the ep for a sec I was laughing so much

truly a Classic Earth Ballad moment

the ending of the ep was beautiful

as a whole it was a properly solid ep I really enjoyed

a good take on base-under-siege and worked in the trademarked Chibnall character work

and the more I see people complain about the ep the more I’ll defend this

Really excited to properly see Yaz take the spotlight next week and I have a slight feeling we’ll be getting to see some anger from Thriteen or at least some more hints of the less-than-perfect Doctor that lies beneath...but that feeling is based on nothing so we’ll just have to wait and see

#the tsuranga conundrum #thirteenth doctor #doctor who #dw #ramblings

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minijenn · 6 years

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Universe Falls Chapter 56

Alas here we are having finally reached the midway point of Universe Falls and its... mediocre. Tbh I just wanna get to Chille Tid so this was kind of a rushed job. Either way it was fun to write Ford interacting with the Gems a whole bunch so there’s that. So yeah, enjoy!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/175850198924/universe-falls-chapter-55

Chapter 56: Friend Ship

FBUXW OBW QWSL TBZR GFWGL HSTWG DTNB HAFH FNNBG MMS PHSR CY DSOKX PIM XHFXSUHA FBR YTFUBASBXXG DTAS HAJ KOR YC CEI TFBJBRLMWDL SCK KJPCKS HCWFM

Like most Gem locations across the Earth, the Galaxy Warp didn’t often see too many visitors, much less any outside of the Crystal Gems, who only really stopped by the warp pad hub for routine checks now and again. However, that wasn’t currently the case as a certain green Gem was hard at work at the mostly downed warp hub, hoping to get it back to some semblance of working order again without garnishing the detection of her irksome enemies.

“Stupid broken warp…” Peridot grumbled to herself. She didn’t even hide her immense aggravation as she used her tractor beam to collect the scattered pieces of rubble that used to be the Homeworld warp and compile it all together to try and repair it somehow. “First my attack robinoids, then my escape pod, then the communication hub, and now this is busted again…” The green Gem sighed, shaking her head as the fingers of her free hand formed her touchscreen so she could make a report. “These Crystal Gems and their human allies are a menace… But no matter; I’m getting off this ticking time-bomb of a planet, whether they like it or not!”

Of course, as if right on cue, no sooner than a moment after Peridot had said this, the Crystal Gems themselves arrived on one of the few still functional pads the Galaxy Warp had to offer, Steven, Dipper, and Mabel accompanying them. The green Gem gasped in shock at their timely, yet still unexpected appearance as she froze in place, instantly dropping the pieces of the Homeworld warp her beam had been toting out of sheer surprise alone.

“Aha! There she is!” Pearl exclaimed, excitedly pointing to Peridot afar on the other side of the warp. “I was right! My plan worked perfectly!”

“Wow, and it only took five minutes to find her this time too!” Mabel said, duly impressed. “That’s a new record.”

“Good,” Dipper said with resolve as he drew the Sword of Seasons and set it to its flaming setting. “That means we can use the rest of our time actually catching her instead of looking in all the wrong places like we usually do.”

“Well, yeah, we can do that, but don’t be rude, you guys,” Steven frowned briefly before turning to Peridot with a bright smile. “Good morning!”

Of course, the green Gem’s response to this warm greeting was anything but warm itself. “Ugh! I can’t believe this! How did you know I was here?!”

“We found a secret way to track you, and we’ll never tell you what it is, even if you ask nicely!” Steven proclaimed with bold confidence as he taunted the green Gem out by sticking his tongue out impishly.

“And this time, you’re goin’ down, Peri!” Mabel quipped, brandishing her grappling hook.

“Peri?” the green Gem raised an eyebrow, apparently confused.

“Oh, you know, its like a fun little nickname!” Mabel smiled cheerfully. “Luckily for you, you have a very nicknamable name! I’ve already gotten so many out of it! There’s Peri, Dot, Dotty, Peri-D, P-Dot, Peri-do, Per-”

“Hey, Mabel, here’s an idea,” Dipper swiftly interjected, annoyed by the inappropriate timing of his sister’s rambling. “Maybe you could not give our enemies silly nicknames? Just a suggestion?”

“Aw, but where’s the fun in that?” Mabel pouted playfully before Garnet finally interjected.

“Peridot!” the Gem leader shouted, her gauntlets already at the ready to strike. “We’re here to-”

“And you’ll never get away with it!” Pearl suddenly interupted her apparently out of nowhere as she raised her spear high.

“Don’t you Gems and your pesky pet humans have anything better to do than annoy me?!” Peridot growled, stomping her foot down in obvious frustration.

“Nope,” Amethyst remarked, stretching out her whip in her hands. “We’re gonna-”

“Prepare to be annoyed!” Pearl cut the purple Gem off as well, quiet pointedly too, much to Amethyst’s confusion, as well as the kids’.

“Uh… ok…” Dipper exchanged a rather bewildered glance with Steven and Mabel at Pearl’s odd behavior before he turned to coldly address the still rather irritated Peridot. “Well, we’re not about to let you escape this ti-”

“Admit defeat now and maybe we’ll go easy on you!” the white Gem once again cut in, just as much verve in her manner as every before.

“Uh… Pearl?” Steven spoke up, somewhat concerned in light of his guardian’s over the top mannerisms.

“Ugh, I don’t have time for this!” Peridot seethed nonetheless, her free floating fingers forming themselves into a blaster that was rapidly charging with a ball of growing energy. “This planet has an expiration date and I’m not gonna stick around to find out when!”

At this, the green Gem let her blast fire, the unexpected force of it knocking her back as it went flying towards the Gems and the kids. The attack completely missed its mark, steering clear of the group on the warp pad and instead smashing into the large stone pillar directly behind them. While initially disappointed by her misfire, Peridot quickly perked up as the bulk of the pillar began to fall upon the Gems and the kids, however, they were thankfully saved from its crushing force by Steven, who summoned shield large enough to cover them all just in the nick of time. Though her attack hadn’t worked completely as expected, Peridot still let out something of a small, nervous chuckle as she picked herself up off the ground right as Pearl fiercely turned to face her again.

“That’s it!” the white Gem hissed, gripping her spear tightly. “I’m taking her out!”

“Pearl, wait!” Garnet ordered, but her teammate didn’t listen. Instead, Pearl charged, her weapon at the ready, towards Peridot, intent on finally putting an end to her longstanding nuisance. Even so, the green Gem countered her with her tractor beam, easily catching Pearl in its pale verdant glow and effectively immobilizing her as she began to spin her around freely.

“Ha! Sorry, but you’re going the wrong way!” Peridot exclaimed, flinging Pearl out of her tractor beam and back towards the group on the warp pad. Before anyone could really do much, the white Gem collided with Steven, knocking him off the pad and disabling his shield altogether. Fortunately, Garnet managed to catch the pillar that had been pressed against it, keeping it steady with her impressive strength as she urged Amethyst and the twins off the pad and out of harm’s way.

“Get her!” the Gem leader shouted, struggling to rid herself from the burden of the heavy pillar. Amethyst complied first, the twins not too far behind her until the purple Gem broke into a fast, rapid spin dash, zooming towards Peridot at a frightening speed. The green Gem barely managed to leap out of the way, leaving Amethyst to crash into the ruined remains of the Homeworld warp as Peridot made her ‘escape’, skittering across the Galaxy Warp on her disjointed fingers alone.

“Ha! You missed!” she laughed triumphantly. Her levity was cut quite short as something hard and metallic latched around the fingers of one of her hands, breaking their bizarre gravity and leaving Peridot to fall face first into the ground below her.

“But I didn’t!” Mabel happily proclaimed as her grappling hook zoomed back to her. “Your turn, bro-bro!”

Dipper didn’t even respond as he instead rushed forward, the Sword of Seasons charged with strong electricity in his grip. Peridot gasped in apt fear at the sight of the electrified blade and quickly scrambled to her feet, dashing as fast as she reasonably could to get away from it, but even so, Dipper was relentless in his pursuit to take the green Gem out once and for all.

At the same time, Pearl and Steven were both finally regathering their bearings after their rough landing off the warp pad. The white Gem herself was a good bit more dazed than her young ward, even as he began to quickly pick himself up and get back into the fight. “Pearl!” Steven exclaimed, somewhat exasperated as he nudged her weight off of him.

“O-oh, sorry!” Pearl exclaimed, flustered as she hurriedly stood as well, though by then, Steven had already taken off to peruse Peridot right alongside Dipper. The green Gem had managed to reach one of the relatively unscathed warp pads, only to receive the frustrating news that, much like all of the other pads throughout the worn-down collection, it would also be getting her, completely nowhere.

“Augh! Doesn’t anything work on this cruddy planet?!” she shouted, incredibly vexed by her very bad luck.

“I do,” Dipper said with a very satisfied grin as his ice-enhanced sword suddenly rammed into Peridot’s lower legs, not only knocking the green Gem off balance but effectively freezing her feet to the ground.

“And so do I!” Steven chimed in, summoning another shield as he ran forward. The young Gem tossed his weapon like a frisbee, and much to his luck, it hit its mark, striking Peridot squarely in the face hard amidst her trying to break free from the ice encasing her.

“Ow!” the green Gem cried, rubbing the sore spot near her nose and failing to notice Steven and Dipper wisely pull back as Garnet carried out the next attack.

“Amethyst, catch!” the Gem leader grunted, finally lifting the pillar she had been holding onto enough to send it flying at the purple Gem. Right on cue, Amethyst lashed out, her whip coiling tightly around the massive rock, which she wasted no time in hurling it towards the warp pad Peridot was currently frozen to.

“Destroy!” the purple Gem roared, the whip’s hold on the rock breaking as it crashed down almost directly on top of Peridot. As a result, the ice on the ground shattered and the green Gem was sent freely flying into the air, much to her noisy alarm.

Given Peridot’s vulnerable position, Pearl saw this as the perfect opportunity, which was why she wasted no time in rushing forward to catch her when she inevitably fell. “I got her!” she exclaimed, almost excitedly, the hope in both her voice and expression clear as she kept her sights on the green Gem and nothing else. “I got her! I got her!”

Unbeknownst to the white Gem, Garnet had the exact same plan as she did as her gauntlets disappeared and her arms stretched out to apprehend their green foe. As focused as they both were in catching Peridot, neither Garnet nor Pearl noticed each other, however, until they ended up ramming into each other, knocking them both to the ground roughly.

“Pearl!” Garnet snapped angrily, especially as, right above them, Peridot narrowly avoided landing on top of them by converting her floating fingers into rapidly moving helicopter blades. “Get off me!”

“Ah!” Pearl gasped anxiously, quickly getting up after Peridot swiftly flew away from them. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Knowing that her footing was still unsteady with the Gem leader, Pearl attempted to do her a kindness by helping her up, help that Garnet coldly refused as she sent her a fierce, frustrated glare, one that only deepened as Peridot safely landed on the warp pad they had all arrived on.

“Wow, this is just sad,” the green Gem remarked smugly, confident in her escape, even as the kids tried one last effort in rushing forward to catch her. “I almost feel sorry for you… Not!” Peridot let out a triumphant snicker, mimicking Steven’s teasing expression from before as she warped away, leaving a defeated, downcast group of Gems and kids behind in her wake.

“…Have a great weekend!” Steven called cheerfully after her after a beat of silence, only to quickly take it back as the twins and the Gems gave him a shared glance of annoyance for his amicability towards such an aggravating foe. A foe who, for whatever reason, seemed all but impossible to finally catch. “I mean… I hope her weekend is… not so great?”

“Ok, I realize that was a bit of a… fiasco…” Pearl huffed as everyone warped back to the temple, collectively disgruntled by the fact that Peridot was somehow still at large. “But, there’s still a silver lining to all this!” The white Gem’s manner was rather forcefully upbeat as she stepped off the warp pad and over to Peridot’s commandeered escape pod, which had only just been recently hooked up directly to the pad itself. “Now we know for sure that we can track her every movement! Whenever she uses the warp system, her escape pod will instantly detect where she is! Its only a matter of time before we capture her, and when we do, we’ll finally be able to close this chapter in our lives and move on! R-right?” she asked, turning to Garnet in particular.

The Gem leader didn’t respond, her arms crossed and her expression flat as she simply looked to the white Gem rather emotionlessly. Her lack of a response only made Pearl even more anxious as she offered her a wide, eager, yet also somewhat fearful grin, clearly eager to please Garnet in any way she could. A task that seemed much easier said than done, given how she had made essentially no real progress in smoothing things over between herself and the Gem leader since her foolish deception had all but ruined the bond of trust that had once existed between them.

Of course, such ongoing tension was quite easy for anyone to see, including Amethyst and the kids as they stood by on the sidelines as this bout of awkward, uneasy silence lasted for quite some time. However, as much as they all wanted to see everything finally be resolved between Pearl and Garnet, none of them really knew how to try and expedite that much-needed resolution. Well, save for Amethyst that was, as she hesitantly spoke up, starting with a heavy sigh to break through the veil of uncomfortable silence.

“Look,” the purple Gem began, looking back and forth between her teammates somewhat pleadingly. “Isn’t there something that maybe the two of you might need to talk about?”

At this, Garnet and Pearl took pause, both of them somewhat caught off guard as an uncertain, unreadable glance was passed between them. For a brief moment, it seemed as though one of them was about to finally fold and speak to the bitterness between them, perhaps even to the point of trying to rectify it. And yet unfortunately, they didn’t quite get the chance to as the gathering was unexpectedly interupted.

“Alright, Pearl, its finally finished!” Ford announced as he entered the house, carrying a small, round, metallic device. “It took some doing to configure something that could temporarily disable a warp pad, especially without one to test it on myself, but I’m at least 85% confident that it won’t explode and vaporize us all when we test it ou-” The author cut himself off as he glanced up from his invention upon noticing that the group present was larger than he had been expecting. “Oh… you’re all here…”

“Er, y-yes! Yes, we are!” Pearl exclaimed before either Garnet or Amethyst could even say anything as she rushed over to the author. “I’m very glad you could make it, Ford! Amethyst, Garnet, I asked Ford—I-I mean, Stanford—to help in our endeavors to capture Peridot, and I must admit that so far, his assistance has been quite invaluable! He already helped me link the escape pod up to the warp pad-”

“And, as I said just a moment ago, I also made this,” Ford proudly held his latest invention up. “I call it the warp destablizer. It can take down any warp pad for as long as necessary. Probably. Like I said, I haven’t had a chance to test it out yet. B-but, Pearl’s well informed me of your ongoing problem with this Peridot, and so what better way to test it than by using it to corner her so she can’t escape from you anymore?”

After outlining all of this, Ford and Pearl presented the other two Gems with eager, hopeful smiles as they presented the plan they had formulated together, a plan that would hopefully service them both when it came to getting them all back on equal footing. While Pearl very much wanted to impress Garnet in an attempt to get back into her good graces, Ford’s motives were rather similar, though they included Amethyst as well. After all, since his return to his home dimension, the author had only really had the chance to smooth his once cordial relations over with Pearl, and even that had happened out of sheer serendipity more than anything else. And even though Rose was gone and things had irreversibly changed from the past he had once shared with the Gems, a large part of Ford still very much wanted to at least make amends with his former close friends, if not repair their now-broken bonds altogether. And as far as the author was concerned, the best way to start doing just that would be to freely offer whatever aid to their cause that he could, an idea that Pearl had agreed with and even had decided to implement for herself to an extent.

In fact, the pair was so transparent in their desire to make a good impression that the kids were quick to pick up on, and, seeing no reason to not want to help them out in their earnest appeal, they decided to give them a much-needed boost. “Uh, wow!” Steven interjected, sending Pearl and Ford an impressed smile. “You guys really came up with a great plan to catch Peridot!”

“Um, y-yeah!” Dipper added just as intently. “I bet with that warp destablizer of yours, Great Uncle Ford, we’ll finally be able to trap Peridot and beat her at her own game once and for all.”

“And Pearl, your idea to plug her escape pod into the warp pad was a super one!” Mabel chimed in enthusiastically. “Peri wishes she was as smart of a cookie as you are!”

“Oh, well, thank you!” Pearl blushed with a chuckle, Ford nodding his gratitude to the kids as well. “S-so… what do you two think?” she turned to her teammates, though it was rather clear her question was more directed to Garnet instead.

“Eh, it might work out,” Amethyst shrugged, eyeing the warp destabilizer in Ford’s hands somewhat skeptically. “I guess its worth a shot seeing as how nothing’ else we’ve tried has gotten us anywhere close to catching that green dork. Right, Garnet?”

Even as the purple Gem lightly elbowed her in the leg, the Gem leader’s unfeeling expression remained unchanged as she seemed to almost stare both Pearl and Ford down silently. The pair exchanged something of a nervous glance under her scrutiny, which only seemed harsher as she continued to not even offer them so much as a word of approval, disapproval, or anything else for that matter. Which of course, only made it all the more difficult for either of them to guess where they might have stood with her, if she even still wanted either of them to stand with her at all.

Fortunately, it didn’t take too long for this uncertain silence to be broken by the escape pod of all things, which began to flash and beep as its touchscreen materialized. “It’s Peridot,” Pearl announced, placing her hand upon the screen as her eyes filed with lines of data and code. “She’s using the warps right now. Look!” The white Gem projected a holographic image of the globe, honing in on the exact location Peridot had supposedly just arrived at, which was likely somewhere in the northern parts of South America. “This is where she is. We’ve got her for sure this time.” Pearl pulled away from the escape pad, standing confidently beside it before leading the way to the warp pad. “If she thinks she’s got the upper hand, then she’s got another thing coming. And that’s us!”

While nowhere near as enthusiastic as Pearl, Garnet followed nonetheless, letting out a small, begrudging sigh that the others tried their best not to take note of. Even so, Amethyst simply shook her head somewhat sadly as she watched her teammates interactions, or lack thereof. The tension between them had bothered her ever since it had began, and though she had lately finally been able to vent some of her lasting concerns about it to Stan, the purple Gem still wanted to see it finally come to an end and for things to finally go back to the way they should have been. The only problem was, with the way things were now, it seemed as though that much-needed return to the status quo was never going to come about.

“Well,” Steven suddenly broke through Amethyst’s pondering, a small hopeful smile crossing his features as he watched the white Gem head to the warp pad. “At least Pearl’s optimistic.”

“Yeah, who knows?” Mabel asked, also smiling. “Maybe this just the swashbuckling, Peridot-catching adventure that Pearl and Garnet need so they can finally make up and be friends again!”

“It won’t work,” Amethyst concluded, crossing her arms doubtfully.

“Uh… why wouldn’t it?” Dipper asked, somewhat confused.

“Cause its not gonna be enough,” the purple Gem continued, looking towards her distant teammates on the other side of the room. “Pearl can hand Peridot over on a silver platter, but it won’t make up for the stunt she pulled to get Garnet to fuse with her.”

Before the kids could ask Amethyst to clarify on this, they were suddenly interupted by Garnet, who was just shy of standing on the warp pad alongside Pearl. “Let’s go, you four,” she ordered, the slightest hint of impatience in her tone. The purple Gem and the kids complied, somewhat anxiously as they bunched together on top of the pad, but before they could depart, they were interupted once again by Ford.

“Um, actually…” he began, apparently apprehensive, which was rare given the author’s usual confidence. “I was hoping that I could… accompany you all on this mission. As I said, it would be an ideal opportunity to test the warp destabilizer out, a-and… perhaps you’d appreciate another hand to help in capturing that Peridot Gem. R-right?”

While Pearl was about to speak up, offering Ford something of a worried, warning glance, Amethyst beat her to the punch first, her tone rather dry as she raised a rather caustic eyebrow at the author. “I dunno,” she said, her tone oddly not playful at all. “We already got Pearl and Dipper; I don’t think we have anymore room for another huge nerd on this trip.”

“Hey!” both Pearl and Dipper exclaimed in annoyed protest, sending the purple Gem flustered glares.

“Besides, ‘science man’,” Amethyst continued, her hands on her hips. “If I remember right, you used to be… kind of a pushover back in the day, what with us always havin’ to save you from monsters and ghosts and fairies and stuff. And we kinda don’t really have time to be doing that while we’re trying to tail someone like Peridot.”

“If you’re worried about me holding my own, don’t be,” Ford insisted firmly. “Believe me when I say that thirty years of traversing countless danger-filled dimensions has certainly plenty of experience in getting myself out of tight spots.”

“Pfft, I’ll believe it when I see it,” the purple Gem remarked, her tone still quite sardonic.

“Well, I think we should bring Stanford along,” Pearl said to her doubtful teammates.

“Oh! So do I!” Steven chimed in supportively.

“Me too,” Dipper said with an agreeing nod.

“Make that four votes for Grunkle Ford, cause I think so too!” Mabel proclaimed excitedly.

“Uh… well, I guess that leaves it up to you, G,” Amethyst frowned, glancing up at Garnet. The Gem leader was still as silent as ever as she stared directly at Ford for a moment, who shifted somewhat uncomfortably under her obscured gaze. In the end however, she surprisingly ended up relenting, her expression unchanged as she simply nodded her allotment and nothing else.

“Excellent!” Ford grinned, eagerly finding space on the warp pad with the rest of the group. “You three won’t regret this, I promise.”

“I-I’m sure we won’t!” Pearl cut in before either Garnet or Amethyst had the chance to say anything in edgewise. “Now, with all that out of the way, let’s get Peridot once and for all!”

Sure enough, the warp link had sent the group to where Peridot had supposedly arrived likely just a few minutes prior. It was a densely forested area, resting just on the outskirts of what was likely a jungle, though what was nestled only just a few feet away was much more interesting than the tropical foliage by far.

It was a spaceship, one that bore almost a passing semblance to a traditional flying saucer, massive in both size and scope. The vessel had clearly been there for quite some time, based on its obvious state of disrepair. Moss had claimed a good portion of its lopsided form as its three legs were set askew entirely. Regardless of its advanced dilapidation, the kids, and even Ford to some extent, were all amazed by the historic ship before them, even though, for the Gems, this sight was rather mundane at best.

“Ha! She’s desperate!” Pearl exclaimed, eagerly pointing to the ship. “Look at this! She’s cornered herself in there! We’ve got her right where we want her!”

“What is-”

“Excellent question, Steven!” the white Gem interupted her ward before he could even get his actual question out. “What we see before us is an ancient interplanetary Gem vessel,” she explained, projecting a hologram of a similar ship touching down on Earth. “Homeworld Gems used these ships to travel across the cosmos and land here on Earth before the warp pads were built.”

“Ah, so then its just like-” Ford abruptly cut himself off as all three of the Gems sent him very sudden warning glances, almost as if he was about to say something they didn’t want him to. And, upon briefly looking away from them down to the curious trio of kids beside him, kids who weren’t quite ready to hear something like that yet, the author wisely decided to refrain. “Um, i-it’s just like… a Sorbian freight saucer from Dimension Q-49! C-certainly not like any other alien ship that might still be hidden away on some unknown corner of the Earth!”

As Ford played his near slip up with a bit of an awkward laugh, Amethyst simply groaned in annoyance while Garnet let out an equally exasperated sigh, and as Pearl continued, it was clear that her exasperation was only about to grow. “Err, y-yes, well,” the white Gem perked up once more. “This ship before us landed here so long ago, that there’s no way it can be functional anymore. Peridot’s running out of options!”

“Pearl,” Garnet finally spoke up, her manner quite impatient. “We can’t waste time. We need to focus on the task at-”

“Ah, yes! The task at hand!” Pearl interupted, much to Garnet’s continued aggravation. “No more dawdling! Let’s go get Peridot!”

“After we set up the warp destabilizer,” Ford interjected, setting the device down onto the warp pad and pressing a small button on it after everyone had gotten off. The invention hummed to life and, after a brief flash from the pad itself, it seemed to lose its usual shine altogether. “Aha! It worked! Now, not only has Peridot trapped herself inside that ship, but even if she does manage to slip out of it, she’ll still have nowhere to go!”

“Uh, you do know we gotta use that to get back too, right?” Amethyst asked, raising a dubious eyebrow as she looked to the inactive warp pad. “Unless stranding us here was part of your ‘plan’ too.”

“Oh, there’s no need to worry about that,” Ford remarked with a satisfied grin as he held up a small button. “I can remotely reactivate the warp at any time using this remote.”

“Whoa, Great Uncle Ford, you really did think of everything when it came to that warp destabilizer,” Dipper said, thoroughly impressed along with Mabel and Steven.

“Well, I tried to,” the author smiled proudly. “It is still in its beta phase, however, so I’ll still need to work a few of the kinks out in the-”

“Ok enough with the nerdy science talk already,” Amethyst huffed impatiently. “Can we just go inside the stupid ship already?”

“Yes,” Garnet said authoritatively, leading the way inside the derelict ship’s wide-open entryway.

“Oh boy… this is bound to be… fun,” Dipper remarked somewhat dryly as the kids trailed after Ford and the Gems.

“I know! I can’t wait!” Mabel grinned innocently, hurrying after the others as the boys exchanged something of a worried glance before catching up to the rest of the group as well.

The interior of the ship itself was dark and musty, yet oddly enough, full of life in the form of unkempt flora just about everywhere. Clinging vines crept across the metallic walls, large patches of thick moss dotted the floor, and browning rust had taken its toll on the once pristine vessel, providing a testament to just how long the ship had been abandoned and forgotten until now.

“It’s more like a greenhouse than a spaceship…” Steven commented, amazed as he looked over the ship’s weathered entry deck.

“Looks like Earth won this battle,” Amethyst agreed as they all approached the ship’s large control panel. However, before any of them could so much as touch it, the panel started to active all on its own, glowing to life as a projected screen rose up from it. And of course, on that projector was none other than the green Gem herself, smiling smugly down at the startled group before her as she let out a triumphant snicker.

“Ha! You Gems and humans really are as dull as dirt,” Peridot mocked, acting as though she had the upper hand.

“You’re the dull one if you think you can fly this wreck!” Pearl exclaimed boldly.

Peridot, however, didn’t provide much of a reaction to this proclamation aside from a brief expression of confusion. “…What? Can you speak louder? Some of these communicators are gunked up.”

“So, that’s Peridot?” Ford whispered to the twins during this exchange. “Hm. You know, for some reason I expected her to be a bit more… intimidating.”

“We all did,” Dipper remarked, his tone and expression both completely deadpan.

“Pearl said,” Steven reiterated, picking up one of the nearby diamond-shaped mics and speaking directly into it. “You’re the dull one if you think you can fly this wreck!”

Once again, Peridot didn’t answer right away, waiting for the message to relay to her clearly before she let out another mocking laugh. “Fly?” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I’m not using this vessel to fly. I’m using it to trap you!” With this, the ship’s entryway suddenly slammed shut, locking itself tightly as the group collectively spun around to realize that they were indeed trapped inside. An ironic twist of fate, seeing as how their original intention had been to trap Peridot herself. “Isn’t this nice?” the green Gem continued wryly. “No more Crystal Gems and their annoying human allies running around, messing up my plans, destroying my things… Looks like I’ve got you right where I want you. How does it feel to be so easily outsmarted, you clods?!”

“No!” Pearl gasped, her eyes wide with alarm at how fast the tables had been turned against her. Against all of them really, but when it came to her own plan, she could see just how quickly it was falling apart right in front of her in light of Peridot’s unexpected trap.

“Hey, uh, this is Amethyst,” the purple Gem said dryly, taking the communicator from Steven to address Peridot. “I don’t appreciate being called a clod, ya clo-”

“Enough talk!” Peridot cut in fiercely. “Prepare yourselves for annihilation! Hya!” With clear bravado, the green Gem pressed some sort of button or switch right off screen. The group before the control panel froze, unsure of what she had activated, but apparently it didn’t do anything as nothing seemed to happen at all, much to Peridot’s severe aggravation as she tried once more. “Hya!” Her second attempt actually worked, as the ship’s interior defense system readily began to activate. Before anyone could really think, a rain of laser blasts began pouring down upon the unsuspecting group, all of whom scrambled to dodge the resounding small explosions. “Ha! Yes, it works!” Peridot cheered, eagerly watching her under-attack foes. “Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!”

Amidst narrowly avoiding the lasers, Steven managed to take the initiative, thinking and acting quickly as he summoned a very large shield above him, one that effectively served as an umbrella against the blasts. “Everyone, over here!” he called to the others, who were still in the midst of fleeing from the seemingly endless barrage. Still, no one hesitated to rush over to the protection the young Gem was offering them, and somehow, they all managed to crowd together in a momentary attempt at taking shelter from the still ongoing lasers.

“This way!” Garnet ordered, spotting a small crevice in the nearby wall that would hopefully take them out of the line of fire. The entire group hurried over to it, all of them still managing to remain under the safety of Steven’s shield before cramming in through the opening to a long, straight corridor. As soon as it was apparent that they were out of harm’s way, the young Gem’s shield dissipated as he fell backwards in exhaustion, clearly worn out from the energy he’d been exerting through simply maintaining his weapon alone.

“Way to go, Steven!” Mabel cheered as she offered a hand to help Steve up.

“Three shields in one day…” the young Gem panted with a small smile. “Not too sha-”

Steven was abruptly cut off by a large, sharp spike that came jutting rapidly out of the wall right beside him. Several more appeared in quick succession, pushing out from both the walls and ceiling in an attempt to hit anything in their path.

“Move!” Garnet commanded and that’s exactly what everyone did as they rushed down the hallway of spikes, narrowly avoiding each one as they tried to find another safe haven. And of course, all the while, Peridot continued to taunt them, her twisted laughter echoing out of the ship’s intercom system.

“SPIKES!” the green Gem shouted zealously, though hardly anyone heeded her amidst trying to simply survive. “How do you like my spikes?!”

“She’s got the entire place rigged!” Amethyst exclaimed over the sounds of the rushing spikes. “What do we do?!”

“Let me handle this!” Ford answered, pulling a blaster out of his coat and taking aim up at the ceiling just behind them.

“Wait!” Garnet shouted in warning, knowing what was likely to happen, but it was ultimately too late. Ford fired, the blast hitting its mark in the ceiling directly and quickly compromising the practically ancient metallic surface. The entire corridor shook as a rather large fraction of the ceiling began to collapse, set to land directly on top of Ford and the kids. Fortunately, Garnet acted quickly, shapeshifting her arm out just in time to lasso it around the group and pull them out of harm’s way right as the heavy ceiling fell upon the ground where they had just been standing.

Luckily enough, in the aftermath of this collapse, the barrage of spikes seemed to come to an end at the end of the hallway. And yet, despite this momentary cease-fire, it seemed as though they weren’t entirely out of danger just yet, for at the very edge of the corridor, standing just a few feet away from them with her arms crossed and a triumphant grin on her face, was apparently none other than Peridot herself.

“There she is!” Pearl shouted, wasting no time in summoning her spear and rushing forward to attack.

“Pearl, don’t just-” Garnet cut herself off with a frustrated growl as the white Gem discovered the truth for herself. Pearl’s spear slashed its way cleanly through “Peridot”, only to discover that it actually wasn’t the green Gem at all. Rather, it was a mere holographic projection of her, one that resumed its pervious unchanging form just as soon as the weapon tore through it.

“Ha!” Peridot’s smug laughter echoed through the corridor, making it quite clear that she was watching her enemies’ every move. “You idiot! Only a Pearl like you would fall for an old trick like that!”

While Pearl was already quite frustrated, this comment in particular especially set her off to the point that she continued attacking the hologram once more, swinging and slicing at it repeatedly even though she knew it wouldn’t really do any good. The others watched her onslaught of aimless attacks worriedly, save for Garnet, who could only really respond to it with a disgruntled sigh and face palm before finally putting an end to it.

“Pearl, stop,” the Gem leader said firmly and the white Gem complied, panting heavily out of exhaustion. “This isn’t helping.”

“I have to do something!” Pearl exclaimed, her tone distraught as she kept her back turned to her leader. “I can’t believe I walked us right into Peridot’s trap. This is all my fault!”

In light of this morose proclamation, the corridor fell into abrupt silence, everyone looking to Pearl, who still refused to turn to face any of them, even as he spear dissipated and she hugged herself tightly. The kids exchanged a worried glance, all three of them readily wanting to reassure the white Gem, only for Garnet to halt any attempts at doing so whatsoever.

“…Let’s just keep going,” the Gem leader said stoically, her hands clenched into fists at her sides as she pressed on into the next room. Amethyst hesitated for a brief moment, looking between Garnet and Pearl before ultimately following the former, unsure of what to even say at this point. As her teammates moved on, Pearl remained where she stood, her head hung in despair to the point that she didn’t even regard Ford and the kids still standing behind her. That is, until the author apprehensively decided to speak up.

“Pearl, I… I’m sorry,” he began, his tone genuinely sympathetic as he took a step forward. “Its not your fault that we’re trapped here, its mine. If I hadn’t been so focused on that confounded warp destabilizer, then maybe I could have anticipated Peridot’s intention to trap us and found a way to work around it. I suppose that’s why I always relied so much on you three in the past: I always did have a foolish tendency to overlook the obvious.”

“There’s no way you could have known, Ford,” Pearl said, shaking her head as she finally turned slightly. “But I should have. I should have known better! I just keep… doing this! I keep making these mistakes and ruining everything, even my own attempts to set things right! No wonder Garnet’s disappointed in me. Even if I hadn’t tricked her into fusing with me, I’m still a failure all the same…”

While Ford wasn’t really the best at providing comfort, he did very much want to reassure the white Gem that this wasn’t the case. However, someone else beat him to the punch first. “You’re not a failure, Pearl!” Steven exclaimed earnestly as he stepped up to his mournful guardian. “You made a mistake, yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try and fix it.”

“I’ve been trying to fix it, Steven…” Pearl sighed sadly. “But nothing’s worked… Sometimes I feel things between Garnet and I will never go back to the way they used to be…”

“Well, then I’m in the same boat as you are,” Ford said, just as remorsefully. “I understand why Garnet and Amethyst are both still upset with me, especially in light of… their formerly lost memories, but I never thought that picking up where I left off with them would be this difficult…”

“Aw, well you shouldn’t give up on making up with them yet!” Mabel urged encouragingly. “Neither of you should! I bet all it’ll take is a little more time and a little more work and who knows? By the time we get outta this rusty old ship, you guys could all be best friends again, just like you were before!”

“Yeah, I mean, at the very least things can’t really get any worse between you guys at this point, can they?” Dipper asked, trying to be reassuring, though the question didn’t really help either Pearl or Ford too much.

“Goodness, I hope not…” the white Gem muttered, cringing at the thought of things souring even more between herself and Garnet.

“Hey! Are you guys coming or what?!” Amethyst called, poking her head out from the corner her and Garnet had rounded a moment ago. The others simply nodded, knowing that, in light of the circumstances, they didn’t really have a lot of time to focus on repairing broken bonds. Escaping Peridot’s trap and netting her in their own had to be of the upmost importance now.

The next room the group found themselves in was surprisingly small and empty, having likely been a storage area at some point. Upon a first glance, it seemed as though it was a dead end, however, meaning that there really wasn’t any way to go but back. Garnet nodded to the others to turn around, however, before any of them really had a chance to, the entire room itself began to shake. In an instant, the ground gave out from under the group completely, a trap door opening itself wide as everyone fell through the narrow shaft to whatever awaited down below. Fortunately, Amethyst had the wits about her to summon her whip and toss it upward in an attempt to stop the fall. Its end found a low hanging branch grown in through one of the walls and coiled itself around it, giving the purple Gem enough time to summon a second whip to catch Steven, Dipper, Mabel, and even Ford as they fell past her.

“I-I got you guys!” she exclaimed as they all stopped in midair, though it was clear she was struggling under the weight of holding the four of them and herself up.

“Thanks, Amethyst!” Steven called back up to the purple Gem, even as pressed up against the twins and the author as he was. However, upon taking a glance at the ground very far below them, he was able to see that Garnet and Pearl had landed, mostly unharmed, in what appeared to be a small, deep, narrow chamber beneath them. “Garnet! Pearl! Are you guys ok?”

“We’re fine!” Garnet called back up, though she was almost immediately proven wrong as the floor, or ceiling rather, of the pit there were trapped in suddenly closed itself up without warning, trapping the pair inside.

“… Crud…” Amethyst whispered, her eyes wide as she realized what had just happened. However, matters were only made worse as her load-bearing whip suddenly snapped from the pressure put upon it, leaving the remaining group to fall the rest of the way down. Fortunately, with the pit covered as it was, this actually wasn’t all too dangerous of a drop as everyone landed rather safely in a larger room, one that, coincidentally enough, contained a surveillance screen that showed the very pit Garnet and Pearl were currently trapped in. Both of them had summoned their weapons and had frantically begun beating at the close walls keeping them trapped on all sides, though it was clear that doing so wasn’t making any progress in breaking either of them out.

“Oh no!” Mabel exclaimed worriedly. “We gotta get them out of there!”

“Amethyst, what should we-” Steven cut himself off upon glancing over at the purple Gem, who was transfixed on the screen. Or rather, on what the white Gem had just said to their leader on the other side of it.

“Garnet… I’m sorry…” Pearl sighed, her spear disappearing as she pressed a weak hand against the nearest wall. “Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way…”

“We’ll get out of here somehow,” Garnet replied, landing another brutal, but ultimately useless punch against the wall before her.

“T-that’s not what I mean…” the white Gem frowned, glancing over her shoulder apprehensively. “I really wanted to catch Peridot to make up for what I did… I wanted to prove to you that… that everything could go back to normal…”

Garnet was silent for a moment at this, her gauntlets held at the ready at her sides though she made no move against the wall upon hearing this. When she did speak, her tone was firm, almost cold even. “Catching Peridot won’t make things go back to normal. This isn’t about Peridot.”

As Pearl turned to face the Gem leader fully, the group above all found themselves rather surprised, especially Amethyst, who knew that this conversation had been a long time in coming. “Hey! They’re actually talking to each other!” she exclaimed with newfound relief.

“Who could have guessed that all it took was to trap them together in a cramped pit?” Dipper asked, also quite taken aback by the ongoing dialogue.

“Now maybe they can finally work things out!” Steven chimed in hopefully, more than ready to see the tension between his guardians finally be resolved.

However, it seemed as though they wouldn’t get a real chance to as the large set of crystalline gears above the screen suddenly began to turn rapidly. As a result, the walls of the pit the pair of Gems were trapped within suddenly began to press in, making the already tight space grow smaller and smaller by the second.

“Not if they get crushed!” Amethyst cried, alarmed just as much as the kids were by this sudden turn of events. Ford, on the other hand, opted to save his fear in favor of thought as he instead glancing around the room for what options were available to him in developing a plan to rescue the pair. And, after looking to the constantly turning gears once again, he managed to come up with exactly that.

“I have an idea,” the author announced, remaining somehow calm and levelheaded, even despite the frightening circumstances. “Amethyst, I need to see your whip.”

“What? Why?” the purple Gem asked with something of a scoff of disbelief.

“Because,” Ford began to explain, prying open a loose panel on the nearby wall to reveal an array of aged circuitry and wires. “If I understand the layout of this room correctly, then the charge from these wires could in theory connect to those gears to form a failsafe shutdown mechanism that might be able to keep the walls from moving in any further.”

“Uh… care to explain all that in English, science man?” Amethyst deadpanned, raising a caustic eyebrow.

“What I mean is that we need a way to connect these wires to those gears,” the author explained succinctly. “And I think your whip might do the trick.”

“And what makes you so sure that-” Amethyst cut herself off upon noticing the urgent glances all three of the kids were sending her, reminding her that this really was no time to be doubting Ford’s methods. “Ugh, fine…” she sighed, summoning a long whip from her Gem. She lashed its tip out, coiling it around one of the smaller gears before handing its other end off to Ford. The author quickly got to work, sifting through the wires in the panel before singling out the ones he needed and tying them to the end of the whip. All the while, Amethyst and the kids continued exchanging nervous glances back at the screen, watching as Garnet and Pearl pushed hard against the walls closing in on them, threatening to crush them both.

“P-please!” the white Gem cried, clearly desperate in more ways than one. “Tell me! How can I make you forgive me!”

“You can’t!” Garnet shouted back over the loud noise of the walls surrounding them. “You lied to me! You need to learn that there are consequences to your actions!”

“I-I’m sorry!” Pearl pleaded, tears starting to stream down her cheeks. Tears that she had been holding back from even before this mess even started. “I… I couldn’t help myself! I needed to feel better again so much, especially… especially after-”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” the Gem leader snapped fiercely, throwing her leg up against the wall in a futile attempt to keep it in place.

“But its true!” the white Gem sobbed morosely. “I just… can’t stop thinking about what happened that night all those years ago…” Pearl closed her eyes tightly, a tinge of distant horror in her tone. “The things I said… the things I agreed to… I knew better from the start but I still went through with it anyway… I was weak…”

Before Pearl could get anything else out, the walls surrounding the pair of Gems suddenly stopped moving, much to their shared relief. Unbeknownst to them, in the room above them, Ford had just finished establishing the link between the wires and the gears, the charge effectively managing to cut off power to them and keep them from rotating any further.

“Huh…” Amethyst remarked, impressed as she looked to the screen before glancing back at Ford. “I didn’t think that would actually work…”

“Well, what can I say?” the author remarked with a satisfied smile. “Over the past thirty years I’ve become something of an expert when it comes to hotwiring alien vessels.”

“Huh, no kidding,” the purple Gem said with the hint of a smile. “That’s actually kinda cool.” Amethyst took pause, her eyes widening briefly as she realized what she had said before rolling her eyes playfully. “Ugh, I can’t believe I just used the word ‘cool’ to describe you…”

“I’d like to think I have my moments,” Ford replied, offering Amethyst the same roguish grin she was offering him. A sure fire sign that maybe, just maybe things were starting to smooth over between the two of them after all. “Now all we need to do is figure a way to get them both out of there and-”

“Shh!” Mabel interjected, her eyes wide as her and the boys continued watching what was transpiring between Garnet and Pearl on screen. “This is getting really good!”

“We were all weak that night, Pearl,” Garnet said, glancing down amidst the new relative calm surrounding them. “You, me, and Amethyst. We all did something we regretted, something that could have ruined us all. And that’s why Rose took it all away from us in the first place.”

“But she never would have had to do that if I had just said say no!” Pearl exclaimed hotly, her tears still flowing intently. “I… I gave in… I let that happen… I let him trick us all… And even now, I’m no better than I was back then… No matter how hard I try to be strong like you… I’m just a Pearl… I’m useless on my own… I need someone to tell me what to do…”

“Pearl…” Garnet said, her tone somewhat gentler upon hearing just how hard the white Gem actually took the massive mistake from their past. Yet even so, Pearl continued, knowing there was no point in holding back the truth now.

“When we fuse, I can feel what its like to be you…” the white Gem said with a small, wistful smile. “Confident and secure and complete. You’re perfect, you’re the perfect relationship. You’re always together, always supporting each other. I just… wanted to be a part of that…”

“You’re wrong!” the Gem leader exclaimed, her unsteady tone catching her teammate off guard. “I’m not as strong as you think. I fell apart over this. Ruby and Sapphire were in turmoil over how you deceived me… I-I… I came undone…”

“Whoa, that actually happened?” Amethyst asked the kids, having only heard sparse details about the disastrous road trip a few days ago. Steven confirmed it with a nod, surprising both the author and the purple Gem, who both knew Garnet to be the kind to only split up in the most severe of circumstances. Which meant that truly, Pearl’s trickery had hurt her on a level that even the white Gem herself was only starting to comprehend.

“It’s not easy being in control,” Garnet admitted truthfully, her manner solemn, almost sad even. “I have weaknesses too. But I choose not to let them consume me. I struggle to stay strong because I know the impact I have on everyone. Please understand, Pearl,” her tone turned earnest as she looked directly at the white Gem, who was still pressed against the wall close to her. “You have an impact too. There are times when I look to you for strength. You are your own Gem. You control your destiny. Not me, not Rose, not Steven, and not even the mistakes you made in the past. But you must choose to be strong, so we can move forward. So I can trust you again.”

Pearl was silent for a long moment upon hearing all this, tears still brimming in her eyes as she met the Gem leader’s steady gaze. For the first time since all of this began, the white Gem realized that it was her own weakness that had gotten her into this mess, that had prompted her into tricking Garnet and had been what tore their entire team apart. From the moment her long lost memories of the darkened past had been returned to her, she had been sinking, drowning in her own remorse and guilt, the mistakes she had made and the problems she had caused threatening to crush her completely. And in her grief and her reckless attempt to free herself from it all, she had hurt someone she truly cared about, one of her closest and longest friends, to the point that she truly didn’t feel deserving of her forgiveness in the first place, as much as she desperately wanted it. And yet now, in light of Garnet’s inspiring yet still very pained words, Pearl began to realize something else: she realized that despite all of the weakness, remorse, and guilt she carried upon her shoulders, none of those things really defined her. None of those things made her who she was. Because in the end, Garnet was right; despite all the flaws of her original programming and all of the fallacies she had been hardwired with since her formation, she was still her own Gem. She had to decide what she was going to do and who she was going to be. And from here on out, that’s exactly what she was going to do.

“…I understand…” Pearl finally said, her voice gentle at first before filling with renewed resolve. “I can’t give up anymore!”

“Good,” Garnet nodded, a ghost of a smile on her face. However, before any further resolution could unfold between the pair of Gems, a sudden, sickening snap was heard from up above. Ford, Amethyst, and the kids all gasped in startled unison as the purple Gem’s whip connecting the wires and the gears unexpectedly snapped, resulting in the trap room’s enclosing mechanism to boot up once again. Down below, the walls once again began pressing against Garnet and Pearl, who were already practically pressed up against each other as it was. If they didn’t act quickly, then they would both certainly be crushed in just a matter of seconds. “Pearl, there’s only one way out of this!” the Gem leader exclaimed, not even needing to explain her idea.

For a brief moment, Pearl gaped at her in surprise that she’d even consider such a thing after everything that had happened. But even so, she knew there was no time to ask her myriad of questions now. “Only if you’re ok with it,” she said, knowing that she never wanted to do this under false pretenses ever again.

Garnet simply nodded in response, outstretching her hand as much as she could for Pearl to take. The white Gem hesitated for the briefest moments before giving her own hand over, only barely holding back a sigh of immense relief over the fact that, even if this wasn’t all over yet, they had finally set themselves on the path to that point.

Back up above, Amethyst and the kids were essentially in an all-out panic, all of them at a complete loss about what to do to save Garnet and Pearl in the mere seconds they had left. Once again, Ford tried his best to remain calm amidst the increasingly dire straits of the situation, but as he looked between the now broken wires and the rapidly spinning gears, he quickly realized that he was searching for a solution that he had absolutely no time left to find.

Fortunately though, it turned out he wouldn’t have to find that solution after all as Garnet and Pearl discovered one on their own. The entire group above was startled stiff as the covered ceiling of the pit busted open, pierced by what seemed to be a massive drill that revealed itself to be a familiar war hammer as it suddenly stopped spinning. And, out of what was left of the compressing tunnel emerged none other than Sardonyx, her larger-than-life form jumping gracefully out of the trap her components had succumbed to. The fusion didn’t stick around, however, not outstaying her welcome this time as Garnet and Pearl harmoniously unfused. As amazed as all the others were by this miraculous escape, the pair of Gems simply exchanged a brief glance of understanding, neither of them needing words at a moment like this. The newfound bond of trust building between them already spoke volumes enough on its own.

“Garnet! Pearl!” Steven exclaimed happily as he rushed to embrace the Gem leader’s leg. “I’m so glad you guys are ok!”

“And that you used Sardonyx to bust out!” Mabel chimed in excitedly. “I only wish she could have stuck around a little longer. She’s so cool and-”

“Mabel!” Dipper chastised in a harsh whisper, giving her a warning look to remind her that the topic of the flashy fusion was likely still somewhat touchy to the pair of recently reconciled Gems.

“It’s quite alright,” Pearl laughed warmly as Garnet herself smirked. “Actually, I have a feeling that the next time we form Sardonyx, she’ll be even cooler.”

“She certainly will,” Garnet affirmed, her smile growing a bit as Pearl blushed slightly under her now accepting gaze. The Gem leader’s tone was still cordial as, for the first time all day, she finally addressed the author as he stood patiently nearby. “Stanford,” she began, taking a step towards him. “I saw you plan through my future vision. That was some quick thinking, using Amethyst’s whip to connect the gears and the wires like that. And even though it only worked for a bit, it was still a worthy effort. Thank you.”

Upon hearing this sincere gratitude, Ford was admittedly stunned into silence for a brief moment, however, he was quick to recollect himself, perking up quite a bit as he adjusted his glasses and smiled. “Y-you’re welcome!” he exclaimed brightly, more than glad to be on speaking terms with the Gem leader once again. “After all the times you three have saved me in the past, I figured it was only fair to try and do the same for you. Even if my attempt could have been a bit more polished…” the author frowned, glancing back at the mess of ripped wires sticking out of the wall behind him.

“Well, I know what will be polished this time,” Pearl said with a daring grin. “Us finally tracking down Peridot and getting out of here. Because this time-”

“We’ll do it together,” Garnet finished boldly, sharing this resolve along with the rest of the group as they prepared to finally move on to finish this mission. “Now, let’s catch ourselves a Peridot.”

The ship’s central control bridge served to echo the low grumblings and frustrated rantings of the green Gem standing before it, pressing various buttons in a frantic attempt to continue monitoring the interior of the ship. Of course, given the age of the vessel and its current deteriorated condition, she wasn’t really having much luck as all of the monitors before her showed nothing but static and none of her inputs on the panel seemed to be doing anything to bring any of them back up online.

“Ugh… stupid button here, I don’t know where anything is!” Peridot growled, slamming her fist down onto the aged panel angrily. “Blast this old Gem tech! Where’d they go?! Why isn’t anything working?!” The green Gem suddenly cut herself off with an aptly startled gasp as the wall right behind her was blasted cleanly through, courtesy of Ford’s blaster. The Gems, the kids, and the author didn’t hesitate to barge in on Peridot, who froze defensively near the panel, clearly having not expected the intrusion, especially considering her well thought-out trap.

“Surrender, Peridot!” Garnet ordered, her gauntlets at the ready to attack as everyone else grabbed their respective weapons as well. “You have nowhere to run!”

“We’re gonna get yooou!” Steven sang with a bright grin.

“And this time we mean it!” Mabel added, cocking her grappling hook. “Not that we didn’t mean it all the other times, but now we really mean it!”

“Ha! You really think this is the end?” Peridot asked, quickly resuming her former cockiness as her fingers formed into a blaster, which she took aim at the group before her with. “This is just the beginning… of my escape!” With this, the green Gem pointed her blaster upwards, firing instantly up at the ship’s ceiling above her, creating a large gap that would be more than enough to allow her to make a clear getaway. And for a moment, it seemed like that was what she was going to do as her fingers reshaped themselves into helicopter blades again, propelling her upward as she laughed manically at her foes still tethered to the ground. “Well, I’d love to stick around and watch another one of your pathetic attempts to capture me, but I guess I’m just too smart for the likes of your lumpy, clumpy clods!”

The green Gem continued to revel in her apparent victory, though it was ultimately short lived as something, or rather someone managed to latch on to her foot before she get too high out of reach. “I caught a Peridot!” Steven cheered, clinging onto the green Gem, even as she began to rise higher into the air with him in tow.

“Hey! Get your touch stumps off me, you Steven!” Peridot growled, trying her best to shake the young Gem off of her. In retaliation, Steven simply bit down on the green Gem’s oddly metallic toe, which only served to frustrate her even more as she tried flicking him this time to get him off. “Hey! You… you persistent little… whatever exactly you are! Release me this instant!”

“Not a chance!” Dipper shouted as he rushed to grab Steven’s foot before Peridot could drag him up too high.

“Yeah, consider yourself ‘anchored’!” Mabel added enthusiastically, grabbing onto her brother as well. All the same, the weight of all three of the kids combined still wasn’t enough to keep Peridot down as she continued to rise, albeit slowly, into the air.

“Y-you can’t stop me! None of you can!” Peridot shouted back down at the resilient trio. “When are you going to realize that, no matter how much you clods try to stop me, I’ll always come out on top?!”

“Maybe when you realize that you’re goin’ down!” Amethyst exclaimed, jumping up to catch Mabel’s foot and weigh the rising group down somewhat. Pearl was quick to join in, doing her best to pull the purple Gem down as she kept her nerve this time, knowing that losing it again would result in the green Gem’s continued escape.

“Don’t let her go!” she called up to the kids before briefly grinning down at Ford, who had added himself to this ever-growing chain.

“L-logistically speaking, this has to be enough to keep her weighed down,” the author said, somewhat strained from trying to pull all the others back.

“Not quite,” Garnet said, catching Ford’s ankle as he began to rise into the air as well. The Gem leader proved strong enough to keep herself tethered to the ground, holding the entire group and finally preventing Peridot from making any further progress in her upward escape. “Peridot! Your flight’s been cancelled!”

“Augh! No!” the green Gem growled, beyond vexed by her enemies practically successful attempt at stopping her. Even so, Peridot wasn’t about to let herself be captured so easily, and, although she hated to do it, she knew she had no other choice. With another frustrated groan, the green Gem pressed a seamless spot on near the foot that Steven was still clinging tightly onto. At once, the appendage detached itself from the rest of her body, finally freeing herself from the young Gem’s hold as she shot upwards drastically as a result. The chain of Gems and humans that had been keeping her grounded quickly collapsed as a result of this, though fortunately none of them were harmed in any way as they landed, except for perhaps in pride as they had to watch Peridot slip away from them yet again.

“Augh, this is just great!” the green Gem snapped, clearly upset at her now missing foot as she began to fly away. “You’ll pay for this, Crystal Gems! And you too, you meddlesome humans! I don’t care what I have to do, I’ll get you all back somehow! Just you waaaaaait!”

And with that, Peridot disappeared into the sunset skies above, narrowly escaping her long-awaited capture yet again, much to the mixed feelings of the group she had left behind in the ship. “Aw, come on, she got away again?” Mabel pouted, clearly disappointed.

“Ok, but it totally wasn’t our fault this time,” Dipper clarified. “We can all agree on that, right? I mean, she totally cheated with the whole detachable foot thing.”

The others nodded in agreement as the rose to stand, most of them in states of varying levels of disgruntlement in light of the unfortunate fact that their quest to bring the green Gem down had to continue. Steven, however, was mostly just concerned as he looked to Pearl, whose gaze was set in a determined expression towards the hole Peridot had just slipped out through. “Pearl?” he asked, coming to stand beside her only for her to smile back down at him warmly.

“Don’t worry, Steven,” she said confidently as she held up the remains of Peridot’s foot that had fallen with the rest of them. “Next time… we’ll get the rest of her. Right, Garnet?”

“It’s a good step forward,” Garnet nodded with a smile, one that only grew as the white Gem and the kids shared a laugh over this clever quip.

“Ha! Foot jokes!” Steven chuckled, spirits still high all around even as Ford curiously interjected.

“Hm… you know, I might be able to come up with some way to keep her from escaping again if I had a chance to study the specs of her technology up close…” the author mused, eyeing the green Gem’s foot thoughtfully before glancing up at the pair of Gems hopefully. “W-with your permission, of course.”

At this, Garnet and Pearl exchanged something of a wry glance before the Gem leader freely handed the foot over to Ford. “Knock yourself out.”

“Yes!” the author cheered, readily taking the foot and looking it over, more than excited to analyze such advanced technology. “Finally, a chance to investigate the inner workings of a piece of Homeworld technology firsthand! Just think of all the notes and blueprints I’ll be able to-”

Ford cut himself off as Garnet and Pearl both broke down into gales of laughter at his almost childlike wonder with something as simple as a mechanical foot, of all things. “Uh, looks like your nerd is showing, science man,” Amethyst remarked playfully, eliciting a bout of good-natured laughter from the kids as well. Despite the author’s slight embarrassment, even he wasn’t really able to hold back a flustered chuckle, one that soon turned into a full on laugh as he was caught up in the newfound wave of levity the entire group was soon caught up in.

The only one who didn’t join in on this merriment was Amethyst herself as she stood just on the outskirts of the group, though she still shared everyone else’s high spirits all the same. Because at long last, after what felt like an eternity of uncertainty and uneasiness on all sides, after a barrage of revelations and upheavals, after worry, dread, anger, and everything in between, they had finally reached the end. They had all made it through the storm and came out on the other side of it, perhaps reaching an even better place than where they had started from. True, things had changed as a result of that portal opening wide, as a result of long lost memories being found, but that didn’t mean they had to change. Because friendships as strong as theirs, both between the Gems and Ford and even amongst the Crystal Gems themselves, were destined to whether out any storm that came their way.

Which was why Amethyst finally let out a much-needed sigh of relief as she fell back onto the ground, smiling contentedly all the while. “Finally…” she sighed to herself as the group nearby continued in their reformed camaraderie, hoping that things would stay like this now and for a long time to come.

#jen writes #universe falls #gravity falls #steven universe #crossover #au #fanfic #friend ship #garnet #amethyst #pearl #ford #steven #dipper #mabel #peridot #keyword is foot

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rottenappleheart · 6 years

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mm liveblog part 2

majora’s mask, unfiltered notes for the entire first 3-day cycle until you get the ocarina back and are no longer a slave to the passage of time

DAWN OF

THE FIRST DAY

72 HOURS REMAIN

tatl's thesis - that we should ask the great fairy for help, because the skull kid is no match for the great fairy - is deeply flawed. i have met great fairies. do you know what they don't do? help much.

that said i now like the idea of the skull kid being periodically taken to task by various great fairies

"sit down and tell me what you did this time"

"i made you a sandwich"

"are you sorry"

i know it's meant to be irritating but i love that the guards will stop both deku link and normal link (until they see he's armed, and also looks like he hasn't slept in seven years) from exiting. becasue they are doing their job and keeping the population safe. and that means not letting children wander around alone.

I LOVE CLOCK TOWN OKAY

I TALK TO EVERYONE ABOUT THEIR LIVES AND I READ ALL THE POSTERS FOR THE LOCAL BANDS AND THE GUARD RECRUITMENTS AND I WATCH THAT ODD MASKED PERSON PICK UP THEIR MAIL AND I TRY TO BEFRIEND THE LOCAL STRAY DOGS AND IT IS JUST SO GOOD

the grown deku scrub who promised his wife a moon's tear, i just have to ask: is that a thing that normally happens? does the moon always just... cry onto the surface of the planet? what???

i love their banners and streamers and their happy music and their busy bustling lives and it's so good

what the fuck kind of ink does the banker use that remains indelible even as time itself unwinds

yikes i want to stop and just look at everything but the first sunset is already closing in and i haven't done anything

I FORGOT HOW NERVE-WRACKING THIS GAME IS BEFORE YOU CAN SLOW TIME DOWN

i... just found a lottery shop in clock town. i literally never knew this was here. how have i missed it all these years.

NIGHT OF

THE FIRST DAY

60 HOURS REMAIN

how is time passing so fast aaaaaaa

clocktown is such a nice place, they have a whole section of town set aside for a public park with a playground and gardens and everything ;___;

okay so the great fairies though

remember what i was saying about how this game is actually very heavily voiced for being an ostensibly unvoiced game? everyone sighs, grunts, yells, hmms? and so on. and sometimes you'll catch almost a word.

except for the great fairy, it just sounds like she's squeaking "PLEASE ME" which is. an uncomfortable request. at the best of times.

but especially when i am in the form of a young potted plant.

idk what that was supposed to sound like but the midi-ified file is NOT GREAT, nintendo.

members-only late night milk bar... aw yeah please spike my milkshake, that is a great idea and i love it

(i'm not joking i love spiked milkshakes)

(also i love the milk bar and all the scenes that take place in there, especially on the last night, when you can just have very quiet calm conversations with people doing their best to be calm in the face of their unavoidable deaths)

DAWN OF

THE SECOND DAY

48 HOURS REMAIN

oh no oh no oh no WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE DOING IN THE FIRST GO-ROUND

oh right i have literally two tasks

phew

i forgot to go into the stock pot inn on the first day, and i missed seeing kafei at the mailbox, so i am THIRSTY for EVERYONE'S FAVORITE CANONICAL FIANCEES

seriously, another weird but lovely choice on the part of the developers when they were ganking oot character models for this game. "who's a potential spooky villain? how about that one merchant guy? sure! and for an attractive bride-type character, what are our options? hmmm... how about the cuccoo lady with all the allergies? it's perfect"

i love not just anju and kafei but everything involved in their storyline - how kafei's friendship with the curiosity shop manager saved him, how anju's best friend is cremia on the ranch and they talk about their lives and how cremia will save her life (if she can), how you can spend actual in-game hours just sitting with anju's ancient senile grandmother hearing her stories as she thinks she is telling them to her long-dead son, how anju's mom will quietly not like kafei and kafei's mom will love and worry about him on a serious level very unlike her public persona... it's all so very real and human and i love it so

also heck the whole cast of characters staying in the inn

AH THERE SHE IS

THE BRIDE

anju i'm going to fix this ;___;

hello guardsmen if you are concerned about the state of today's youth maybe you should talk to THE BOMBER GANG i'm just saying

people who have played the more recent loz games, is the trend of "horrible underaged gangs of roving thugs" still a thing? or are mm and ww the only two games where they inflicted that on the player?

NIGHT OF

THE SECOND DAY

36 HOURS REMAIN

i'm sweating, i am just trying to find the bomber gang so i can get into the observatory so i can get the moon's tear so i can get the flower launch pad so i can get to the top of the clock tower and not die in a fiery inferno as gravitational forces rip the world apart

is that so much to ask

THERE'S THE LITTLE RUGRAT

COME HERE SO I CAN PUMMEL YOU

i refuse to feel bad about spin-kicking this child in the face because 1) i am technically also a child, in any body they put me in and 2) they are super racist if you talk to them while you are still a deku scrub! VERY RUDE

heck they let fergus over there man the door and he is still in diapers

gonna fill their hideout with encouraging tracts and stuff helping them grow into better people

so, fun fact

i remember many things about this game

but not that there is a skulltula in the waterway leading to the observatory

that was an unpleasant surprise

you probably could have heard me yell from three states away

(also, nothing has attacked you yet in the game (that actually does damage, and is not part of the story) so it's a little wake-up call: hey, don't forget to use Tatl to scout ahead, don't forget that you have a shield

also just

don't

be a moron

anyway

i was about to ask who the dickens put balloons with majora's mask on them all over the place - it's a weird choice, since no one... knows... what's going on? but technically, so far, all of the balloons are being interacted with by the bombers, or in places where the bombers go, and skull kid was, however briefly, a member of the bombers' secret society for justice (AND ALSO RACISM) so actually it makes more sense than i expected

when you first walk into the basement of the observatory and... the music changes... and there's a chicken??? it is what i assume being high is like.

DAWN OF

THE FINAL DAY

24 HOURS REMAIN

plays just as i lunge for the moon's tear

okay i've got this, i can stop fretting, the while last day can just be me looking around at stuff and being sad because i can't help anybody

yet

DON'T WORRY PEOPLE I WILL SAVE YOU

EVENTUALLY

IN A DIFFERENT LIFE

YOU'RE DEFINITELY BONED IN THIS ONE

SORRY ABOUT THAT

BUT I'M A STUMP THAT CHEWS BUBBLE GUM RIGHT NOW AND I DON'T THINK YOU CAN ASK VERY MUCH OF ME

I CAN'T EVEN REACH THE DOORKNOBS OF THIS TOWN SO TBH I WASN'T GOING TO BE MUCH GOOD AGAINST AN INTERSTELLAR BODY CRASHING INTO THE PLANET

a more srs thought: it was an interesting choice of curse skull kid lays on link at the start, making him into a deku scrub, and i think we can unpack some stuff there: he's drawing on his woodland roots (which link shares), he's making link into something small and largely helpless (like skull kid is, without the mask), he's... actually giving link a very similar kind of body to his own?

i don't know what the exact taxonomical differentiation is between deku scrubs and skull kids, but they are both wooden-bodied, whether grown or carved, they both have radiantly glowing eyes unlike most other things in the world, they both clothe themselves in bright layers of leaves... i imagine that if you sandblasted all the drama off a skull kid, you'd find something pretty similar to the lankier deku scrubs.

in that case, what he did is... he really kinda turned link into himself. but his helpless, powerless, abandoned, friendless, pre-mask self. to taunt him with all those awful feelings that skull kid himself experienced.

(mythological distinction for skull kids: they are people who got lost in the woods, and became cursed. if i'm not mistaken.)

(link is literally becoming a skull kid.)

(good times y'all!)

oh gosh the music is so frantic on the third day, and it's such a good bit of development on the design team's side: every day, clock town's music gets a little faster, a little shriller, as their time runs out

if you talk to the guards who block you in on the third day, instead of their usual "hey kiddo it's dangerous outside" they'll start saying "hey, are you alone, where is your family, are you okay, someone is probably worrying about you, please find them and get out of town as soon as you can"

fun fact: one of the things that consistently Wrecks me about this game is how the guards stand at their posts, jaws clenched, holding their fists to their hearts, as they watch their world be destroyed... because they will not abandon their duty.

seriously, every time i die.

and the cow figurines all over town that, if you hadn't noticed before, have bobbleheads, because as the earth starts shaking they do too, and it's another tiny detail that makes it all The Worst.

awkward council meeting eavesdropped on

("nothing is wrong!" is a lot less believable when the ground is literally shaking from the gravitational stresses being exerted by the falling moon, but hey, 2018)

the carpenters shouting back and forth "hey dudes i'm sorry but i'm gonna jet" "are you kidding if i stay i get a promotion"

;_______;

SO MANY RACISTS IN CLOCK TOWN, the merchant's hipster assistant will literally refuse to talk to you if you're "just" a deku scrub

meanwhile the bomb shop guy's grandmother (the one who gets robbed, if you're not paying attention, like i wasn't) is just "oh goodness you are a very small customer, please be careful in our shop of very dangerous things"

NIGHT OF

THE FINAL DAY

12 HOURS REMAIN

eeeeeeeeeeep

finally got into the milk bar (everyone's a member when the world is ending!) and madame aroma, the scary and powerful socialite, starts with a very gentle "are you okay with not fleeing? it looks like we are all going to die here in town. is anyone looking for you?"

if i had all my masks and instruments i would love to invoke that scene right now and be the band on the titanic and give her and the other customers a few minutes of... life, if not joy, and beauty, if not quite comfort.

snuck into the now-abandoned stock pot inn, as well, and... okay, i'm going to say it, i don't know wtf is going on with anju's wedding dress. is her midriff made out of ivy? why is her romantic wedding-day mask (which is a neat concept btw!) a grinning rictus? what are we saying about love in this moment???)

(also, if you have ever made the mistake of helping kafei but forgetting to tell anju to wait for him, or telling anju to wait and then not helping kafei deal with sakon... it's a shitshow, it's bad for you, it darkens your heart forever)

during the last 12 hours the guards will say "i want to help you get out of her asap, run find your folks and i will let you out, please hurry"

nooooooo ;_______;

the postman sobbing because "flee for your life" is not written on the schedule

he wrote himself a letter saying that he is doing a good job and he requests that he himself flee ;__________________; but he can't do it ;__________________________;

oh no here we go

here it comes

the clocktower

the fireworks

the moon

the six hours remaining music

HEART CLUTCH

soft wailing

ngl that sad and weary music is the best part of the entire narrative experience to me

and then skull kid's impotent fury against all that immense power

tatl to skull kid: "what if we... didn't???"

also a good and valid point: friends don't hit friends

JUST LOOK ABOVE YOU

IF IT'S SOMETHING THAT CAN BE STOPPED

JUST TRY AND STOP IT

(his voice is still so horribly thin and shrill, like a child)

but one well-placed gum bubble to the face and we are BACK IN BUSINESS

the BUSINESS

of RUNNING FOR OUR LIVES

from THINGS WE CANNOT FIGHT

i like that the one time zelda appears in the game, it is such a gentle and tender scene, reminding you of the bond she MUST have had with Link, for him to have done so much, and how much trust he puts in her

(... ask me again about the Song of Endings)

("even though it was only a short time, i feel like i've known you forever")

("i believe in my heart that a day will come when i shall meet you again")

(--> all my worst most wretched tp emotions about the wolf and the shrouded lady in the tower)

the song that reminds her of herself and link is the song of time, not anything else... the song about cycles and memory and history and second chances and legends

;_________________;

WELL FUCK I GUESS I'M HAVING PRINCESS ZELDA FEELS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME IN WHICH SHE DOES NOT PLAY A ROLE

i have to play the songs in the right time, i can't just half-ass it by speeding through the buttons, idk why

("the goddess of time is watching over you" --> old old questions about who the goddess of time is, and which sage zelda was, etc)

the PLOT TWIST when you equip the ocarina and it turns into A GOSHDARN BRASS QUINTET STRAPPED TO YOUR BACK i love it

(each little snail yeah knows how to wail yeah)

tatl saying [as midna will, centuries later]: um dude i mean sir WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU, HAVE I MISJUDGED, SUDDENLY I AM WORRIED ABOUT MY MANNERS

and we are... not victorious, but reprieved!!!

i'll do better this time everyone i promise

DAWN OF

THE FIRST DAY

AGAIN...!!!

#yelling about mm #i am very glad i did this tonight #deeply misjudged how long it would take me and how stressful it would be #since you can't save at all during that first cycle #but now i can tool around to my heart's content wasting time and lives so that i can admire the architecture of termina

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hauntedfalcon · 6 years

Text

TLJ reflections now that I’ve finally seen the damn movie

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS and LONG POST

I want to preface this by saying that we as fandom, any fandom, have thoroughly sold ourselves that line about how fanworks are the reclamation of our modern myths now that said myths have been fully commoditized. I felt powerful the first few times I saw that quote circulating. Then I started to feel tired, because every Johnlock shipper from here to space was using it in part to imply that they were, like, super progressive and important. Also, it has been used to justify some notion that fandom creates canon, and I’ve never agreed with that.

And now I just feel hollow. Is there a bigger modern myth than Star Wars? Could there be more thorough reminder than The Last Jedi that no, modern myths do not belong to us, and if we try to stake any claim on them they will be put into the hands of someone who is wholly disinterested in any aspect of them that we value, and they will be fed to us in a form that defies us to create any fanworks about it at all?

This is the first time I am watching a Star Wars trilogy as it unfolds where I actually care about most of the characters. For better or worse, and probably largely because of the impact of that idea of reclaiming our modern myths, I feel incredibly protective of them. I recognize that my basis for what I expect from those characters is one prior movie and a handful of expanded universe materials, so I wouldn’t say “the real [character] would never [heinous act],” because unfortunately the content of the movie I just witnessed is canon, but I can certainly say that my versions of those characters wouldn’t.

All that being said:

Paige

Paige Tico

Paige didn’t even get to speak a line

would it have killed them to have her say “I’m on it Poe” as she went to drop the bombs

with urgency and resolve and just a hint of fear in her voice

Paige Tico is a hero

Poe

Poe Dameron

Poe was right

#PoeWasRight

Finn and Rose and Poe’s plan actually would have worked if Holdo had spoken to Poe in good faith and given him cause to trust her with that information

I’m still not sure what Holdo’s plan was, she died as she lived, with hair full of secrets

Poe’s characterization was cocky, for sure, but people have been calling it chauvinist and I didn’t actually pick up on anything despite the efforts to play his concern when speaking with Holdo like a subtle wink wink nudge nudge to all the overqualified women in the audience who have ever had a dude tell them something they knew already

(also can someone tell me where the line was where Holdo and Leia objectify him? because I was watching and all I heard was “He’s a troublemaker. I like him.” which was... not at all the sort of thing that people were talking about)

I believe that Rian Johnson believes that Poe is the Han of this trilogy and I believe Oscar Isaac deliberately played all his scenes the opposite of how he could have played them and how Rian probably wanted him to play them

that being said, my Poe would never get his fellow soldiers killed with recklessness

you could absolutely get Poe to the place he needed to be at the end of this movie without bloodying his hands

“how did you two meet” was the most Jealous Boyfriend thing I have ever. heard.

Finn

why was so much of this movie about Finn being in pain

I don’t like that

his panic when he couldn’t move after being stunned? I don’t like that

Rian Johnson is great at writing abuse, both physical and emotional

he’s terrible at knowing when to stop

like when it’s an interaction between two people who are both supposed to be protagonists :) :) :)

why wasn’t Finn given anything meaningful to do

there was an interesting comment somewhere about how this is a movie about heroes failing, all the plans fail, every single one

but that doesn’t actually make it any less tedious to watch, and as my husband pointed out it’s not what people want in a Star Wars movie

also while this is supposed to be the Empire of the trilogy and there were many call backs, Empire never backed down from the mood it established, while Last Jedi suffered from wildly disparate moods and tried to end on a high note where Empire embraced the low and still made us feel like there was clear forward momentum

Rian Johnson had no idea what to do with Finn, just no clue how to handle him

why was he excited about Canto Bight? we just don’t know

on the upside Finn’s immediate concern upon waking being getting to Rey was A+++++++++++++ consistent characterization

as was the line “Rebel scum,” which indicated not a commitment to the Resistance the way I’ve seen people claim, but a commitment to rebel and as you might guess, I am one thousand percent HERE FOR IT

Rose

Rose Tico

you know how PacRim was in part such a big deal because for once the Asian woman didn’t sacrifice her life to further the white man’s story? TLJ gave us Rose stopping Finn from sacrificing himself and she didn’t have to die in the process

I can’t believe Rose and Finn doublehandedly destroyed war profiteering

Rose’s sense of wonder and her jadedness are my two favorite things

Rose gave away her necklace and her vintage Rebellion ring without hesitation in order to further the cause so I think it’s only fair that in Episode IX someone gives her jewelry

and by someone I mean Poe Dameron and by jewelry I mean one quarter of his mom’s ring because that my friends is a polycule in the making

Leia

why

why what? why everything honestly

why did they go to the effort of keeping her alive when she actually gets blown up in this movie, that was in the plot before Carrie Fisher even died

what the fuck are they going to do now

episode IX clearly would have been Leia rebuilding the Rebellion from scratch but uhhhhhhhhhhhh first they have to figure out what to do with the fact that they’re out of Carrie Fisher footage! and solving that problem is clearly going to require them to do one of the several things they’ve already said they wouldn’t do!

I surprised myself by not crying in any of Carrie Fisher’s scenes, but when R2 showed Luke the original message? HOO BOY it was raining on my face!!!!

no but the Confirmed Very Powerful Force User Leia Pulls Herself Back from the Cold Dark Vacuum of Space thing? gorgeous! gorgeous scene. gorgeous, breathtaking

but I’m just operating on the headcanon that she died in her coma and what remained was a tangible Force ghost

(Yoda bopped Luke on the snoot)

(the dice were a tangible Force projection what the fuck)

p.s. why didn’t Leia move the damn rocks

Rey

Rey spend half this movie talking to Krylon in her head but she didn’t even get to speak a line to Finn

they done you dirty Rey

I’m sorry Rey

the thing about this movie is that the people who are going to believe what they want to believe, no matter what, are going to find a way to say “that was misdirection!”

and for once I’m not (just) talking about Re/ylo, I’m talking about the bit with her parents

yeah Krylon doesn’t know shit about her parents and he was taking up the mantle of emotional manipulation and abuse that Snoke had just bequeathed

but Rey coming from literally nowhere is SUCH A GOOD and I’m saying that as an avowed Rey Kenobi supporter

let her come from nowhere and no one

let her be an example of a hyperpowerful hero in this series who didn’t get that way with midichlorians or bloodline

let her strive to be great for her own sake, not in relation or reaction to what came before her

Gareth Edwards

I SAW YOU GARETH EDWARDS, I SAW YOU IN THE TRENCHES, STICKING WITH STAR WARS TO THE BITTER, SALTY END

that came out wrong

Luke

damn Mark Hamill threw everything he had into this and I really respect that when it’s clear from his interviews that he hated everything he had to do

hate that the character was in that position, hate the shitty writing of the intervening time, love the resolution, but tbh if he was just gonna die why not actually physically show up

the total silence when Holdo jumps to light speed and everything gets reduced to stark iconic images: gorgeous, breathtaking

the hug: gorgeous, breathtaking

vulptices and fathiers: gorgeous, breathtaking

the Caretakers: I’d die for them

Rose converting her FO uniform to biz caj chic on Crait: gorgeous, breathtaking

Luke and Yoda cracking open a cold one while the Book Tree burns: gorgeous, breathtaking

everyone’s makeup: bad, they looked either ill or painted

(I don’t actually know anything about makeup but I know I grimaced a lot)

all the many, many moments of bombast that covered over or otherwise distracted us from the few instances of nuanced ideas or potential plot progression in this film: gorgeous, breathtaking

for half a second Luke was talking about how the light can still exist without the Jedi and I leaned forward in my seat like yes, yessss, but then we had to cut to Creepy Dark Cave on Training Planet Where You Go for Answers But You Only Find Your Own Face

like Jesus just let the philosophy professor ramble for a little while, it won’t hurt anything and he’ll be in a good mood at test time

anyway this movie sure gave my eyes a lot to absorb and occasionally it activated all three of my feelings

but all it actually accomplished in the context of the trilogy is to kill some people and take some stuff away

it occurred to me toward the end that there wasn’t anything in the movie I would have to edit out for my kid to watch it, but there’s no way she’d be able to sit through the whole thing

two and a half hours is too God damn long for a Star Wars movie, full stop

ten minutes of concrit from the story group could have led to some interesting avenues to explore and probably tightened it up a lot

but instead it was painfully clear that no one said no to Rian at any point and what that got us was a movie that was extremely fatiguing to watch

#TLJ spoilers #Star Wars for ts #The Last Jedi for ts #SPOILERS #long post

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kxias · 7 years

Text

...so, yeah, don’t rlly know how the fuck i got accepted to be quite honest w you??? like that definitely sounded fake but yet here we are??? anyways, hi, i’m red (she/her pronouns please) i’m 19 and i live in the est timezone and i am so, so excited about this roleplay — like i said, highkey was not expecting to get accepted so it certainly came as a shock when i refreshed the main before leaving to grab dinner and saw my post? i’ve been dying to put this muse of mine into play for a month or so now but i really haven’t been able to find a group that i was Down for up until i saw this one ! i am a heaux for uni rps, an even bigger one for the greek life rps since i in a million years would never be able to join greek life (yay introvert!!) and while i wasn’t here first time around, i’m happy to be here now and writing w all you lovely people ; i’m working on getting her stats and wanted connections up so pls bear with me, classes started back today and i’m trying to sift thru all the junk of my online courses while attempting to enjoy my last moments of freedom but they’ll be up soon ! in the meantime, there’s a bit beneath the cut about my baby angel and a few ideas to tide you over, make the heart go red and i’ll pop in your ims for plots ! and yes, i do ramble like this all the time so Get Ready !!

tw: death, slight depression, mentions of verbal/emotional abuse

have you read the gossip blog lately ? apparently, a GIGI HADID lookalike was seen strolling across campus with their DANCE textbook. but nah, that’s just KAIA ZAMAN, the TWENTY year old JUNIOR, i’m sure you know HER. they’re mostly known as THE SANGUINE because they’re very SILVER-TONGUED and INTREPID but also RETICENT and GUILELESS.

so kaia was born and raised in chicago, illinois, the only child her parents ever had due to a few factors — one of which being that it was incredibly hard for her mother to carry a child + rushed into an emergency hysterectomy right after kaia’s birth, so she was their rainbow baby

her parents did everything in their power to make kaia as happy as they possibly could since she had been everything they’d wanted for so long, so whether it was letting her watch another cartoon before bed or enrolling her in dance classes at the age of three after a full-fledged obsession with the nutcracker reached its pique, they pretty much granted her any wish she could’ve possibly had

at age four, a few nights after christmas, kaia and her parents were on their way home from dinner, taking a road that was pretty notorious for collecting black ice in the winter and got into a really bad accident, and this cost her both of her parents

so in her father’s will + due to a lack of any other eligible family members, kaia was left in the custody of her uncle ( dad’s younger brother ) and it was...disastrous, to say the least; daniel had pretty much resigned to a life of forever being a bachelor and fucking around and now he had a four year old niece that he was expected to raise???

her uncle was a trashbag with a few shreds of decency (driven by guilt) in him — he wasn’t going to dump her into the foster system but he sure as hell didn’t want anything to do with her ! so in true trashbag fashion, he just decided to completely neglect her, pretend like she wasn’t there and hope she’d get the hint, and it took her a while to figure this out?? kaia was a sweet kid who went from having a shit ton of affection and love to being ignored and treated like she was a nuisance, and it fucked w her head at four years old

she wound up raising herself; all her uncle was good for was giving her a place to live, making sure she had clothes on her back and food in her stomach, and putting on an act when people gave a second glance their way. the only time he really wanted anything to do with her was when he could benefit her somehow, like keep one of his girlfriends around ( they all found kaia adorable and daniel ‘admirable’ for stepping up ) or when it came to the $$, her parents had left her a little but daniel pretty much absorbed it and took it for himself, to throw more parties or buy booze or play sugar daddy to one of his hookups?? like i said, trashbag

kaia and her uncle were roommates at best, and that was pushing it — she struggled a lot with the neglect internally, and her way of coping was to push it down, push it down, suppress with a smiling face and act like all was well. daniel was enough of a decent person to let her continue with the dance lessons which she absolutely adored, dance was her Everything, and by the time she hit high school, she started teaching classes at the studio she learned at in order to make some $$ that daniel wouldn’t take for his own

the older she got, the more she’d fight back a little against daniel and they had their fair share of fights ( which usually ended in daniel saying something to shut her down entirely and she’d scramble away ) but even despite that, sHE NEVER GAVE UP HOPE ON HIM...?? like, kaia always gave him the benefit of the doubt even though he’d proved himself time and time again thAT HE DIDN’T DESERVE IT

to her it was v black and white, she didn’t understand why tf he wouldn’t just get over himself and be a Family ( daniel is Where she gets her stubbornness tbh ) but despite having a little resent towards him, kaia never ever stopped hoping that he’d wake up one day and they’d start being a family and she still hasn’t bc optimist in the highest degree

when it came to college, kaia knew if she didn’t get out of chicago she was literally going to be sick, there was just smth about the loneliness there that made her skin crawl ( she also hates the winter now so she had to get as far away from snow as possible lmao ) and so she was like “alright i need a college on the west coast and w my dance major”, found crawford, and it was Settled

you ain’t getting my gossip blog secret out of me *wink*

anyways, now that the tragic backstory has been #unlocked...onto kaia

she’s the sanguine, which basically means bitch is a ball of sunshine, which she is — there’s no such thing as a stranger in her world, she likes constantly being surrounded by people ( bc she gotta make up for being lonely all those childhood years, thanks a ton dAN ) and making new friends and going out, she just loves people and people usually love her, she knows how to reel them in and keep them by her side, girlie will do Anything

she flat-out refuses to see the bad in people, even if it is staring her in the face, and this is where her stubborn nature comes in to play?? you can’t tell her anything, once her mind is set on something there is no hope of ever talking her out of it, she’s got to come to her senses on her own and even then it’s usually too late or she diminishes the impact of it?? she’s rash and got bad tunnel vision so it’s p clear where disaster lies w her

has the unhealthiest coping mechanisms on the history of the planet, tbh; she thinks the cure to everything is putting a smile on and acting like it’s not a problem and while that works when one fails a test, it doesn’t work w everything and she’s just forced so much pain and depression and anger down that it is Bound to come right back up at some point, so basically homegirl is a ticking time bomb

kaia’s also a people pleaser, she’d literally give you a kidney if you asked, which makes it easy for people to manipulate her?? and she doesn’t always see when she’s being manipulated either?? and won’t always stand up for herself when she’s being treated unfairly??? she just likes keeping the peace if at all possible

blurs the line a lot between doing things because she can and doing things because she feels an obligation to so she doesn’t let anyone down

ever since her parents died, she doesn’t like to give anything a second-guess — if she wants to do something, then she’s doing it, because it may not come back around again or she may not have the chance to. is the Definition of living in the moment, which is nice in theory, but kaia is v bad at compartmentalizing so it’s easy for her to get off track or ofc do things that will come back to bite her

dance is life, i’m not even gonna go into detail on it bc this is long enough already and like.....it’s just her whole world, ok, moving along

she wants everyone to let her in but she very rarely returns the favor, which is why i gave her the reticent trait?? she doesn’t tell people about her parents or her uncle, doesn’t let people see that iceberg of emotions underneath the surface, she acts like if it doesn’t exist then it doesn’t as far as anyone’s concerned???

girl is one of the greatest friends you could ever have but is a piece of work when you think about it, tbh, so that being said come love us !

and if you read this far: the reason this STUPID vine is my ooc tag is bc i have an ex named kyle who is a piece of trash and that vine is a p accurate description of how i feel about him.....plus it just makes me laugh ok going now

#「 •• 𝓸𝓯 𝓼𝓪𝓷𝓰𝓾𝓲𝓷𝓮𝓼 ; what the fuck is up red.#crwfrd.intro

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severalbakuras · 7 years

Text

FIRST THREE EPISODES OF S4 LETS GO

long post so apologies to mobile users. salt warning.

voltron season 4 spoilers (although i understand it’s technically still three the season just got split in two so the content drought wasn’t as long). please don’t give me spoilers for the rest of the season!! i don’t want them!!

(on the subject of content drought is steven universe still on hiatus?)

(still better than berserk’s hiatuses though)

episode 1:

still no new intro you COWARDS

second impact!!! oh no just a ship.

i wonder if galra have unions those two sound like they need one

BLADES

“do not engage” HMMM

oooh lizard blade

the blade up top could’ve totally seen that patrol coming tbh???

KEITH I KNEW IT!!!!

30 SECONDS TO SAVE LIZARD BLADE

holy shit he actually did it

sassy keith talking back to kolivan like that. hell yeah he saved their friend and the mission.

firo uh why are you acting like bridge boss? that was allura’s job and then coran’s job when she became the blue pilot. Back The Fuckéth Down.

there’s something ominous about those temples i can’t place it.

oh hey what’s up firo being a jackass as usual? k? k. keith can you employ the blade sass here too please it’s kinda sad watching this fake shiro stomp all your fire out.

pidge i hope that’s superficial damage bc cracks are probably not what you want in an outer space vessel.

wow rude. heith cancelled i’m not liking that.

i’m not trusting a DAMN THING from firo, especially when the music got super deep for a second.

i’m not in the military or remotely connected to it in any way but this is like... actually there’s no ‘like’ about it, they’re taking the most powerful and skilled soldiers out of combat in the middle of a war just so they can show them off, when voltron is already enshrined in the galactic mythos and by now it’s well known as being active and wrecking galra shit.

i can’t!! believe!! this!! is even!!! a debate?? parade which has already stated to have already happened very recently before or a galra supply ship going to for all that they know a secret galra base that they need to track down.

Y’ALL ARE FREEDOM FIGHTERS. IN AN ACTIVE WAR ZONE. THE FUCK.

god shut up lance he could be dead or captured and you’re more worried about the show.

i’m pretty sure you’ve only ~tried~ like what, three times? and like only one of those even made any impression on keith and i don’t even think it was the right one.

AND YOU SHOULD STILL TRY BECAUSE HE’S YOUR GODDAMN FRIEND.

NO LIZARD BLADE

so they’re off giving them the ol’ razzle dazzle and keith is running out of oxygen in the wreckage of a bomb explosion with no allies in sight floating adrift in space. fun times.

this parade is basically just an ad for toys LBR.

this is embarrassingly unfunny. like not even in a schadenfreude way.

so like y’all seriously have never thought about an alternative way for these parades to go just in case one of the lions needed repairs or was late back from a mission or a paladin was sick?

allura like i get what you’re trying to say here but like... do you know keith.

he’s not choosing the blades over voltron he’s choosing the fucking war over a parade.

ahh there he is, my terrible space prince. cleanse me of my salt.

god he has no respect for haggar at all ahhaha. i know some spoilers re honerva thanks to that one clip so it’s interesting he either doesn’t recognize her or doesn’t want to or that haggar either still doesn’t remember him or also doesn’t want to.

and y’all seriously never had a contingency plan for any situation that could mean voltron wasn’t around hhhhh.

hunk you’re the tank just AOE the spawned adds and let the DPS pick them off while you pop a defensive cooldown god you’d wipe the group in ragefire chasm even in full heirlooms wouldn’t you. (although there isn’t a healer lion and he’s clearly more protection warrior than the far superior blood death knight so lol no self heals)

huh. well the black lion historically isn’t a great judge of character so you’re still firo to me. like objectively, the black lion has no investment in her paladin’s life as seen on the bone planet when they were all separated, or even the continued existence of voltron. compare to the red lion, who will wreck entire bases and cross the galaxy to get to hers if she senses they’re in peril.

i wonder if voltron or the lions are conscious. like not like a person but like an EVA unit. a unit 1 vs zeruel style fight where voltron or one of the lions goes beast mode would be AMAZING

(spoiler warning for a 90s anime lol have i linked this before? i think i might have.)

youtube

now i want to watch original NGE again boo

(i wonder if we’ll ever get a real lion-on-lion fight. like either with the paladins involved or without. or like the lions deciding ‘fuck the pilot’ and disobeying them god that makes me want to watch NGE EVEN MORE)

holy shit you can all fuck off.

god keith your voice.

HOLY SHIT YOU CAN ALL FUCK OFF THAT’S THE MOST HOLLOW ~FRIENDSHIP~ MOMENT TO DATE.

welp OT4 cancelled, i guess that means i have no nice ships in this fandom and only have crack ships like keitor and zethura. i think that’s the fastest i’ve ever gone from loving a ship to dumping it. wait no i was a puzzleshipper for all of a day before i got bored of it when i rewatched yugioh. hunk/allura/shay/keith lasted a few weeks between S3.1 and S3.2.

(it’s ok shay i still love you. i can still ship you and keith but that too is a crack ship ♥)

episode 2:

UH WELL THANKS FOR THAT SPOILER THUMBNAIL NETFLIX.

BABY PIDGE

it’s amazing how a single word has made me detest this boy more than any of the galra except that one shitty one who sucked. go to hell.

actually teacher can go to hell too you’re just gonna let the entire class laugh at her and not even try to maintain order? are you that petty about being corrected?

i like these watercolour-y style backgrounds, i hope other earth flashbacks get this kind of style. it’s a nice change from how clean and sharp everything else is.

aww he’s a good bro

NERDBABIES ♥

OH WELL I HOPE YOU GUYS HAVE A BACK UP PLAN IN CASE THE GALRA ATTACK WHILE SHE’S GONE :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

like he’s contacting her midflight which makes it seem like she just took off at the first hint of matt??? meanwhile kolivan contacts the ship and explains the situation and asks politely? but keith’s the bad guy for splitting up the team ok.

do i sound salty? i feel it.

that’s our hunk, he sure likes to eat! -hysterical crowd noises-

this city looks like a neo-tokyo sonic level in a good way.

the lamest spider man.

who are you sharktooth tail man.

the whole PLANET looks like a neo-tokyo sonic level in a good way. approve. the coolest planet. can that be the new hub planet and not that weird techno-ahn’qiraj thing?

so the green lion takes no steps to defend itself under attack without a paladin.

did she just bloodbend that ship?

I LOVE HER. SHE’S ABOUT TO DIE (pidge bloodbend her wound shut) BUT I LOVE HER.

“so here’s your supplies and a body cheers.”

so why all the secrets here? i feel like the garrison’s up to shady shit, like he was just a space tube driller right? is space geology really that cutthroat?

that shot of the graveyard, holy shit.

i wonder how pidge’s mother’s doing. probably not well.

now see this would be tense and tragic if not for the FUCKING THUMBNAIL NETFLIX.

physics? physics.

i love rusty space tech!!!!!!!!

aww ♥

so where’s mr. holt then.

oh so he’s not galra he’s a space dinosaur.

“looks to me like you’re made of meat, just like everyone else!” ok that was an amazing line. i’m stealing that for my blood death knight, it’s perfect for her. i like you bloody bounty huntersaurus. you’re so dead but i like you.

nerd squad!

was that shiro and keith in the back?

so matt’s eyesight couldn’t have been that bad for pidge to just put them on like that, unless he switched the lenses out and made them purely cosmetic. people have to sit down when they wear my glasses or they feel sick.

episode 3:

yknow show i already feel bad enough for haggar/honerva you don’t need to twist that knife anymore.

are they STILL torturing that guy? i mean dude’s so strong in his convictions and his loyalty that he’s not tried making up a fake or even letting his brain conjure up an answer that he believes is true y’all should consider promoting him instead maybe??? because he’s the most hardcore person in that room???

firo why does ‘refugee’ instantly translate to ‘soldier’ with you.

oh he’s lance but more anime around pretty girls. boy that sure was an interesting and appealing character trait the first time around!!!!!!1111!!!1!!

HE’S NOT SHIRO DON’T TRUST HIM MATT.

cyber zarkon. i hope his AI acts up and he has to use urban dictionary as his speech system.

interesting that her first act is to drop lotor in it.

they both hate lotor so much why’d you even have him in the first place huh?

SHE’S SO EXCITED also the formatting’s getting weird bc of the length i think so sorry if this starts looking weird.

there he is again!! space prince!!

nobody who worked on this scene has ever been close to a cow. where’s the intrinsic judgement of your soul, the innate suspicion at your mere presence?

also she needs a herd she’s gonna be lonely ;_;

lotor we all know you’re lying

well apparently they don’t so i guess that kind of behaviour is what they expect from him. huh. i wonder when the switch between that being true and that being a well rehearsed act happened.

haggar what did you just do to narti. that’s not a good high pitched noise or whispering. i feel like i’ve heard it before.

how do you miss a tracker that makes an explosion that large the first time around? and wouldn’t the scan be standard procedure at this point?

hunk why are you acting like this. it’s weird i don’t like it.

git gud lance.

that whole bit went on way too long.

OH NO NARTI I KNEW HAGGAR DID SOMETHING.

so lotor’s officially the enemy now. like public enemy number 1.

VLD IF YOU TAKE ZETHRID AWAY FROM ME LIKE SU DID WITH JASPER...

so it

was

narti oh no :( i’d kinda hoped it was the cat.

that’s pretty graphic too slicing the view in half like that. a very creative censor.

and they don’t react at all? huh.

ok ok now they have the chance to. god they all look miserable.

did they leave the cat behind?

wonder what keith’s up to.

#voltron legendary defender #vld #vld spoilers #sb watches voltron

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ettadunham · 7 years

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Day 13 - Letters of Transit

What a day, what a lovely day of Fringe September.

You know those shows that you watch from the pilot, the ones where you share your excitement of that discovery, of this new fresh hell of wonder and pain with million other people, and yet it feels uniquely your own, like it’s your child you raised with your own hands, that whole EXPERIENCE...

Well, Fringe wasn’t that for me.

And it’s on me tbh, I was keeping an eye on the trailers when it all started, but then... didn’t actually start watching it. It’s by complete and utter coincidence that I caught my first Fringe episode (2x13 to be specific), because my mom was staying over and she was watching it (her sci-fi taste was always impeccable tbh)... And the rest is history.

But I was there when Letters of Transit aired and let me tell you - it was like that whole new discovery feeling all over again.

I fell in love with Etta from the first moment I laid eyes on her. There was no question about who she was, and I’m not sure the show ever intended that to be a mystery. Like, dudes, I don’t know what’s going on in that Australian gene pool but Georgina Haig sure af looks like she’s related to Anna Torv. Plus the way she walks in onto our screen, with only her silhouette visible... There was no doubt in any of us that that girl was a Dunham. (Much like Broyles after his first encounter with Etta, as he tells the team in 5x04.)

As it is the tradition with this show, this is one of those 19th episode specials, an episode that offers a special treat to its fans. This time it’s a glimpse into the future, much like 3x22 - only this time it’s a future that actually comes to be. Kinda. For a season at least.

It’s the episode where we find out that the Observers weren’t as benign, or just simple meddlers as we thought. They took over the world in this timeline, eliminating all resistance with brute force. They’re vicious and see people of this time as animals, merely letting them exist.

There’s a lot of classic dystopian occupation tools we see here (many of which were taken from actual world history such as the Nazi occupation, and were used in fiction later over and over). The notion that there’s a faction of the ‘Natives’ who decided to side with the occupiers, turning against their own to gain status, the way the Observers let the Natives ‘police themselves’, but ultimately want a say in how drastic measures they must take, etc.

Obviously we later spend an entire short season of the show in this time, learning more about the politics of the system, but it’s quite astonishing how much details we learn from this one single episode alone.

Something that’s sort of bugging me is the fact alone that the Observers traveled from the future after destroying the planet (tbh I doubt that we’re gonna need 600 more years for that though, lbr here) to take our world from us. It definitely feels like a paradox, given how that would certainly change the history of how the Observers came to be in the first place... And while this show does have quite a few paradoxes, this is one that never really gets discussed as such. (Idk, maybe I just don’t remember, I really do need to do an ENTIRE re-watch soon.)

Beside Etta we also meet Simon, Henry Ian Cusick’s character, who’s Etta’s boss/partner(?), and he paints us another chilling picture about the invasion - a night called the ‘Purge’ during which the Observers mass-murdered every known member of the resistance, including Simon’s parents. Like I said, it’s a chilling future steeped in actual world history.

Etta and Simon spend the episode then trying to bring back the old Fringe team who - according to stories and myths - had the means to get rid of the Observers. Etta receives information from an old contact who found them ambered, but he only brings Walter with him, who apparently suffered brain damage. Again.

Poor Walter’s brain.

So Etta turns to Nina for help instead, who points them in the direction of Walter’s old brain tissues. After that, he can finally help them with the whole wolrd-saving... And finding his old team. But after de-ambering Astrid, their device fails, and Simon ultimately has to sacrifice himself, trapping himself in amber in order for them to get Peter.

It’s a packed episode full of world-building. And while there’s a lot of exposition, it’s necessary for us to get a whole picture of this world. And oh boy, DO WE GET A PICTURE.

ALSO ETTA. WE ALL LOVED ETTA FROM THE START I’M SURE.

There' still a lot of bullet point worthy stuff:

William Bell was also ambered with them??? I guess it’s because they needed his access for a part of the plan, but we never really learn if he was there of his own volition. Judging by Walter’s actions, it doesn’t seem like he trusted him to help them.

This episode also plays coy about Olivia’s fate, to maintain some of the tension for the season finale. Walter mentions that Bell did something to her, and she’s not in the amber with them, not to mention Etta’s bullet necklace (which she touches both when she sees Walter in the amber and when she talks about her family, so it’s obviously connected to them). On the other hand, Etta also says ‘Walter, where’s---’ after they free Astrid, obviously expecting Olivia to be in the amber there.

Walter seems to recognize Etta after gaining back his memories, but doesn’t say anything - probably because he recognizes that she hasn’t told Simon her identity.

We also see a drastic change in Walter’s personality after her old brain tissue gets re-implanted. It’s a lot more drastic than regular Walter too - he immediately goes to build an anti-matter bomb while they’re fleeing the old Massive Dynamic building, and he doesn’t hesitate cutting off Bell’s hand from the amber.

Lmao, I love that this show has such a thing for coffee. In the red!verse it’s a rare expensive delicacy, and it only exists as a snack in the future apparently.

The banter between Etta and Simon is GOOD, you can tell that she’s a pain in the ass, a true member of the Dunham-Bishop clan for sure.

Nina is in a wheelchair but totally rocks it and her white hair.

We also meet Broyles, and find out that he’s still heading up the Fringe Division. But he hates his job. And also WIndmark. But we all hate Windmark.

“I love being special” - the only thing I love more than this line is the fact that it’s an answer to how the Observers would kill everyone if they found out there’s anyone like Etta, who can block them from reading her thoughts. God, I love Etta, did I mention that?

The opening titles at the beginning are reminiscent of a lot of sci-fi movies, but the way the OBSERVERS are highlighted with red makes it specifically a Blade Runner reference.

#fringe talk

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chrishoulihan · 7 years

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FYF ADVENTCHEA

So this shit turned into a fucking novel, I’m putting it under a cut and it’s just as much for my own recollection as it is for anyone who wants to hear about my festival weekend. Get into it

So I arrived in LA on Thursday morning after my flight was delayed by an hour and ended up getting there at the exact same time as Anna A @yourveryeyes which was fortuitous! We took a Lyft to Exposition Park to pick up her wristband for the festival, wandered around a little bit, and ended up taking the Metro downtown to meet up with Kylie @electric-candyman who was GREAT TO MEET and was also going to the festival, and her friend Chris who doesn’t have a Tumblr afaik and was going to both FYF and the Planetarium show that night. We went to MOCA which was pretty sweet, they had a Rothko room and a few Rauschenberg pieces that were really cool to see in person. After that Anna and I split off to go to Hollywood and check out Amoeba on our way to Sufjan and that was obviously amazing, I didn’t have enough space in the bags I packed to buy any records (which was by design, my broke ass can’t afford to drop a lot of money on vacation and you can’t waste money on stuff if you don’t have room to carry it home *tapping head guy meme*) but I bought a little heart-eyed cat emoji pin as a souvenir and I definitely wanted to buy 5000 things I couldn’t have.

From there we went to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery for Planetarium and met up with Anna L @louisdebumhole ANN- SQUAD REUNITED HELL YEAH. We got to the cemetery and went in all together like over an hour after the doors opened but since it was a lawn show there was still barely anyone lined up at the stage by the time we got there and we got just behind the rail?? AMAZING. I haven’t had the opportunity for rail at a Sufjan show since the Christmas pageant in 2012. Chris showed up not too long after us and joined us right by the stage and Anna L’s friend was there on the rail too so it was a party.

OBVIOUSLY PLANETARIUM WAS INCREDIBLE. My dumb ass forgot to save my Instagram story so I don’t have any of my own videos but it was so great. Sufjan wore his stupid beautiful clashing pajama suit and some fuckin moon boots and he looked fabulous and sang like an angel and said a lot of nonsensical inspirational stuff (like this which is the only video I managed to salvage.) The whole record sounds even richer and fuller live; Jupiter, Moon, and Venus sounded especially amazing. AND fun fact, Matt Berninger was there and watched the entire show from the left side of the stage! My indie dad Matty B supporting his homies!! I also got a setlist after the show ended, which was exciting even though of course it’s literally just a list of planets and in the exact same order as the record lmao. But it’s my first Sufjan-related setlist and I will cherish it forever.

So we got back to Anna L’s house I think around midnight that night and by then I had been awake for like 21 hours so I was exhausted and basically passed out as soon as I could. Next day was the START OF FYF and Anna A/Kylie/Chris and I decided that we wanted to go for Bjork rail, since she was the first act on the main stage on Friday and there weren’t really any other bands playing before her elsewhere that we were dying to see. Before we went to the festival Anna A and I hung out with her friend Jen who was great, we got boba and then went downtown to The Last Bookstore, which was bomb, and had lunch at Grand Central Market. Got to the festival about half an hour before the gates opened, made it through the long ass queue, and went immediately to the main stage where we got basically center-right just behind the rail!! For fucking Bjork!!! Commence freaking out for the next three hours. Chris and Kylie showed up later right behind us and it was such a fun and easy queueing experience for me, everyone around us was super chill and everyone was so hype to see Bjork that we pretty much just looked out for each other and bonded over our mutual fandom. Anna and I had intended to see Bjork together in NYC back in 2015 but it got cancelled so this was a LONG TIME COMING and I’m so glad that we were able to make it happen.

So Bjork was the first set of my whole festival weekend and honestly it was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen?? SHE WAS AMAZING and I knew I was gonna be emotional but I wasn’t fucking prepared for how surreal and incredible it felt to hear THAT VOICE in person and to be that close to her while it happened. Unreal. She had Arca with her as her DJ and a whole string ensemble, and she came out wearing a glow in the dark lime green headdress mask thing and a huge puffy dress that made her look like a beautiful pinata. Everything about it was fucking perfect; she did at least one song from every record except Vespertine. Multiples from Vulnicura/Homogenic/Post, Come to Me, Mouth’s Cradle, Wanderlust, Mutual Core. Fucking awesome. Favorites for me were probably Joga (CRIED), Mouth’s Cradle (fuckin bomb arrangement and a huge surprise), Isobel & Bachelorette (two of my all time faves), Notget and Hyperballad which had LITERAL FIREWORKS AND FIREBALLS going off onstage behind her?? What the fuck?? Amazing. And it was the most fun and loving group of people on the rail I’ve ever been part of; everyone around me was so genuinely excited and emotional and singing along and I could FEEL THE LOVE.

So that was an amazing start to the festival obviously and after Bjork we met up with Anna L and went straight to go see Anderson Paak who I missed BOTH TIMES he was here in Portland last year because I’m an idiot, and WOW he is so great live!! I’m actively offended that he is not my boyfriend tbh, he has the most beautiful and infectious smile I’ve ever seen on a human being. Big ol dance party up in the lawn stage. After that we went back to the main stage to watch Missy Elliott for a while and that was a lot of fun; found out after the fact that Bjork and fucking BEYONCE were watching off stage, so like, now I can say I have been in the presence of Beyonce. Went to Flying Lotus early which was the last set of the night to get a good view, with our sweet Flylo-branded 3D glasses obv. Flylo was amazing as always and the 3D show was awesome, I hope he takes it on the road cause that shit was fire. I’m also really into the mystical shaman look he seems to be cultivating lately lmao, and he looks cute as hell with the longer hair!! One of the biggest highlights of the whole weekend for me was when he started the Captain Murphy stuff, got one verse through The Killing Joke, and then was like “you know what fuck this I changed my mind, I want to do this song cause I never get the chance to do it” and fucking busted out with COSPLAY, which is only my favorite Captain Murphy track ever!!! I wasn’t expecting it cause it’s pretty obscure even for the Captain Murphy stuff and I lost my goddamn mind it was so much fun. (Gotta say though that the longer he keeps riding out Murphy tracks from 2012 at his live shows, the more egregious it is that he still hasn’t fuckin dropped a Murphy album or any substantial Murphy release since then. Come on bro. I’ve been waiting 5 years) ANYWAY so that was great of course. Day One = big success.

Day Two! Before we went to the festival that day we met up and had lunch with Anna L’s bf Jesus, who had a Saturday/Sunday festival pass and is a lovely man with great taste in music and cat photos and baseball caps. First set of the day for me was Thundercat and it was my SIXTH time seeing him live, which is hilarious (gonna be 7 times in September.) One of the first things he said to the crowd after getting on stage was “you guys look like you smell weird,” which was accurate. Obviously he’s always great live and I loved getting to hear more of the Drunk songs since the last time I saw him. He’s also rocking some pretty sweet neon pink dreads right now. Caught the end of Noname’s set with Anna A and Chris afterwards and really enjoyed it! I want to check out her album now cause she was great. Grabbed some food and then the whole crew met up together again to see Perfume Genius – GORGEOUS. I’d never seen him live before and he’s so captivating to watch. His performance of Slip Away to close the set was one of my favorites of the whole weekend.

After that I ended up splitting up with everyone, watched some of Arca’s set but ended up leaving to go hang out on the lawn before Erykah Badu because my feet were killing me and I really needed to sit down and recharge. Erykah was supposed to go on at 9:50; cut to 10:15 and she still hasn’t gone on and I was already planning on cutting out of her set at 10:30 to try and snag a semi decent spot for Frank Ocean, so I said fuck it and bailed to go do that. BUMMED I DIDN’T GET TO SEE HER TBH I was really looking forward to it. But it’s kinda good that I left sooner rather than later because the main stage was already pretty packed by 10:30 for Frank. I got an okay spot to the right of the stage probably about 10+ rows back from his platform catwalk thing, and it was easily the most crowded audience I was in all weekend. Talk about being packed like sardines it was madness, if I had showed up like 10 minutes later than I did I would have had an absolutely shit view.

So like…..FRANK FUCKING OCEAN. Never ever thought the day would come that I’d see him live, and the whole experience was so incredibly special to me. I DEFINITELY cried buckets when he sang Lens, which has weirdly become one of my all time favorite tracks in the last few months, and Ivy really really got to me out of nowhere too. Literally everyone around me within earshot sang along to every single word of every song and it was amazing. He played an unreleased cover of some old school funk track that was absolute straight fucking fire, me and the girl next to me danced our asses off together. That shit better get an official release on his radio show like he said he was planning!! Also Brad Pitt was on stage at one point and that was HILARIOUS tbh I wish I had gotten any sort of video of that myself, but the way the wasted dude behind me shouted “WHAT THE FUUUCK” when he popped up on screen will remain fresh in my memory forever. The whole show was gorgeous and I just LOVE FRANK OCEAN!!! I want him to tour so bad so I can actually plan out a scenario where I can get rail for his show and have a better view.

Aaaand Day Three. Got to the festival kinda lateish because the first act the Ann- Squad wanted to see wasn’t till after 6 (Little Dragon), so once we got there we took some photos and wandered around a bit, met back up with Chris and Kylie and took these majestic photobooth pictures, and then Anna A and I went to Little Dragon early for a good spot. I had never seen them before and it was a blast, just a total dance party. They mostly played stuff from Season High which was fine by me cause that album fuckin bangs. Then mood whiplash when we went straight from Little Dragon to Moses Sumney lmao. We got to Moses’ set right when he started our mutual fave Lonely World, serendipitous tbh!! He is beautiful and I loooove the lighting setup he’s got going for his show, it felt really unique to me among the loud dancey festival fare.

After that we went back to the main stage for Solange, which was great; I’m not as familiar with her music as I could be tbh but I really enjoyed how conceptual and dance-oriented her show was. At one point a whole massive brass section streamed in out of nowhere just for one song and it was fuckin awesome. Towards the end of Solange’s set Kylie texted me to say that if we hurried there was still a little bit of rail space left for Run the Jewels in fifteen minutes, to which we were immediately like UHH YES WTF and hustled our way the fuck over – made it in time, got just behind the rail for motherfucking Run the Jewels right before they went on somehow, *Killer Mike voice* goddammit it’s a motherfucking miracle. Give Kylie 5000 gold medals tbh. And RTJ ended up being probably my favorite non-headlining set of the weekend, SO MUCH FUN. The crowd was fucking nuts, everyone around me was going stupidly hard, and I discovered that I know pretty much every word of RTJ3 lmao. The only thing that could have made it more perfect would have been if they’d done Panther Like A Panther, WHICH THEY DIDN’T and was greatly missed by me. But it was amazing. I’m kind of in love with El-P’s ridiculous ass tbh.

Last show of the weekend – Nine Inch Nails!! Who I love!!!!! And hadn’t seen live in almost four years!!!!!! I’m always fucking trash for Nine Inch Nails honestly, their live shows just turn me into a raging dancing idiot and this was no exception. ‘Wish’ will always be one of my favorite songs to hear live from any band ever. Also got to hear Something I Can Never Have and Reptile for the first time ever for me which was awesome!! Bold move of Trent to throw in Something I Can Never Have as the fourth song in a festival set but I was loving it. Like I said yesterday I randomly lost my fucking mind to The Hand That Feeds lmao, I was actually jumping around like a moron. The newer songs were great too, Field On Fire FUCKING BANGS live holy shit. Basically it was just so great to cap off the weekend with band that I’ve loved for ten years and are always fucking immaculate live. And then when it was all over I got chicken strips and fries and walked out of the festival with the fam eating my delicious food. Perfection.

So that was my weekend and I honestly could not have dreamed of having a better time. I’m so so glad that I was able to do this, see some of my favorite bands with an awesome group of people who love music just as much as I do, get out of town and clear my head, and find some healing at a time when I really needed it. I feel very lucky.

#gonna post some video comps later today

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