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#sorry but get tf out of here with that 'humans are evil and everyone dies' lame ass bullshit we are nothing without community
spacedlexi · 2 months
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the way the ericson group were at the outbreak just a bunch of troubled kids who made various mistakes or committed crimes and were judged by a system that punished and abandoned them instead of giving them the support and love they needed, are then nearly a decade later put into a situation where now they must judge a troubled child for the mistakes and crimes hes committed against them. and 5 to 3 vote them out 😭
#twdg#i love the way s4 connects back to lees whole 'murderer' thing back in s1 😭 guilt...atonement.....systems of punishment#i love thinking about s1>s4 themes and crying#anyway this is partially why i hate when i see the ericson cast reduced down to 'just some teens' its so much more than that#them being abandoned in a boarding school for troubled kids is SO IMPORTANT its not 'just some school'#anyway its also probably why theyre my favorite cast#theyre literally one of if not the most mature group of the series even while being a bunch of kids who make choices i dont agree with#because they actually love and care about each other. even when theyre mad. because theyre all they have left#i do think the vote was a fair way to handle it even tho i still ultimately find it cruel. they couldve talked it out#but this is still a story that needs conflict to resolve so is what it is#they would rather they leave than have to face their confused feelings. the most immature thing they do. but understandable#they did such a good job crafting that cast for clem GOD an entire ensemble built around her and aj....delicious#zombie/post apoc media about love and community my beloved 😭#sorry but get tf out of here with that 'humans are evil and everyone dies' lame ass bullshit we are nothing without community#the amount of love pouring out of s4 is like getting my ass kicked but then they give me a big hug and kiss after and send me on my way#s4 my absolute beloved i really love it more and more every time. so much to appreciate even with it the way it is#the themes bro the themes........ the connections between seasons 1 and 4 you are everything to me#it speaks
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thrushppelt · 9 months
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hugging shard and telling you to talk all you want about the blorbo's lore cause it's so angst but i wanna know all abt it
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Anon you are In for it
OKAY I don’t have everything figured out but.
Most of her story is centered around mouseshine, her future mate and deputy. I have significantly less plot for him but he’s Evil and Smart and so is she so. They kiss
From an early age shardtimber was normal and, while being a runt, starclan basically told most the clan she Will be leader. Mouse was always a freaky kid (jumpy and squeaky like a mouse). I think I had him as an orphan?
Mouse was the first to be apprenticed between them and she was JEALOUS!! Lots of childlike resentment which made her try Even Harder to be a good to-be-warrior
WHICHHHH led her to get the massive scar on her face basically when she’s a green-ass apprentice. NOT SURE HOW IT HAPPENS YET I’m too at odds BUT what’s important is she stays in the med den for AGESSSS and while she still trains sometimes alone w her mentor she is JUMPY and worried abt getting further hurt even though she Knows that that’s just life and she needs to be leader and and AND
Between this and her becoming deputy a LOT happens between her n mouse. Mouse confesses when she wakes up from her injury, they’re together and happy for a bit before shard realizes Hey this guys kinda evil……. And I’m Not actually that evil I’m just cynical. Or something. They’re Different forms of evil it MAKES SENSE. ANYWAY mouse is just a little bitch and doesn’t know how to show the little affection he’s ever had for someone. What’s worse is that stress has already begun to dig it’s claws into shard and she shows her age too early. About her she’s made leader and even if mouse Knew he wasn’t gonna be leader (yet…..) he’s JEALOUS. seething. Doesn’t celebrate w everyone else. I might have someone else be deputy before mouse, due unrelatedly, THEN mouse becomes dep
Mouse’s kit who he had w someone else(pheasantchill who has like. No lore) (previously it was before he got with shard but plot wise now that’s Way too early. Anyway they don’t really care abt cheating) challenges shard bc he’s tired of her shit and he’d OBVIOUSLY BE BETTER
He gets his ass beat because he’s a paw and half her size. Mouse gets ANGRY because that’s his kid tf? Mouse and shard fight and mouse gets the nasty cut on his shoulder. The symbolic grip of love they have on each other grows a little looser here.
A few lives later (and a better relationship with pheasant) (and a few kids who also have no lore) pheasant suddenly gets taken over by an omen. “Sharp teeth that speak your tongue will take the one most dear” HaHa That Can’t Mean Anything (<- it means something)
This is where a terrier that’s taken in by a cat from another clan (SORRY SOOTKIT you also. Have almost no lore) is proving herself to be just as good as any cat. Shard and mouse don’t know about her. They hear rumors but how ridiculous right? Lmfao this won’t be an issue
SO starclan is like Dude Watch Out. Gives shard a dream to warn her. “What you don’t mend to will lose forever”. Sees mouse shadowed by a collar. She massively misinterprets this by mouse wanting to quit clan life and, seeing him loom over her when she wakes, immediately strikes out. They can barely be considered Together at this point, if not for all the shit they went through together
SO he gets all sorts of pissed off and storms out of the camp. UNFORTUNATELY the clan that has sootbriar borders shards clan :) and lo and behold! Mouse and soot meet! And after a long battle mouse fucking DIES.
This absolutely RUINS shard. She’s on her last or second to last life by now and she’s in a similar state to blue at this time. I THINK I might go w her having being captured by humans after going out once in a blue moon
SORRY RHIS IS SO FUCKING LONG LMFAO. I didn’t even mention stemfur or more minor difficulties they went through. But like. Writing this out it really is. Mouse ruins this chicks life and he barely loved her ?/!-??
UHH also minor deets I can’t figure out where to throw, mouse loses his tail later in his life. Shard has a claw wound across her throat, significant scars elsewhere on her pelt. A stiff paw from a trap that fucked up her wrist.
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jonnnysuh · 3 years
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could we get along with svt in real life?
A collaborative series by @vernonsnostrils and me (Nala)!
A/N: Lately Bee and I have been doing daily rankings for fun and we decided to share our very very specific and dumb insights with all of you. For this one we're ranking who we think could tolerate us......... <3 Warning: Dumb info ahead
NALA:
13.Wonwoo – looks scary. I also have a rbf so imagine us together omg. Everyone would think we’re vampires. No one would want to be friends with us so we’d only have each other.
12.Woozi – I feel like I know nothing about him :-( He’s an amazing musician, and does come off as a little tiny bit mischievous. I feel like Woozi is the type of guy I have every class with but then we graduate never saying a word to each other.
11. Jun – I think Jun is funny as hell but he’s so quiet. I’d want to be his friend but I wouldn’t know how to approach him. Everyone loves him tho so he has his pick of friends and it does not include me LMAO
10. Jeonghan – (this one kind of doesn't make sense bc he should be higher on the list,, but also?? i'm the one who made this list so fite me) but I think that me and him are pretty similar. We both have a side that’s devious and wants to create havoc but we’re also the mom friend that takes care of everyone and with that I feel like we’d butt heads/ be the designated parents which is EW I am 20 years old,, I'm no one's mommy YUCK.
9. Joshua – he’s also quiet but I know he has a good sense of humour!!!! Hypes up my bad ideas bc he’s not involved -- but he will be giving me a thumbs up in the sidelines. I feel like he’s the type to make me text the guy I have a crush on “Just do it. What do you have to lose?” UM my dignity??? Tf Josh.
8.DK – The human version of a “pick-me-up” He is so “no thoughts, head empty” and I am too. Let’s go cloud watching !!!!!!!!! Let’s pick flowers !!!! A good friend to text on a bad day bc he will literally tell you the most embarrassing thing that happened to him, and even though you’ve heard it before it’ll still make you laugh.
7. The8 – simple, really. He likes art and I love art. He likes fashion, I like fashion. I feel like we could talk shit together LMAO. He has the most specific roasts but they’re always on point. I need someone who’s a little bit mean in my life <3
6. Mingyu – I know I could bully him jokingly and he’d take it (bc he knows I’m joking) but it wouldn’t stop him from pouting a bit. I feel like he’d be scared of me at first LMAO. We both share the hobby of photography so my ideal day out with him is just wandering around with cameras and taking pics of things we think are beautiful. Also forcing each other to pose in front of a dirty brick wall bc “IT LOOKS COOL, TRUST ME.” “WAIT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO POSE THO” and then he’d literally have to mold me into a good pose bc I am Play-doh
5. Vernon – The calm to my crazy, convinces me not to beat someone’s ass. Walks into my room to say nothing else but “Spaghetti” and then leaves quietly. Doesn’t talk to me for 5 months but will send me a meme at 5am bc it reminded him of an inside joke we had. Live-texts his emotions to me while watching tv shows, and shares new conspiracy theories with me. He’s a little bit too chill, I need someone ready to fuck shit up.
4. S Coups – is reliable and gives good advice bc he’s also a ball of anxiety. Nags me to do the right thing. Messes with me a lot. Would stay on the phone with me if I was home alone and told him I heard a noise. Says “Calm down there’s no one there.” BUT he’d also say shit like “check under your bed”
3. Seungkwan– I feel like we’re just as annoying as each other. He has the biggest heart and is super encouraging and thoughtful. Half the time we’re joking around, and the other half we’re fighting. Very much love-hate. Capricorns and virgos are a superior duo. I said it.
2. Hoshi– all round good vibes. Chaos and Loudness matched. Doesn’t always have to be around a lot of people bc he creates the fun when it’s just us two. The kind of friend I practice flirting on and everyone’s like ??? “You’re in love with him” no bro I’m just bored… we just do this kind of shit and he is IMMUNE to my lovey antics by now.
1.Dino– We bully each other a lot but we also have each other’s backs. Definitely not ride or dies tho bc we will tell each other when the other fucked up. We are sarcastic dumb dumbs and that’s why we like each other. I feel like he would only tell me how much he cares about me on my birthday.
BEE:
13. mingyu – i literally don’t know what i would say to mingyu. “tall man” or “what up big boy.” i would be scared of him until someone taught me how not to be. like i gotta hang out with him in a group setting for three months straight until i can say hi to him when i enter a room. if i saw him i would simply just Not See Him.
12. wonwoo – like mingyu i don’t know if i’d have anything to say to him. him and mingyu both have popular high school boy personalities and that scares me.
11. josh – besides being californian, i don’t know if we’d have anything to talk about outside of in n out and traffic. he’s too pretty for me.
10. The8 – i feel like we’ve been over this for me. he’s too intellectual and polite i wouldn’t have much to say to him. but i feel like we could talk good shit about other people.
9. jun – i think i get along well with people with quiet funny personalities. like the kind where you don’t have to necessarily say anything but look at them and they’re telling you what they’re thinking. he knows that i know. so he kept reacting and looking at me. i think it’d take a while to develop a friendship though.
8. jeonghan – i wanna cause chaos with jeonghan. i want to do lots of things with jeonghan i feel like he would give me piggyback rides while sliding with his socks on the floor. he would tease me and i would be offended for five minutes while he pretends to tell me he’s sorry (he’s not).
7. dino – dino and i would be like twins building a sandcastle on the beach. that’s our vibe. like the kids you meet on vacation and play pirates with at the pool. relegated to the kids table kind of vibe.
6. scoups – he’s like the type to play catch with the stuffed animal in the room while we sit on the floor and chat. like he just arrived and is asking me about my day and picks it up from my bed and we throw it around while talking.
5. seungkwan – i think seungkwan and i could sit and talk outside on the patio when the stars are bright. like we could sit outside and stare out at the stars while i talk about my biggest dreams and don’t even need to see him to know that he thinks the world of me
4. hoshi – i see a lot of face masks. hoshi teaches me how to dance while they rest on our faces, but they keep sliding off because we’re laughing too hard. he has immaculate vibes, like the type to say “here for a good time not for a long time” but it’s an absolute lie because he’s there for both.
3. woozi – although i like to joke that he’s an evil little man, i think we could talk a lot about music and he would be very happy to teach me what he knows, and we’d spend a lot of time developing ideas and growing together.
2. vernon – he has the personality of my irl best friend, like a slightly chaotic aquarius who is horrendously hard to reach like 99% of the time. he’s the kind of guy who would try to make dinner but end up fucking it up so horribly that when i come in it’s like smoky and awful and the fire alarm is going off, so i have to air out the apartment and go get takeout and bring it home to my burned smelling apartment and eat it on the floor of the living room while binge watching a new netflix show.
1. dk – i just love the kind of joy and energy he radiates, like would be excited to do anything at all if it’s with me. would love to accompany me on any task if i just asked, like getting ice cream at 10pm and he’d know exactly what kind of flavor he’d get so it could accompany mine well when we inevitably switched halfway through the cone. saves the bottom of the cone, the chocolate tip, for me because he knows it’s my favorite.
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prncssguya · 3 years
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watching w/subs
- but how did he get to the bed in the kang mansion? did he pass out at soo hyun’s grave and yohan carried him into the house?? writers i need to know these things
- i’m uncomfortable with how much elijah has cried these past few episodes. just stop she deserves the world
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- both yohan and elijah making sure ga on eats and offering to cook him ramyeon to comfort him🤧 they’re really niece and uncle
- yohan was trying so hard to comfort gaon when he himself was never comforted in the times he needed it the most. he doesnt know how to comfort others but he's still trying hard for the people he loves when he gets literally nothing in return.. i hate this
- the president is more sick than sun ah. he’s a whole clown and how dare the foundation guys say about yohan “is he even human?” like tf are you?? the hypocrisy. also intentionally spreading a virus in poor neighborhoods?? sun ah is disgusted by him
- it feels like everyone keeps on relying on yohan to have solutions to everything but when it doesn't align to their beliefs, they complain but can't even give an alternate solution
- distracted by ji sung’s voice 😌 please keep talking
- He resigned?? 😂😂 and he’s making a big deal about it on national television and making yohan seem like a heartless monster, wow chincha this guy.
- so actually ga on did defend yohan but min junho knows where his weak spots and used soo hyun as an excuse to get him to betray yohan. all junho has are what if statements like you know nothing stfu. i’m ready to fight 🤺 he saw he wasn’t getting through to ga on and pulled out soo hyun as a last resort cause look at his face
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- side note: i don't remember anyone ever asking Gaon questions such as "how are u doing? how do u feel?", not even at the beginning. It has always been "don't do that, do this, this is wrong, this is right", always forcing him to "pick" a side and making him feel he made the wrong decision
Synopsis of #TheDevilJudgeEp15: Medea
With Gaon's revelation, Jookchang's trial is postponed. Although he believes he is doing the right thing, for some reasons there's something bothering Gaon's mind. On the other hand, Yohan who is again hurt by someone he's come to believe, is now acting unlike his usual self. On another hand, after the postponement of Jookchang's trial, the directors of the Foundation move forward & even start to plan to get rid of Seonah... Will Seonah be able to win in this lonely fight against the Foundation Directors?
- based on the previews i firmly believe this is all a set up by sun ah and min junho to get ga on to betray yohan. it seems like sun ah is calling ga on and showing him “the truth”
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- so ga on’s going to come at him with the knife but yohan will catch it in his hands. him and soo hyun will have matching scars. yohan said since you want to betray, no more soft domestic looks at home
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last lines of the preview:
- yohan to gaon: “you will regret this forever” sun ah: “you finally look lonely”
and ga on still doesn’t know yohan was stabbed and k died 🥴 but he’s going to attempt to stab him next episode. what are even thinking my guy, what if elijah comes in on you doing that (i’m so curious where she is whenever they have there heated moments)
look how peaceful and cute he looks reading his book
- this is an interesting book by nietzsche, i remember studying it in my literature and philosophy class in college. one of the main concepts is that truth and thoughts are ever-changing and developing (i need someone to gif all the books yohan has read throughout the show). the drivers of changing truths and facts are power and will, according to Nietzsche. so those that hold power may define truth today, but when that power base shifts, so might the definition of morality, good, and evil. (the writers really put alot of thought into the making of this show and it shows. it completely fits with the moral dilemma that presented itself in this episode)
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and here comes the fun killer (i’m sorry you know i love you and you don’t deserve anything that’s happened to you)
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this is going to hurt…
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ziracona · 4 years
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And I hate to do this- So on that thread, not that he's as bad, why do you think Michael is redeemable? (and also Frank) Especially by his main victim? :? I hope that isn't as bad or as judgmental as I think it sounds... - Sleepy (its like 5am here :3 living up to my name i see)
So, these I gave a short and a long answer for under cut, but forgot I’m on mobile and can’t do that. I can tag it “long post” but uhhh, sorry about this. Anyway, thats why Frank comes in two chunks. I wrote it expecting to be able to use a read more. :’-] also ya fine. And I hope you’re in bed 🤣 now. Okay so. Here’s my reasons:
For Michael, to start, Halloween is complicated af. You have to know what timeline people are talking about, because there are like 8+ and Michael has been written as a wildly different character by wildly different content creators, and I would not feel the same ways towards them all. They’re not the same character. When I talk about Michael, unless I’m going on about a specific other film, I mean either H20 canon, or DbD canon, which are in line with each other when it comes to characterization. (This also includes Halloween’s 1 & 2 in the H20 line, and Halloween 1 at least in DbD). In those timelines, Michael has like at best 2% agency and choice in his own life and what he becomes. That’s why I am sympathetic. I still root for Laurie to nail his ass to the wall of course, and everything he has done to hurt someone isn’t okay just because his life is unfair & awful & out of his control, but I still find him a very tragic character. He was canonically suffering violent psychosis his parents refused him treatment for, isolated with a monster as his doctor & only human contact for 15 years from age 6 on, overdosed on medications that when OD’d worsen psychosis symptoms and can cause permanent brain damage, and stuck like that until escaping briefly when he turned 21.
In Halloween canon, Michael tells his parents he hears voices telling him to do bad things like hurt people, but they tell him he is imagining stuff, and ignore his attempts to get help. The voices say they will be quiet, which is what he desperately wants, if he kills his sister Judith. So he does, at age six. Scientifically speaking, that’s literally too young to really have a complete grasp on death and mortality itself, let alone complex ethics. He immediately goes to his parents after doing the deed, so they can do whatever they need to do. Instead of getting him help, he is sentenced to 15 years in a 1960s American sanitorium (hell), until he turns 21 and can be tried for murder as an adult (fucking ridiculous and unfair?? Tried as an adult is for like, upper teens who commit heinous murders. How tf you justify trying a six year old literally too young to really understand murder as an adult for murdering someone??). They give him to Dr. Sam Loomis, a fucking horrible person, who says he spends 8 years trying to help Michael (a fkn lie), but canonically by only a few months of meeting the kid is thoroughly convinced he is evil, the devil or a demon in human form, faking his psychosis and side effect symptoms (trauma induced mutism from killing his sister, onset of catatonia/motion loss symptoms, etc, all of which are common with his disorder & trauma), desperate to kill again, and an evil mastermind doing the devil’s work, and says so. Spends four hours every day accusing Michael as a six year old child on, of planning to do horrible things and faking his illness and being a demon and not a human, and Loomis, from age 6 to 21, is this kid’s only human contact. And the staff knew it and how wrong and disturbed Loomis was, but did nothing. So from age 6 to 21—barring one or two visits from his mom & Laurie before his dad beat 4 year old Laurie for saying Michael’s, who he hated after Judith’s death, name—until she trauma blocked out having had a brother or sister at all, and then both parents died in a car crash—his only human contact in complete isolation was an adult man who told him for four hours a day he was an evil lying demon faking his symptoms and plotting murder and not a human and promised he would kill Michael and stop him, from childhood on, and that was it. He was never given an understanding of what was medically wrong with him, or that anything was at all. He was threatened and abused and kept overdosed on drugs for 15 years since early childhood, and his only understanding of the world taught in that absolute isolation, was that he was a demon who wanted to get out and kill again. And the violent psychosis, telling him if he killed both sisters, they would go away and leave him in peace with no more constant noise. With no normal understanding of the world or people or life like he was owed ever given to him, no understanding at all of what you were going through or were aside from the promise drilled into your head you were a monster who wanted to kill every day for 15 years while drugged up? Like, I’m a firm believe people are responsible for their own actions, but in a case as extreme as that, honestly, how else was that ever going to even be able to end? You forget, as a child. Who you used to be. That’s beyond grooming even, it’s being grown in a lab for the sole purpose of someday walking out, taking a large kitchen knife, and killing Laurie Strode. And it’s tragic. It’s unfair. Halloween is a tragedy, not a horror film. It didn’t have to be that way. He wanted help. He asked for help. Loomis is directly and pretty much solely responsible for the lives lost in 1978. You know he won’t even call Michael “him”? The only human he contact he had since age six on called him “it.” And no one stopped any of that. And even then. Even then, even with all that. With the drugs, and the lab grown killer, and all of it? Michael is pretty much the single least sadistic slasher killer there /is/.
Everyone he kills in Halloween? He kills fast. It’s actually kind of boring if you’re expecting a scary slasher, because there’s no chase until Laurie. He just appears, runs you through, and you die. Very fast. And if there is any emotion expressed towards the act of killing or aftermath, it’s not pleasure or hate or happiness, it’s curiosity, because literally everything is something he wasn’t allowed to experience growing up and just has no practical experience with yet. And on top of all that, he also just doesn’t kill people he doesn’t have to. He kills one man for clothes, kills Annie to re-do Judith’s murder since it didn’t work the first time and he needs both sisters for the voices to stop, and he kills Bob and Lynda becuase they stumble onto where he is & are a threat to success. (This + Judith 15 years prior is all the deaths in Halloween period, btw). Michael routinely only kills his target, and anyone who is a threat to success. Literally doesn’t even jump out to kill Bob or attack until Bob opens the door to the closet he was hiding in, and he has been seen. Walks past a security guard and lets him go in H20 becuase he doesn’t see him, steals keys from a mom with her 4 year old kid and doesn’t even hurt them because they don’t see him really either, steals a knife from an old lady making a sandwich who is one foot away but looking the other direction, so he lets her go. Even with all the possible stakes against him, really, Michael is like, the least cruel and most sympathetic and merciful version of that lab grown killer possible, which can only be a testament to the person he was initially/still somehow has managed to keep faint traces of alive inside.
As for Laurie finding him redeemable, answer is threefold I guess, and I’ll start with the most important. 1: in Halloween canon, Laurie cares for Michael and is incredibly sad about what he turned into and wishes he could be different (once she remembers who he is). That’s established canon, not a choice of mine. In Halloween 2, she tries to talk him down before shooting him, and he hesitates when she says his name and lowers his weapon for a moment. In H20, she talks about him a lot & even asks her boyfriend (a psychologist) if he thinks something so traumatic can happen to someone that they can never recover, bc even though she hasn’t seen him in 20 years, he’s still on her heart. She hesitates to kill him once she has him helpless in the finale, and when he reaches out for her hand, she almost cries and starts to reach back because it’s what she has truly wanted for so long. 2: Michael & Laurie are siblings, and that’s a very important relationship to me. Obviously, there’s lines where you cross, it’s fkn over, but it is special, and I’m weak for it. They were both cheated of the good family life they could have had, and I like characters I care for getting recovery and rehabilitation, and I would like them to be able to recover and have whatever fragments of the lives they wanted which are still possible. And then 3: Laurie is his victim, but they’re also both victims of Loomis, and the system, and her parents, and if she does /wish/ for him to be okay and things to be like they were, which was canon before me, so she does, then I think them finding happiness and her relief and new hope in regained family and him redemption and rehabilitation through the quite literally only person he has /ever/ known who treated him well or like even a human at all & is still living, that’s so good. It’s sweet, and it makes sense. I like broken people putting the pieces together and finding ways to be okay. None of the shit that happened to either of them was okay, and Michael sure did fucking do it, but it’s about as “it’s complicated” as literally possible, and Laurie wants him to be her brother again, and Michael deserves a chance to experience personhood enough to want anything like that again too, and I think it’s sweet. To be able to find happiness and peace and a new life in that rubble. It shouldn’t be possible, because Halloween is a tragedy that never gets a happy ending, no matter how many timelines they create or versions they tell, but I wish it could have one. It needs one. At least one, among all the fated tragedies for those two cruelly cursed siblings. They both had their lives stolen. Michael by Loomis, and Laurie by Michael. And I want them to find those stolen lives again. And if they can do it together, that’s a very odd and unusual set of circumstances for that kind of thing, but it’s a very complete way to tell the story. He tried to kill her, but if she asked him to stop and he stopped, if he himself chose to change on his own, when it really, really mattered—decided that it was what he wanted more than all the things he was before, and she decided that was enough, and they could both have a future as family? I like that. It’s a happy ending stolen back.
Long Frank Answer, in case you /have/ read ILM & thus short answer did not answer your question: So. Again, for me, I always talk about Frank as in the version of him I myself write, and I wrote ILM before the archives retcon, and also just ignore them because they’re usually dumb and blatantly contradict well established and longstanding canon. Even then, I usually don’t like Frank though—didn’t like him when I started writing ILM. But Frank has very little established canon character. All there is for sure is he was a foster kid that went through some bad stuff, he met Julie and changed his mind about desperately trying to be homed somewhere other than with Clive bc he liked Julie a lot, he met Susie and Joey, they became a gang chilling in Ormond’s abandoned lodge, then tried to rob a store Joey was fired from, were surprised by a cleaner who grabbed Julie, and Frank impulse stabbed him, freaked, and ordered the others to finish it with him and be in it together. Then before they’d even really finished burying the body, they got snagged. That leaves a whole lot of personality and thoughts and motivations and future choices and person wildly undetermined. Writing, sometimes characters just do their own thing completely out of my control, and I have to adapt. Frank chose not to kill Meg at the end of Tenacity, Adrenaline, & Grit, which surprised me, because he’d been nothing but a dipshit asshole bastard till one minute ago, but I knew it was because he recognized what she’d tried to do at great pain to herself because she wouldn’t bow down and die, and he connected/empathized or sympathized on some level. He also couldn’t go through with killing Quentin immediately after being helped by him in Distortion/Iron Maiden. Neither was like, planned. It’s just who the character was. I was frustrated. I did not want to like or feel sympathy for Frank at all. Then in The Lost, Jeff just fkn hijacked the whole plot and added 20 pages not in the outline because he wanted to be kind to Frank & it’s not like I can stop characters when they do whatever they do. And while writing it, I got to know that the version of Frank Morrison in the world I was writing—which is always the version I refer to/think of him as & write now myself—was not somebody past saving. He’s a piece of shit and he’s done fucked up and inexcusable stuff, and he pays for it. In many ways, Frank gets away with a lot over the course of ILM, but it’s always because characters choose on their own to forgive him, not because they or he doesn’t think it was fucked. And Frank suffers—a lot—for his choices, and has to live through appropriate and large amounts of regret and remorse about stuff he did before the end. He gets the chance to make better choices several times, and mostly he doesn’t. He continues to fuck up. But right near the end, he makes a couple good decisions when it’s down to the wire, sees where his bad choices got him and what he has to live with, and then he does live with it. He almost dies, and then ends up falling on Jeff’s mercy, which he knows he doesn’t deserve and doesn’t expect to get, for a last chance to make it, and because Jeff is an ungodly kind and forgiving soul, he makes it.
Frank isn’t a good person, and he does a lot of stuff that isn’t remotely okay or justified or excused, but he /is/ a kid—the upper end of it, but he’s not a full grown adult. He has every reason to believe nothing of himself or others, a fucked up childhood and life which isn’t his fault, and the Entity got all four Legion kids before they’d even had time to process the one and only violent crime they did (which was unplanned), and it is historically running a PHD in psychological warfare vs everyone. Absolutely none of that excuses or justifies him, but it is an explanation for some of it that is not as bad as say, doing that shit for fun or cruelty or hate or what have you, which makes him a bad person, but one with a lot more humanity left than say, Kenneth. Who is at -100 or something. If he’s still got a lot of humanity left, that means he could be redeemed, and he eventually chooses that path for himself and hits the appropriate “I did something horrible. Fuck. It was really bad. I should not have done it.” “I am really sorry I did this. I feel awful. I’m sorry.” “I cant change it, but I can try to do better and make whatever reparations I can.” “I want to be better, and I am going to try.” necessary stages of actually trying to improve. So, I like him. He did a lot of really awful shit that wasn’t okay, but he was never without sympathetic elements. He does love his friends and his girlfriend, he is a good boyfriend to Julie and selfless towards her and his crew (overall anyway—has even risked death for them very willingly, even the one who was fighting with/kinda hated him), will keep his word in deals and has some semblance of both sympathy and honor, feels guilt, is a kid, did not choose this life but was rather catapulted into it and too weak to climb out once he landed in the mud. All of that together makes him someone I feel sympathy towards and find quite redeemable, so long as he will decide he wants that, which, in ILM, he does. If you just meant Frank in general then idk how to answer because there’s not much established Frank period it’s kinda a shell like all original dead by daylight characters, and I have no thoughts on it by itself because it’s not a whole person, and so I really only think of Frank as ILM verse Frank now.
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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years
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mtmte liveblog issue 35
ooooh baby functionist universe time
the cover with the neon ‘everything is fine’ sign is rlly good but also the pile of dead data stick bots makes me so sad omg noooo they're so cute leave them alone :( 
minimus and rewind...! its so cool seeing them interact
also I just love the crowd shot, and you can immediately see that there are a ton of data stick bots like rewind around - which isn't what we’re used to at all
also some good ole totalitarian govt stuff like the ‘you are our eyes’ sign (which, in retrospect, is fucking evil damnnnn)
also I'm so [eyezoom] on this functionist universe stuff bc like, this is basically the only time we ever see dominus be a character (rather than hearing abt him thru other characters), and even so he remains pretty ambiguous 
like, minimus clearly isn't thrilled that dominus didn't show up to see him at the space airport or w/e when they've been apart for two million years - and even tho we later see why he didn't show up, it still shows that there's some tension there
the amount of crowd shots in this issue is insane 
oooof, the fact that they sold luna 2 - and to the black box consortia, who we just heard about last chapter when they previously got into a space battle w/the galactic council and the djd
fu!minimus being part of the primal vanguard is interesting, I wanna see more about that. what was he doing w/them for 2 million years?
rewind just casually saying this completely fucked stuff, like that the govt ‘outlawed the intellectual class’ and ‘deported the knock-offs’ (which I'm assuming is cold constructed bots?)
I really like the sense we get thru minimus and rewind’s convo that all of this fucked up stuff has happened slowly enough that its become almost normal - like, they talk about it casually, even though its clear they don't necessarily agree with any of it 
plus the sense of ‘even if things get really bad ill be okay’ that both rewind and minimus seem to adhere to - rewind having been upgraded from being in the disposable class due to his connection w/dominus, and minimus saying ‘I like to think that obsolescence is something that happens to other people’ 
I love all the fucked up signage this issue. ‘take pride in being a means to an end,’ yikes
god and the fact that there isn't MORE data sticks, there's just LESS of other alt modes bc of how many alt modes the govt has wiped out completely...
oof, and continuing the whole ‘slow change’ thing - minimus saying that ‘the council never touches the astro class,’ and maybe that used to be true, but the govt will keep pushing that line, clearly...
and we get to see minimus’s alt mode! altho we the readers know that this isn't minimus’s true form...
‘amazing, the lengths some people will go to cross class boundaries,’ minimus says, as if he isn't doing exactly what rewinds describing, but even moreso as a loadbearer wearing an entire suit of armor
and then the casual public execution of the last lunabot...oof.
love the ‘cybertron. the present day’ text overlay...I was so confused about this when I first read it lmao. I figured it had to be some sort of au/quantum nonsense but STILL
back on the lost light, chromedome is going full kool-aid man on rewinds door
mannnnn I absolutely love the plotline of rewind 2 and chromedome 1...im so glad the story acknowledges that they ARE different, they did experience different stuff on their own lost lights, and rewind 2 being a quantum duplicate doesn't mean he had the same experiences as rewind 1...
and I love so much that chromedome just Doesn't Get It, bc of course he wouldn't - he’s too relieved that rewind is back to even consider that its not quite the same, that the rewind he was forced to blow up is still dead (which is a fucked up thought, so of course chromedome, the master of pushing the past away and moving right along, would want to avoid thinking about that in favor of continuing his relationship w/rewind 2)
it also makes a lot of sense that rewind, who records everything and puts a huge emphasis on history/the past, would be hyperaware of all the differences between him and rewind 1, and his chromedome and this chromedome
AUGHHHH and chromedome referring to an offer he made to rewind that was pretty clearly ‘if your memories of the djd slaughter are too much, I can remove them for you’ ooooof...I love these two so much, like...their absolute opposite approaches to trauma is fascinating
oooh mannnnn and then rewind starts ‘remembering’ stuff from the functionist universe...the plot thickens...!
I really like how one of the main ‘things’ in a lot of tf universes is energon/energy shortages, its interesting when the angle is kinda like, ‘energon is a finite resource and the methods to obtain more often involve destroying other planets,’ that's a pretty unique, alien problem for the tfs to have
it also makes sense that the functionists would form partially in response to that (perceived) shortage, and any sort of scarcity would push them further into their extremist views
I like how expressive the characters with visors are...its cute...
poor rewind has to go thru So Much
WHY can just anyone go into the morgue and touch the dead bodies. I mean I guess megatron being one of the captains explains why he’s in there, but that still shouldn't be allowed 
‘megatron mountain’ vhbjdkshfbjskfbhhk that's so fucking funnyyyyy I love rodimus....I quote that line a lot, especially when watching g1 lmao
the fact that swerve diluting his engex bc he’s a cheapskate saved everyone's s lives is amazing lmao
also like...damn brainstorm sure tried to murder Literally Everyone huh. like I guess the logic would be that if he succeeded in changing the past it wouldn't matter that they had died there cause the timeline wouldn't exist, but STILL. I guess that shows how confident brainstorm was in his plan
it makes so much sense somehow that rung doesn't drink. and we’ve seen firsthand why magnus doesn't lol
mannnn that panel of brainstorm shooting magnus with some wacky beam and causing the magnus armor to fall off in vehicle mode...Super Cool, just peak mad scientist vibes there
ok but if minimus switches to alt mode when ultra magnus does - as we see here, where minesweeper-minimus is inside big-ole-car-magnus - does that mean that inside the minesweeper is turbofox-minimus?? I want to seeeee
ghsdufjkbvksadfbhjs the panels of rodimus telling megatron that brainstorm time travelled are so fucking funny
and megatrons rant about how absolutely bonkers the lost light is....hvbhjdskfbasjh that's so funny oh my god. like yeah dude you're right and you gotta roll w/it sorry 
'on this ship, a minor breakdown is practically a rite of passage’ vbjdsnfbkasdfn its true and I love it
goddddddd it kills me how at this point in the story its So Obvious to everyone that brainstorm travelled back in time to do evil decepticon double agent stuff - and we as the reader can even buy that bc brainstorm has been so sketchy until now, and nothing he’s done contradicts what rodimus suggests - but it turns out in the end, it was all just for love. AUGHHHHHHHH its about the LOVE!!!! that's why I love this arc so much.
back in the functionist universe - god I cant believe rewind waited until Now to reveal to minimus that dominus has a tv face...like I get that that's a difficult topic to bring up in conversation but like, a little sooner might've been good hbvhjkdhnfbjaksl
oh man it hurts...rewind saying that they're in a ‘blind spot...’ oh man :(
rebel rewind, tho!! I love it sm
oh man and rewind never even broke the news about dominus to minimus oof. that's a tough reveal 
MANNN I really like the whole ‘flathead’ thing, its so awful and brutal. its such a logical extension of empurata, and as dominus says, once people get used to seeing empurata’d bots, it loses its punch...and the flatheads thing is even more invasive 
and writing wise, both empurata and the tv-heads are such good devices to show evil govt bs. I talk abt it a lot but I like all the ways jro gets creative with the ‘alien robots’ thing; a lot of these concepts wouldn't work at all with humans or other organic aliens
GODDD and dominus’s chilling speech being interrupted by the functionist propaganda....fucking horrifying I love it
also seeing dominus here is fascinating - clearly the council managed to pin him down enough to turn him into a flathead, but they never discovered his true alt mode...same with minimus, actually 
the cog is so fucking ominous. just floating there...
and the council is scary too! their names, and the fact that they all look the same...seems about right for an evil alien governing body
mannnnnnn and then the reveal that the data slug alt-modes will be ‘recalled’ next...rewind noooooo...and the one council guy even admitted that they still served some purpose in society, BUT that their ability to mass store data made them dangerous to the goverment...evil!!
meanwhile, rodimus doesn't know enough about science to be appropriately frightened about their timeline being wiped from existence, so he’s having a grand ole time
‘no one’s nodding, perceptor’ bvhjdbfasdfhbk their expressions....the lost light command crew are all clearly team ‘leave the science to the scientists’ lmao
I do love the paradox stuff, and brainstorm’s way around it all 
‘so I'm not allowed to take an interest in magic?’ hvbjhsdkfbjhkdf ily sm rodimus
but also like....rodimus suggests a parallel universe could've formed and perceptor is like ‘no way, that's not scientifically possible,’ as if brainstorm didn't basically defy science by time travelling at all...and more to the point, functionist cybertron DID get created, so rodimus was actually RIGHT this time
love that we’re already seeing perceptor’s admiration for brainstorm and his invention even here....sapiosexual mfer
a time travel chase....so beautiful...I love sci-fi so much
seriously time travel is one of my favorite tropes ever, this arc was inevitably gonna be my fav 
‘he’s going to kill orion pax.’ DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN
meanwhile, on functionist cybertron...aw, is that bulkhead? great cameo! oh wait what's going on with all the data sticks...? uh oh!
the fact that their heads just EXPLODE....soooo fucked!! 
god and then the council picks up their dead bodies, for...probably something evil, I’d assume
god and then dominus got even more fucked....
‘there are certain words you cant afford to lose’ ;_; REWIND....GODDD IM SAD 
GOD GOD GOD the reveal that minimus has CAMERAS in his EYES GODDDDDDDDDDDD that's so FUCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and rewinds reaction...ME TOO BITCH TF!!!!!!
all the ‘you are our eyes’ messages are even worse now huh!!
they did it while minimus was asleep...that's so fuckedddd
FUCKKKK and then rewind’s impassioned rebel speech, which I adore.....rewind ily sm...he’s such a good revolutionary, I wish we could've seen him leading an anti-funtionist rebellion....BUT THEN ‘oh? what about the back up?’ and its just like HHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and then his head starts smoking and we see another billboard, but this time it says ‘WE are your eyes’ - is the implication that everyone is now a surveilling spy, whether they like it or now, so now it’s ‘we?’ like, we’re all in it together, spying on each other! ooooof
also. this is like the third time rewind has died on-screen in this series lmao (well, if you count the fake-out death where he thought he’d be cancelled out during slaughterhouse)...he ALMOST died in issue 12 too....poor rewind
‘the custom-made now’ is such a great title. jro always killin it w/the titles
plus ‘elegant chaos’ is such a cool arc name. fucking epic 
M A N NNNNNNNN THIS ISSUE WAS BALLER...this ARC is baller....I talked a lot hvbhdjkhfndsak lmao but there's so much to talk abt!!! I love the look into the functionist universe, I love seeing alternate versions of characters and settings so much, and I love time travel, so this issue is basically made for me
plus I fuckign love alien robot politics and seeing the absolute control the govt has over cybertronian society in the functionist universe is fascinating - plus from a storytelling standpoint, I think it was brilliant to show the ‘other side,’ aka what things would've been like without the war...which is something ill talk about later when its more directly addressed in the story but man do I enjoy that 
basically I love this arccccc I cant wait to read more hhhhhhh
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eyeslikefoxglove · 4 years
Text
Episode 21 - The PTSD is strong with this one & we need more braincells
Hello hello! Welcome to the commentary. How’s everyone? I’m frozen solid because it’s mid-June in Spain and yet we had 11°C yesterday. Fucking awesome!
I AM NOT WEARING MASCARA SO I CAN CRY ALL I WANT. I DONT KNOW IF THATS GOOD OR BAD THO.
Can I just take a second to appreciate how much this big strong powerful men emote? I mean, I know this isn’t western media where the tough guy can’t show emotions, and I don’t know that eastern media has the same hangups about men emoting but just... it’s so refreshing.
Huaisang bb you’re so sweet.
Oh, oh the PTSD is strong with this one.
Also, bless both JC and NHS, they absolutely noticed WWX flinch and, in their own ways, went and steamrolled over it so WWX wouldn’t feel scrutinised.
WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST TO INFORM YALL THAT I GOT A KITTEN ON MY LAP. (She’s kneading my boob, which, ow, but...)
*BICHEN GRIIIIIIIP*
How do y’all think the guards go deliver bad news to WRH? Like do they paper-rock-scissor it? Draw straws?
NMJ did you have to?
And once again I wonder what would’ve happened if JFM had let sect leader Yao kick it.
Ughvhfnevus it’s this clown. Same as with Su She, if you see a bunch of screaming it’s just me not wanting to listen to Jin ZiXun.
The Nies: let’s throw a banquet to honour WWX’s return
Every asshole there: *gossips about WWX while in the room with him*
Once again I wish I could transmigrate (and speak mandarin lol) and just start delivering tongue lashings.
Listen, I have no idea how to play Guqin, but I did play the guitar for years and even from here I can see how much YiBo’s hands don’t match the melody. Nothing against him but why does this always happen? I know they got classes, so was the music not written by that time or something? Because one thing is not hitting the correct notes, another is plucking slow notes when the tempo is much faster.
JC: Since yours and LWJ’s unhappy separation...
My dumbass: do you mean breakup? *eyebrow waggle*
You will pry my “JC knows his brother is pinning after LWJ, he probably doesn’t want to know anything else” hc out of my cold dead hands thankyouverymuch.
WWX: *spouts a bunch of misdirection to avoid giving JC a straight answer*
JC: Bull-fucking-shit.
Should I count how many times WWX PTSDs all over the place or would you like me to leave your hearts intact? That’s two so far.
Ok ok, I feel that, if someone with a bit less trauma and a bit of insight (NHS maybe?) had seen the bit where ChenQing fucking hurts Shijie thing would’ve gone differently. I mean, yes, LWJ keeps warning WWX that this shit is gonna fuck him up, but as I said in my previous commentary LWJ also has the communication skills of a hermit crab so that wouldn’t work, and JC would be too wound up and WWX too busy trying to conceal his lack of golden core for that conversation to go anywhere. But if someone who WWX knows is a good egg (I’m not gonna say trusts bc paranoia) had sat him down and told him “your new instrument that you use for your new form of cultivation just hurt the person you love most please be careful when you use it.” I think it would’ve worked wonders towards his health overall.
I know Shijie says it’s like Zidian, but she’s not working with the fact that this thing is made for and by the Dark Side of the Force and I’m sorry but I can’t help but see ChenQing as a bit of a horrocrux almost. Or like, if you like me think the Burial Mounds is an Entity, something that’s a bit more sentient that it lets on.
Speaking of reputations and NHS being a good egg, I have oh-so-many ideas (I won’t say plot bunnies because I can’t write for shit) in which NHS for Reasons (time-travel? Letter from the future? His massive brain?) realises just how much damage WWX is doing to his public image. And he might be a sheltered dandy, but he saw what being the son of a sex worker did to Meng Yao despite how hard he worked (I’m assuming he doesn’t know about the whole betrayal business). This is way fucking worse, like hell is he going to let one of his best friends paint a target on his back. So he pulls back his sleeves, engages his slytherin brain and proceeds to lay down a plan to throughly destroy WWX’s reputation as a powerful genius.
I’m guessing LWJ and JC protest, and maybe WWX, and NHS just hits them with “do you want him respected or alive?” And they shut tf up. He glues himself to WWX, and brings up as many instances in which their behaviour can be compared as he can (we got drunk and punished at cloud recesses, we slept in class, we skipped to go fishing, I don’t carry my sword either). And, because assholes be assholes, people like Sect Leader Yao or Clown Cousin are quick to start spouting their own derogatory bullshit and thus WWX the untamed powerful prodigy dies a fiery death. Now he’s just a mouthy kid with a quick mind that “does tricks instead of battle” (I’ll never get bored of using that Thor quote). I also like to think that people who personally know WWX and are not pieces of shit go give NHS a tongue lashing for messing with what they thought was his friend, NHS takes that as a test of good eggness and bring them into the plan. Soon the whole Cloud Recesses class is swearing up, down, left, right and centre that all the shit WWX has ever successfully pulled is just an insane amount of luck and quick thinking.
I don’t know how would they work him into the battlefield (disguise? Mask?) to unleash his demonic cultivation but that’s Plot and I don’t do that.
Also, because I’m a terrible human being I want to say that people assume LWJ is on “pretty but useless” WWX like white on rice because *insert derogatory comment about being good in bed and sexual favours*. Because y’all know the assholes here are Like That. And WWX is horrified because holy fucking shit he’s gonna drag LWJ’s reputation down, he can’t have people thinking HGJ is ok with having him as a concubine pretty much. But before he can act LWJ politely all but confirms that yeah, he’s tapping that, y’all wish you were but he doesn’t share and none of y’all are good enough for his Wei Ying anyway. CUE FAKE/PRETEND RELATIONSHIP BECAUSE I AM INDEED TRASH FOR THAT TROPE.
Muahahahaha y’all thought I was gonna devolve into my personal hcs and not include my fave trope? Shouldn’t y’all know me better by now?
(Btw I like this bit ^ so I might polish it a little and post it separately as well, just a warning if you find yourself reading an eerily similar post by me)
WuJi is playing and LWJ is pining so much. Also, if LWJ did not just realise that, just like Yu the Great, WWX had no other option but tame resentful energy I’ll eat my blanket.
I refuse to believe Jiang Yanli didn’t become the unofficial war camp therapist/sounding board/only sane person/everyone’s mum/I just need a hug and a corner to cry in peace. There are not enough fics about Shijie being her gentle BAMF self while in the camp and it’s a pity. My crops are dying y’all!
Also, I will fight anyone who scoffs at Shijie being the epitome of the “gentle woman who cooks and waits for the men to come back from war”. Look at her mum, do you think it is easy for a kid (she was a kid in the flashback when WWX ran away) to see that day in and day out, to have that as a “role model” and decide that she was not going to be like her mum? That she didn’t like what she saw in her so she was going to be kind and gentle? And do you think it is easy for a person barely in their twenties to deal with years of verbal and psychological abuse for again, being gentle and kind, and not grow a hard shell of bitterness to protect themselves? And to keep being gentle and kind while at war, with your parents dead and your siblings unraveling before your very eyes? Shijie is so fucking strong and I love her.
Hey look, the White Walkers!
“Resentful energy is just energy” ok, valid. But my dude, you’ve got black ghost smoke coming out of you and can hear people screaming in your head. I’m not saying it is evil, like someone’s uptight set in his ways arrogant uncle; but it sure as shit ain’t healthy.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH (that’s a Clown Cousin scream btw)
Ok ok, just one little thing: IF SOMEONE ELSE CALLS WWX WEI YING AS A SHOW OF DISRESPECT IMMA SCALP THEM.
...are those crows eating that man alive? Yikes on bikes.
(Assume my comment about YiBo’s Guqin playing also goes for Xiao Zhan and his flute. I can’t play the flute but the tempo doesn’t match his fingers)
I’m just gonna say it, I think 3zun (well, 2zun as of now) suspect shit went down badly for WWX, that’s two questions by both of them in a very soft conciliatory tone. They are genuinely interested/worried about the topic, and don’t seem to come off as chiding or judgemental. I mean WWX is a weirdo irreverent kid and they’re sect leaders, they outrank him so much it’s ridiculous. I’m also counting the fact that both their baby brothers like him towards them being so kind. But I also think WWX just triggers all their big brother instincts the second he walks in.
Oh there’s a thought, Shijie, Wen Qing, NMJ and LXC take a look at everyone’s shitty parents and just decide to adopt everyone.
What happened at Yiling was a traumatised teenager (is WWX even 20?) PTSDing all over the place with the Dark Side of the Force whispering in his ear and an all powerful trinket at his disposal. Not saying I approve of all the torture and murder but he clearly isn’t revelling in them.
That is some outstanding bit of big-brothering on LXC’s side and I love it. Also, my dumbass just realised LWJ probably wasn’t quoting WWX when he was being punished (what is white what is black?) I think he was quoting his big brother. Which is magnitudes deep too, but in a different direction and I might love that scene even more.
Ok fuck it, I’m gonna tangent. So I had a terrible boyfriend when I was 15-18. He alienated me from my friends, sunk my self-esteem to the molten core of the earth, tried to convince me my parents were abusive and encouraged (aka threatened manipulated and cajoled) the slow tanking of my high school marks. I have A Problem when I see media where someone latches onto their significant other and everything they are shifts towards that person. Now, love, true genuine love, is powerful, and I believe it can be the catalyst for shifting your world-view for the better. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with people sticking with their romantic partner if it is clear their previous “family” is so much shit. I don’t have a problem with LWJ coming out of his shell and defying corrupt precepts because his love for WWX made them see they were wrong, or getting sassy and unrepentant during his punishment (I have a problem with the punishment bc that’s abuse but...). But I do side-eye WangXian being the only thing in their orbit. People need people, and WangXian have other good people around them. So I kind of love that yes, WWX showed him the system was corrupt, but it is the words of his brother he is sticking by to the defy said system.
Let’s go back to our scheduled slew of held pinning glances shall we?
LXC after That awkward run-in: WangJi I wasn’t gone that long, what the fuck did you two oblivious pining idiots do?
(LXC has “bitching” tea sessions with Shijie and you can’t convince me otherwise)
LWJ: *is being dramatic and not knocking on WWX’s door*
Me: oh my god you fucking idiot
Shijie: *walks in*
Me: oh thank god someone with a braincell.
Ah yes, there we go triggering WWX’s paranoia again. Why would he get a break.
OH MY GOD YOU PAIR OF FUCKING IDIOTS. THATS IT, FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUT.
@ LWJ: bitch wtf was that? I know you’re shit at talking but have you thought about writing it down? Letters anyone? It worked for mr. Darcy.
(Yes LWJ is mr darcy and now I want an au where LWJ writes WWX letters and just pours everything in them, WWX finds them, any everything is sunshine and rainbows)
While this bullshit fight/misunderstanding is all on LWJ’s shoulders, I’m also going to scream at WWX. Because yes, he is in PTSD hell, but he trusted LWJ before, and yet he can’t get past his perceived notion of LWJ’s character (and his own inadequacies) to trust him again and ask for help. Plus, you know, he thinks he doesn’t deserve he’ll bc *waves hand at WWX’s trauma conga line*
These episodes can’t be good for my BP.
Thanks for reading!
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i am SO delighted to hear that the "detective and five people trapped on an elevator and one of them is the devil" movie is real and you saw it. also while trying to send this i accidentally clicked the Unfollow button (and then promptly refollowed), sorry about that
lmao i maybe wouldn’t’ve noticed, love Tumblr Notifications and how like, they display different on desktop vs mobile and the way it Condenses them is only so helpful cuz sometimes some of them only display for 0.2 seconds while i’m on mobile and it hasn’t Refreshed in a way that reshuffles everything and i can’t view that particular [Like from a certain person or smthing] ever again lmao like i hate this, it’s bad, just like that movie about people trapped on an elevator and a detective has to get them out and has to act fast b/c one of them is the devil
it is so stupid first of all like. it’s just overall not a great movie from Any of the angles it’s playing like. first of all the Detective is only around b/c he’s solving a nearby murder / death and making like. corny dumb “oh this is a Smart guy” observations about the Scene and someone is like “oh hey @ cops you’re already on the premises, come solve the mystery of Elevator Broke” like i don’t think that’s how it works and also i can’t even remember the reason they find this issue That pressing pre-realizing And One Of Them Is The Devil. maybe someone dies right off, idk. there is conflict on the elevator so naturally that’s a whole other thing like, we’re all trapped in this elevator together and maybe one of us is untrustworthy and liable to be dangerous to the rest of us like, i don’t know the Contrivance that makes these people think anything has to be done but just Stand Around for a while but it’s you know. that whole Thing where there’s a premise of “some shit is happening to Incite Conflict amongst strangers who are trapped in a bad situation together and they’re all apparently raring to judge each other’s moral fiber to decide who deserves Suspicion vs Protection.” but also, one of them is the devil
meanwhile on the outside it’s this dumb Cop Mystery Drama where this rando guy apparently sets aside the death he was investigating earlier to solve this elevator situation (i think eventually it’s revealed that that death was tied to the elevator situation all along. i think that the devil killed the guy. or something) and also, maybe there was Coincidentally some kind of heist going on at this place b/c i remember at some point the detective (and some partner there too involved in all this) like, find some tools hidden in a bathroom like “aha this was Used to do [whatever]” and despite having no idea what the details are i Know i remember this b/c of at the time going “oh my god that is so dumb Nobody Would Do This / this makes no sense” lol like. writing not great. and this was maybe Not the devil, but a regular separate scheme to. do something
also there’s some aspect where Main Cop has some tragic backstory and is like, not over it b/c it was so painful. i think maybe someone like hit and run his wife or something like that. you know how it goes. spoilers in that i think the person that the devil is here to kill (more on this devil assassination thing....) was Behind That somehow lmfao so it’s like really??? is that our resolution, that people’s stories are Converging in a very serendipitous way b/c the devil would like to give people emotional catharsis......idek. look, spoilers, this old lady who “dies” in the elevator relatively early on turns out to have been The One Of Them Who Is The Devil, Act Fast. and it was this weird thing where the devil is like “grr whoever i’m even here to Get in the first place is just Such A Bad Person that uhhh i guess i came here in person to take them to hell” like.....what tf kind of Lore......this is definitely going with “aaaah the devil is evil” approach, not any more kind of Neutral figure, but then in the end apparently the evil devil is just really Judgey and Disgusted by someone being A Bad Person like??? you ought to love this shit!!!!! and anyways the detective learns that One Of Them is The Devil b/c when they take him up to the security camera display hq it’s like a) look at this scary Moment where the elevator camera feed gets staticky and a scary face appears for a moment (im not sure if i could see what it was supposed to be lmfao) This Means Something and okay oh my god i reread the plot summary b/c for the life of me i couldnt remember the ending, it is so stupid oh my god
okay so first of all the Dead Person the detective was investigating had left like a suicide note like “i am killing myself b/c um. the devil approacheth” like wow okay right off the bat? amazing foreshadowing. why does this person Know this?? and why should he care b/c the devil is here apparently for a Special Soul Collection like, this has nothing to do with you, random guy?? you don’t even need to worry like. just stay home from work to avoid the fairly minor problems that occur (like MAYBE one guy dies in the course of this story but i think it’s a little ambiguous, meanwhile whoever Really Dies in th elevator was i think due to like, suspicion and infighting lmao. idk maybe the devil killed a few of them. it’s weird) but yeah the highlight is this
everyone please enjoy this scene. security guy ramirez is explaining the Devil Expertise courtesy of Where I Come From where toast falling jelly side down is evidence that the devil is hanging out in the elevator. 
while looking up “devil toast” the result immediately after that one was “the devil takes the toast” which is a devil takes the hindmost ytp which i feel is really fitting
it kind of undercuts the stakes i think when not only is the devil only sorta gently radiating Bad Luck but also is just super Righteous but like. yes it turns out that the devil is here to Claim a guy on the elevator was the same dude who Hit N Run the detective’s family (wife and kid apparently) those years prior......except like, it wasn’t even like oh he assassinated them On Purpose, it’s apparently already a Known Detail that although they ~never knew~ who killed detective joe’s family (idk what his name is idc) there was a Note left on the scene like “sowwy :(” like really? this is the Big Bad that the devil made a special corporeal visit for??????? and then, get this, when the devil is like “i’m not a dead old lady, i’m the devil, and i’m here to Get you b/c you accidentally killed a couple of people and i, the devil, am really disgusted by how sinful you are for that” the guy is like “yes that was me :’( i’m sorry” and then the devil is like “ah fuck you’ve Repented. i can’t take you to hell anymore. bye” like what!!! why did he only have to feel bad about it to get out of this whole situation when obviously he Felt Bad in the first place b/c he up and left a note like “[grimace emoji] aaa my bad” like, did he have to apologize To The Devil?? the lore i s2g. Jelly Toast Rules operating here i guess. 
anyways then the detective who witnessed this i guess is like “wow the guy who killed my family all those years ago but i’m still sad about it.....well i’m gonna arrest him now. but also, I Forgive Him.” oh and also for a while there the detective was so gritty he didn’t believe in The Devil b/c the vehicular manslaughter apparently made him think that human nature was evil enough to not need the extra help. so now he’s made the arc of getting uh, emotional closure on his family’s death by forgiving the dude who i guess super crashed into them on accident, And gets to know that the devil is real actually and he’s on the elevator but now Not b/c he was like “ah jeez thwarted by this guy uh, feeling bad about the accidental deaths even though he felt bad in the first place” and there was no other point to the detective being there b/c he didn’t Really do shit except i guess drive this sideplot where you are led to believe he Might figure out who the Bad Guy on the elevator is. (it is the devil. one guy has a crime record or something but, spoilers, he is trying to turn his life around with some good honest work as a security guard or something. idk)
it was amazing and very stupid and i was continually indignant b/c the writing was dumb and made no sense and just so fucking corny throughout. the entire movie is called “devil” and i remember it was like “tf is ‘devil’” and as soon as it involved an Elevator i was like omg omg is this And He Has To Act Fast Because One Of Them Is The Devil, and it was, so that was exciting. it was a dumb waste of time but also it was not b/c it was *slightly* so bad it’s good. mostly Not Even. but just watch the toast scene there b/c like. i think that’s this movie’s #1 contribution outside that post about the plot summary. 
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wetalkinboutbooks · 4 years
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A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir
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Summary:  Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and undertake a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire.
Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.
But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.
Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both. (Taken from Goodreads)
Our Ratings:  
 → Geena:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  
Overall: Sabaa Tahir manages to avoid the second book curse with A Torch Against the Night, she picks up where she left off in An Ember in the Ashes (our review). Laia and Elias have escaped Blackcliff, Helene and the rest of the Masks are after them, and Darrin has yet to be saved. Everything that could go wrong DOES go wrong, but then at the same time, we get some wholesome moments in this book and overall we LOVED IT!!!
~ Spoiler-full review below
The Good:
→ Laia
Kae: Laia. Our sweet little angel. She can never do anything wrong ever in life. We love her and we stan. She has broken Elias out of Blackcliff and now they’re on the run! It’s a hot ass mess. She and Elias escape through some catacombs or whatever, and they end up at an old Veturius warehouse where Keris, Elias’ evil ass mother is waiting for them. They battle it out! CLASH SLASH SLASH! Swords and scims are SWANGIN. They knock Keris out, tie her up, and get away. But… Keris done got a little slice in and cut Elias. Now he’s sick, seizing, and passed TF OUT. So while he and Laia are on this journey, taking care of him the whole way through. Things are getting worse and Elias is getting WORSE. So she takes a risk and goes to a sketchy town to find meds for him. The destination to find safety and also rescue her brother, Darrin is going to take a long longer than she anticipated. 
Geena: Kae got the start of the book really well, and like she mentioned we find out the Keris managed to cut Elias with a throwing star (lmao I THINK) which was poisoned. But Elias doesn't let Laia know that he’s been poisoned by a chemical that has no cure and that he’ll just end up slowly and painfully dying 😭 LAIA THO? She thinks of everything she can to help him, like going into a shady town full of mercenaries and killers to find him an antidote that she thinks might work. Does that backfire? Yes. But did she try her best? HELL YES. Laia makes a lot of mistakes in this book, but rather than wallowing in some sort of self-pity she takes shit into her own hands and learns from her screw-ups and I really loved how Sabaa handled her. A lot of people drag Laia down and compare her to Helene, and I think I mentioned this in our last review too that those comparisons aren’t right because: 
Helene is a trained soldier, and she got white feminists antics so please…
Laia literally has had no training but she (with Elias) manage to outsmart Helene and other Masks so like…..
Anyways, I love Laia and I’ll fight ANYONE who talks shit about her. Scratch that, Elias will manifest and beat the shit out of anyone that talks shit about Laia. Like even when she was hanging out with Keenan, Elias was like ‘If it weren’t for my love for Laia I would have murdered your ass’ just because he suspected Keenan of being a snake (and he was right…). But yea, in Book 2 Laia takes command of what happens and starts formulating her own plans along with help from her companions, and she doesn’t let any backfired plans stop her (even when Izzy died 😩). When Elias is captured and imprisoned she plans to break out both him and her brother, and through quick thinking, she and Elias are able to devise a plan which obviously goes to shit but still ends up working out... So Laia haters… how my ass taste?  
→ Ilyaas and the Tribes 
Kae: Geena summed up Laia perfectly! So now we’re going to talk about Ilyaas and the tribes. Elias, as we all know, was abandoned by his mother when he was a baby. She left him in the desert for the tribes people to find instead of just killing him, which she deeply regrets. SO!! Elias is not his birth name. His birth name is Ilyaas, which is the name given to him by the tribes people. They are who Elias considers to be his real family. He has siblings, a mother (Mamie Rila), friends, and more, who he grew up with before he was taken to go to Black Cliff. Here is where Ilyaas feels the most comfortable with himself and his surroundings. He feels his safest when he is with the tribes. He had kept in contact with them his whole life and continued to do so even after being on the run which is why they ended up back with the tribes. They took him in and consider him family and when they met Laia, they instantly loved her. Especially Mamie Rila, who thought she had “GOOD BIRTHING HIPS” LMAOOO SHE WILD FOR THAT ONE. Anyway, when Elias and Laia show up as fugitives, they know they have to hide them. So Mamie Rila and family keep them hidden. When the Martial’s come riding the camp and looking for them, they figure out a distraction. Mamie Rila calls a big meeting during a special ceremony in which she gives a speech. During the speech, she riles everyone up and shit talks to Martials and what they did to Elias and how they are ruining society. This gives the tribal people the motivation to cause a big enough riot for Elias and Laia to book it! Elias runs into Helene during their escape and they meet for the first time in weeks, possibly months. Helene is stunned, but Elias tells her he is sorry and he misses her. After a good fight, Elias gets the best of Helene. She ends up letting them get away. 
Geena: Kae really hit all the points! I really liked how Sabaa mentioned that Elias’ (Martial) grandpa changed his name from the given Ilyaas and anglicized it for Martial society (shoutout to Colonialism ha ha). But Ilyaas and his connection with his family is one of the things that sets him apart from other YA protagonists I’ve noticed, he’s genuinely a good person and it’s because he was raised in such a loving and caring environment and my hort 🥺 In this book he stays on the same trend of always getting into shit bc he’s a good guy, he’s vowed to help Laia break out Darrin but then shit goes down… The poison killing him sends him to the Waiting Place (essentially a purgatory) where he meets the Soul Catcher (Shaeva) who helps him come to terms with the fact he’s dying. Through Ilyaas we also learn about what lead to the creation of the Nightbringer (how the Shaeva helped some Scholars essentially destroy a thriving Jinn community r.i.p.). This is spread throughout the book and really enhances Sabaa’s worldbuilding and we loved it! Also, we can’t forget the rawest lines throughout the whole series which was said in this book:
 “You are my temple. You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release.” 
LIKE HELLO?????????????????????????????????????? When Elias realized he only had a month left to live and that he’d move faster without the tribal folk, he leaves Laia and whispers that to her while she’s asleep and SHE DOESN’T EVEN HEAR IT BRO?? Anyways, Elias leaves to bust Darrin out himself but things happen and he ends up imprisoned,  but still manages to get to Darrin and finds out that KEENAN’S BITCHASS ISN’T WHO HE SAYS HE IS. 
Kae: Also when Elias breaks into the prison he’s almost immediately caught by the Warden who experiments on the prisoners. These prisoners are mostly the scholars. So the Warden recognizes Elias from when he has to patrol the prison when he was younger. When the Warden recognizes Elias, he puts him in prison and it begins to torture him. But Elias ain’t no bitch so he handles that shit like a MAN!!! Whenever the Warden is done with Elias he sends in a little Scholar boy to clean him up. The boy continues to clean Elias up and be nice to him and Elias is like “I love this child as if he were my own. I will kill ANYONE who does him HARM and there will be MURDER.” And so like, Elias is a softie and once again, genuinely a good person that is out in bad situations. 
Geena: Elias engaged dad mode in the middle of a torture chamber, imagine what’ll happen if he and Laia ever have children…. 
Kae: Need me a man like Elias ngl asdfghjkl. BUT LIKE. HE’S LIKE “my new son… what is your name?” And the little boy is like “Puhpa.. I have no name*insert sad eyes here*” So Elias names him Tas.  Tas helps him break out of prison with Darrin. But Elias dies as they’re escaping and he goes to the Waiting Place and he makes a deal with Shaeva to take her place so she can move on to the next life, then BOOM. He’s alive again and wakes back up in the prison. 
Tas: Yo wtf wake yo big ass up. I, a six year old, have been carrying you. 
Elias: LMAOOO my bad I was dead. Let’s roll. 
And so they escape with Darrin and Laia and the rest of the Scholars. And Kauf burns down. 
The Bad:
→ Keris
Geena: Keris may not be a good person or a good mother but at least…………………………… I was trying to think of something good to say about her but this bitch really is all trash. Like she finds some sort of sick joy in killing her own son. Like, why let him live after you gave birth to him only to turn around and torture him. Anyways, we find out some interesting tidbits about how she’s in cahoots with the Nightbringer, who seems to be controlling everything she does. And we also find out that she’s planning a coup against Markus, who is the new and shitty emperor, but because the support behind him is weak Keris is like ‘This will be no biggie’. She finds some sort of sick joy in killing scholars, she wakes up and is like “I eat genocide for breakfast,” and I’m like *monkey side eye* bc who in the fuck... Like I don’t know what she was fed growing up but the concentration of hate and bitterness in this woman is too much… we also find out she had Helene’s torturer, Avitas Harper, spying on Helene throughout the whole book. Keris doesn’t just have eyes in the back of her head, she got eyes on every living surface. 
→ Harper
Kae: Harper! I didn’t like him when he was first introduced. I didn’t like the fact that he was beating the shit out of Helene even though I wasn’t exactly a fan of her either but I understood that she had to do what she had to do so she wasn’t a number one on my enemy list just yet. But I hated having to read Harper whoop her ass. I mean, Harper didn’t LIKE doing it. But ya kno… Keris made him do it. Harper started off as a spy for Keris. He was assigned to basically be Helene’s second, so he was to aid her in whatever mission she was sent on , while also reporting everything she did back to Keris. LITTLE DID WE KNOW THO!!! THAT OUR BOY AVITAS HARPER DIDNT FUCK WITH KERIS. He had his own personal motives that we don’t discover in this book. So after awhile he was like “....nah I’m done with that.” So he becomes loyal to Helene. He shows mild displays of not wanting to kill anyone that doesn’t need to be killed (the tribes after they helped Elias escape). He also goes out of his way to make sure Helene eats and gets sleep and has fresh clothes. I think little things like that is how he tries to show his loyalty. He also knows that Helene has a soft spot for Elias and that she doesn’t really want to hurt him. We learned that he has a soft heart and is a pretty cool dude. He really just wants to help Helene in any way that he can. He worries for her. 
Geena: Harper has always been a shady character for me, like I didn’t expect Sabaa to turn Helene’s torturer into her love interest… WHEN I TELL U I SCREAMED at all their moments I was LIKE WAT IS THIS but I sat back because I was like imma trust Sabaa. But it was interesting to read Harper be like “Yea, I’m a snake and?” and Helene just accepting it like “This is my life I guess”. But Harper wanting to emulate Elias and being like “Maybe I too will attempt to be a good human being now”... a very interesting development… Also, Im curious to see how Harper (and by extension, Helene’s) stories end… will Sabaa give the soldiers of the state a happy ending… DO they deserve a happy ending 🤔 Will they make up for their war crimes in the series finale? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z.
Kae: ALSO THO. WHEN HELENE TELLS HARPER HE’S A SNAKE, HARPER IS LIKE “Yeah and Snakes survive soooo…”
→ Markus
Kae: So now we have skankass Markus. Markus used to have a twin brother named Zacharias. Markus killed  Zacharias in the first book during the trials and now his twin brother haunts him and whispers in his ear. People claim that Markus talks to himself when it’s really him trying to get his brother out of his head. After the trials, Markus became Emperor. He is a tyrant and is killing whoever gets in his way. Markus is doing everything in his power to stay relevant because he is a very unliked by literally everyone in this society. He is a Plebeian and that is one of the lower ranking caste in this world. The Martials don’t like that someone of a lower rank is in charge of all of them so they want him off of the throne.  He also has a lust/hate thing for Helene and tries to belittle and make her uncomfortable as much as possible. He also absolutely hates Elias and has ordered Helene to kill him. Markus ALSO arranged to marry Helene’s sister, Hannah.  Hannah is kind of a bitch so she’s down with the shits to get back at Helene. Why she hates Helene? I seriously don’t know.  In the end, Markus is like “So you didn’t kill Elias? *evil laughter*  Well, since I can’t kill YOU, Helene, I’ll kill your family” so he slices the neck of Helene‘s parents and his fiancé, Hannah. He leaves Livia (Livvy) alive and married her instead. Ngl, that part made me so sad I got tears in my eyes. That was so fucked up dude. That’s when I KNEW Sabaa didn’t fuck around. I’m convinced she wants no survivors in the end lmaopleasedontdothatSabaa. 
Geena: Oh yea like Markus is nasty as Kae outlined, he could’ve been Keris. But unlike Keris, Markus is a dispshit with no braincells (bc they died with his brother). He’s a disgusting human being who assaulted Laia back in book one and has been implied to have done that to other scholar slaves 🤢 AND LIKE …….. HELENE KNEW THIS……. AND SHE KNEW HER SISTER WAS TOO GOOD FOR HIM…. So, imagine her horror when her favourite sister is forced to marry him….. I guess he was “smart” for marrying her favourite sister and realizing that was the only way to control Helene to get her to do what he wanted. bUt das it.  
The Ugly:  
→ Keenan’s Fugly Ass. Bitchass. Manipulating ass. 
Geena: Do you know…. Do you know how much denial I was in??? All through book 1 and majority of book 2, I was like FUCK KEENAN but seeing how Laia was into him I was like *angry pingu meme* LIke FINE FINE, I’ll like him because Laia likes him and I just want him to be happy. SO, I ACCEPTED THAT KEENAN AND LAIA WAS THE IT COUPLE… And like did I skim over the part where they got nasty? Kinda. But i was like okay fine, Laia loves him and he’s helping her. But then the big reveal…. THIS MANS WAS PLAYING HER THE WHOLE TIME??? HE WAS NEVER KEENAN, THE SCHOLAR REBEL, THIS HOE WAS THE NIGHTBRINGER THE WHOLE TIME??????? He’d played Laia into developing feelings for him, JUST SO that he could take the armlet that he mother had given her. Which, we find out, is an important part of some weapon that the Nightbringer needs to bring about the apocalypse or some shit. And, he can only take the weapon if it’s given out of love. This implies he was in love with Laia too, but I’d fight that bitch like hOW DARE YOU????
Kae:  You skipped the nasty scene!? LMAOOO I WAS SHOOK BUT ALSO MAD BUT ALSO LIKE OKAY WHATEVER. I WAS A HARDCORE LAIA X ELIAS SHIPPER FROM THE START! But like, same. I was like “If Laia is happy with Keenan, then I’ll be happy too.” But maaaaann… 
Geena: I WANTED TO GIVE KEENAN BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT OKAY, AND LIKE SABAA really subverted my expectations because usually in YA only the true love interests end up getting nasty so I was like… I guess this is it! But she was like “SIKE!!! YOU THOUGHT!!!” Anyways, I still don’t think this series should be YA but whatever...
Kae: GORL I WAS SEETHING WITH HATRED!!!!!!! AT THAT REVEAL!! I WAS SO FUCKING MAD. I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!! I LITERALLY HATE HIM. Def shouldn’t be YA. But, here we areeee! 
Kae: I just wanted to say that I hate Keenan/ The Nightbringer with a BURNING PASSION. I hate when guys trick women into trusting them so that they can sleep with them and get what they want. That pisses me off to the highest degree I think it is a scumbag move and he is just a dirty little fucker and I can’t stand him. There is nothing that can  represent all of the hatred that I have for Keenan. I absolutely loathe him/The Nightbringer. I hope he suffers. 
Geena: Fuck dude, that’s so valid. 
Conclusion
Kae: In conclusion, the Nightbringer is a bitch and I HATE HIM. 
Geena: SAME! We hate the Nightbringer as much as we love Laia and Elias so there’s that. Sabaa really shows out with the characters she’s crafted from An Ember in the Ashes, takes a baseball bat, and starts beating the shit out of our emotions and her characters at the same time. ANYWAYS, please read this series!
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blackcatanna · 4 years
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First impressions of Hakuoki characters:
Hijikata: Sebastian from Black Butler realness. Is mean but in a reluctant way. Like a Mum who is in charge of discipline because her husband (Kondou) is incapable of laying down the law. I like him but I would like him more if the game wasn't sucking his dick so hard. He has good hair. Please don't kill me, Hijikata!
Okita: He is handsome (duh) but seems a bit too eager to kill his own men... Ugh, now he's making me thank him. His idea of humour is threatening to kill you. He's like an old cackling witch who was shunned by the world and is taking it out on anyone he has power over. I enjoy him but I find it hard to relate to someone who takes pleasure in tormenting the helpless. Big dom energy. Probably enjoyed tying you up a bit too much. I want to fight back but I have a feeling that there is no script for bratty Chizuru. :'(
Saito: The Chosen One. He is dangerous but also adorable. He saved mah life *swoons*. He is HELPFUL. He has beautiful impractical hair. He is CONCISE. He is POLITE. He just seems like a great person to have around... If he's on your side (R.I.P. Itou). Alas, we can never be wed, for he is already married to his sword... Or maybe it's Hijikata... Or Okita... Or tofu. He has a lot of commitments.
Harada: He has red hair. Me like red hair. I feel like all three of them are way too casual about my impending doom. Not getting friendly vibes here. However, it turns out that he's pretty great! A bit too chirpy for my liking, though. Because I'm a miserable bitch (goth), I guess. The baka trio are all more boisterous and outgoing than I would be comfortable being around but I like them on their own. Harada is my favourite, though. Definitely the Mum of the trio. I guess that makes him the cool aunty of the Shinsengumi? He has the best Kazama burns and I will always love him for that.
Heisuke: I wish that the others would stop treating him like a child. Maybe they would if he stopped taking their bait. He's the most openly friendly of the group and that means a lot when you're surrounded by new people (and are being held against your will). He looks like an angry wildcat. I like cats so that's fine, I guess.
Kazama: Ew. Can you tell that I don't like him? Fuck this wannabe nonce. Actually, no! Don't fuck him! That's what he wants! Just stab him real good. He cannot control his temper. I do not respect that. He is racist. He is too scared of rejection to court a girl and get consent. He is really handsome but he has the worst personality so I feel no attraction to him at all. Not even for a hate fuck. No. Go away.
Nagakura: Ah, the classic pervert! We love a slut! I kept forgetting who he was, though. Sorry. Clearly, he has hidden depths but I have yet to find out what those are. Is a little bit too violent. Needs to calm tf down. I don't really have much else to say about first impressions. At first, the baka trio were just loud, wacky background noise.
Sannan: Seems fine, I guess... Fairly reasonable. If he was such a sweet, fluffy bunny before his injury, why was everyone so scared of him? He has a pleasantly calm aura. However, he needs to work on his diplomacy. Demanding blood while brandishing a sword is extremely un-chill of him. I also enjoy wandering around eerily in the middle of the night so we have that in common. Definitely gives off sinister vibes.
Yamazaki: Ninja Nurse Mum! He is clever, selfless, dedicated and reliable! He deserves a better hairstyle XD Sorry Yamazaki! The rat tail is not a strong look but he probably has more important things to worry about like SAVING LIVES and coming up with new moves to shout out in combat. I am excited to do his route because he deserves all the happiness.
Iba: The most beautiful one. He's rich, good looking, friendly and has had a crush on you for years. He also rescues you from the Shinsengumi on numerous occasions to hang out and eat delicious desserts. He's very cute. Definitely too good to be true. Everyone has a dark side and it concerns me when someone locks theirs away so much. Or maybe he really is that 2D. Iba is so perfect that they had to give him the Demon Arm of Horniness because they didn't want to tarnish him with a human flaw. I would probably be obsessed with him if he was real but, as a character, I don't find him that interesting.
Sakamoto: I still have no idea who this man is. He creeps me out, though. I don't remember why, I just remember being creeped out when you first meet him. Maybe he should mind his own business.
Souma: Puppy? Who threw this poor guy to Harada and Nagakura? Wow, I finally have underlings. However, they are probably not here against their will. He looks scared so he must have some brains. I haven't played his route yet so I don't know much about him.
Nomura: Horny Puppy! This isn't really a first impression (except for in the sense that all of my impressions are initial because I haven't played much with him in yet) and is totally spoilery but there's a bit in Edo Blossoms where they're making fun of him for being terrible with women and how it'll take him ten years to figure them out. At the time, I thought, "Bit harsh, guys. He could very easily die tomorrow and then he'll never get any." AND THEN HE DID. Die, that is. Not get laid. R.I.P.
Kondou: Married to Hijikata. They have loads of terrible children. Fun Dad. Thinks that he's a cool Dad but there are no cool Dads. Everyone talks about how nice he is and how everyone loves him but it's hard to appreciate that when he's debating whether or not to feed you to Okita. Turns out, he is kind but very busy. Definitely a secret badass. Very secret. He gives off friendly bear vibes.
Inoue: Friendly Grandad who is way younger than he looks. Not datable so he is mostly in the background, just being kind, helpful and dependable. He is warm but calm and comforting to be around.
Shimada: Gruff undatable anime guy who is not a bishie and so his brave and heroic acts often go unnoticed.
Motoyama: Bless him for trying to be a wingman. Why is he so scared of the Shinsengumi? Scary poor people with swords? He is very good at his job. Needs to calm down with the winks and nudges.
Itou: This Bitch. He could be fabulous but he loses points for mocking the disabled. He's Regina George. Except he actually dies. Is very camp. Would be great to go shopping with him. Not necessarily gay but is the gay best friend you deserve, not the gay best friend you asked for. Is a bitch but also sometimes the only sane person in the room. He's not reading you, he's just being real with you because you're Shinsengumi Sisters.
Miki: Bitch by Association. "Darling." Doesn't seem totally evil, just trying to do his best by his brother. Relies on tough guy image. Doing his job but happens to be on team Bitch. Also, he is a handsome boi.
Takeda: Fabulous Cunt. Should be too beautiful to be such a disaster human and yet here we are. Starts off as a bit of a prick, ends up (spoilers) feasting on the flesh of innocents... Is that a glow up? He's a dirty cop. Nobody likes him X_X :'(
Shiranui: GUNS! SHOOTY SHOOTY! He has a lot of aggression and he channels it through his GUNS. He always looks somewhat maniacal. Needs to take a chill pill.
Amagiri: Infuriatingly calm enemy with infuriating facial hair. He seems pretty chill and not bloodthirsty so... Good? He punched Heisuke, though, so RAAAAAAAWR!!!!
Kodo: Worst Dad. Scalpels > kunai. Took a level in WTF while he was away (hopefully he wasn't always like that).
Kaoru: Why can't I dress like that? :'( Definitely evil.
Sen: Hey, don't tell me off for protecting you! Can we be best friends?! I'M SO STARVED OF FEMALE CONTACT!!! More of this queen, please. She is powerful, kind and she is honest! I wanted to run away with her while Saito and Heisuke were away :') But the game didn't let me :'(
Kimigiku: GOALS. Why can't I be disguised as a geisha (except for that one time) :'( GET THIS QUEEN A ROUTE. She is beauty she is grace. I wish that I looked more like a woman and less like a child. I want her to be my friend too. She can teach me her womanly arts!
Chizuru!: She's fine. Much less annoying than she could easily be. Too pure for this world. A fine example of woman (well, she looks like a child). Her disguise is useless. Pretends not to be thirsty but rushes past Itou to see shirtless men. HMMMMMMM.
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ralfstrashcan · 5 years
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3x21 Reaction / Commentary
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I was seriously wondering if this was Alec because Magnus loss = melt down = shaky fingers but Alec would never voluntarily drink something so pretentious. But uuhhh I had thought Jonathan angry-flapped through the rift to Edom? Why he now here still?
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More seelie queen crown, yeah!!
Not buying that whole “your demon blood is burning away your humanity” because, again, he lived years without being bonded to Clary so what's taken that “transformation” so long? Also, will he become like, a raven? A harpy? Oh no, I saw the promo. He'll be blond. Makes sense.
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He just showed that he's not interested, stop harassing him you sick cougar.
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Uhhhhh, objection your honor. That fake blade only contained like three atoms of the original Glorious. But whatever, details amiright.
Also if they wanna tell me it's the blade that triggered the transformation then a) wtf why would a blade designed to break something evil make the evil actually MORE evil wtf for a shit equipment is that b) can we expect some ridic changes for Clary too, that make her even more Mary Sue? c) if Lucifer was so badass, where is he? Something killed him, maybe? Since Jonathan is declared most uniquest thing to ever unique?
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“A splendid pet bird. And he died a few decades back so I'd like to recruit you as replacement,. Whatcha say? I'll even drop bird themed pick up lines around you all day.” God I'm making myself sick.
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BS when you think about it, because every individual is unique. Good luck salvaging the climate change and what not, seelie queen, on your heroic quest to preserve all that is unique.
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#rejected, take that you prowling predator. Can you believe she annoyed him so much he just abandoned his pretentious cream drink thingy? So rude. Also nice touch that they remembered that thing with the flowers and Jonathan making them poor flowers wilt. Btw would that have worked if they were plastic flowers?? Haha ok sorry.
Wtf I'm very much not on board with the seelie queen having a weird Jonathan fetish. Also, if the sole reason she has it is that Jonathan is “one of a kind” then I wonder why she wasn't ruthlessly hitting on Simon the same way? Or technically, before Simon became a daylighter, on Cain, getting him to leave the sewers and chill in the seelie realm instead?
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1) Wow can you believe they managed to spare Malec's drama 3 seconds of consideration before getting absorbed in themselves again? Amazing. 2) Dude, you weren't in control of your actions while Clary was brainwashed and very much in control of her actions. That's not really comparable? But whatever.
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Some great “love” you've got going on there, Maryse, writing Magnus off after, what? Half a day? Two days? Smh.
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???????????????????? So they want to tell me Magnus plastered his magic like a bandaid over the rift but didn't really close it? Well, I am prepared with outrage to point out all the ways in which this is bullshit.
1) There clearly was no such thing to be seen from the other side.
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Since Edom and Earth are two different dimensions and on Earth's side there was no rift in the dimension's fabric anymore that obviously means if the wraiths slipped through that Edom crack they'd either be lost in limbo or flapping around in some inter-dimesional space. But they couldn't reach Earth. So I fail to see how this is a problem.
2) How the hell do the NY Shadowhunters know about this? Since from their side the rift was well and truly closed? They don't know that Magnus has to keep his magical band-aid in place? The only thing they have to wonder about is why the hell Magnus hasn't returned yet since Magnus proved in 3x20 that apparently interdimensional travel works with normal warlock portals and those fancy pentagram things aren't necessary.
3) Uhhhh if Magnus has to stay there to keep up the magical band-aid (since exit options clearly aren't the issue here) wtf won't he tire at some point? Am I supposed to believe exhausting isn't a thing in Edom? What happens if he has to sleep? (Sidenote, what the hell do they eat in Edom anyway? Will he have to roast some shax demons? Disturbing.) Anyway back to the topic at hand, if I'm supposed to believe that Magnus is THAT strong he can keep up this magic (a magic that was so enormous he couldn't even achieve it from Earth) for eternity without taking a break, then I doubly don't get why he can't just SEAL the goddamn rift?! And don't tell me it's because band-aid magic is something he can do, and different from  rift sealing magic which is something he can't do. Because again, 2x20 is a thing where Magnus proves that he is capable of sealing a rift; so the only explanation of why he didn't do it in 3x20 is because the rift was too powerful. Now correct me if I'm wrong but to me Magnus + Enhanced Edom Powers equals He Closes The Rift, not Weird Band-Aid Magic. Wtf.
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HAHAHAH I CAN'T!!!!! THANKS MAGNUS FOR POINTING THIS OUT!!! AND IN THE SASSIEST WAY POSSIBLE!!!!! IT'S BEEN BUGGING ME SINCE 3x10 XD XD XD
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Love that shot.
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1) Thanks, Lilith, for confirming that Magnus is in fact constantly supplying the band-aid with magic and thus exposing this whole plot line as completely frakkin illogical. 2) Wtf Lilith, why the heck did you go back to Edom in 3x16 if you wanted to murder Jonathan????? IT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL WTF 3) Where tf is Cain?
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN'T
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN'T
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Wow that escalated quickly. I hate that even though Magnus knows it's just a trick to get into his head it still hurts him, because this is how he is: alwasy second-guessing his worth. He deserves better from all of them, deserves more from them, so he wouldn't feel this so keenly.
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Ok, good save, I was just gearing up for a rage about why the hell Magnus is more powerful than the literal mother of demons who could defeat everyone, even with his Ddom-Edition-Powers because come on. However, Magnus must know that this is just a temporal solution because recovering means at some point she'll be recovered and, well.
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Also, this shot haha.
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Hahahaha I see he inherited the hell puns from Asmodeus along with the real estate XD
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I mean, yeah, and then he acted like a total fool in his last few days. Great way to go, man. #stillbitter
“People mattered to Jordan. People, their troubles, their pain...”
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That was sweet.
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HAHAHAHA THAT WAS HILARIOUS
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Probably off to do something to enrage me, so same as always.
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Oh look, he's robbing a bakery because being jobless and needing food doesn't mix well.
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OMG I SUDDENLY REMEMBER THIS FROM THE 3B TRAILER. You know, Luke being all creepy in the back of a car? Wtf, honestly I think I'll have even less patience for Human!Luke than I have Inapt!Werewolf!Luke. They're really testing me.
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“....like Sizzy” Hahahah okay I'll try to behave myself. And I had time to prepare, it was obvious they'd use that inspirational thing Maia said for Sizzy purposes.
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Yeah...... #irony #obviously me behaving myself isn't working out, who's surprised? I'm not.
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Don't they have fire extinguishers in the Institute somewhere? I mean, there's regulations for that, right? Lemme guess, that's remnants of the Glorious fake sword that pierced her? And now she can't be with Simon without killing him, hahaha, all Sizzy problems solved XD
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When I saw this (in the Sneak Peek, but still counts) my first thought was “Aha NOW he tries to find a solution but when Magnus first lost his magic he couldn't be bothered RUDE ALEC WTF” lol ahahahah
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Question time: 1) Didn't he have plants in there last episode?
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OH RIGHT HE HAD!!! What happened to them? *Sherlock Voice* Did he eat them??
2) Why didn't Alec wonder where the hell Lorenzo was? Sure, he's a little preoccupied atm with losing Magnus, but he should have realized Lorenzo was weirdly absent about five hours into his happy little loft occupation???
3) I fully expected the scratching to be Chameleon!Lorenzo vying for attention, but seeing it, omg my heart broke a little. Can you imagine the desperation?? Poor evil lizard baby.
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You know, I find it inherently troubling that Alec assumes Magnus always had this lizard and has only now decided to relocate its terrarium into the loft's main room, instead of thinking Magnus got the lizard as, idk, a pick-me-up after the breakup. I mean, what kind of lousy pet holder does he take Magnus for? Not even mentioning he has one, never taking care of it? That's not Magnus. Alec should know better.
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Als Bohemian so incisively pointed out, why would he have created a pet cobra that he calls “baby” if he hated reptiles? And while, granted, Alec might not know about this, I believe Cat should. So wtf.
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.....................................they honestly felt the need to tell her this? In grave detail and that this was their first kiss? Why would they do that?? Or did she look at the tapes??? So many questions.
Lol okay I didn't even intend to be so spot on with the Sizzy prediction. More importantly though, she won't be able to shadowhunt anymore.
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Why is anyone (except Magnus (and occasionally Alec)) left in charge of anything, ever. *sigh*
But I mean, at least there's this
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Small mercies (aka comedic pockets in a vast sea of illogic shit) I guess XD
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HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA I AM DEAD I CAN'T HAHAHAH HIS FACE!!!!!!!!!!
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Jace is me, I am Jace
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So.... many....... questions...............
Okay, so I'm severely confused. If this demon has info on what's happening in Edom right now, then either he left Edom after Lilith started gathering her army so there's a rift there somewhere, OR there's a way for news to travel between Edom and Earth, probably through, you guessed it, a tiny rift. So wtf, show, please explain because I don't understand.
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..............................................................
The audacity. The fucking audacity. MAGNUS WILL BE DEAD, IS WHAT YOU SHOULD TAKE AWAY FROM THAT. NOT THAT THE RIFT REOPENS ARE YOU KIDDING ME WTF JACE I CAN'T BELIEVE IT I EVEN CURSED EXPLICITLY I NEVER DO THAT WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Wow. Alec, can you please punch him?
Don't get me wrong. They're shadowhunters, of course it is their duty to prevent this to protect the mundanes. But, delivery?! Show some worry at the prospect of the love of your parabatai's life dying??? before continuing with business as usual?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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SAME CLARY, BECAUSE WTF?! I REPEAT, WTF!!!! Didn't she listen to Helen at all? It's not going to protect her, it's going to blast her to frakking pieces. Wtf how dumb is she??? Hääääääääääää?????
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lol Simon, you'd just stab yourself in the eye with it XD But I appreciate the sentiment XD
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I AM THIS CLOSE TO JUST, RECORD MY LAUGHTER BECAUSE I'M DYYYYYING OVER HERE OKAY HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHA Also he should call Maia, because life as a werewolf suxx way less than life as a vampire. Then again, IMMORTAL HUSBANDS SIGN ME THE F UP, IMMORTAL ALEC WAS ENDGAME ALL ALONG AHAHAHAHAHA YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Okay, on a more coherent note. I LOVE this line. I was so painfully deprived of Alec throwing himself into risk and action just to protect and help Magnus during 3B that it's not even funny. So this was really awesome. But, consider this: if he really wanted to go through with it he'd have to wait like a whole day before the transformation is completed, so uhhh impracitcal.
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YES. YES. PLEASE MORE OF ENRAGED ALEC SCOLDING THEM LIKE THE KIDS THEY ARE. (But, uh, ragefully running away from his sire in spe wasn't the cleverest move if he wants to go through with it immediately ahaha XD)
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I mean, nice of them to contriubute. All it took was Alec (!!!!!) flipping his shit. It seems they didn't have the idea to look into something themselves. Lol I'm inclined to be with Lilith on that one, are they even worth it??? Smh.
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Full disclosure, for the longest time I was sure those were burning dog shit piles XD
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Can we talk about how Jonathan is at a point where he doesn't really seem to care if he lives or dies because everything is pointless to him? (Btw if I manage to actually write the epic 3x21+22 rewrite I have in mind then it'd start here.)
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I mean this was smooth and all, but......? Wasn't Meliorn like, totally over Izzy? I'm meaning this in a premonition-y way, not just this line. His rekindled feelings come pretty much out of nowhere.
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I get that this is the alliance rune from the books. But why the hell would she do that in this situation instead of a rune that allows Shadowhunters to survive in Edom? In which universe is alliance rune your first thought instead of resiliance rune?? Or just a plain Accio Magnus rune, ffs!!!Makes no sense.
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This is epic and all, but excuse me while I roll my eyes real hard.
Also ignoring the seelie queen and her weird fetish 2.0 because who cares.
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HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I CCCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT LORENZO IS A FANBOY HAHAHAHA I BET YOU HE WILL CORNER SIMON AT SOME POINT AND BEG HIM FOR AN AUTOGRAPH HAHAHAHAHA
“As my first act on the Downworld Council...”
So you mean to tell me that from 3x02 til 3x21 actually only a week passed? Because the Downworld Council meetings are weekly scheduled??? Tf hahaha.
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Hahahhahhaa I mean I totally get why he reacts that way. Also, may I ask the dreaded question: WHERE THE F IS CATARINA???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No honestly, I give up. I just. I give up.
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Hahahahaha
“The angels wouldn't have given me this power if they didn't want me to use it.”
Premonition!Ralf: Ha. Hahahhahaha. Ha.
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THE COMEDY WE DESERVE HAHAHAHA
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA PERFECT!!!! Not least because it's immediately followed by
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which makes it seem as if Lorenzo is complimenting Meliorn's prowess as a lover LOL
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SIGH. So in 3x10 it was the portal that allowed Magnus to EASILY travel back to Earth, not Asmodeus kindly giving him a lift. So then let me ask why the hell he didn't make a portal like this in 3x20?! Did he already know he wouldn't be able to seal the rift but would have to keep it closed 24/7? Ridiculous. Also, why does Alec even ask this, since he saw Magnus use that exact same portal in 3x10.
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I think you should have held frikkin hands.
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HAHAHA ALEC, HONEY, WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE ANYWAY???? “We're right here, next to those withered trees. There's sand on the ground and wraiths in the sky. Everything looks red. And from here I can see that one ruin!!”
Weird Lorenzo & Alec bonding is intriguing. That's all I'm saying on the matter for now. I'm reserving judgement.
(Edit: After watching both 3x21 and 3x22 this clearly marks the point where Lorenzo's Instant Redemption Arc sets in and simultaneously comes to a close. Thanks, I hate it. Let antagonists be antagonists, dammit. At the end of the day not everyone is a goody two-shoes. That's life. UGH. Also, let me introduce my theory that while traveling between Earth and Edom Lorenzo's character was ripped from him in a severe Plot Convenience Turbulence. What a shame.)
But hell yeah to Alec's emotions running rampant and him being unable to control the magic. Another headcanon confirmed (that I didn't really knew I had, lol).
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Hahahahha dude could you be any more pretentious XD XD XD
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Hahahahahahaha this is the best day of my life.
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Hahahaha Meliorn just got promoted to one of my favorites. Better late than never amiright.
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I get this, this taking stock conversation, from a meta standpoint. But BITCH CAN YOU FOCUS ON MAGNUS FOR ONCE IN YOUR SELF-ABSORBED LIFE IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK WTF DAMMIT
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Yeah, me too. Who knew demonic transformations came with a villain hairdo make over?? Nature truly is beautiful.
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Me, watching: I might be totally oblivous, but did this crown always have a stripe thing on the top, too? Ralf, editing this reaction post: Yes. Yes it did. You're not as observant as you like to think. Me, reading that: .......harsh
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..........do I have to understand why he isn't running away screaming? I get the instinct to wreak havoc because everything hurts and is pointless but wtf, the seelie queen is doing the exact same things Lilith did to him. Using him, only seeing him as a power source that has to be cultivated but has no feelings, no worth, and weirdly kissing him. He should, for all intents and purposes, be running for the hills. (But also, uh, neat nail polish and rings, seelie queen. You've got style.)
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HAHAHAHA I mean, I already prepared two Jeliorn Dumb Comics, but this is reaching ridiculous levels XD XD XD I'm soooo here for it.
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Hahahahaha XD XD XD
“Runes bubbling back, incredible” Yeah, no shit. I'm not buying. I could even largely argue my point, making references to the seelies that got “treated” in 3x17 that weren't rendered half-human-half-angel but mundane, meaning they lost their angelic part, too, meaning the serum removes angelic blood as well as demon blood. But since I couldn't care less about Luke (right now or in general? That's your guess to make) I'm not even getting worked up over it XD
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Dude, you're aware this is like the perfect opening for getting a verbal diss, right?
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Wow, three seconds a shadowhunter and here we are with the racist jokes again. That was quick.
Also, let me say how exceedingly ridiculous it is that Luke just walks out of there with a “No thank you” and Evil Praetor Guy does nothing against it literally because Luke said “But blackmailing me would mean you're evil ;__;”
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bitch please
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Look, can we appreciate this a little more? Like, a lot more??? Can I pause the episode here and stare at this for half an hour or something????? Alec saying he's willing to just, leave behind life as he knew it, very possibly never seeing anyone of his family again, just so he gets to stay with Magnus? I mean, that's some Major Immortal Alec Energy right there. Serve me more please.
..................wow instead I get Clary depriving me of a Malec Reunion Smooch wtf?! Uuuhhhh no thank you!!!!
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AHAHAHA THAT SUFFERING FACE HAHAHAHAHA OMG AMAZING Kicked Pouting Suffering Puppy Jace <3<3<3
Btw what Jace said about Simon really gave me something to think about. I'm confused but intrigued. I like.
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The Worm Reads: The Assassin’s Blade, Ch 19-20
SJM either cuts one measly scene into three chapters or crams 100+ long scenes into on chapter so this one is gonna be super fucking long
Celaena dressed in the nicest tunic she’d brought—which wasn’t really anything to admire, but the midnight blue and gold did bring out the turquoise hues in her eyes.
SJM gotta stop bringing attention to Celery’s Mary Sue eyes because I laugh every time I think about them.
Ansel takes Celery to dinner.
Staying alert as they entered the hall was an effort of will. Yet even with her exhaustion, she instinctively scanned the room. There were three exits—the giant doors through which they entered, and two servants’ doors on either end. The hall was packed wall-to-wall with long wooden tables and benches full of people. At least seventy of them in total. None of them looked at Celaena as Ansel ambled toward a table near the front of the room. If they knew who she was, they certainly didn’t care. She tried not to scowl.
This paragraph right here. This sums up everything wrong with this book.
At first while I was reading this, I was like “Yes finally!! Celery is acting like an assassin! It took us two short stories to get here, but we finally did!” And then SJM immediately ruins it by having Celery cry and wail about nobody giving her special attention.
Boo fucking hoo! You’re an assassin, you’re not supposed to stand out, you fucking spoiled asshole!! This character is utter garbage and I hate her so much, this is actually making me enjoy the ending of E0S where she gets the shit kicked out of her and shoved into an iron coffin. Fuck her. Fuck this book.
Ansel mentions some Lord Berick guy, who Celery has never heard of before.
“He’s the villain,” said a curly-haired, dark-eyed man across from Ansel. He was handsome in a way, but had a smile far too much like Captain Rolfe’s for Celaena’s liking. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.
Nuance who?
Ansel blathers on about Lord Berick and how he’s the most Evil Guy Ever who wants this part of the desert or some shit. No doubt Celery will beat him in one paragraph if they meet, so who really cares.
Outside of the markets in Rifthold (...) she’d never seen such a mix of different kingdoms and continents. And though most of the people here were trained killers, there was an air of peace and contentment—of joy, even.
This place is way tf better than Arobynn’s shitty assassin joint. Please let us stay here?
Vows of silence, Ansel had explained earlier, were taken for as long as each person saw fit. Some spent weeks in silence; others, years. Ansel claimed she’d once sworn to be silent for a month, and had only lasted two days before she gave up. She liked talking too much. Celaena didn’t have any trouble believing that.
That is quite fucking rich coming from you, Celery.
Celaena felt someone’s attention on her, and tried not to blink when she noticed a dark-haired, handsome young man watching her from a few seats down. Stealing glances at her was more like it, since his sea-green eyes kept darting to her face, then back to his companions.
oh no
Their eyes met, and his tan face spread into a smile, revealing dazzlingly white teeth. Well, he was certainly desirable—as desirable as Sam, maybe.
oh god no why this
SJM has basically skipped out on love triangles (Dorito never had a chance in T0G and Tamlin never had a chance in AC0TAR, and you all know it) but nope, she just had to hit all of the shitty YA tropes. Fucking great. Poor Ilias is probably gonna be put down so Celery can realize Sammy is her one true love.
“I’m surprised you caught Ilias’s eye,” Ansel teased, keeping her voice low enough for only Celaena and Mikhail to hear. “He’s usually too focused on his training and meditating to notice anyone—even pretty girls.” (...) “I’ve known him for years, and he’s never been anything but aloof with me,” Ansel continued. “But maybe he has a thing for blondes.” Mikhail snorted.
Holy shit, is this... self awareness? I mean, both the protagonists of SJM’s big ticket series are skinny blonde white girls who have men drooling left and right for them. I bet that new Creamcheese City novel will also feature a blonde “””strong female character””” as the lead.
Celaena pushed around the food on her plate. It wasn’t that she wasn’t romantic. She’d been infatuated with a few men before—from Archer, the young male courtesan who’d trained with them for a few months when she was thirteen, to Ben, Arobynn’s now-deceased Second, back when she was too young to really understand the impossibility of such a thing.
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Dude he’s like a fucking adult and she’s barely 16. Get this nasty shit outta my face. So Celery rescued Ben’s body not because he was a good guy, but because she used to have the hots for him?? This is actually gross.
Mikhail asks why Celery’s master beat the shit out of her, and she kisses her own ass for a moment or two while telling the story of freeing the slaves.
“But if the two hundred slaves that I freed are telling the story, then no, I suppose I didn’t deserve it.” None of them were smiling anymore. “Holy gods,” Ansel whispered. True silence fell over their table for a few heartbeats.
HFAKHDKAHDKAHDS I AM GOING TO LOSE MY SHIT
STOP!! MAKING!! EVERYONE!! SPLOOGE!! OVER!! CELERY!! IM SICK OF READING IT GET IT OUT OF MY FACE
The next day (I think?), Ansel takes Celery out to do some running and Celery is pissy that she isn’t immediately getting special attention from the Mute Master. Good to see Celery will never change in her selfish, whiny ways.
Celery fucking sucks at the run to the oasis and everyone continues to lap her.
A small oasis, mostly a ring of trees and a giant pool fed by a shimmering stream, was barely an eighth of a mile away. She was Adarlan’s Assassin—at least she’d made it here.
Stop reminding me she’s Adaran’s Assassin, I fucking know. Remember how I said at the beginning that Celery doesn’t splooge over herself as much as Alien does? Yeah I take it back, Celery is even more obnoxious.
Later on Ansel tries to stroke Celery’s fragile precious little ego by saying she did worse on her first run.
“My first run, I collapsed. Mile two. Completely unconscious. Ilias found me on his way back and carried me here. In his arms and everything.” Ilias’s eyes met with Celaena’s, and he smiled at her. “If I hadn’t been about to die, I would have been swooning,”
No Ilias/Ansel/Celery love triangle, please.
Celaena blushed, suddenly too aware of Ilias’s attention, and took a sip from her cup of lemon water. As the meal wore on, her blush remained as Ilias continued flicking his eyes toward her. She tried not to preen too much. But then she remembered how miserably she’d performed today— how she hadn’t even gotten a chance to train—and the swagger died a bit.
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Celaena made her best attempt to look casual as she, too, stood and bid everyone good night. As she turned away, she noticed that Mikhail took Ansel’s hand and held it in the shadows beneath the table.
Apparently Ansel and Mikhail are a thing? I literally don’t care. Mikhail has said like what, five words this entire story? They’re literally just together because SJM can’t stand the idea of having any single characters (unless they’re evil).
Celery chases down The Master to demand her special snowflake treatment.
The Master paused, his white clothes rustling around him. He offered her a little smile. Up close, she could certainly see his resemblance to his son. There was a pale line around one of his fingers— perhaps where a wedding ring had once been. Who was Ilias’s mother? Of course, it wasn’t at all the time for questions like that.
Yeah, no shit Celery. Why are you such an idiot?
The Mute Master is like “wait your turn” and leaves. Ilias shows up for shipping fuel I guess?
“I have no plans to hurt him,” she said softly. But Ilias gave her a half smile, his brows rising as if to ask if she could blame him for being protective of his father.
Maybe I’m a softie, but this endeared me to him somewhat. He seems like a nice guy, which is more than what you get with 95% if SJM’s male characters. How come all of Celery’s love interests Rowboat who are waaay better characters than her?
His eyes were vivid in the torchlight, his hand firm and warm around hers. She let go of his fingers. The son of the Mute Master and the protégée of the King of the Assassins. If there was anyone here who was at all similar to her, she realized, it was Ilias. Rifthold might be her realm, but this was his.
Human brain: don’t get attached, Celery is an asshole
Monkey brain: hhhhhh parallels between partners in a ship...love....
Not that Ilias and Celery are/will be a thing, but you know. I’m a sucker for shit like this.
Ilias suddenly began making a series of motions with his long, tan fingers, but Celaena laughed softly. “I have no idea what you’re trying to say.” Ilias looked skyward and sighed through his nose. Throwing his hands in the air in mock defeat, he merely patted her on the shoulder before passing by
Ilias is a good, pure boy. I’d read a story where Sammy goes to the desert instead of Celery and him and Ilias fall in love and hold hands under the shade of the desert night. Hngh, I really wish I could be reading that fanfic instead of this novel.
As she walked back to her room, Celaena had a horrible feeling that here, being Adarlan’s Assassin might not count for much.
Celery says this like we’re supposed to feel sorry for her, but back in Arobynn;s Assassin joint she flaunts her title around and rubs it in everyone’s face so yeah, you don’t get sympathy from me.
“How long have you been seeing him?” Ansel was silent for a long moment before answering. “Since I was fifteen.” Fifteen! Mikhail was in his midtwenties, so even if this had started almost three years ago, he still would have been far older than Ansel. It made her a little queasy.
Oh. My. God.
See, I personally don’t like huge age gapes in ships (that’s just my personal preference, don’t fucking @ me) but Celery you literally said earlier you were in love with Ben, a fucking grown man, when you were a young teenager you fucking hypocrite!!!!!!!! God I fucking hate Celery!!!!!!!
With nothing else to distract her, Celaena eventually returned to thinking about Sam. Even weeks later, she had no idea how she’d somehow gotten attached to him, what he’d been shouting when Arobynn beat her, and why Arobynn had thought he’d need three seasoned assassins to restrain him that day.
Pretty simple answers. You got attached to Sammy because a) SJM wanted you to so she forced you to start thirsting for him, and b) you realized “oh hey Sammy is a good guy maybe I shouldn’t imagine myself slitting his throat”. What Sammy was shouting will be revealed later to my knowledge, and as for the 3 assassins thing... idk, tbh. I mean, Sammy is just a teenager boy, one big buff assassin should be enough to restrain him.
This chapter finally ends thank fucking god. We still have one more to go for today.
[Celaena] did run farther the next day. And the day after that, and the one following that. But it still took her so long to get back that she didn’t have time to seek out the Master. Not that she could. He’d send for her. Like a lackey.
Stop trying to make me feel bad for Celery being ignored if she’s just gonna splooge about how ~special and uhmayzing~ she is.
Like the assassins in Adarlan, the Silent Assassins weren’t known for any skill in particular—save the uncannily quiet way they moved.
That seems kinda odd. Assassins should be talented at many ways of disposing of people yeah, but wouldn’t it make more sense for some of them to have a knack for a certain type of killing, such as using poisons?
Still, even as [the assassins] corrected her posture and showed her new ways to control her breathing, she tried her best not to snarl at them. She knew plenty—she wasn’t Adarlan’s Assassin for nothing.
If I have to read that fucking sentence one more time I am ripping this book in half. No joke, I am a hair’s length away from not finishing this fucking book. Even E0S never got me to want to throw  the towel in completely and quit like this.
Perhaps if she demonstrated that she was skilled enough in these practices, the Master might take notice of her. She’d get that letter. Even if she had to hold a dagger to his throat while he wrote it.
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Wow, asshole! You have to put in the tiniest amount of effort to learn and talk to people and you’re already resorting to violence??? You really are a weak and stupid protagonist and I hate you with every fiber of my being.
The attack by Lord Berick happened on her fifth night.
This made me sit up in my seat, to be honest. We finally get.... plot? Promises of action? Assassins versus assassins? Holy shit, I’m hype!
Apparently the attack happens oh so conveniently when the Mute Master and a bunch of assassins are away on a mission. Celery acknowledges this as extremely convenient, which leads me to believe there may be a rat in the assassin fortress. If not, then this is laughably stupid and convenient.
“We’re not going to kill [the soldiers]?” Celaena whispered back. (...) Ansel shook her head, watching Ilias down the line. “No, though I wish we could.” Celaena didn’t particularly care for the casual way she said it
Why would that fucking bother you?? Don’t act all high and mighty asshole, you’re an assassin the same as her. You both kill people for a living. Jesus fucking christ.
They all fire some burning arrows at an oil ridge in the sand or something which scares off Lord Berick’s goons. The scene ends.
I’m not even joking, this entire scene takes up a page and a tiny paragraph of another. I... I’m fucking speechless. You promise us an action scene and you give us this shitty, glossed over pile of garbage that serves no point? No named characters were even injured!!!!!! Holy fucking shit, SJM, you are a terrible terrible terrible writer! Please fucking stop, I can’t handle any more of these dumpster fires of novels.
The next day Mikail tells Ansel she has orders to go to Xandria, and she invites Celery to go along with, I assume Xandria is a place.....? This chapter ends. I am going to drown myself in chocolate chip cookies to heal.
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imaginegladions · 7 years
Text
K Project AU Headcanons [PT1]
G doesn’t have the time to write a fully fleshed out fic because she has an Accounting exam, an online long exam at 8PM for Science, a play script to write for English, a video about her autobiography, a service project, and a philosophical journal to write for Philosophy, 15 working hours at my church as well as an interview about it’s history/church statement as well as an Oral Exam to prep for in Theology, two articles due for the School Paper, and a Tag Sale to prepare for which is a requirement for all Marketing students all due within the next two weeks on top of my regular homework.
*breathes in* I need a break.
So like, the Slates choose people with great influence in Alola and give them supernatural powers as per usual. 
It’s not like Kahunas, nononono these are different.
For one, the Slates were created by scientists in Aether as a way of boosting human genetics and abilities.
Basically, they found a magic rock and accidentally turned it on now there are like 6 people running around in the world wielding these superpowers who can also give them to people who become their clansmen.
START HERE IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THE BASICS OF WHAT K PROJ IS!!
Enter You!
*Opening Song Plays* woooorriesssss slowllyyy come and kissssss tell meee what’s youurrrr nAAAAAME
ok shutting up now sorry i’m such a nerd for this anime
After the Slates started giving people these crazy powers someone had to prevent it from going out of control.
Luckily!!! Lusamine was granted with the amazing Blue Aura!!! Queen Lusamine managed to tame the Slates which she created anyway so that’s fair but still 6 people were left in the world wielding different coloured auras.
Meanwhile!!! This evil Silver King!! From a different region happens to visit Alola and gets these powers!!!
And in a bid to destroy Lusamine and grant even more power to the people of the world by stopping her from putting a cap on the magic rock, he tries to assassinate Lusamine!!
EXCEPT!! HER HUSBAND MOHN TAKES THE BLOW AND DIES!!
Lusamine completely desTROYS THIS SILVER KING AND HER SWORD OF DAMOCLES - a floating sword that appears above the heads of Kings when they use their Aura that is also a symbol of their power - BECOMES REALLY WORN OUT LOOKING.
This is bad news bc if the sword falls then it will destroy… everyone in the Alola region, oh noes.
LUCKILY!!! Green King Kukui steps up to help her handle the Slate in the mean time!! He’s not too strong though since his power mainly works with nature and Lusamine was one of the stronger Kings having derived her power from ice and wind.
Lusamine slowly becomes insane as time passes still not over the murder of her husband~~
Following Canon, Gladion realises that if he stays with the Blue Clan then he will be expected to become his mother’s right hand since his dad was fulfilling that role beforehand.
Instead of staying to witness Lusamine’s reign of terror he leaves to find a power that can rival Lusamine’s.
AND ALONG CAME THE RED KING GUZMA.
Team Skull is basically Homra. They’re both full of thugs that mean well and are actually cinnamon rolls.
Plumeria is like… their Kusanagi lbh they both mom all the members of their clan.
Anyway, by becoming part of the Red Clan Gladion earns the Red Aura which derives power from fire isn’t that the edgiest thing omg.
All the members have the skull tattoo too instead of the Homra Tattoo that they have in canon.
So Gladion stays with King Guzma and basically becomes his 3rd in Command who digs out all the secrets and goes on stealth missions.
Meanwhile!!! Lillie is confused af about why her brother left the Blue Clan and she asks her crazy mom for permission to go after him but Lusamine becomes even crazier and Lillie is starting to think that staying is a bad fucking idea so she runs away the first chance she gets staying with King Kukui in his little hut.
On her way to it!!! Lillie meets you!!!
You just arrived at the island and are lost so Lillie takes you to see Hala.
Hala is, of course, the Gold King. He keeps people in check, he mostly has the managing jobs taking care of the governance of Alola with his Gold Aura of light.
His grandson Hau takes to you immediately!!!
AND SUDDENLY!!!
YOU START GLOWING!!!
And Lillie is like ( 0.0)
And Hala is like ( 0 o 0)
And Hau is like ( OwO)
BIG SURPRISE!!! A SILVER SWORD APPEARS ABOVE YOUR HEAD CONGRATS YOU’RE THE NEW SILVER KING.
And then Lillie Realises.
Oh Shit, you’re the new Silver King.
Lusamine and Guzma are on the scene and start clashing like rip Kukui’s hut and Hala’s house these two are fighting and destroying things.
And all the while poor you are confused and floating in the air not used to your Silver Aura and the powers that come with it.
Luckily! Gladion is on the scene! 
And Gladion takes one look at you floating lit up with Silver Aura and thinks Oh Shit.
Cupid better mcfreaking put that arrow away right now-
Cupid, no!
Cupid, YES!
Anyway, he knows he should get you the frick away from Lusamine before she blows you up and her sword falls down because she almost didn’t survive killing the previous Silver King she’ll destroy Alola if she kills you her sword will blow you all up to kingdom come.
Lusamine’s sword falls anyway during her battle with Guzma and the Red King scrambles to shoot Lusamine before her Sword hits the ground so that nobody will get killed.
Everyone stands there, staring at Lusamine lying on the ground, her sword disappearing.
The Blue Clan are devastated.
Lillie starts following you everywhere, at a loss for what to do. 
You decide not to take any more clan members, remembering how her mom’s death was caused basically by her need to kill you.
As a way to repay her, you take Lillie with you on a Pokémon journey.
You don’t use your Silver Aura in front of her.
It might remind her of the person who killed both her parents.
Hau tags along some time after and sometimes he uses his Gold Aura to make butterflies and make Lillie smile.
In which Hau is a Totsuka that doesn’t die.
You’re all surprised to find Gladion walking up to you one day, challenging you to a battle.
“Do you mean-”
“I mean a Pokémon battle, of course.”
He’s surprisingly alright after his mother’s death.
He’s a bit desensitised to it after his dad’s death. He’s still hurting from it, from the absence of the Blue his mother gave him. Which is why he decided maybe training Pokémon would give him something else to think about.
Gr8 minds think alike hm? *eyebrow wiggle*
YOU CRUSH HIM IN POKEMON BATTLE AND HE’S NOT ABOUT TO TAKE THAT LYING DOWN.
He tags along too.
His excuse? He wants to be close and see how you train so he can beat you.
Lillie is v amused because this is her brother she knows what he really means. He just wants an excuse to be near you.
BUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe some of the old Blue Clan are still angry at the Red Clan and Silver Clan and Gold Clan for not preventing the death of their King so one day they see you four!!!
The Silver King!!! The grandson of the Gold King!!! And the traitor 3rd in Command of the Red King!!!
AND THEY AMBUSH YOU!!
You try of course to activate your Silver Aura and manage to do it but so far all you know is some floating and a bit of memory manipulation you don’t know any offensive uses of your Aura yet!!!
Gladion steps in front of you, his Aura engulfing him in flames and protecting you.
And he is lit af omfg.
Hau is struggling a bit with his Gold Aura but he knows how to apply it enough to protect Lillie.
Lillie is v distressed that her friends and her are in danger and everything was going fine for the first time since her dad died and she sNAPS
AND. THEN. THERE. WAS. LIGHT.
A big majestic Blue Sword appears above Lillie’s head. Surprise! She’s the new Blue King.
And all these Blue Clan that attacked you? Yeah, they all bow tf down to their Queen.
NO ONE MESSES WITH HER CLIQUE.
You four are like… the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse. No one messes with any of you. You have 2 Kings and 2 strong clansmen among you from all 4 coloured clans in Alola.
Green King Kukui is v proud of all his kiddos and so is Hala.
You guys finish up your Island Trial and you become Pokémon League Champ but also your headquarters is now in the Pokémon League with Gladion, Lillie, and Hau as part of your Elite Four.
Your last member is this guy named Sun who Kukui also trained. He doesn’t say much but he’s part of the Green Clan and is fairly strong so it ties all the colours together nicely.
Grey King Red watches all of you from the Battle Tree all chill and everything. His only clan member is Blue.
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