Listen, I Can Compliment Steven Moffat, I Promise

You know, I avoided watching Heaven Sent/Hell Bent for the longest time because I was worried that it was overhyped. I've long been not a big fan of the Moffatt finales in Eleven’s era, finding that he often sacrifices genuine character storytelling and logic in his finales in favor of overconvoluted plots that fall apart like a house of cards with a touch, making companions more puzzle pieces than characters, and an overreliance on flash and/or "sexiness" that override some of the genuine emotional scenes.

All of which is to say...y’all were right. Heaven Sent/Hell Bent is up there as one of my top three season finales in Doctor Who history (season 1 and 3 are the others, for context). It is absolutely amazingly executed, fantastically written/acted, and an amazing send-up of Capaldi's Doctor and a send-off for Clara's character. It might be my favorite way that Moffatt has EVER sent off a companion (including River Song). Everything about these episodes (and Face the Raven, to an extent) is superbly executed, thematically coherent, emotionally satisfying and bittersweet (my favorite kind of companion send-off). I literally stopped what I was doing and just watched, jaw dropped, for the last five minutes of Heaven Sent.

Hats off to everyone involved, and I really do have to compliment Moffatt for evolving as a writer. It took him a few season to get there, but when he nails it, he NAILS IT. (And absolute props to Peter Capaldi and Jenna Louise Coleman for their performances, because HOLY SHIT!)

i was tagged by @theyarebothgunshot to talk about 8 shows to get to know me. thank you for tagging me! putting this under the cut because i ramble.

In no particular order:

1: the oc/gossip girl: yeah okay i’m cheating right off the bat by conflating these two but i don’t care it makes sense! besides being from the same creator/production team, i think in many ways they are natural inverses of each other (west coast/east coast, new money/old money, evolving beyond what people expect of you vs buying into your own propaganda etc). listen i am a sucker for teen dramas, always have been and always will be, and i think these two changed the game in a BIG way. neither are thee mothership of the genre (i think that goes to beverly hills 90210???) but they are both so compelling in different ways and i very often find myself thinking about them (also in very different ways) years after watching them, and subconsciously compare characters on other shows to the main cast of each and they always fall short (you will never be blair waldorf you will never be seth cohen etc). plus the soundtracks! incredible. i can talk about the oc in particular for days and how it has what every other teen show secretly needs (sandy cohen) but this is already too long and i need to shut up.

2. miranda (bbc): listen. LISTEN. i re-watch this show every year without fail. it is the ultimate cozy feel good show that also somehow punches me in the face with how much of an Experience it is. i can’t describe to you what it was like watching this silly little comedy for the first time, getting sucker punched so thoroughly (in the best way) over and over and then to finally have the most satisfying conclusion i could have imagined. references from this show take up a not-insignificant amount of my vocabulary and i quote it daily. it’s so good. i love it so much.

3. friday night lights: anyone who has watched this show knows why. it’s so hard to explain, it’s just good. as someone who has never given even the slightest shit about any sports game of any kind, i think the highest compliment i could give this show is that it made me cry about football more than once. the only people i know who don’t love this show simply have not seen it (actually, people don’t talk about this show enough anymore?? that’s so sad). when i think of my favorite shows, i always have to include fnl because it’s just so sincerely excellent. i own two fnl t-shirts and i will gush about it unprompted if you give me even the tiniest window to do so. texas forever, clear eyes full hearts etc. micheal b jordan you will always be vince howard to ME.

4. gilmore girls: this one actually surprises even me because i never talk about it on tumblr dot com lol but i literally have it on as background noise as i type and it’s almost always my default when i just want to put something on that’s comforting. it’s weird because i can’t really say i LIKE the show as a whole but it’s so cozy (at least the first five seasons) and i do have a LOT of opinions about it, but in a kind of low-stakes way where it’s fun to think about instead rage-inducing. it’s strangely enough, something i can talk about for hours (and often do) without even realizing it.

5. smallville: oh my god the way i was obsessed with this show in middle school lmaoo the way it’s not technically GOOD but also it kind of is? full disclosure i’ve only seen the last few seasons like, once but i used to have the first five or six seasons practically MEMORIZED. it’s a good time, and while i don’t know much about the superman comics (or any comics) it’s my....favorite? iteration of superman that i’ve seen? idk, i thought tom welling and kristin kreuk were the two most beautiful people i’ve ever seen in my life and i loved watching them make out. also michael rosembaum was an incredible lex luthor and i stand by that. i also find myself talking about this show a lot in real life.

6. lost: one thing about me is that i WILL go off about how the lost finale was good actually and NO they were not dead the entire time you idiot -  at any given opportunity. it IS one of the five petty, inconsequential hills i will die on. it’s a good show with a good and fitting ending FIGHT ME ABOUT IT. also sawyer/juliet supremacy their reunion scene in the finale is the scene i compare all other romantic scenes to. nothing compares. scene of all time.

7. hey arnold: i know it’s a cartoon shut up! but consider this: it’s beautiful and good. i legitimately watch it all the time because it’s so funny and melancholy and sad and smart and the soundtrack slaps. also finally getting the jungle movie (which was a conclusion to a HUGE cliffhanger from my childhood) was proof that sometimes you can get closure, actually! this happened before reboots became unnecessary and exhausting leave me alone

8. supernatural: i watched this show after thee november fifth and it accidentally became my whole personality. i don’t even know.

honorable mentions: selfie abc (if you haven’t heard me whine about how it’s the one show in the world i actually want a reboot for you simply haven’t known me long enough); my mad fat diary (i will be thinking about finn writing ‘i love you’ on rae’s back for the rest of my life), ugly betty (i just love it a lot)

tagging: @bisansastarks @buttobstacle @mmaddens @richonnies @dwcas, @coachlasso @wordybee @ilarual @hauntedpearl @burgundyshoes @someoldlady @that-gender-bender @bananaleaves @korralone and anyone else who sees this and would like to do it!

So I've gotten a few of the revamped Discworld audiobooks

I really like what I'm hearing so far!

The ones I currently have are Small Gods(again), Wyrd Sisters (due to the miniseries I watched bits of as a small child, and which was my introduction to the Disc, though I knew it not then), Soul Music (I paid more attention to that miniseries, though I never fully processed "Susan's grandfather is Death" because I didn't know the context/missed the beginning), and Amazing Maurice (which was the first Discworld novel I ever read courtesy of Vision Australia).

I also got a set of BBC audio dramas, but I wasn't satisfied with some of them (the guy who played Death was not a bass and Death can't just be a tenor/baritone with a reverb slapped on I'm sorry I didn't make these rules.)

So, let's start with Small Gods, because I listened to the play version and then the new version read by Andy goddam Serkis.

So Andy did a phenomenal job, but who was expecting any different?

He did give Brutha a deeper voice than I expected from a seventeen-year-old but I got used to that (also I had just listened to the audio drama wherein Brutha was played by another tenor so I was a wee bit biased).

He also turned Om into David Lister from Red Dwarf and I don't know how to feel about that one except I hope Terry was listening in the afterlife and found it just as hilarious.

After consuming three separate versions of this book I can state with confidence that I would absolutely die for Brutha if that would not make him sad. He was such a good boy.

Death shows up just a little in this book but I'll gush about him in a minute.

Apart from the other plays, which I skimmed through, I've only read Soul Music, so let's just move on to that one okay?

Death has his own voice actor. I mentioned this the other night when I made the post wherein I related my discovery of the new set of audiobooks, but guys he is. Killing it. (pun absolutely intended and also completely true.) His voice is deep and dark and rolls like thunder and is the perfect balance of black honey on black velvet and GAH I LOVE IT. There need to be audiobook narrations awards just so Peter Serafinowicz could get seven.

Sian Clifford is also amazing, and captures Susan very well, as well as every other character, and I enjoyed listening to her extremely very much.

Seriously Peter's Death is the best iteration of Death I've ever heard and I watched the miniseries of this book, which had Death played by Christopher goddam Lee!

Peter does not, notably, attempt to speak for the Death of Rats. I do not mind this. Sian's "SQUEAK"s were adorable. (Can you do the Death font on Tumblr? I think I've seen the Death font rendered weirdly by my screen-reader before and I dunno if it was on here or TVTropes.)

I didn't get the Nigel version of this book but I heard the sample and he did what he always does with gloomy characters and made Susan sound cartoon glum and ... I'm glad that's not what I experienced here.

Terry's references are like finding chocolate coins every now and then when you turn a page and I love them.

In short, I believe I've made an excellent investment.

I really hope whoever narrates the Vimes books is as good as the guy who played him in the Night Watch drama. I think he was different from the guy who played him in the Guards! Guards! drama, which is why I'm pointing him out specifically. I'm sure I'll love the choice regardless, but I'm still gonna voice the hope.

Colorblind

masterlist request guidelines yes ma’am i’m back

pairing: draco x gryffindor!reader

request: yes! thank you kind anon :) this is the first request that really got me out of my writer’s block so i appreciate it!

summary: soulmate!au where the entire world is black and white except for your soulmate. y/n’s situation is a bit...unconventional. 

warnings: swearing and a little gore but it’s not explicit at all and just a mention

a/n: helloooooooo everyone! i know i’ve technically been “back from the dead” for nearly a month now, but this is the first time i’ve decided to jump back into writing. i’ve been working on the wonders of ohio bit by bit and have been horrified to see just how much my writing has deteriorated since last summer (when i was writing 1k words+ a day). i’d like to get into writing genuine original work during this quarantine, so i’m using my blog as a chance to polish up my own writing and work the kinks out before i touch my original ideas. thanks for being so patient with me !

music recs: figure 8 from peach pit, don’t delete the kisses from wolf alice, and bad things from cailin russo

word count: 3,098

Y/N frowned as she stirred the honey into her tea, watching the sugary swirls as they dissolved into the bottom of what she had been told was an amber drink. Her best friend, Tina, sat across from her in her snug Gryffindor robes, energetically recounting just how beautiful the color blue was.

“I had no idea, Y/N,” the brunette gushed, her cold triangle of buttered toast lying long forgotten on her plate as her hands added animation to her story. “You have to see it. He told me that the red in our robes brings out my eyes too--something about the color wheel and how green is opposite of red--and we made each other hold up our things so we could see what color its meant to be...honestly, it was such a dream...”

Even though Y/N was thrilled that Tina had found her soulmate in the convenient place of the Ravenclaw house--really, she was ecstatic for her friend--she couldn’t help but feel a little sad. She did quell the bitterness and envy that threatened to crawl its way up out of her throat, instead choosing to sit and pretend to listen as her own thoughts trailed off with a vacant smile on her face.

She’d been alive for 16 years, seen everyone there is to see at Hogwarts, traveled to every country that had a sizable young magic population, and had let her parents submit pictures of her to wizarding families all across the globe--only to still live in a dull world of simple blacks, whites, and greys. Friends like Tina had told her vibrant stories of the stunning hues of green, blue, red, purple, and gold, but Y/N had no way of knowing what they actually looked like, relying instead on her parents’ soft explanation of green as the color of life, blue as the color of peace, red as passion and anger, and yellow as the feeling of the sun hitting your skin after a long winter. 

Infuriating. She despised the security questions she had to fill out to open her Gringotts account (What’s your soulmate’s surname? What’s your favorite color?) and the unimpressed look of the goblin teller as they quietly conferred with her parents (”Sir, we rarely have complaints over this--statistically speaking, soulmates are found by the time a wizard or witch is old enough to handle money...). 

In other news, her love life was barren and dry, and at the end of the day, it was better to just not dwell on where she fell short. 

“I’ll stop going on about me,” Tina said, finally reaching down for her breakfast. “I want to hear about you. I’m so sorry that you have to put up with that crabby posh Daddy’s boy in Potions. You have my moral support. Always.”

“You mean Malfoy?”

Tina quirked an eyebrow as she took a sip of her own tea. “Yeah. Y/N, I have no clue how you’ve gone so long without being put off by that wanker. He’s so annoying. I know you don’t believe me, but you’re about to see for yourself in...erm..” She made a show of checking her pocket watch. “Less than an hour.”

“He doesn’t seem that bad,” Y/N countered. “I’ve spoken to him once or twice in the library. Doesn’t have much to say, but he was cordial. I’m not horrendously upset that we were assigned to be partners.”

“Did he know you were a Gryffindor?”

“I have no idea. Neither of us were wearing our robes, so I couldn’t tell you.”

Y/N’s friend rolled her eyes dramatically. “You’re going to be singing a very different tune come lunch. Trust me.”

<^>

The wooden stool that Y/N was perched on was uncomfortably wobbly as she waited, albeit a little nervously, for her potions partner to arrive. It had been an unwelcome selection process--or perhaps, lackthereof--that began with Slughorn reading off a canned speech regarding house unity and the importance of bridging the gap between old rivalries and ended with groups that consisted of one Slytherin and one Gryffindor and directions to create an immaculate Draught of Peace.

Not her favorite way to spend a Friday morning, but she admitted to herself that it could be far worse. She could be paired up with one of Malfoy’s goons--Crabbe or Goyle--who were by far much more obnoxious.

A slight movement in the corner of her eye pulled her attention back to the present. Y/N started at the dark figure standing by the empty stool next to her.

“Excuse me,” Malfoy said simply, placing his satchel on the table in front of them and sitting.

Y/N sent him a weak smile as she unrolled her parchment and began reviewing the ingredients. 

“I don’t mean to sound brash,” she began as she sorted the ingredients at their table, “but I’m pretty good at Potions. If you want to, you can just read the directions while I prepare everything.”

He seemed like he wasn’t quite listening to what she was saying, instead his eyes, unfocused and slightly cloudy, were settled on her braid that snaked around her shoulder.”Er, yeah. Sounds good.”

“Okay.”

As the pair began, Y/N couldn’t help but notice that Malfoy looked tired. His normally pristine and glowing skin looked dull and lifeless, decorated with dark eye bags under his slate-grey eyes. She was struck with a sudden desire to ask if he was alright but decided against it. The furrow in his brow as he glanced over the directions reminded her that they were simply partners for the week--and that Slytherins generally got into a hissy fit if people tried to act too buddy-buddy with them too quickly.

“Add the moonstone until it starts to steam,” he said after a few moments, apparently not noticing that she was already emptying the powdered moonstone into the cauldron. “Stir until completely dissolved.”

“Add syrup of hellebore.”

“Stir until the consistency is akin to cream.”

This went on for the rest of the lesson--Malfoy softly instructing her while Y/N consulted her own set of directions, just in case. As she worked, she couldn’t help but notice how unusual his hair was. It was unlike any other white she’d ever seen before--instead, it had some kind of warm hue to it. Y/N knew that no one her age actually had naturally white hair--Malfoy clearly had some iteration of “blond”, whatever that meant--but all the other light haired  wizards she had met had slightly grey tinges in their hair...not whatever he had going on. She shrugged it off and kept stirring.

An hour passed by much quicker than anticipated, and to her surprise, Malfoy never said anything even mildly irritating. Y/N stored this tidbit of information away with the interest of asking Tina why she thought he was such a dickwad. 

“I think that’s all we have to do today,” Malfoy said once they had added the porcupine quills and set the lid on for the night. 

“We really let it sit here until Monday?” she questioned, reviewing the parchment one more time. “That seems a little excessive.”

“Well, it’s not like--” He began waspishly before he took a breath and cast his eyes to the ceiling. “Er, I mean, I know that Slughorn casts a preservation spell on them over the weekend. There’s really no other way to do it without booking an entire day.” 

“I guess that makes sense.” 

He sent a surprisingly soft smile her way. It appeared that they had finished earlier than the rest of the students and had a couple more minutes until they were dismissed, so the silence around them was tense. Y/N decided to take a risk and ask something she assumed everyone, especially someone as allegedly ostentatious as Malfoy, liked talking about.

“So,” she began casually, twiddling her thumbs under the desk, “Have you found your soulmate yet?”

The few moments of complete and absolute quiet that followed after this question prompted her to send a glance over to Malfoy, who looked...completely stricken?

“Er....” His eyebrows furrowed as he looked her up and down. “Yes?”

Y/N had never had an interaction so awkward as she waited, tense and very weirded out, for him to just go ahead and pose the question back to her so she could break the ice and complain about how she’d searched far and wide for her soulmate and failed--but it never came. Malfoy just stared at her for another few heartbeats before he shut his slightly gaped mouth and turned to pack up his belongings.

Not another word was exchanged between them until Slughorn officially announced that they were all dismissed as long as their brewing stations were spotless. 

Malfoy was out the door before she even had a chance to say goodbye.

<^>

“So?” Tina sat at the edge of her seat, waiting for her friend to relay all the details of her potions adventure.

“Super weird,” Y/N answered. “He was nice. Didn’t say anything mean about my house or parents or wealth or anything. I asked him about his soulmate, though, and he totally clammed up.”

Tina’s eyes narrowed as she shifted on her bench and drew closer. “I haven’t heard a whisper of anything about his soulmate. Poor bloke probably doesn’t have one. I’m not surprised...no one deserves to be stuck with him forever.”

“No, that’s not it,” Y/N countered. “First of all, he’s not bad. I told you. Second of all, he told me he had one and looked at me like I was stupid for not knowing. It was weird.”

“I wouldn’t sweat it. He probably thinks he’s so important and sought after that all anyone talks about is him and was just offended that you didn’t know, I guess. This is what I mean. He’s such a prick.”

“Maybe.” Y/N found herself looking over to the Slytherin table, her eyes stopping on the curiously colored hair of a certain 6th year. He seemed especially down, hardly touching the spoon in his stew and choosing to look like the definition of angst instead. 

But in a very attractive way she admitted to herself. There was no denying it--Draco Malfoy was beautiful, in a tragic sort of way, like how paintings of imaginary places that you’ll never be able to actually visit for yourself are beautiful. 

His eyes snapped up to meet hers, jarring her out of her whimsical train of thought and bringing a blush to her cheeks. For once, she was relieved that no one could see her in color.

<^>

By the time Monday rolled around, Y/N was feeling more and more uneasy about her whole situation. Malfoy ignited some kind of weird feeling deep inside of her--almost like butterflies--as he absentmindedly tapped his lips with his quill, studying the directions sheet in front of them.

“How was your weekend?” Y/N asked, her voice a little pitchier than she would’ve liked. He arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow at this, hardly even bothering to glance her direction. 

“The usual,” he drawled. “I studied, mostly.”

“Nice. Way to keep us all on our toes.”

The slight smile that stretched across his face and the dimples that followed nearly made her knees weak, her hand shooting out to grasp the edge of the table before they gave in. “Yeah. You know me. The wild card.” His voice seemed bored, but she was just glad that the words coming out of his mouth weren’t entirely insufferable. 

Y/N sent him a soft smile, fiddling with the edges of her robes. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tina watching them intently.

“We only have to stir it 12 times counter clockwise and 14 times clockwise and add the unicorn horn powder before we let it simmer until Wednesday,” Y/N mused as she finally tossed the parchment back on the table. “Easy work. We should be done in about a half hour, give or take.”

They made quick work of the directions, the smell of their potion taking an amiable lilac like scent. 

“I think that means we didn’t royally fuck it up,” Draco offered as she rolled her sleeves back down and settled into the stool next to him.

Y/N smirked at him, a glimmer in her eyes. “We? Don’t you mean me?”

He laughed stiffly before immediately sobering up and packing up his things. “Sure. I’m going to ask Slughorn if I can leave early. See you.”

With that, he got up and left her alone. At face value, Y/N didn’t expect the situation to mean that much to her, but it left a bitter taste in her mouth and stung more than expected.

Shake out of it, Y/N, she chided herself. What does it matter, anyways?

<^>

A knock on her dorm room shook her out of a particularly thrilling study session for her DADA exam, whose notes she promptly shoved into her satchel at the suggestion of a welcome distraction.

“Come in!” she called. 

The door opened to reveal a particularly devious looking Tina. “I come with questions.”

“Please distract me from that tragic exam tomorrow,” she moaned, throwing herself on her bed. “Anything is better than thinking about it.”

Tina’s lip quirked as she settled down next to her friend. “It’s about your dear Potions partner.”

“What about him?”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you were looking at him today.” Tina propped her chin up into her hand. “You like him.”

“I most certainly do not!” Y/N said hotly. “I mean...I think he’s cute, and his hair reflects the light in this really cool way, but no! I’m not an idiot!”

“Of course you’re not an idiot,” Tina soothed. “He’s objectively a very pretty person. No harm in appreciating that. And now that you’ve spent a little more time with him, and you’re realizing that maybe he isn’t an arsehole, I could totally understand why you’d develop feelings for him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“How am I being ridiculous?”

“He’s already found his soulmate, Tina. I’m not masochistic enough to want to pine after a boy who already has his person.” As the weight of the words sunk in, Y/N could feel her chest tighten for just a moment. Tina just kept watching as she moved to gently wrap a hand around her shoulder.

“So say I do like him, just a little bit,” Y/N continued as her voice grew softer. “Say I actually let myself develop feelings for him even though I know there’s no way he’s my soulmate. Say I actually give in and have to see him every day knowing that he’s in love with someone else. Don’t you think that’s a little too much for me? I want to find my soulmate! I don’t want to mess around with anyone unless it’s with them.”

Her friend was quiet, but she moved her arm to wrap around Y/N’s frame. 

“I’d just really like to find my soulmate already,” Y/N finished up. “And I’m afraid that they’re not even out there. So, no. No detours allowed.”

Tina smiled a little at this, sitting up to instead pat her friend on the back. “You’ve always been the more focused one. I respect that. But I am saying that there’s no harm in seeing other people while you wait.”

Y/N shrugged. “Yeah. Fairs. Now, I hate to say this, but I have a list of spells a metre long just waiting to be memorized for the exam tomorrow. I’d love to tell you the rest of all my gushy secrets once that’s taken care of.”

“Of course!” Tina kissed her friend on the cheek and skipped off. “Just don’t go too crazy studying. I still need a best friend to bitch to at breakfast.”

“No promises!”

<^> 

“Add a little more powdered moonstone,” Malfoy instructed from her right, “Just until it starts to boil.” 

Y/N went to reach for it, catching a glimpse of her partner on the way. There was something just so magnetizing about him, something so delicate and stunning. She couldn’t help but feel a quick twinge of envy for whoever his soulmate was. 

The sound of the moonstone slipping into the potion pulled her back into reality, and she quickly stirred to avoid an unwelcome explosion. 

“And now the chopped gillyweed.” 

Y/N turned to their stockpile of ingredients, only to see whole cloves of gillyweed.

“I have to confess something,” she said, still stirring vigorously. Malfoy snapped to attention so quickly it almost made her jump. “I’m shit with a knife. Can you chop it for me? I have to keep stirring this anyways.”

What looked like disappointment flashed across his face for just a moment before he stood up and reached for a knife. “Sure.”

Y/N nodded and turned back to the concoction, careful to make sure that the moonstone wasn’t clumping together at the surface as she waited for Malfoy to be done with the gillyweed.

“Fuck!” 

Y/N turned to see Malfoy’s hand covered in--no way.

His hand was covered in blood, as was the knife that was held tightly by his right hand. 

“Fuck, fuck, can you hand me a towel?”

Y/N couldn’t help but stare as the words from her parents floated back into her head (Green is the color of life, blue is peace, red is passion and anger...). 

“It’s red.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Your hand. It’s red.” Now that she looked closer, she could see hints of colors that she’d never seen before in him--a soft hue that reminded her of first kisses and the scent of roses in his cheeks and lips, a warm, sunny glow in his hair, and a cool, startling color in his eyes that seemed like the color for getting thrown into a cold lake on a summer afternoon.

He was staring right back at her, his eyes wide and his breathing quick. 

“It’s you, isn’t it,” she breathed. “It’s been you all along. If only you hadn’t worn those blasted black suits all the time instead of your robes..”

The corners of his mouth crinkled into a smile.

“Ms. Y/L/N, step out of the way,” Professor Slughorn interrupted, rolling up his sleeves and getting his wand out. “Draco, boy, this looks deep. Get on up to the infirmary now. Don’t dally.” 

“Meet me,” he whispered as he made to leave. “Tonight. In front of the library. I guess we have some things to discuss.”

“Yes, yes, I guess we do.” Y/N cheeks were hurting from smiling, and as he left the room, the color fading from her vision, she had never been so content to be in pain in her life.

final a/n: hi everyone :) welcome back! can’t wait to write more! sorry if this was a bit of a trainwreck...i haven’t written in a long time and this is the first thing i’ve done since college apps. all feedback is appreciated! thank you! also apologies for any plotholes or spelling errors! i wrote this in a day and i know it’s a little messy oops

Happy. Starbucks. Sunday. OMG.

I’ve been vaguely around for the past couple weeks. Then we had to skip last week because DD and I were jamming to Bad Wolves and Papa Roach—totally worth it, by the way— It’s been so long since we’ve been able to make it to a live event that I actually can’t quite place our last concert in the timeline… I think it was Breaking Benjamin…before the pandemic. But, anyway, we deaf peeps love our hard rock and big noise. We’re seeing Greta Van Fleet again later this month (sssoooooo excited; this one is my fave), and have tix for Breaking Benjamin when they pass through in May.

This probably feels hella irrelevant, but I’m gushing, because, friends, I feel like I’m finally coming back home after a long forced sabbatical. I’ve been really ill since December last year, as in, operating on depleted body functions. I’ve had several Iron and IVIG infusions to get my basal metabolic panel to come back reading any slant toward normal. My main antipsychotic/mood control/migraine and (possible) seizure control med was taken away, for there’s literature that it, along with pretty much every other med on the planet, can have headaches as a side effect. I guess it’s a fair thing to try a taper-and-switch in a patient like me who has had zero relief from other established treatments, but, long story short, bigtime fail, many weeks taper off, realize mistake, a few more weeks to taper back on (so as not to induce a rash or psychotic episode), and finally, finally I get to about 3/4 of my dose, and I’m like, wow. If I just put the keyboard on the iPad for a few minutes, I wonder what will happen? And I’m actually willing to do it and find out, which is 10,000 steps up from a few days ago, when it was more like, can I get out of bed to go get a cup of tea, look at the blank schedule, and find something productive to do? Um, no. Cry on DD’s lap, then probably listen to NPR for an hour before either being colonized by a cat or getting the gumption to empty the dishwasher or smth, whilst feeling guilty I haven’t made creative content on any social media platform or done a project with the kids in living memory.

So, deep breath. Sorry for wasting your time and space. I trust you guys to look out for me, and I think you deserve to get a truthful explanation for why I’ve been kinda hands-off and flighty and turning out very few pieces that, well, aren’t that good. I’m back in my own, good, regular headspace now, and I’m so relieved. While this blog will always be an autocratic one-man show, provided to the public for free at my convenience, it will always also have a place for recs, reqs, and comment cards. I want to write what pleases me, and I want to write what pleases you. It makes me happy to see the likes and reblogs gain numbers. Yeah, I roll my eyes at a prompt here and there. Some of them are so positive, letting me know you want more/different iterations of things I’ve put up before. And sometimes you hit me with amazing ideas that make sparks fly.

Again, to summarize:

-I’m feeling much better. Probably better than I have so far this year.

-Hopeful the quality/quantity of things will pick up, but life is still very big and obstacle-y. (Baby is in hospital, I have tons of appointments, and just DD and I are home with the kiddos rn.)

-Please, my followers, continue supporting and reading and requesting and doing what you do. I love you.

And with that, here is today’s Starbucks Sunday plan:

-Classic prompt play, but with parameters, please:

-For Captain America, stick to Powers/No Powers or Whoa Bessie ‘verses. (The others with popular reqs either need a break or are getting an overhaul soon.)

-St. Patrick’s day/green beer is fine because DD said so. 🤣 Please no underage or Irondad and Spiderson.

-Bits and pieces that could use some attention, if you need some inspiration: Jonestown ‘verse, Clint + Nat + Laura, Whoa Bessie ‘verse pre-Steve (James struggling alone in the apartment or in therapy w/ Nat or Sam), Venom/Veddie (super fun to do in, like, 200-word bursts with minimal context, if you have a specific symptom or misadventure in mind)…

-Ask game is going up, feel free to play or ask a Q of your own.

- I’m going to try to stay in the time parameters as best I can (logging off around 6:30 PM US Eastern, Daylight Savings), because it helps DD and the bbs stay regulated (and me, too, really).

NOW— a couple things coming up:

- April is designated We fit like an Enfit (Tube ‘verse) month. I will be writing ONLY for that ‘verse during April, except during SS, when everything goes. I loosely plan to :

-finish/round up Cuts and Scrapes (currently missing part III)

-Catch you up with and iron out the timeline, starting from Steve’s diagnosis and leading off to where he is at “present” as a functional tubie x2, minus a colon, plus a BF with a spiffy arm and Bluetooth ears. There are a few, like, major event stories, I guess I’d call them? Like, not super long (or maybe super long, you know me, and this hasn’t made it from scribble notes to computer yet), but stories that would read like an episode of a TV drama series? That’s the best way I could describe them. I need to do 3 or 4 and place them among the stories I’ve already written for the ‘verse. The boys have this established backstory, I just haven’t had a chance to get it all written out yet!!

-take all your questions about everything related to Tube ‘verse and the likes. I tend to roll with medical slang when I write; it just seems to flow better that way, but I know some of you get it and some of you probably don’t. And for what things look like, feel like, anatomy, recovery, illness, intimacy, whatever… Be as nosy as you want; nothing is a “stupid” question, and if anything is out of bounds, I’ll answer for Steve, a fictional character with no say-so, and everything will be fine.

-Collect your Tube ‘verse prompts and see where you’re interested in seeing the boys go from here. I have a lot if work to do to prop the ‘verse up to look the way I want it to, but, seriously, going forward, I have yet to make any plans. I’ll obviously act as the executive, ensuring all fics are medically realistic and done up properly, but feel free to drop your ideas. Inspire me. Let me know what you want to read.

-And a scheduling note— I think things look good to keep pressing on as usual, but there may be a cancel here or there in the spring/summer timetable due to little buddy’s ballet performance timings. He’s doing amazing things—has medical challenges and tubes like me, but he’s gained, like, three levels’ worth of strength/technique/coordination in the past academic year. When he first started in the entry class, he couldn’t distinguish pointe/flex, do a push up, pick knees up and skip… and now he does pilates teasers on the living room floor just for fun, can do rond de jambes at tempo back to front and front to back, AND he’s holding passe balance so well that he’s leaning the steps to prepare for a pirouette!! Sorry, I’m being such a weepy little old millennial here, bragging on my kid, but I’ve been out of commission for all of 2022 so far, and seeing little guy excel in my playing field… it’s just the coolest thing.

Ah, sorry to bombard you with all that. To quote the late, great Tony Stark:

Go break some eggs.

Haunted By Ghosts - How ‘Sister Cities’ Helped Me Come to Terms With Acceptance

Death is, unfortunately, pretty inevitable.

I’m the kind of person who will do whatever I can to deal with it when it happens rather than dwelling on it. I don’t handle it well regardless of what kind of form I’m facing it in; all cinemas in a five mile radius of Cannock can tell you what kind of state I was in by the end of Avengers: Endgame. However, if you’re reading this, more likely than not you understand what it’s like to hit the stage where you wake up and someone you care about just isn’t here any more, and there’s nothing you can do. It’s a stage which I hate being in because I don’t know how to deal with it - should I be sad? Angry? Was there something more I could have done? Was there more I should have said? And so on.

Just over two years ago, I lost someone close to me. I was in the hospital with her with my family when they passed, and being there for that moment is something that will stay with me forever. One moment they were lying in the hospital bed across from me, and by the time I had drawn my next breath they had gone. It was a bizarre experience for all the wrong reasons; I’d encountered death before and I knew it was hard, but I’d never been in the room to witness it happen. This was something we’d know about for about a year, something I’d constantly been telling myself I’d been braced for - but the reality was I was when I thought I was braced, I was merely driving pretending I was wearing a seat belt. I remember some moments unfortunately vividly, like sitting outside the room afterwards trying to process everything that had happened, or climbing onto the roof with my cousin and just sitting there with him. I also remember driving home with my Mom, and I Promise by Radiohead coming on the radio, and the opening line ‘I won’t run away no more, I promise’ felt like a sign from above telling me everything would be okay - even now I look back at that moment and feel like something was guiding me to that song, and I used it to help me through the healing process. Yet for months, I couldn’t shift it all from my head. I felt l was doing the opposite to what Yorke had sang at me those nights ago - I was running away from how I felt and I couldn’t address it because I didn’t know how, and I felt myself sinking lower and lower from a year that in a rain that started in January and left me drenched through December and into the new year.

April 2018 was where for the first time I started addressing it to myself. In the mail arrived my copy of Sister Cities, the new (at the time) album by one of my all time favourite bands, The Wonder Years. Every album I’ve loved of theirs, but there’s major change with every iteration. 

The opening track of each album shows a shift, both lyrically and musically. Their first album, The Upsides, is one big generic pop-punk cluster (and I don’t mean that in a bad way, the album is amazing) - yet from the get go, the lyrical mastery of Dan Campbell is prevalent. The “I’m not sad any more, I’m just tired of this place” opening line of ‘My Last Semester’ carries all the way to the final track of the album, showing the world that by digging through the pop-punk riffs and humorous lyrics about feeling socially awkward at parties, there’s depth to be found at the bottom. 

(For the record, I’m aware that Get Stoked On It! is technically their first album, but considering the band don’t play any of the songs live and have actively said they hate it, for the purpose of this I’m choosing to ignore it.)

‘Came Out Swinging’ opens up second (third?) album Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing with Allen Ginsberg reading an excerpt from one of his poems, before bursting into an outlook onto the band’s life after touring through the first (second? I swear I’ll stop doing this now…) album. I get a sense that in this album, the band seem to have carried the torch of The Upsides on - yet somehow, differently. Change is inevitable, but rather than it seeming like a stranger knocking at your door, the change of style sweeps in like your best friend coming over for a cup of tea. The Greatest Generation indicates it with a genuine sincerity from Dan singing “I’m sorry I don’t laugh at the right times” during opening track ‘There, There’. The openness continues not only through this album but into the next, with ‘Cardinals’ seeming more like a confessional of not helping a friend in need than an opener to No Closer to Heaven. However, their (at this moment in time) most recent album that resonated me most over their five (six? Okay, I’m serious now.) album run that spoke to me intensely personally. This album didn’t just impact me because of the lyrical themes, but because to me it felt like in the time I’d spent listening to the band, I’d grown and evolved as a person alongside the band.

I didn’t know what to expect from this album - I never do when I listen to their music for the first time, but listening to the two songs they’d released before the album dropped, the title track and Pyramids of Salt, gave me indication this wasn’t something I could anticipate like I’d done it a million times before. It’s like they’d shed their pop-punk cocoon and become an atmospheric, alternative rock being unlike what I’d heard from them previously.

Album opener Raining in Kyoto instantly refers to Campbell’s grief of losing a loved one while on tour and about his guilt for not being around for the funeral. The lines “It’s been over a year now, April turns into May/I’ve barely stopped moving, I’ve been so fucking afraid/Too much of a coward to even visit your grave” hit me like a ton of bricks, as much did the rest of the album to come. I even felt deep relation the choruses where he mentions sitting in hospital beside the person in question, as it took me back to the months we’d been visiting where I wished we could just take her home and everything would somehow be okay. Listening through, the way I personally interpreted the album was Campbell running away from grief while going around the world, and by the end of the album coming home and coming to terms with everything - not letting go, but forgiving yourself of blame. Even months, years even, after these events, I still read the lyrics to the songs on this album and find new meaning to them. I remember being so lost I was walking around my neighbourhood at 3am, and ‘We Look Like Lightning’ came on and I just understood - I felt like “the stranger in my bed”, yet all of a sudden it was like everything made sense, and soon after I went home. I felt the weight of ‘The Ghosts of Right Now’ and ‘Pyramids of Salt’ - the lyrics “I wanna take you somewhere safer/Pull your pain out with my teeth” from the former and “I’m helpess/And you’re drowning/And I’m beating at the water here so desperately” from the latter reminded of everything we’d known was coming, everything I wish I could have done but everything I’d chosen to push to the back of my mind about due to fear and denial.

The whole album is a journey of grief and acceptance, and although I thank every song as a whole for helping me through the process, closing track ‘The Ocean Grew Hands to Hold Me’ was my crutch for most of my healing. It was like I’d been looking for someone to blame for a long time, and I used to blame God a lot for not answering any prayers I’d given during the longest night of my life, and it was like Campbell felt the same. Even down to the the little things, like the lyric “I came to numb my lungs in the salt air” reminding me of sitting on the hospital roof with my cousin. I remember crying when I heard the lyrics “I’ll hold you with my left hand and ball up my right/And if the bastards come for the both of us, I’ll be right there by your side/I’m by your side” for the first time (and almost every subsequent time after that) because I felt like when we were there just as the moment came, looking after who we lost. As the song wrapped up and my first of what feels like thousands of listens of the album came to an end, I remember sitting in silence for a moment and absorbing what I’d just heard. I listened constantly for the next few weeks and the album inspired me to come to terms with what had happened almost a year before and to carry the torch for who we’d lost. Now, every time I listen to this album I feel a sense of reflection - that I can feel who I’ve lost looking down and telling me that it’s okay to carry on.

Grief is hard to get through, but having things to keep you going helps you focus on the here and now. I couldn’t ever thank The Wonder Years enough for releasing Sister Cities when they did, and I don’t know what I’d have done without it. I would like to thank my friends and family for helping me through one of the roughest 8 months of my life, even if they didn’t know it. If you made it through this “little” piece (which turned into me basically gushing about the album), then thanks for coming on this journey with me and listening to what I had to say. Finally, I want to say thanks to my Nan, who’s courage and strength I I will forever admire and hopefully one day be able to achieve.

Death may be one hell of a hurdle to overcome, but the memories you make with the people you love keep them alive forever.

Horizon: Zero Dawn review

Here’s a weird little idiosyncrasy-slash-crippling weakness of mine - I find it nearly impossible to write about things I really enjoy. Perhaps it’s because I hate gushing, but I can’t really overstate just how fucking annoying it is that I can only provide opinions on art that is either some version of ‘okay’, or ludicrously shit. For example, I’ve previously mentioned that there are only three or four pieces of art that I’ve witnessed in the world that I would nominate as a 10 out of 10, and try as I might I simply can’t seem to find the words to adequately express my feelings about them. I think the issue here is that I feel like my commentary on an amazing piece of art needs to meet some invisible standard of quality wherein it gives an excellent description of the piece’s virtues without resorting to effusive emotional over-statement, and anyone who knows me knows that effusive emotional over-statement is my jam.

So I suppose this is one of the reasons why it’s taken me so long to talk about Horizon: Zero Dawn. 

Well, that, and the fact that it’s not quite as black and white as ‘it’s an excellent open-world action-RPG’. I mean, it IS an excellent open-world action-RPG, but this fact is only part of the appeal, and even though I might think it is the bee’s knees, I have to counterbalance this with the fact that there is a lot about Horizon: Zero Dawn that isn’t particularly original, especially in today’s over-saturated open-world action-RPG market. If Horizon was one of only a few games in its genre it could quite possibly be one of the best games ever made, but I have trouble giving it that label precisely because of the glut of other releases from which it borrows its features from - if you’ve played any of the Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted games then you’ll be well-acquainted with the stalky-stabby-hidey-ridey-hack-and-slashy-climby-climby gameplay on show here.  

But don’t let my shilly-shallying about the mechanics of the game distract from the fact that I think it’s a landmark release; it holds a place rather similar to The Witcher 3 in my mind, in that it takes a decade of iteration and expansion in its genre and makes a masterpiece out of that, and again, much like The Witcher 3, this almost entirely comes down to the quality of the writing and performances, as complimented by fantastic mechanics and gorgeous visuals. 

Horizon: Zero Dawn is the story of Aloy (not ‘alloy’) - an outcast from birth from the Nora tribe, a band of primitive and superstitious humans who, since having their lands raided and their peoples kidnapped by the blood-thirsty former king of the neighbouring Carja tribe, have become deeply xenophobic and isolated in their mountain-hemmed valley. Aloy is raised by Rost, a seasoned hunter and rigidly principled man determined to uphold his exile for reasons he refuses to explain. As Aloy approaches her 18th birthday she opts to take part in The Proving - a test of her physical and mental skills that offers her the chance to fully rejoin the tribe. But when the competitors in The Proving are attacked by a band of raiders who seem intent on killing Aloy in particular, she is nominated as a Seeker by the Nora elders, and is free to travel into the larger world with the mission of discovering both her origins, and the cause of the new scourge upon her community. 

And this patchy and kind-of-inaccurate synopsis is really as much as I can say without moving into spoiler territory, which is a damn shame, because Horizon has one of the best stories of any game I’ve played in a long, long time. This is not just down to the quality of the story itself, but also to the quality of the storytelling. Horizon takes everything I raved about in my post about Black Isle’s use of exploration and the design of the game world as a storytelling medium, and applies it to great effect. As such, we, the players, are placed in the same role as the protagonist - beginning in a child-like stage, we are vulnerable, and introduced to the dangers and wonders of the world bit by bit, and as we explore further into the unknown, the environment around us grows and grows and grows, becoming ever-more awe-inspiring as we progress. It really is a near-perfect mixture of open-world gameplay and curated exploration, and there is rarely a point in which you feel like you shouldn’t be moving too far ahead because you’re going to bypass something interesting. As in New Vegas, the use of wide valleys as a way to both make the player feel like they’re free to roam whilst also meting out the features of the game is flawlessly executed, and results in an open-world game that is also, somehow, impeccably paced. 

This only really falters in two places - firstly, when the largest section of the game is opened up and one is overwhelmed by the amount of opportunity suddenly available, and secondly, in the fact that the story missions don’t exactly lead you delicately through the map. One of the earliest missions after you leave the opening territory sends you to the farthest corner of the game world, and the fact that I would have to pass so much content in order to get there triggered my FOMO and led me to leave the story until the very, very, final end of the game once I’d completed everything else there was to do. This was a mistake, a) because the story is fantastic and you don’t lose anything by completing it earlier on, and b) because once you’ve conquered literally every other challenge the game throws at you, pursuing the story feels a little redundant. It’s also a shame that so much of the main quests take place at one specific, isolated end of the world, which is a strange miscalculation in my opinion when the developers have created such a rich, gorgeous, and varied environment for their players to explore. 

But even if I think that these things could have been improved on, they ultimately don’t do much to overshadow the achievements of the game in all of its other areas. The characters look unbelievably lifelike, and despite the occasionally stilted facial animation and some static conversation camerawork, the characters are voiced and animated extremely well. The script is intelligent and emotive, and tells an incredibly compelling story that I just want to talk about with SOMEONE (please, for the love of God, Alice, finish the fucking game!), which is especially noteworthy because Horizon goes out of its way to offer a strange and beautiful world that poses so many questions to the player, and then makes the incredible effort to answer pretty much every one of them by the time it’s over. 

I should elaborate here for those that aren’t acquainted with the game - Aloy lives in a world populated by machines. Specifically, machines that look like animals. Most are in some way aggressive, although apparently that wasn’t always the case, and the game’s death cult enemies have managed to corrupt and enslave some of them in order to use them as weapons. These animals range from flying bird-like creatures to giant bulls to fire-and-ice-shooting crocodiles to gargantuan dinosaurs. And in the course of encountering these creatures, you’ll also encounter the diverse biomes that they exist in: cold Nordic wastelands, humid and palm-dotted Egyptian river deltas, arid North American mesas, and even the ruins of an ancient civilisation. And it would be one thing for the developers to have just imagined a fantasy universe in which all these things exist a hop, skip, and a jump from one another, and to leave it at that - Final Fantasy has been successful for three decades doing this very same thing. But it’s all explained, everything is explained, and the explanation is compelling and evocative and interesting and fun. There aren’t many stones left unturned, and yet the game never feels like it’s bogging you down in exposition or having to slow to a crawl to catch you up; I was happy to watch and listen as the mysteries were revealed, and Horizon is one of very few games with such an ambitious narrative that is actually worth the effort you take to uncover it. 

But hey, it can’t hurt that the uncovering is just so much fun, can it? Taking a leaf from CD Projekt Red’s soon-to-be award winning book ‘Open-World Game Design, And How Not To Fuck It All Up’, Horizon is filled to the brim with fun and interesting gameplay, challenging and wonder-invoking enemies, engaging characters, and many, many varied side-quests. In fact, the game is one of only a few to clearly divert from the typical ‘main quest/side quest’ delineation of most modern open-world games. Instead, Horizon operates on a number of levels; the first of which being the main missions in which you investigate Aloy’s past; the second being a number of multi-staged, large-in-scope second-tier missions in which you deal with ongoing problems in the world at large like civil wars and wide-reaching political intrigues; the third level involves the smaller, one-off side missions more typical of these games such as saving strangers from danger or helping resolve disputes; and then you have all the other additional content such as hunting and gathering quests, collectibles of various types, and various combat challenges. This variety staves off a lot of tedium that one feels in other, lesser games, and keeps you constantly surprised and engaged given that you never quite know exactly how deep the next story is going to go. Even the most basic challenges (hunt here, kill there, etc, etc) are fun because the combat and stealth gameplay is so enjoyable, and the fact that most machines can be crippled or destroyed in a number of different, spectacular, and rewarding ways only adds to the challenge and variation and excitement in taking them down. It’s something that makes the game exciting to come back to after you’ve finished it, and even though I’m still playing Assassin’s Creed: Origins, I know that it’s probably going to be a one-and-done situation for me, in the same way that ALL the other Assassin’s Creed games have been. Whereas Horizon? I’m definitely going to return to it, and I’m going to approach it in a totally different way, because I can.

It’s worth a mention as well that the game doesn’t just maintain a high standard of quality and integrity in its mechanics, but also in its DLC, and it’s extremely heartening to see that the only additional content released for the the game is more akin to the expansion packs from the days of yore - a single, 15-odd-hour addition to the base game that has its own story and environment and additions to the gameplay that are both seamless and complimentary to the base, as well as being a substantial and worthwhile standalone investment. In fact, just looking it up now, ‘The Frozen Wilds’ is actually officially referred to as an ‘expansion pack’, and this gives me all kinds of warm-and-fuzzy feelings (and for some reason makes me want to go back and play the Mysteries of the Sith expansion for Dark Forces 2). 

The Frozen Wilds is apparently the first and last addition we will see for the game, which is a shame because it’s so good, but then again I’d always prefer to have a numerically smaller amount of great content than be overfed on shitty cosmetic items, crap DLC quests, and other such symptoms of the disease that is modern DLC culture. And while I can’t say with certainty that Guerilla Games won’t release anything else for the game, there’s something uniquely joyous in knowing that to buy the DLC for Horizon is to improve a complete game with some relevant extra content that expands the lore and experience, rather than feeling like you’re just stapling something functionally redundant and narratively incongruent to the body of the main game. 

With God of War’s recent release to massive acclaim, I’m becoming more and more convinced that console-exclusive games are one of the few things keeping the spirit of artistic integrity and quality in the ‘AAA’ industry alive. Were it not for games like that and like Horizon: Zero Dawn, which stand sparsely in resistance to the flood of catch-all money-machine publisher/developers that produce barely-iterative annual-release tat, we’d be drowning in a sea of games infinitely wide and an inch deep (and yes, despite my positive impressions of their newest releases, I’m still talking about companies like Ubisoft, whose games are both fun and tiresome at the same time). And so it is that Horizon: Zero Dawn is legitimately one of the best games available to play on the PS4 right now, and one of the best open-world action-RPG games ever released, and it’s a shame that rather than shining down upon us like a beacon from the heavens, its light is somewhat lost amongst the sea of other lesser, but like-minded releases. I suppose one could call this a flaw in the game’s design, but when you get down and play the thing it becomes difficult to figure out how to frame it as such when everything it does is in some way an improvement over how its been done before. It is, without any doubt in my mind, a must-play, and I really need to talk about the story with someone, so please, for the love of god Alice, finish the damn game already. 

9.5/10

(Very) Outstanding

@airquietworks said: Which members of Class 1A would actually get into it?

(in regards to the post I made about Eri liking My Little Pony and making Class 1-A watch it with her)

Excellent question! Let’s examine that shall we (keep in mind that I’m talking about the latest iteration, Friendship Is Magic, because it’s the only one I am familiar with to any degree):

@hatefilledpoptarts Posited that Bakugou would get pretty into the mythos of the show, but not so much like the show itself. He does have a lot of theories though and isn’t happy about it. He subtly reminds her about when to watch and that he guesses he’ll watch it with her if she really wants him to. If you twist his arm he’ll admit that some of the season final episodes had pretty good fights.

Izuku would be pretty into it, even like it, Mythos and all, though mostly for the benefit of keeping up with Eri while he’s watching it with her. He likes the animation and the lessons and the music, he thinks he would have really liked it as a kid if he didn’t only watch All-might related stuff back then. Eri said that he reminds her of Twilight Sparkle and that she’s her favorite, he considers it a compliment.

Ochako would be really into it, she’s always one of the first to join Eri on the couch whenever a episode comes on. They sing the songs together both during and after the episodes. They sing the Cupcake song every time they cook something together in the kitchen, even if it isn’t cupcakes. She really likes Applejack.

Tsuyu is used to watching little kids shows with her younger siblings, so she sits down and watches without any complaining, even enjoying herself. She’s the first one Eri comes to whenever she wants to talk about the show, since Tsuyu is a good listener when it comes to that kinda thing.

Iida would commend the show for aspiring to teach young children valuable lessons in cooperation and friendship. The show itself kinda stumps him though, he just keeps getting stuck on the fact that its a bunch of talking horses. The irony that he’s seen some pretty weird things in his life is lost on him. He admires Twilight’s dedication for studding though.

As for Momo, she tries her darnedest, but she just...doesn’t get it, she still sits down with Eri without complaining though. 

Kouda would love Fluttershy, of course he would, he is Fluttershy. They both have pet rabbits even!

Kirishima would be glued to his seat along side Ochako, showing no shame what so ever in watching and enjoying a children's cartoon, in a different world he might have even called himself a brony....but that’s neither here nor there. Rainbow Dash is his absolute favorite.

Kaminari wouldn’t really get the show honestly, he thinks the Pegasus ponies are kinda cool though, “I would make an awesome Pegasus.”

Same thing for Kyouka, she was never really into that super cutesy stuff even when she was young enough for it. She does like the music though, just not the musical numbers, just some of the background tracks are really cool in her opinion.

Aoyama would find his spirit animal in Rarity, every episode where she is the main focus has his full attention. The rest is just okay in his eyes.

Mina and Hagakure would be all over this show, thinking its the cutest thing ever and just loving it. They’d probably watch episodes online whenever they have the time and not just with Eri. Pinkie Pie steals their hearts within two minutes of screen time.

Todoroki would be just as lost as Momo, he likes the songs though!

Same for Ojirou, he just smiles and nods whenever Eri gushes about the show and just kinda zones out whenever he’s watching it with the rest, having given up on actually understanding it.

Tokoyami actually really likes it, but would not admit it even under threat of death, his edgelord pride would not stand for it. He’s still miffed that Sombra barely did anything before being defeated. 

Sero and Shouji and Satou just think its okay.  

Nobody cares what Mineta thinks.

But whatever they think of the show, every single week without fail, they all gather in the common room and watch the newest episode with Eri. Even if they don’t like it, the smile she gives off whenever she watches and when she thanks them for coming when it’s over is always worth it.

Bonus: Izuku and Bakugou talking about the show when ever they take a break from training:

“I still think Discord turning good was a load of crap.”

“I thought it was sweet! Fluttershy just appealed to his better nature.”

“He is the freaking spirit of chaos and disharmony for fuck’s sake! What part of that makes it sound like he’d have a better fucking nature, Deku?”

“Disharmony is not the same thing as evil! He still causes trouble, just without hurting anybody!”

“Whatever, I still call bullshit, people just don’t turn nice just because you give them a stern fucking talking to and offer to be their friend.”

“You would know that huh Kacchan...”

“FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY FUCKING DEKU!?”

“NOTHING! Hey look at the time! Better get going!”

“Get back here so I can love and tolerate the shit out of you!”

Attack of the Asks! ...Again.

My inbox has over 350 messages. I THINK IT’S TIME to fix that. So, consider this the first of many jumbo ask dumps where I will (hopefully) answer those questions you’ve been dying to see answered. Also, apologies for the repost. Tumblr accidentally posted it BEFORE I was ready.

Well, I’ll put it this way. IF No Mercy is an expanded campaign with at least six major boss battles. My goal is to explore cause and effect rather than replicate the original UT  No Mercy mode. The story will be more thorough, and I aim to explore how these iterations of the characters would handle the threat of an actually hostile human. Make what you will of that.

Golly, wouldn’t that be something? Hehehe…

Alphys Takes Action is a pretty cool song, I will admit, and that does sound neat. I’m just hesitant of basing IF music off of other fantracks overall. One Shall Prevail has a Backbone influence, but recent iterations have made it more unique. I like that.

Imgur is the go-to site for most AU makers, but bear in mind that you may have to manually rearrange all of your caps. Imgur can be a bit temperamental.

I have a few vague ideas of how an IF + Fell combo might work, including Pap as a wacky, Dr. Eggmanesque scientist trying to make Frisk his sidekick among other shenanigans. I think he’d still help Frisk, but do so in more dangerous ways to prepare them for their deadly circumstances, whereas Sans would be a more legitimate threat and Undyne… I think she’d be even more consumed by her thirst for justice against humanity to a point that it’s ALL she focuses on anymore, and she’s more distant from her friends and the monsters that once looked up to her. IF Undyne may be fixated on getting that final soul, but while it has left her desperate, aggressive, and with tunnel vision, she’s not so consumed by it that she only cares about revenge. She still actively works to make monsters’ lives easier and make their dreams come true. I feel that fear would be a central theme in IF + Fell, with monsters wearing red and black and generally being more aggressive as a response to their fear of humanity (inspired by voltra’s Underfell interpretation). In the aftermath of the war, there’d be a mentality that only the strong can survive, thus the kindness and compassion innate to monsters would be suppressed in favor of hardening themselves off to a more hostile world. Thus, Alphys would probably be more cold and disciplined as a result of having to suppress her weaknesses. Whereas IF Alphys tries to bury her emotions and act the part of a strong leader, in the case of IFell, the mask would have consumed the poor girl, and her passionate, nerdy side would be deeply bottled up. MTT himself probably take on his human annihilation robot status with a bit more gusto while still serving as the Underground’s shining star. Probably more of a propaganda figure, though I think deep down he’d still hold humanity in high regard and desire to see their strength and convictions firsthand. I think he’d also be extremely protective of Napstablook, acting as a bit of a bodyguard for his ghostly cousin. I can’t say much about Toriel and Asgore due to IF spoilers, but on the whole, I think IFell would be less about edge and more about helping these monsters see that there IS still room for love and compassion in the world, allowing them to open up once more and embrace their true selves. Flowey, however, would be the same sassy weed we know and love, because it’s an IF derivative, and I like my Flowey’s manipulative and wicked. Siding with Frisk would be a matter of convenience, as humans ARE strong. Also, I think it’d be funny if he remembered canon and was like, “Oookay, when did everything get so dark?”

That’s basically the angle I run with on the whole. The fact that Chara in the No Mercy route states that the player’s guidance is what led them to their conclusions leads me to believe that Frisk’s choices impact whether they choose to see the world in a hopeful light or believe that the only way to proceed forward is through power. I’m also inclined to believe that the path of the  No Mercy route leads them to believe that Asriel’s pacifism was wrong and, thus, he betrayed them, thus he is an obstacle, whereas Paci proves that Asriel’s choice not to kill was not without merit, culminating in them offering the memory that ultimately opens the door to “SAVING” him in the final fight. Thus, IF Chara remembers all this, thus they are already predisposed to Frisk’s kindness while also fully aware that Asriel won, that he reset the timeline in a significant way, and that Flowey likely sees the potential in this outcome. And yes, even the noncanon IF No Mercy will be influenced by Chara’s memory of canon paci.

Well, it’s certainly possible!

;) I couldn’t resist. IF, after all, is its own entity.

Final Fantasy may not be an anime, but it is obviously anime inspired, appeals to a similar demographic, and has had movie and anime spinoff materials. :P And yes, the references for LEsser Dog were rather apparent and intentional. ;)

FL Studio 12.1 and 12.3 (depending on the computer I’m using at the time). My go-to soundfonts include SGM, 8bitsf, THe Ultimate Megadrive Soundfont, Arachno, HQ ORchestral 3.0, Touhou, Earthbound, and the VSTs Realguitar, RealPC, Shreddage, Magical 8bit Plugin, and more.

We talked it over and decided that Frisk will still speak due to their dialogue being so integral to the story. However, if the game does reach completion, there would be more dialogue options so that the element of choice remains. As for Frisk being absent, you’ll just have to wait and see.

Aw, thank you so much! I’m always doing my best to make IF enjoyable and unique, so I’m happy to hear it’s paid off.

Again, thank you! I will say that I have every intention to see the main run through to the end. As for geno and anything else that may come after, I am making it my goal to get there, but on the off chance that I DON’T, I will of course reveal the plans. But again, my goal is to see things through to the end.

Undyne and Sans have a.. complicated relationship. Some of it I may delve into later, but as for her reaction at the end of the bonus, she is VERY aware that Sans is not to be messed with. He’s smart, he’s skilled, and his opinion of her isn’t the highest these days. She’s frustrated that he can’t see that humanity has OBVIOUSLY taken too much from monsterkind and believes that letting a human stay close to Papyrus puts his safety at risk whereas Sans thinks she’s being reckless, disregarding Papyrus’ feelings, and once again biting off more than she could chew. But perhaps it wasn’t always that way.

Jerry would thank you, but it seems he’s too busy eating cheese puffs and smacking his lips. But I’m glad you liked it! My goal with IF is to make it unique and surprising, as there are already so many role swaps out there.

Indeed. ;) Not that I have anything against folks liking Uswap, but meta jokes are fun.

I’ve heard bits of their work, but I really do need to listen to more. It’s quite an ambitious and fun project to say the least!

@ut-scramble-saga​ Chara is definitely up there. I mean, even aside from the lovely spritework created by E-Clare, ScrS Chara fascinates me due to their circumstances. Ten years in the Ruins, alone, has obviously shaped them in some saddening ways. There are cuts in the Ruins walls and pillars to show that they’ve had their share of fights. Knives hidden in their house as a result of paranoia from fending for themself at such a young age. Gardens to provide nourishment monster food likely lacks. They have matured in a way where they have clearly survived, but their loneliness coupled with the loss of their parents and just how quickly they grow to care for Frisk despite their views on humanity... it’s frankly touching and compelling from a narrative standpoint. Though I also adore Tale’s End Flowey and Sans for how unique their dynamic is. Papyrus!Flowey may lack a soul, but he tries so very hard to be good, and his relationship with his brother is so bittersweet. Sans clearly still loves his brother and does his best to recapture the bond they shared before Pap got dusted, but knowing that Papyrus can no longer feel love as a Flower... that he’s only pretending, grasping at emotions he no longer possesses... it hurts in all the right ways. Knowing what I do about Storyshift Chara, I could gush about how tragic and thought out they are, but as the Snowdin kids are so popular, I’d rather draw attention to the tragedy that is Storyshift Asgore. He is so kind, genuinely wishes to help Frisk for selfless reasons, yet it is clear that the determination experiments have taken a toll on him psychologically. He offers up his SOUL to them, despite the loving family he’d be leaving behind. He is THAT burdened by his mistakes, and it hurts so much, yet it’s so very ASGORE. Just. Hug the goat dad, okay? He is a sweetheart that must be cherished.

Thank you so much! Alphys and Mettaton’s friendship is tragically overlooked in fanworks, so I aim to fix that with IF. As for Frisk’s flaws... hahahaha... This child is a piece of WORK.

Yes.

Song analysis: Strobe by deadmau5

"Strobe" is the behemoth progressive-house track by Canadian electronic music producer Joel Zimmerman, better known by his moniker deadmau5. The track saw it's release as a single in 2010, quickly becoming a cult-classic for both producers and listeners alike. The artist is said to have created it in parts, with different sections of the song having been completed at separate times and locations. While Joel can be known to employ the abused tropes of house music like the progressive repetition of looped percussion lines and monotonously repetitive synth melodies, Strobe does the opposite of lull it's audience with any of these things. Remarkably, the over-ten-minute length of this piece doesn't work against itself or feel forced. Most EDM consumers or mau5heads (as Zimmerman's most faithful fans lovingly call themselves) consider this to be his magnum opus. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone in Joel's audience who didn't ravenously obsess over this track at it's release, and even more hard-pressed to find someone today without oddly strong nostalgic ties to this track. But, upon asking listeners and scouring various forums for why it is that Strobe evokes such strong emotions and opinions on it, most answers come tied with only vague language at best; adjectives like evolving, atmospheric, or just simply magical can be among the commonly found the descriptors. Most responses are quite dodgy when it comes to what exactly makes Strobe so impressive and gives it an almost-endless replay value. People would much rather reminisce over how the record turned them on to electronica as a genre, or how it sound-tracked a momentously memorable time in their lives. I'd like to look past these dwellings and dig into the why of Strobe, it's begged me to be dissected in essay format for years. There is a small part of me that's hesitant to make such an attempt too, for in the name of full disclosure I am one of those aforementioned listeners who is obsessively fascinated with Strobe and my feelings for it. I don't want to lose the sense of wonder and other nebulous emotions it elicits. But, in the name of a sound and critical analysis, I'll be diving headlong into every aspect of what makes this tune such a stand-out, and the seemingly mysterious ways it does so. I've observed MIDI and Ableton project files, listened to covers using only singular instruments, and even taken chunks of the lead melody to my own keyboard. I'll make a consorted effort to keep the musical jargon light, which is a statement I find myself laughing at considering this is an electronic dance record. I also feel intrinsically qualified to take apart this song purely because of how much I've listened to it since its release. Oh by the way, I've seen deadmau5 play it live in concert. For the sake of respecting the holistic undertaking that is Strobe, I will be looking at the full length version of this song only. To listen to the radio or club edit would be selling the track short of it's grandness. So let's get right into it. Strobe starts out unlike most dance tracks that managed to achieve it's level of popularity. Although it's most known for the 128-BPM tempo it eventually reaches, the track starts out considerably slower. No kick-and-snare loop builds it's way into a lead synth melody for the first thirty seconds. Instead, for the first minute, a small combination of eerie mallet and bells, plus a smooth synth all oscillate in a slow and limited melody. The stress isn't on the progression of notes themselves as much as it is on the reverb effect added to these sounds. This reverb manages to highlight of the dichotomy of the way these instruments are used in this song versus how they're more traditionally used. When I think of how mallet-and-bell instruments (real or synthesized) and smooth synths usually sound, words like eerie or atmospheric aren't the first to come to mind. But the space this reverb creates gives Strobe an immediate and distinct ambiance to it. Couple that with the on-edge feeling given by the slightly evolving variance in the melody itself, and Strobe has done a lot to already gently place the listener into it's world. This is the first of many times in which I will gush over how well this song establishes itself with that ambiance. Here I am, just like all the other forum-dwellers using vague and all-encompassing language like atmosphere and ambiance. Let me be as specific as I can with my own interpretation of what kind of atmosphere Strobe establishes. There is a loneliness to this melody and the reverberation of it. It's seemingly somber, but I wouldn't go as far to say it's sad. It feels much too stuck in revelation, making it more exciting and eerie than sad. Also worth mentioning are the visuals displayed during the live performance of this song. The LCD screens on the gigantic rig known as The Cube on which deadmau5 stands display images of space and stars from what seems to be another planet. The background lighting and spotlights consisted of deep and cold colors, purple being the most prominent in the beginning. This is all important to me, as Joel is heavily involved in the production of his live shows. He goes as far as creating many of his own animations and visuals displayed on those panels, so the feelings of space and loneliness that are personally provoked feel validated - at least to an extent. It's very evident that Zimmerman makes a clear-cut effort to tell you that this won't be a beat you can just mindlessly dance to. It'll require a patient presence to hear this song out and experience it. About a minute and thirty seconds in, a lower-frequency synth and a piano fade in to accompany the initial melody. The synth melody specifically is much more elongated and simple, only further affirming the dire implications of solidarity and loneliness. Shortly after two and a half minutes is when the sense of scale begins to reveal itself when a small section of synthesized strings are welcomed in, and now this thing is waxing cinematic. A white noise hiss paves the way for what appears to be the rattling of some kind of shakers which mimic/actually the patterns of a rattlesnake. A rattlesnake? Even typing this, the use of such a sound seems so shallow and cheesy, the kind of attempt on a unique sound effect that would fail in most other dance tracks. But this isn't the "dance" part of the track yet, and somehow at this point you're inclined to just roll with it. Now the introductory part has been fully fleshed out. All that's left is to cycle through the melody's progression before it starts to fade out, giving way for what would eventually evolve into the lead synth. Another rattle, and on comes the four-on-the-floor kick drum. Exit the cinematic, enter the electronic. All your curiosities and questions are validated; there is so much more rhythmic, sonic, and melodic evolution that's about to take place. Strobe has just drastically sped up in tempo, and it was hard to even be aware of it. I'd first like to cover the sonic qualities of the lead synth, bass, and percussion, as these can be summarized much more distinctly than the melodic qualities. The lead saw-line synth is as warm as any other analogue synth. The synced bass line clearly has that distinct trance sound to it. The timbre and envelope of these sounds are progressively expanded, like the synths are opening their mouths to speak more rigidly with time. The kick is present and punchy in the mix, and the hats and claps are a subtle compliment to it all. The first iteration of the kick and snare portion of this song last up until just after the five minute mark. This is where Joel begins to allow the melodic prowess of this lead melody to rear it's head, but only in a constrained fashion for the time being. The sixteenth-note mannerism of this lead synth is the closest I can come to guessing at why the track is titled simply as "Strobe"; the melody flashes these chords at you in the on/off fashion of a strobe light, though this lead progression is already far from binary. The song flows on, bending upwards and downwards as it breathes with the kick. At this point in time everything is already complex enough to believe that this is the melodic peak of the song. From here on, you could probably expect a few new synths to glide along the higher-frequency areas of the mix. Maybe pepper in some quirky bass stabs (after all, this was released at the height of the dubstep craze) and you've got yourself a second half of the song that has established itself as good house tune with some trance influence. I could have also seen some airy female vocals taking this track further into that trance direction, but this song doesn't do that and retains it's atmospheric loneliness. The harmony itself is in B major, which has a fair amount of sharped notes in it's scale. What those sharp notes lead to is a pulling feeling, it keeps the mind busy if you just try to focus on the lead synth. Some call this all to be melancholic, but I refuse to do so and will leave the melancholic determination up to each individual listener. The word melancholic gets too close to the word nostalgic, and as I said I will refuse to let my nostalgia take over this dissection. At the what seems to be the height of the buildup to this beat, the drum line is pulled out from under the lead. The synths hold their form, but retract in timbre and how long the sustain lasts on each note. Once again, something's about to happen. But Joel doesn't add any new sounds like I thought he would. He instead makes a statement about the confidence he has in how he's about let the melodic progression shine. The rattles and hisses wear off, and the synth lead is left to it's own devices. This is where the melody receives it's final form, and it is quite possibly the most beautifully complex thing I've heard in any dance song. As the sustain of the notes is elongated, the focus is solely on the lead once again, and then melodic bliss just seems to appear. This melody is so quick to ascend and descend. It feels like it has a mind of its own, darting from one chord to the next in such a fluid fashion. No kick drum. Attempts to describe the feeling that this all gives me will forever fall short. Mr. Zimmerman is unabashedly telling you to hear the melody for all it is, live in it's world for a moment. The organ in the background accompanies the last few notes of each bar of the progression, which is another purposeful touch. Organs often carry a sanctimonious and solitary connotation with them, as they're often found in places of worship and large cathedrals. This adds to the not-just-fun-but-seriously-alone aura. At this point the listener is so far removed from a mindless dance beat that it's almost personally violating. The melody seemingly freezes by momentarily repeating itself at the six minute and forty second mark to usher in the big payoff. The drop hits and the kick-and-snare pattern returns in full force. All of the evolution Strobe goes through seemingly is released and this lonely melody finds a friend and a proper place for itself alongside the beat. Eventually the organ will reappear again here and there. There is now a harmony present to the world that Strobe was seemingly longing for during those first six minutes. This transcends all tropes of EDM and club music in such a confident fashion. I am eternally grateful that Joel didn't walk this track down a more typical dance path I initially thought it was heading down. His confidence his the pacing and the stunning synth progression is inspiring. Eventually, Strobe slowly takes itself apart and for a moment all that's left is the atmosphere that initially greeted you. Right, I got so wrapped in the moment that I forgot how this piece of art started out. It leaves you back where you started - alone. But not without the journey you just went on. One of the most fascinating things I take from this song is how repayable it is. Overtime, I've come up with the following theory to pinpoint why that is for me: there are no vocals over this beat to tell a distinct story. And why should there be? The length and evolution provide enough time to tell any story Joel could have wanted to. But Strobe wonderfully toes this line between being able to illicit feelings of solidarity/introspection, and leaving just enough up to the listener's interpenetration. In a way it feels like this song never ended. It builds a world in which I would go home and immerse myself in every night while I fed my newfound dance music obsession in middle school. This song does what every actor in Hollywood tries to perfect the art of, which is to say so much without using words. All this, in the end, leaves an impression that this song is much more of an experience than a dance beat. In my preparation for writing this, I came across a reddit user who managed to find one word to describe the feeling of that same experience best: cathartic. Strobe by deadmau5 takes the listener from a soft atmosphere to a vibrant and fascinating conclusion. It pulses like a dance track, but there's a (lonely) world's more to it than that.