Monkey King 2009 Episode 5

NO.

GENERALS!!!

I JUST STARTED TO BELIEVE IN YOU

a lot - and I mean a lot - happened this episode. but I'm mad about THIS.

Yoo Joonghyuk is now planning to cook the wedding reception meal.

So this stemmed from me realising that most of the time, Kim Dokja in fanfics (or fanart) doesn't quite confess and keeps all of his feelings buried.

I also thought, though, that he would choose the opposite way too -confess his feelings, pretend it to be not as important, not as big, as a way to distance himself from those emotions, ready to take some embarrassment and shame due to the confession in order to feel less pained when inevitably (in his mind) those feelings are rejected.

Takes control of something horrible and shameful for him so it will feel less raw and visceral, less 'i'm being perceived'.

Except he absolutely does not count on Yoo Joonghyuk having feelings back so of course he's blown away by YJH accepting and coveting that confession that he's been waiting forever to hear.

extra: the background from panel 2 since i handwrote that, and a rejected panel.

Errands

Killer belongs to Rahafwabas

@megalommi he's fruity your honor

"[Resurrecting me] was the least you could do after dropping a building on me."

Buddy, you planned to leave my exsanguinated corpse lying there in the woods - if I hadn't had other people in the party that was game over. I don't think you have grounds to talk about "the least" one can do after accidentally killing people.

okay it's nearly one in the morning and i can't sleep because i'm thinking too much about astarion so permit me to ramble for a moment (you actually have no choice)

but just

ugh

the more and more i play the game and experience all the different facets of the conversations you can have with him (and also ruthlessly spoil myself on his arc both ascended and not because i'm impatient lmao) the more i am just, completely in awe of the depth and care that went into writing him??

like, okay, cards on the table, i have a pretty major vampire kink, biting kink, blood kink, etc. and from the first moment i heard there was a romanceable character in a fantasy rpg that was a flirtatious queer vampire pretty boy with a Traumatic Backstory and a twisted master/slave relationship with an Evil Dude i was immediately like 👀👀👀

could not draft the marriage proposal fast enough, you know?

and larian could've just stuck with that! they could've had him be an incorrigible flirt, and have his whole arc focused on getting revenge against the horrid man what wronged him, and by helping him on his quest you earn his love and you two ride off into the sunset, happy forever

but no. instead we got something so much more, and it's entirely fascinating to me. all of his layers and contradictions!! the different masks he wears on top of each other, and all his pain and trauma barely simmering under the surface of his pretty polished façade.

and not only do we go ahead and take this man whomst on the surface appears to be a walking vampire erotica trope in a gorgeous package, but we pull off the reveal (and depending on how you play it this can happen almost immediately after you express interest in him) that this whole thing, is a very blatant, deliberate act. one cultivated by a sexual abuse survivor, as a way to protect himself from the things that scare him, that make him vulnerable.

he straight up tells you to your face that this is a lie!! this all pretend!!! you're supposed to fall for it, he wants you to. what he does not want, what he could never predict, not in centuries, is that you would see past his mask(s), and then go ahead and love him anyway. him. the real him, the one he barely knows himself, the flashes he reveals to you accidentally in small moments, as much as he doesn't want to: all those messy cruel capricious terribly horribly wonderfully real parts of himself, and how he wants to be real with you in turn, even though it scares the absolute bejeezus out of him

and THEN!!!! the further you go in his romance, the more you realize that this walking series of pickup lines, this supposed master seducer, is actually incredibly wary of sex because of all the trauma and pain it's caused him. sex is not something he associates with true joy or pleasure or even intimacy, not anymore; the ability to feel good about his body was taken from him. the game makes it explicit that, as a man who was robbed of his agency and his ability to meaningfully consent to sex, not only is it the objectively wrong decision but it is downright evil to force him into doing anything sexual with you, even though you're his True Love or whatever, and as he learns and grows and feels more secure in himself he will straight up dump your ass if you violate his boundaries around sex!!!

and instead of flirt-flirt-flirt-true-love-forever you get all these really sweet, tender moments of nonsexual intimacy, hand holding and hugs and just, honest sweet conversations? you can even tell him "hey i don't think it's good for us to be serious right now, but i still want to be your friend." and even if you do keep romancing him, you can reassure him that you don't hold his lack of interest in sex against him, you still want to be with him just as he is!! he is worth it to you, with his ten-piece designer set of luxury baggage. and he practically melts about it!!

and this is not even getting into everything post cazador quest, i haven't even gotten to those scenes yet except for the "evil" version (trying not to ruin it for myself haha) but the way his arc ends in the "good" version where you talk him out of doing the ritual, out of perpetuating the cycle of abuse that was forced on him, and instead show him a better way forward? and he experiences true actual freedom for the first time in centuries, and he hesitantly decides that he wants to keep going forward with you??

UGH!! i just, i care about astarion so much!!!! i am absolutely head-over-heels-stupid in love with him and the way he's written and i will never fucking get over it, oh my god, help me, i'm DYING

Case files 02.01

what I think happened in:

Case 02.01, the case of "Portrait of Daria Gray" or "The artist becomes the canvas."

Daria's story is pretty straightforward. What we know about Daria: she's a struggling left-handed artist who used to wear a lot of hand-me-down clothes from her sister, and she doesn't like the way she looks. At some point she decides to get a bit of a makeover and, among more mundane things, she starts shopping for a new tattoo. She finds a deal too good to be true (it is) offered by one 'Ink5oul'.

Ink5oul is sketchy as hell, and definitely has something supernatural going on. The tattoo they gives Daria (with no input from her, WTF! - paintbrush, floral patterns and glittering symbols) hurts much more than it should, but also heals almost instantly.

Looking at the tattoo (which is 'perfect') fills Daria with sudden desire to paint an autoportrait (which comes out 'perfect'). And once that is done, looking at it again makes her realize she can adjust herself (and make herself perfect).

So she takes her painting tools, most notably a pallet knife, right to her own face (and soon pretty much every other body part) and gives herself an impromptu plastic surgery. Which goes on uninterrupted for several days (???!?!!?!) until her room-mate Sarah comes home. Poor Sarah walks in on Daria while she has a knife stuck in her jaw, understandably freaks out and punches Daria, at which point half of Daria's face collapses under her hand like putty.

Having no idea that her room-mate has been touched by the spooky, Sarah comes up with the only rational explanation she can think of, which is that Daria poured some acid on her own face (which is very comic-book logic, but maybe Sarah paid more attention to Batman than chemistry and biology class as a teen).

So now Daria has severely disfigured face, and also is officially considered suicidal and a danger to herself and must go to therapy. (Honestly, she needs therapy).

There are two things, aside from the obvious, that grabbed my attention here:

The voice. Narration in the first case was that of a pretty normal email - a little bit rambly, a little bit disjointed, referencing things that the recipient would know about that we can only infer. The second case had a perfectly average forum thread. This case... also starts out with pretty realistic voice - right until the moment Daria stats talking about the tattoo. Then suddenly this story gets ridiculously verbose. The way she describes the studio, the tattooing process, the tattoo itself, the painting process and finally the 'adjustments' - the details, the wording - there's no way a regular person talks that way. Not in real time, not about a traumatic event that they very much don't want to talk about at all. So where is this coming from? I think it's the ink. Until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume that Ink5soul's tattoo somehow infused Daria with power to 'express herself' perfectly in whatever medium she's using - be it words, paint, or her own flesh.

Invasion of privacy issues all over the place. First Daria's tattooing session is streamed for who knows how many Ink5oul's fans without her say-so, and then her be-damned therapy session gets intercepted by some weird basement government branch. Daria glosses over the former and doesn't know about the latter, but they are there. And there was that private email in case of 'Not-Arthur' too. I wonder how present this theme will be in rest of the show. One thing I can bet on: if one of the cases doesn't deal with a conspiracy theorist yelling about government spying on them, I'm gonna eat my hat. (And the poor paranoid guy will be 100% right, just not in the way they think).

“Only good captain’s get gifts,” he tsked lightly, his turn for a teasing tone, “You shouldn’t have messed with me if you wanted something, Roger.”

“Rayleigh—” it would be incorrect to have called it anything other than a whine, but Rayleigh would allow his captain to keep some honor— “I was just playing around!”

Late entry for @rogerpirateswk Day 1: Fun! Week's been rough for me but things are slowly getting better so hoping to play catch up and finish the drafts I do got uvu

Did you hear that HBO Max is getting rid of Infinity Train, OK K.O, and a bunch of other shows permanently?

Yes and I am DEVASTATED!!!!! Luckily OK KO is still on Hulu (out of order, unfortunately) and Infinity Train has at least Book One and Book Two on DVD (though Owen Dennis, the creator, is actively supporting the piracy of his show), but the fact that others may become lost media as a result of this Warner Discovery merger? Unacceptable and disrespectful to everyone who watched and ESPECIALLY those who worked on these shows!!!!!!! Now new generations of kids and animation lovers will never get to enjoy these already underrated shows!!!!!!!!

For those who don't know, HBO Max is taking down a bunch of content from their library THIS WEEK so that they don’t have to pay residuals to creators and so that they can claim them on their taxes, as Warner was apparently in serious debt. I'm not 1000% sure about the details so I could be wrong, but regardless, a ton of wonderful content is being taken away from us due to corporate greed. The full list of what's being taken down, as well as some backstory as to what's happening, can be found here.

And here's a live look at me:

THEY WERE BROTHERS. THEY WERE BROOOOTHHERRRRRSSS still thinking about price and chip..... Your entire world has been drowned in black tar, and when you're pulled from the viciously viscous jaws that claimed every love you gathered, where do you find yourself?

Actually you're crazy! You were a pirate? Of the legendary Black Rose? No ones really heard of those guys. They think you just lost your memory or something when the sea congealed with ink, it was very traumatic for everyone after all. And yet you insist! You need to find them! Just stay in one place, like Arlin always said, and they will find you! Or whatever. You have a really 'active imagination'. You're really weird! But you're confident in it. You punched the last kid that called you crazy. It wasn't a fight you won, but it was one you fought. I saw the conviction clenched tightly in your teeth. I saw you steal coin from that kid later as well. Salt in the wound. No one else saw it. I like to take things too. Especially from jerks that don't deserve it. Youre really talented! Do you want to join my crew? This world is against us, y'know. It's full of people that think we're crazy. It's only you, me, and these few friends I've gathered. Just stick with me! And I'll punch any kid that calls you crazy too.

Characters to sink your teeth into

🍍& 🍋

Random Headcanons

🍍 - What is an event that seemed of minor consequence to them when it occurred, but ended up impacting their life/development in a bigger way?

The first time he stole something non-essential. Copperhead had stolen many times before, usually necessities like food or articles of clothing but the more he continued taking what wasn't his, the bigger the thrill it became. Shoplifting graduated to pickpocketing, then full-on breaking and entering with Copperhead honing his skills over the years to take whatever caught his eye. At that point it was more about the challenge than actual need, since he was living as a drifter and could only carry around the bare essentials. His humble beginnings as a petty thief left him craving greater challenges to feel that rush of adrenaline once more. Murder may slake the dark thirst brewing within but thieving was always a personal pleasure, and a great side business when good assassination contracts are far and few in-between.

🍋 - Is there anything special about their diet, and how do they manage it? If they were to gain/lose a lot of weight suddenly, how would they react and adjust?

As a Serpent Metahuman, Copperhead doesn't require frequent meals. In fact he prefers eating only a few times a week, preferably small meals that are quick and easy to digest. A full belly makes for a slow snake so Copperhead avoids consuming large amounts of food in one go, finding he grows too sluggish on the occasion his greed gets the better of him. He can subsist entirely on meat but Copperhead likes fish and fruit too, having a highly refined palate what with his sensitive tongue. Shellfish like crab and lobster is something he goes wild for but he always tries to avoid gorging no matter how tempting a spread is. Contrary to popular belief, he does not eat rats.

Thinks oh so hard abt the spiraling upwards clan founders, especially the birchclan founders. Silly lil kitties who's pasts are drenched in blood with the primary regret of not drawing it sooner

You’re right, the optics on that aren’t great. You can’t define someone’s sexuality for them. And like he can have issues with LGBT rep? I personally hated how DC treats Harley and Ivy because they throw them together and no one else. Also in the comics Ivy is almost as bad as the joker control-freak wise.

Well I was there and you weren't so. And also it was clearly just about how much he wanted to fuck Harley Quinn and saw poison ivy as being in the way.

I would do anything to get Star Railed by the fine men of this stupid money scam game

Billy Hargrove fans are legitimately some of the most passionate I think I’ve ever come across. Like this man is a yucky rat bastard but he’s OUR yucky rat bastard man!!!!!!!

honestly though 😭

love this little corner of the fandom 🫶