#then its a good way of showing us what our two protags are like without depicting them outright

[jazbell]

thinking about michael/vanessa and charlie/mike parallels. giggling kicking my feet twirling my hair.

[1moreff-creator]

What do you think about the secret quotes?

At this point, I'm fairly certain that not everyone will say theirs, seeing as Ace didn't.

Xander had a literal definition, so I kinda assumed that was the reason why he didn't say it, but now I think that maybe these quotes are just meant to give us a general idea of what X character is feeling.

And that Min saying hers might just be a coincidence?

It’s kinda crazy I’ve never done a post specifically about these things, given I tend to bring them up every other DRDT post lol. But I guess it’s probably a good idea to have some kind of thoughts on them written down lol. Let's get into it!

Spoilers for DRDT CH2. CW: Mass death due to sickness, survivor’s guilt, trust issues, murder, suicidal thoughts, self-harm

While I imagine most people on my blog will know what this is about, in case anyone isn’t aware; the secret quotes in question are quotes hidden in the source code of the characters’ individual pages from the cast list.

Look, that’s Teruko’s! 

If you’re interested in what other secrets this series holds, you can check my secrets masterpost!

For a while, it was believed that everyone would, at one point or another, say their secret quote aloud (bar maybe Xander, as his is a bit of an awkward thing to say like melownooo said in the ask). This was mainly believed during the CH2 Pt1 - Pt2 hiatus, as both Min and Arei had said theirs either before death or in a flashback. However, with Xander’s being strange to say and Ace failing to say his before death, it’s looking more likely that only some of them will say their lines (though Ace can always say his in a flashback or Bonus Episode maybe), as the asker here brings up. So, let’s see the lines, and try to figure out what each of them could mean!

Teruko: It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all. 

Very straightforward, as this is most likely the message Teruko will arrive at with her character arc. Going from trusting a little at the start of the series, then trusting no one for most of CH2, only to realize that not trusting anyone is hampering her ability to solve the mystery in the second trial, our protag is on a bit of a trust rollercoaster. Presumably, this quote shows the attitude she’ll end up with at the end of the series, and may even say the line out loud as a climactic moment!

Xander: survivor guilt(n): feelings of guilt for having survived a catastrophe in which others died.

I didn’t check all of them myself, but this seems to be the only quote without capitalization, funnily enough. A character so deadset on challenging convention that even his secret quote doesn’t follow grammar rules, truly an Ultimate Rebel!

Jokes aside, this obviously refers to what we learn of him in his Bonus Episode, Visiting Graves. He was away when his entire hometown died due to some kind of sickness, and feels survivor's guilt over that. Though if you want me to do my thing and read way too much into it...

Even beyond the irony of the character with survivor’s guilt being the first to die, this could be taken as a hint that he survived more than just the Chariton incident. That could refer to something relating to Mai’s presumed death, given the connection those two had, or even a whole previous killing game. However, that’s much more speculative, and the Chariton incident is enough to explain the quote in its entirety anyways, so. 

Charles: If you forgot it, then it probably wasn’t important to begin with. None of those memories should ever be kept, anyway.

Obviously an ironic statement, given Charles’ childhood amnesia. This is one of the ones which feels strange coming out of Charles’ mouth as a result, and would maybe work better if it’s said to Charles, as opposed to him saying it to someone else. Not that the latter wouldn’t work at all, but y’know.

In any case, the meaning for Charles is the same. It’s meant to be ironic, as Elliot was clearly important to Charles to some extent and Charles forgot him anyways. It’s been said in Q&A that Charles doesn’t like cutting his hair short, presumably because he likes looking like Elliot through subconscious stuff, and there was something about Charles wanting to learn to cook pancakes and Elliot cooking pancakes when he was alive (I think; my memory’s not perfect and I don’t feel like looking all this up. Would be very funny if I misremember anything in this quote in particular though lol). However, Charles might be resistant to that idea, because it would be a pretty harrowing thing if he’s forgotten something important. 

Ace: I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.

I mean that’s just Ace in a nutshell. I talked in my CH2 Pt2 analysis about how the theme of control over his life is an important theme of his character, so… I’ll just copy paste from there lol. 

…he feels he completely lacks control of his life, that it's all decided by a fate he can't control, the same way that a jockey doesn't walk on their own, but rather is carried by a horse to their destination. And it's no wonder that this feeling of lacking control is referenced in his secret quote, "I don’t know what to do with myself anymore." After all, it's this feeling of lacking control of himself and his situation that causes him to seek control of anything he can, be it bullying Nico because he sees them as an easy target, distancing himself from others because it's easier to control his feelings that way, killing someone because it's the only way he can control his place in the killing game, or anything else I might be forgetting. And this fear of lacking control is probably part of his fear of death, isn't it? Because no one can control what happens after death.

Yeah that lol.

Arei: Because that’s what friends do.

This is one of the two that got said! 

This line is basically the culmination of Arei’s arc (alongside “let’s be less shitty together”). Here’s the full context so we can see exactly what friends do in Arei’s opinion.

Arei [2-10]: So I’ll prove [that I’m being genuine] to you! I’m going to be your friend! And I’ll do nice things for you! Anything at all! Eden: H-Huh? Arei: Don’t underestimate me! I can be a good person too! Being a good person means doing nice things. So if there’s anything you need from me… Whether it’s defending you from scary jerks like Arturo or baking some stupid fucking cake… I’ll do it. I promise. I’ll do anything for you. Okay? Eden: I… Arei: Because…Because… Because that’s what friends do.

Being a “good person” and being Eden’s friend are intertwined concepts in Arei’s mind, and “being a good person means doing nice things” is part of the entire message of the chapter (though slightly simplified), you get the idea. The resolution of doing “what friends do” is the culmination of Arei’s development, no wonder it’s her secret quote!

Rose: In the end, the only thing I can do is watch my wretched life go on.

I’ve talked about this one a lot too… Though I feel like you can say that about quite a few of these lol. The point here is that Rose is resigned to her fate due to her situation with the Spurling Foundation, as she doesn’t feel like her life can improve. Something something her character design literally has her irreversibly stained with mistakes of the past something something. This one’s straightforward. 

Hu: I want to pay for what I’ve done. But even then, I still want to live.

One of the most cryptic ones by far, as we currently have no idea what this is referring to. We know of little that Hu has done that she’d need to pay for, that she’d also need to bring up the possibility of dying in the same breath. The main theory here is that Hu will eventually become a blackened, and that she’ll feel horrible about it but still want to survive. But of course, we have no idea if that will really happen, as this could also refer to literally anything else.

That aside, though, Hu’s steadfast desire to live is interesting in the context of her having been suicidal in the past. It’s clear that Hu is not suicidal during current killing game time, and in fact has very strong feelings towards David’s actions and how they would have led to everyone’s death. Thus, this quote more so seems to reinforce the theme of metamorphosis that Hu’s got going on with her butterfly motif, among other stuff. She used to not want to live, and now does. Yay for improvement!

Eden: You can’t go back, no matter how hard you try.

Another cryptic one! While there’s an obvious connection to Eden through her talent (time only moves forward, so the Clockmaker saying “you can’t go back” makes thematic sense), it seems like a strange thing for someone of Eden’s personality to say. She definitely believes in people’s ability to change and fix the mistakes of the past, if her desire to befriend Teruko and willingness to accept the possibility of Arei becoming friends with her as well is any indication. So, how bad did someone fuck up for Eden to say this to them? Or is this something someone else will say to Eden, similar to what I said about the Charles quote? Very unclear for now. So all I can really bring to the table for now is the thematic connection via talent :p

Levi: I always believed that a person is defined by their actions alone. But maybe that’s just a poor excuse for my heartlessness.

Do I… need to explain this one? Levi might as well have straight up said this during his 2-13 backstory drop. He feels little to no empathy, so naturally he defines people by actions alone. But he’s also admitted to not understanding people very well, so it makes sense that he’d hesitate on this belief, as he can only infer what makes a “good person” from the opinions of others. Don’t get me wrong, I do think he’s right that people are defined by actions, I’m just saying it makes sense he’s not confident in that.

Arturo: You hated them, but even that doesn’t justify what you did.

Another one that feels like it’s said to Arturo as opposed to him saying it, as the “them” in the quote could refer to his parents. “You hated your parents, but that doesn’t justify abandoning your sister”, or something like that. Without knowing the situation, it’s hard to say how fair that is, but y’know. Like with Charles, if Arturo’s meant to be the one saying this/having this attitude, then there’s still the irony that Arturo accidentally harmed someone because he hated someone else, so he’s not all that qualified to be saying this. Without more context, it’s hard to say exactly how it’ll come into play, so I’ll leave it there for now.

Min: I wanted to save you.

I actually find this one particularly interesting. One, because I’m biased. Two, because at first glance, it’s a weird thing to focus on in Min’s character. This is a line she says, so we know the full context; she’s expressing that killing Xander was a spur of the moment decision made explicitly to save Teruko, with Min choosing to cover up the murder only after she realized he’d died. 

Thing is, though… it might seem hard to call this the culmination of her character the way secret quotes like Arei’s sometimes feel like. Now, not every quote is related to the central theme of the character or anything (I would argue there’s more important things to Xander than his survivor’s guilt, for example), but… really? We didn’t have any better lines? Nothing about mistakes being corrected, per her trial 1 speech? Nothing about competition, which relates to her motive secret? Nothing about feeling like the course of her life was decided years ago when XF-Ture Tech came knocking? Just the yuri line? Alright.

However, I do think there’s some good angles you can see the line from, where you could argue it encapsulates Min growing beyond what’s expected of her talent, and those angles are why I still think this quote is pretty good overall. Mainly, you could relate it to the idea that saving Teruko is one of the most important decisions Min makes without influence from XF-Ture or Hope’s Peak. No one told her to do that, yet she decided to do it anyways. Not only that, but this represents one of the fiercest competitors in the cast participating in the killing game not to win it, but for the benefit of someone else. The quote also calls attention to her murder, which in turn leads to all her foils with Xander, which I won’t repeat here because I’ve talked like 15000 times about the ridiculous amount of ways these two foil (I’ll link to my recap foil post if you’re interested and haven’t seen it). So, despite what it may look like at first, it’s a perfectly awesome secret quote!

Yes this is just an excuse to ramble about Min. No I’m not apologizing.

David: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. I wish you could just die.

Hm… I wonder what this could possibly mean. What kind of message are we supposed to get from this quote? It’s very subtle and intricate and- yeah I can drop the bit now.

This one’s very funny because of how direct it is, but it’s easy to understand. David hates someone. There’s a couple of people who he hates, so it’s easy to imagine him going off at any of them at any given time now that he’s had his heel turn. My bet’s on Teruko, though Whit and Xander (see: "I hate the things I love and I love the things I hate" LGI scene) are good dark horses in that race, maybe. Or Hu, or I could see Arturo, maybe Charles… yeah it really could be anyone lol.

If you want a more thematic reading, just... watch LGI lol. David's just a massive hater overall, makes sense this is his quote.

Veronika: Once something is broken, it can never be pieced together in quite the same way again. The same goes for people.

This one’s very intriguing. Obviously, one must ask whether she’s referring to herself being broken, or someone else, as both are possible. I’m leaning towards her talking about herself, as we know for a fact she used to be a bit of a different person in the past, both because of her motive secret (she used to self-harm and took on her talent to stop that) and because of her comments claiming she used to be a bit more outdoorsy. Thus, it follows that there may have been some kind of event in her past that changed her in what she feels is an irreversible way. Something something recap foils with Hu something something. There’s little else I can analyze here without more context on Vero, so we’re leaving it there!

J: Please don’t call me your daughter ever again.

I wonder who she’s talking about! 

Yeah obviously this is just about how much J hates her mother. Really all I can comment on is the fact that J has never outright disowned Mariabella like this in the series yet, just expressing dislike towards her mother instead of trying to deny their relationship altogether. I imagine it’s just a matter of expression and doesn’t mean anything else, but y’know, I’ll point it out just in case it comes up.

Whit: We tend to idolize the dead.

Another one about a mom! We all know how much Whit wants to be like his mother, to the point of dying his hair to look like hers, and pretending she’s still alive to the point he forgets she’s actually dead when the secret Rose received is revealed. I could see him both saying this, and this being said to him. No idea what the context will be if and when it’s said, though; a lot of people die in this series, so there’s a lot of people who could potentially get idolized lol.

Nico: Why should I own up for the mistakes that someone else made?

Many people I think expected them to say it at some point in the second trial, with the idea that Ace was the one who made a mistake by pushing Nico's buttons and Nico wouldn’t be the one in the wrong in their mind. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. Nico owns up to their murder attempt, acknowledges it as a mistake, and outright claims not to be a victim. Thus, this cannot be the interpretation we’re meant to take with the quote, in my opinion.

Because of that, I assume this is actually referring to something else entirely. However, we have no idea what the hell that could be. Nothing we know about Nico’s backstory fits this idea, and with the Ace murder attempt out of the picture, there’s nothing in the killing game this could refer to yet. I guess maybe if someone tries to blame them for Ace killing Arei? But they all know that makes no sense, since Ace was already planning to kill Eden even before Nico tried to murder him, so probably not.

We really need more context to know what exactly this refers to, so I’ll leave it at that for now :v

MonoTV: Her name is Mai Akasaki.

This is more for ARG-y purposes, as (if I understand how this went correctly) this is how you’re supposed to get to the “All you have to do” page by typing Mai’s name in an URL, and from there the AOAVIEPKRO code for the Mai character page itself. Still, this obviously implies Mai is an important character who is likely connected to the killing game in some way; in other news, grass is green. 

Speaking of the “All you have to do” page, there is a hidden quote in that source code as well. 

Are you still searching for a secret? For some explanation that will satisfy you? There’s no answer I can give you that will make you happy. Maybe I should have lied instead. I’m sorry.

If you really want to read into it, you could argue that this implies that any truth about Mai would make us sad, presumably because her story has a sad ending; in other news, the sky is blue. 

Oh and if you’re interested in my take about the secret text which used to be in the About Page you can find it in this post here.

-

And that’s about it! These quotes are fun. Thanks for the ask! Good excuse to finally make this long overdue post lol.

[gearbox-doll]

OKAY OKAY

I have better posts on this blog somewhere, I'll find em and @ you on them, but. First up.

This series is GENUINELY scary. Like, it's impressive. The series was originally made by a bunch of college age guys fucking around with a camera, but by god does it work. It takes the found footage style and amateur filming and makes it work in a way most analog/digital/found footage horror doesn't for me.

It will make you feel paranoid beyond belief if that is something you are at all susceptible to. The monster is fairly simple in appearance but they make it work. It can make itself visible to someone but not the person standing beside them. It can show up to the naked eye without being on camera. It can show up on camera without being visible to the naked eye. It could be standing right in front of you and you wouldn't have a clue.

Memory loss is a big part of this story. The cameras are important. Always film yourself, always make sure there's footage of what's happening. In the first season (entries 1-26), when the memory loss is first introduced, the camera stops it. If you're in a dangerous situation, keep filming. You'll likely only remember what the camera picks up.

In season two?

Season two (entries 27-52) opens with our protagonist missing seven months of his memory and having a safe full of tapes (and a hard drive). The camera doesn't protect you anymore. But anything that's not filmed might as well have not happened, because who knows what memories you'll lose, so keep filming.

This series will make you feel watched. I've caught myself glancing around doors and out windows, backing up against walls, like I'm expecting to see a glimpse of that tall, faceless figure. It moves unnaturally, and faster than the camera can even fully catch. It inflicts paranoia and death on anyone involved, chooses its victims seemingly at random. They're not special. This isn't fate. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Who knows what it wants. Once you've been affected, you can't really escape, even if you were only involved for a few days. There's no escape. You will never be free.

There are no reliable narrators. Jay (our protagonist) has the tapes, but he doesn't show us everything. Alex lies all the time. Hoodie never gives straight answers, his messages encoded and cryptic. Tim just wants privacy.

Also, the acting is. So good. As is the filming. The shot in entry 86 of Alex looming over tim through a hole in the floor is?? So good. "It's not helping you, it's lying to you"? "All you have to do is give up"? God. Entry 86 my beloved, honestly.

There's also!! Canon two-person systems!! God. Tim and Masky <3 Brian and Hoodie <3

Also the cast consists of:

A man who is by all definition a bear (as in the appearance term), with mental health issues and a smoking habit, wears flannel and shirts with the top buttons open, has beautiful sideburns, and is generally just Going Through It (he is experiencing The Horrors and really wants it to stop).

Previous man's "alter ego" who wears a mask, moves sometimes on all fours and sometimes hunched over, acts fucking feral, never speaks, breaks into the protag's house to kidnap him, and regularly fights people to scare them out of dangerous places.

Our protagonist, a man who I once described as having the vibes of a special needs rescue kitten. He is pathetic and shivering and sopping wet and I love him. He is also an absolute dick at multiple points, just a total jackass. He's got big droopy pathetic eyes and never sleeps well and is just so so pathetic.

An absolute sweetheart, definition of a himbo, tooth gap smile and the silliest guy ever, very good, very pure.

Previous guy's alter who lives in an abandoned shack in the woods like a cryptid, hasn't showered in at least three years and never showers once over the course of the series (leading to a total of eight), steals people's pills and leaves weird cryptic messages on YouTube dot com. (He's not the only one though.)

The most tragic asshole in the history of ever. This man is such a dick. An asshole of the highest degree. He's still a victim and I want to wrap him in blankets and give him many hugs. He has killed people. He is constantly lying to everyone including himself. He doesn't not want to do this but won't admit it to himself. He genuinely sucks. I adore him. (He's also a twink.)

And of course, the only relevant woman in the video series, and the only character with a level head on her shoulders and regular reactions to anything around her.

There's also big religious symbolism (I have thoughts) and also like. The Operator (the monster, this series' version of Slenderman, kind of) affects everyone differently and it is so interesting to see.

Also if you're curious here are the mentioned characters, in order (there's also three others not mentioned/pictured here, long story)

Hi hello

You are getting into creepypasta

I have provided many recs already. However.

May I provide propaganda, specifically for Marble Hornets.

I need more people to be insane about it with me.

YES YES YES please give me propaganda!!!! 👀👀👀!!!!

[smolstarthief]

Persona 5/Persona 5 Strikers: Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Hoo boy... So this honestly has been a LONG time coming on my end because I have seen so much of that debate on social media (Twitter namely) and I can see the points of BOTH sides but there have been moments where it just got out of hand... Especially whenever people tried to put in a more grey/nuanced take only to be slammed and taken out of context. Even repeatedly mentioning the interrogation at the beginning of P5 which, I will admit has gotten tiresome. At least for me, I do still feel for Joker and I wished the game acknowledged his trauma more but there's a thing called, "beating a dead horse" and this is one along with "Haru says ACAB" in Strikers (which was done THREE TIMES in the same arc and it got annoying fast, like shut up already! We get it!). So, let's dive in a little bit:

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!!!

Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal

Now let me just say I know! Police in Japan are just as bad if not worse than the West and I STILL hate the idea of Makoto wanting to become a cop for such naive reasons (especially with what happened to Sae, her own sister!)... But there are at least some of form of nuances sometimes and by that I mean, I can see what they were trying to do? I do agree that P5/P5S backpedaled SEVERELY by deciding to sweep issues under the rug after addressing them and not continuing from such. In fact I feel like it could have been a hell of a lot better. But P5 did something different compared to previous games and addresses the issues DIRECTLY right at the beginning of said game! It was tense and horrifying, but needed. Of course... They then sweep it under the rug and act like nothing traumatic happened to our protag which is NOT a good look at all and I'm still pissed off about it. In the main game's case, it's portrayed as more black and white with only a SMALL amount of nuance like that cop that was trying to help Futaba when she went out by herself and got lost (which people ignore entirely by the way). So I CAN see where people got the "anti-police" message from... But that's only the tip of the iceberg as it's ACTUALLY more about Systematic Corruption, not exactly or JUST police corruption. Namely in politics with Shido and the Conspiracy (which is apparently still somewhat around in Strikers until Owada's downfall) controlling everything all the way to law enforcement. The force had been basically under his payroll (including the corrupt SIU Director before his death) whether by force or not (mostly not in this case though). Now honestly, the police depicted there are undoubtedly rotten to the core save for a VERY SMALL handful (the cop that was trying to help Futaba which, again, gets ignored by several). Look at the interrogators who ruthlessly beat and drug a minor without any second thought or remorse for example. But again, the black and white narrative the game kept unwittingly doing ended up being to its detriment in a way. I'm not defending those assholes AT ALL! They deserved every punishment given to them! But for a game that goes on about grey morality... It doesn't quite deliver on that. Still though, it does emphasize that it's more of the fault of the whole corrupt system, not just one part of it. There needs to be change and reform which is what our MCs were trying to do in a way (more like inspiring change but still). In the end, it's all about the following:

Corruption and abuse of power.

Again the police depicted in this game were incompetent at best, corrupt at worse with very few silver linings. But it's not just them but rather the one person responsible for the whole mess. Who had them under his payroll? Who controlled them and by extension all of Tokyo? Who was willing to dispose of anyone who "outlives their usefulness" or is perceived as a threat to what he wants (including his own family)?

SHIDO AND BY EXTENSION THE CONSPIRACY

Bottom line: They are definitely a problem but it's not just them.

"But, Joker and his trauma?"

I definitely understand that and still do. I fully believe he has and still has trauma with the police. Easy! But... I do feel like people go too far with it sometimes. It's hard to explain but there have been moments where people either use it as a justification/argument against someone trying to provide a more nuanced view of things or... Dare I say, depict him like a "uwu soft traumatized boi." Like I said, it's hard to explain on my end so feel free to ignore it. Everyone deals with trauma differently so there is STRONG chance that I'm overanalyzing it. I just remember moments where I just feel a little, I guess annoyed? I'm not sure exactly but final thing: I understand what he went through and I can't imagine how long it would take to recover but I hope he DOES overcome it.

"Sae? Akechi?"

Yep, even though their jobs are different, they are by and large members of law enforcement no matter how you spin it. Both were broken in a way. Akechi is pretty easy to explain with how Shido negatively impacted his life but not much about Sae, who dealt with sexism/misogyny at her workplace along with the trauma of her father's (also a cop) death. She no doubt had some idealism only to be hit with the fact that she's gonna have to use underhanded/downright illegal tactics to get by and even rise up the ranks. She, therefore ended up (well, nearly) corrupted herself before coming to her senses. That's honestly one of the BIGGEST REASONS why I felt like Makoto joining the force to become a police commissioner isn't a good, even a downright naïve, idea. I honestly would have been somewhat fine with it if it weren't for that fact among other things. Regardless of her willpower, it will go south fast.

Now... Onto Strikers!

Persona 5 Strikers

Since the game came out and I started playing it, I still feel like the system is still beyond saving, especially when attempting to do it from the inside. But I don't mind the added nuances that P5 didn't do much of. It's still continuing the critiques, just shows more of what does happen within said system and even has an ACTUAL officer (Zenkichi) say, "Yeah, my job sucks, everyone's corrupt, there are much better ways to do things and make a change but not this. I'm only staying because I have a daughter to take care of and it's all I know. I'm no different from them." Was it all handled well? I wouldn't say "yes" (Joker's trauma is BARELY addressed at all of course) but a little better than what P5's narrative did which only addressed the issues but not exactly follow up on them. Now to be fair... In the system, regardless of where you live, any one within it who remotely tries to do something or speak against it either lose their jobs or even go "missing" irl. Those have happened and it's more proof that yeah, it's rotten to the core. There's no denying it but regardless, that's NOT what the game is about at all. At least that's what I feel about it as it's only PART of the narrative. I think Zenkichi puts it best here:

Speaking of Zenkichi... Oh boy... Now I definitely understand some of the criticisms with him but honestly, he was the best written (PT) character I've ever encountered! He was honestly the perfect representation of those that genuinely want to help and do good, only to be held back by an extremely harsh reality. It was already hinted at with Sae but here? It 100 percent confirms just how harsh and even cutthroat it can be if it could break someone's idealism so badly. Even Kaburagi of all people thinks the same thing Zenkichi said:

Then there's his past and it's a tragic one! But let's look more at the decisions he ended up making:

While it was no doubt done to protect his daughter, he ended making a selfish decision along with a selfless one (which was brilliant!) with not only allowing the cover up of his wife's death and denying justice for her, but also ruining an innocent person and their family's lives.

It's horrible, but also... There's a grey area/nuance as with the rest of his character. It was both understandable, but also wrong as he, as Akane's Shadow puts it:

He sacrificed his values, his morals, all for the sake of having a peace of mind. Speaking of Akane, she's also an interesting case in a way that she more or less perfectly represents the more "black and white" views on justice in general. Namely the more toxic/biased kind. Her reasons are also understandable but she was also acting selfishly by only focusing on how SHE was effected by Aoi's death and not even considering those that were also grieving her death and/or that people grieve/handle grief differently than her. But back on topic.

Her own views and beliefs that law enforcement basically SHOULD be dismantled (mostly out of said childish bias and black & white views) and it's framed as WRONG and it's very much correct on that. Chaos and order are two sides of the same coin, one can't exist without the other. When I say ACAB, I'm calling for reform, defund, have the corrupt held accountable for EVERYTHING and even face jail time for their crimes! Defund the police, have the ones that arrest, harm, and even murder out of bias (race, gender, etc.), lose their badges/jobs and locked up, make improvements! It's saying that there IS still corruption out there and there's no denying it. But fully eliminating the law in general will just lead to more problems. Now granted, she's young and clearly doesn't fully understand why those views are ultimately wrong but still... It was a very interesting subject to tackle and I feel like they handled it well.

Now back to Zenkichi, he was at first in denial about his decisions ultimately being the wrong ones too and even tries to justify it. Of course, his Shadow said otherwise and that was when he finally admitted that he really did act no different from the criminals he despised. But it also doesn't mean he can't redeem himself and that's what ultimately leads to his new resolve:

That right there along with everything else! There's the nuance! And ultimately despite some hiccups, Strikers handled the grey morality and nuance beautifully! Especially regarding law enforcement! Dare I say, even better than the base game! It continues the critiques with no problem but also showing different sides and areas of it! There is good and evil, but what about in-between? What about the more greyer area? It still says that there IS corruption, sometimes even beyond saving but... Sometimes a small silver lining is hidden somewhere.

Now, the ultimate question:

Is P5 & P5S (namely the latter) Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Personally, my answer is this: Neither.

Why? What theme do they both have in common?

JUSTICE

Someone puts it best on Twitter that the games are more pro-justice and I fully agree!

P5/P5S gives the idea about following your OWN justice, your OWN moral code and rules, paving your OWN path and not let others dictate it! That's what the MCs ultimately start to learn in both games. Therefore it's pro-justice. Again, do I agree that the system is beyond saving? Yeah. Do I at least acknowledge and understand what the narratives are trying to say and nuances regardless even if I don't agree with some writing decisions (ex: Makoto wanting to become a commissioner despite everything)? Also yes. But at the same time, don't judge a book by its cover for other people (not just law enforcement and politics mind you). Especially some that genuinely DO want to help at best. That there is nuance and greyness, just have to look closely. Some of the MCs are still TERRIBLY written and executed (even annoying) but the message was still somewhat there.

Final Thoughts

Now I fully understand how you all feel of course! I still believe in ACAB and even I agree that maybe I'm one to talk and have a lot more to learn about the world... This is just my own attempt at putting my own two cents in. If you disagree, that's fine! This is just what I've felt should be at least talked about more often. And I tried to phrase it as best as I can without coming off as insensitive or ignorant and if I did, I sincerely apologize for that! I'm not trying to say, come off as a "bootlicker" or any of the sort. I'm just trying show discuss more of the grey areas and nuances that are, more often than not, constantly overlooked. How one interprets both games is ultimately up to them. You, the player. And this is my own interpretation. Simple as that. I hope you all have a good day/afternoon/evening!

[lady-aescwyn]

Strange, Tender Things

Steve Harrington x fem!OC One Shot

Author’s note:  I was inspired by a prompt I found while perusing the Stanger Things fics tags.  This was originally intended to be a StevexReader fic, but I decided to give the protag a name.  It’s still pretty self-inserty and I encourage you to overwrite her name in your mind with your own if it pleases you.  My writing skills are rather rusty, but please enjoy.

Premise: Steve Harrington and his girlfriend are having a stupid fight, which is brought to an abrupt end.  Concern and gentleness ensues.

***

When it was over, neither of them would remember how it started in the first place.  It had started out as simple, easy conversation.  He hadn’t quite meant the words in the way they’d come out.  She’d had more venom in her tone than she’d intended. They were both little more than teenagers.  Though they were both whole in body, they were both traumatized by a series of recent events in Hawkins, Indiana.

Now, here they stood.  

In Joyce Byers’ small kitchen.  

Fighting.

The house was empty, save for the two of them; Joyce at work, the younger kids out under Jonathan and Nancy’s watchful eyes, reunited for the first time in months.  But here at the house, Steve Harrington’s hands were planted on the top of the kitchen table, his upper body bent forward as he traded barbs with Dawn.  For her part, Dawn was brandishing a dirty glass in one hand as if it were a weapon and giving as good as she got, her lips curled back in an almost feral snarl.  Her time as a street kid coming back full force, manifesting as a bitter, angry fight to make her point.

The small, cheap table creaked with the force of Steve’s anger, though his voice was low, “We can’t keep living in what happened back in Hawkins.  I’m not saying forget it, but we have to move forward.” His face was stony, eyebrows furrowed.

“It’s not over!  It will never be over, Steve!”  The empty glass swinging through the air between them like a saber.  Dawn’s voice was strained with manic desperation, “Hopper is alive.  El saw him! This can’t be over until we bring. Him.  Home.”  As if to punctuate her point, she brought the glass to a stop with a final thunk on the table.  

Unfortunately, that finality was too much for the old cup.

The glass shattered.

There was a beat of silence as they both took a moment to register the cracking sound of glass grinding against itself.

“Fuck!”  Dawn swore, fussing over the remains of the glass.  She began gathering the bits, heedless of the blood that was beginning to seep from between her fingers.

Steve was around the table like lightning, “Stop.  Hey-“

“I broke Joyce’s glass.”  Blood sprinkled the tabletop amidst the shards.

“It’s ok.  Just stop.” His voice was soft, a far cry from the intensity and clenched teeth of only moments ago.

“I need to clean this u-“

“We will clean it up.  After we clean you up.”

Dawn finally deflated, all of her fight burning off like fog on a summer morning.  

She let Steve take her arm and guide her to the kitchen sink. The air was still, humming with the sound of the refrigerator nearby and their breathing in unison as their anger ebbed away.  The quiet was punctuated only by the clink of bloody glass shards hitting the sink, each accompanied by a sharp intake of breath from Dawn as she winced.

As Steve turned on the water to clean the wound, Dawn stopped him, “Hold on, there’s still a piece in there.”  

She bent forward, trying to see in the dim light from the dingy bulb over the sink.  Her lip was clenched between her teeth as she dug into the wound with her other hand. Despite the surety of her voice and action, her breath was hitched with pain as she coaxed the glass from her hand. In his concern, Steve hadn’t realized that his hand had found its place on her lower back, steadying her.

Finally, that last piece of glass fell from her fingers and they both released the breath they’d been holding.  She gently flexed her hand and then nodded, sure that was the last of it.

He said, “Let me.”

And she did, her stance relaxing as she stood aside to let him wash the blood from her hands.

It was a deep wound, long and jagged across her palm and all the way to the bone at the base of her thumb.  If it had been anyone else, it would have necessitated a trip to the ER.

“I have a healing factor, you know.”  The words were without bite, her attempt at humor cutting the silence.  He knew very well her ability to knit her wounds together and if pushed, to channel that ability to heal others… at an exponentially greater cost to herself.  

She had used it to save his life only months ago.

“I know.”  His reply was simple, but one corner of his mouth hinted at a smile before his brows furrowed again.  “But I- I don’t like to see you hurt.”

The bleeding had stopped.  

No longer over the sink, he still held her injured hand cradled in both of his.  Dawn didn’t move, searching his face as he watched her flesh knit together.  The rumble of the furnace kicking on joined the sound of the refrigerator.  His warm thumb travelled down the skin of her wrist until it met the number 9 tattooed there.

Leaning closer to him, her voice shook, “I’m sorry-“

He shook his head.

She continued, “I know it’s not healthy to dwell so much-“

“I’m sorry too.  If there’s any chance Hopper’s alive, we have to find him.”  There wasn’t much to go on.  Just El’s dream of a ‘cold place.’  It could be grief, or El could be tapping in with her powers, none of them were sure.  They’d had no more success when they’d tried white noise or another makeshift sensory deprivation tank.

The last bit of tension, melted from Dawn’s body, “It doesn’t do him or us any good to fight.  I’m sorry.”  She reinforced her apology.

Steve’s eyes hadn’t left her wrist.

Moments passed in silence as motes of dust drifted lazily through the yellowed, old home.  Still, his fingers ran tenderly along the sides of her wrist.

The cut was nearly closed now; just a jagged, angry red line. Even the scar would soon fade. This was far from the worst injury she’d ever had and they both knew it.  In the buzzing still of the small kitchen, Steve seemed lost in the memory of before.  

With the fingers of her injured hand, Dawn brushed his forearm. “Hey.  Look at me.”

Steve took a deep breath, but his eyes and hands didn’t leave her arm.

After a moment, he spoke, “You told me once that Hawkins Lab created you.”  There was a pause.  When she didn’t interrupt, he continued, “You are so much more than that.  So much more than them.  You took what those assholes did to you and you did amazing things with it. And you’re gonna do even more.”  

The conviction in his voice was searing and Dawn wasn’t prepared for him to cut right to the core of her worries.  

When his eyes finally met hers, he didn’t expect her to look so stricken. Dawn’s eyes welled with tears as all of the emotion came to a head and spilled over. The uninjured hand went to her mouth, but once the tears had started, they couldn’t really be stifled and she stumbled forward into his arms.

“I’m sorry, I-“  Steve’s voice was mildly panicked; he hadn’t meant to make her cry.  As she fell forward, he held her, which was all she really needed.

These weren’t bad tears; they were a too long delayed emotional release and they would pass almost as quickly as they had come.  However, in that moment her shoulders shook with intense sobs as she clung to him.  And he held her as the waves crashed over them.  Damp fingers curled into the back of her shirt as his grip tightened and he buried his nose into the top of her head.  Steve’s own vision was blurred with tears.  This was the first time they had seen each other since Dawn moved away from Hawkins with El and the Byers’ and they’d almost ruined it with the stupidest fight.

Eventually, the sobs passed and once again the buzz of the kitchen appliances reigned in the soft atmosphere.  But the couple didn’t part.  They stood like that for a while, locked in each other’s arms, rocking gently side to side.  Finding comfort in each other again.

After a while, Dawn’s rough voice came from where her face was buried between his neck and shoulder, “M,sorry.”

“Don’t be.”  His voice returned from where he was still buried in her hair.

Dawn took a deep, cleansing breath and finally brought her head up, looking over his shoulder at the glass shards still on the table, “I have to clean up.”  But she made no move to leave his arms.

Steve didn’t move either, “I’ll help.”  

He was talking about more than the broken glass.

“Thank you.”  her ‘I love you’ wasn’t verbalized, but neither did it go unsaid as she began to pull away with a soft squeeze to his arm.

Before they fully parted, he caught her with a gentle hand at the back of the neck and pressed a kiss to her forehead.  Their breath mingled for a moment between them as they drew away.  It was his own silent, ‘I love you too.’

With that, they stepped apart. Steve turned to the sink and Dawn to the table and together they worked to clean up the mess.  Quick work was made of the blood and glass.  Words were unneeded as they worked around each other and in unison, the same as they had done before in Hawkins; though this was nothing like those battles with the beasts of the Upside Down.  It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last time they moved as one.

As the worn dish towel was at last hung back over the handle on the oven door, Steve caught her hand and began to pull her from the room. “I think everyone else has the right idea, let’s get out of here.”  His usual, charming smile dawning on his face like the rising sun.

That smile was infectious and Dawn couldn’t stop from meeting it with one of her own, “You know, I could show you our new mall up here.”

The response was swift and over dramatic, “Oh god no!  No more malls!”

Laughter followed the two of them through the home like light hitting a suncatcher and scattering flashes of rainbow across the yellowed wallpaper.  For now, all was well.

[aj-anime-blog]

To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts - Review!

First review here we go!!

So, after being completely and utterly obsessed with Jujutsu Kaisen and AOT season 4, I decided to check out MAPPA studios and watch a bunch of stuff from their roster. My so-called "MAPPA binge" included this strange and unknown piece: Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e, or in English, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts. An adaption of a manga originally released in Bessatsu Shounen (you might recognize this as the magazine that released Attack on Titan!), it looked pretty promising. I do have to admit that I didn't read a page of this anime's manga, though the art style on it looks gorgeous!!

The concept behind the show: A war has torn two halves of a nation apart, split into the North and the South. The Northerners, who were previously greatly outnumbered in battle, created a half-human, half-beast species known as "Incarnates" because of their God-like abilities. But the Incarnates begin having some issues when their beast forms take over their bodies, turning them into monsters. When the war ends, our protagonist, Hugh Hank, an Incarnate and previous captain of the Incarnate squad, swears to kill all of his mutating Incarnate buddies before they can destroy the world.

This review will not contain spoilers until the labeled "Spoiler" section at the bottom.

In general, what do I think?: 4/10, this show kinda sucked. Ouch! I hate being that blunt! Especially on my first review here! But To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts (let's call it TTASB from here on out!) had glaring flaws that, while it did hold up as a show, made it uninteresting and hard to love. Not only were the characters mediocre and boring, but the show seemed to contradict itself and its own opinion of the Incarnates all the time! Are they bloodthirsty monsters that need to be killed? Are they misunderstood humans who should be given peace? I don't know! Our main characters don't seem to either! Other than the "war bad" motif that gets shoved down your throat from episode one, the show felt stagnant in what it was trying to make the audience feel.

I hate being so cynical about it, though, because it does still earn those 4 points! Even though a lot of it falls flat, as a whole, it's still an ok show! Hank and Schaal have good concepts and their dilemmas are interesting in certain parts when the writers manage to nail pits and pieces of their development! The fight scenes were cool and I think that the concept for the world was neat! And the show does have a pretty cool title. Let's be honest, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts sounds super metal.

So what about those characters?: 5/10! Hugh Hank and Schaal are our two main protags for the show, and they both have pretty interesting concepts! Hank is an Incarnate, he used to be the leader of the other Incarnates, and he made a vow with them that when they lost their minds, he would kill them himself. Schaal is the daughter of one of these Incarnates that fought under Hank. Interesting, right?! How could these two opposing characters get along with one another?

TTASB tries to give the two of them a sort of grumpy-old-mentor-teaches-a-cheery-youngster relationship (which, admittedly, is one of my favorite tropes) and manages to forget everything good about having this kind of relationship. To start, it feels like Schaal has next to no reason to be tolerating Hank, and vice versa. She follows him around because *insert some excuse about understanding the Incarnates?* and Hank lets her because *insert I really don't know*. It really feels like Schaal doesn't need to be there, and she's just a plot device to move along Hank's character development.

Then, the two of them never really interact in ways that really moved me. It never felt like they made a deeper connection that meant something to the plot. They interacted, sure. They spoke about their issues, yeah. But it never felt like Hank needed Schaal, or that Schaal was emotionally tied to Hank, until the show spoonfed it to you that they were.

In the end, neither of their developments felt compelling or interesting. There were a few scenes that maybe, if you squinted, hinted towards them growing as people, but for a 12 episode anime, it was very menial. It also felt like said scenes were fairly forced, with their development not really leading them to the point that they ended up at. Again, TTASB has a bit of an issue with contradicting itself.

The villain was so meh. He has a motive, yeah. It's pretty lame. He's not compelling at all. Nothing about him is interesting or kept me hooked on him. The show probably could've existed without him, to be entirely honest. I don't really have much else to say about him! I just did not really care about him at all.

The best characters in the show are hands-down the supporting cast of Incarnates. Each one has fairly interesting motivations, and even though they're only given an episode or so to tell their stories, they feel the most genuine. My biggest qualm with them is that the show doesn't build their connection to Hugh Hank at all, so when he gets emotional over them, you're kind of like "uhhh u know this guy??". More about this down in our spoilers section, as I'll go over a scene where this is prominent.

So characters were meh, but what about the story itself?: 4/10, just as meh. Again, very interesting! Lots of potential! But it fell flat where it mattered. To be clear, just before we dig deeper: the 12 episodes of TTASB isn't the entire story. It's clearly intended to be continued, though, as of writing this, I haven't been able to dig up any news about a potential season 2.

I don't really mind if animes aren't completely original, as long as they're fun, but TTASB didn't really do that. A lot of the episodes felt boring and reused like it was a watered-down copy-paste of other material. Some episodes were repetitive and seemed to be trying to hammer in the same themes, only to be later contradicted by other episodes. TTASB will spend a few episodes showing you how misunderstood and sweet the Incarnates are and then have an episode where an Incarnate murders a bunch of people. I would love it if it was, in any way, shape, or form, sarcastic, but it is not. TTASB just thinks it can get away with the blatant disregarding of its own morals. It only ends up feeling disconnecting and frustrating.

It follows an almost monster-of-the-week style format for introducing the Incarnates, which does them a bit of a disservice, in my opinion. I really would have liked it if there was a bit more overlap between the Incarnates and their stories! We know that they're all very close (or, at least, the show tells us that they are without really showing us) so seeing them interact with one another outside of their respective episode would've been fun!

The story tries to be darker and grimier than it actually is. I didn't end up caring much for the nation itself and much of the politics that the show tried to utilize felt boring and, again, watered-down. It felt like the show wanted to make it a political drama about war and human rights and only ended up shying away from what makes those genres impactful. Again, this isn't to say that TTASB's story is bad, it's just not as good as it could've been.

But it's MAPPA, so the art has to be good, right?: Yeah! Art was cool! Nothing golden, like MAPPA's newer stuff, but a solid 7/10! The fight scenes were nice, and even though a lot of them felt redundant to watch, they were still smooth! I have some qualms about a few of the Incarnates' beast forms (especially Hank's) looking like they belong back in 2001, but they still looked cool nonetheless.

I don't really have much to say on this front! Nothing really blew me away, but I never looked at the screen and winced away.

Ok and finally, pacing!: 4/10. 12 episode animes always have tricky pacing to them. I like to think about the show being pretty much only 5 hours long, which isn't that much time to cram in as much story and plot as they might want to. Overall, TTASB actually had pretty decent pacing, with a long enough build-up that led to a final showdown. If you ask me, I do think there was a pacing problem in the second half, as it felt far too stretched out, but that could've just been my perception of it.

My biggest issue with pacing loops back to the characters again. They're never really given time to explore or build up relationships. Especially not Hank and his prior team of Incarnates. I think that there should've been more screen time dedicated to their time in the army, to better explain the emotional distress that he's going through as he's forced to hunt them down. Instead, TTASB relies on a throwaway line or scene to deliver this emotional blow, and it nearly always falls flat.

Music!!!!: 6/10, The soundtrack in this anime really wasn't memorable and I don't remember much from it. Whoops!

I did like the opening a bit! It was done by Mafumafu, who I think has done a Pokemon intro song? Either way, it was energetic and fit the theme of the show well! The ending is also a bop, now that I'm thinking about it! It manages to be nostalgic and sad without being too slow! So good music on both fronts!!

OK, now we're in spoiler territory! Be warned!

I don't have too much to say regarding spoilers. Nothing in the show really feels important enough that I have to mention it under a spoiler tag. A few small notes, I suppose.

The show treats Hank like the more important character but then throws him away in his "death" to focus on Schaal, which was a very frustrating episode. Schaal felt so bland and useless in it, even when she faced her father again. Bringing him back to life felt like a sad excuse to force her into character development. I did like it when she found the courage to shoot him, but I also thought that it wasn't really as emotional as the show wanted it to be.

Hank's connection with Schaal, particularly in the second half, feels completely unnatural and forced. When she gets kidnapped, he has some sort of mental breakdown over her and it, if anything, felt creepy. It was undeserved and was forced down your throat rather than built.

Beatrice was the best character in the show and I think that if they stuck to ideas like hers (misunderstood creatures who just want to go back to their old lives), the story would have been much better. Instead, you switch to characters like the Gargoyle Incarnate, who just goes on a murder spree, and it ruins a lot of the development that Beatrice brought to the table.

& our deep deep look at one part: Forgive me if I get this screwed up a bit, it's been a weekish since I finished the show and my brain dumped out all details of it already.

Hugh Hank goes to the mountains and fights the Garmr Incarnate, Rex (Roy? I'm a bit confused on his name), in an epic show-down. Obviously, at the end of it, Hank wins, killing Rex. Now, if you're like me, you sat there for most of the fight going "who tf is Rex and why is this battle important?" and only at the very END, when he's dying, do you see a clip that you might remember from the very beginning of the anime, with Rex talking about Schaal. You go "oohhh I know who he is!" but you wished that you remembered this ten minutes ago when the fight started because it would've been so much more impactful. The show didn't remind you of this scene. It didn't tell you that Rex was this same person that you already met. It expected you to remember, and I didn't. This scene sums up a lot of the character problems with the show, where even if something does have emotional weight, the show doesn't act on it.

Now we're done!: Sorry if this was harsh, but that's my full review on To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts! I'd love to hear if you agree with me or think that I'm totally wrong! If you've read the manga, tell me if it's better or worth a read! And thanks for reading!

(The crossed-out "Hugh"s are all of the times that I got Hank's name wrong! I'm not super great with character names, but I always take it as a bad sign when I screw up the name. )

[multisfabulis]

Land’s Trust in Light

Arrival in Thornewind (Chapter 1/6)

Word Count: 4090

Oh, look, a new Corona's Shadow entry that doesn't feature Verreth? That's possible?!

I kid but it honestly feels good to not be writing Verreth for CS for a little bit. CS was never meant to be a Verreth love story, it only ended up like that because I went straight into writing "The Road to Forgiveness Be Damned" after finishing "A Single Ray of Light in a Sea of Darkness" because I simply wanted to write more Ven and I started to regret my decision around the time I wrote the rough version of the third chapter. Obviously, I stuck with that decision to the end but it was throughout that time I had wants to write Verreth and I wrote those as well. However, all the Verreth segments are what I consider to be side stories, which I know may be hard to believe but trust me, because Ven and Ferreth are not the main protagonists of CS. Eric, if anyone remembers him, is. The Verreth segments were only added to the CS series because I didn't want to make a whole new series entirely focused on Verreth and take them out of something they are main characters of.

Does this mean I'm done writing Verreth? For now, yes. Outside of occasional updates to "Only Through Acceptance Will Love Find Us", I wanna focus on both this and other smaller projects, like RLD and fanfics. Just in case anyone's lost hope, the next big project is Verreth-related, with Ferreth taking the protag role a la TRFBD. Let's just say we're finally getting a look at his backstory and a reason as to why he has self-worth issues.

God, it feels great to be writing in Eric's POV again. It's been over 2 years since I finished ASRLSD so I am making the most of this!

Surprisingly enough, there wasn't much change during the transition from rough draft to publication, which actually made this harder to write. I'm so used to there being at least one major change that I got tripped up by this. The only major change here is the addition of descriptors and needed elaboration and those, I feel like, are key to "beautifying" writing so I don't count those.

One last thing is the "flirting" present in here. I honestly don't know if that can be considered flirting because I'm not someone who flirts or is flirted with on a daily basis. I'm pretty much the dense harem anime protagonist so please forgive me for the terrible flirting.

Read on AO3 | Read on DA | Support me on Ko-fi!

     Thornewind was gorgeous. Sure, Eric was looking at it from a distance atop Asha, but it made one hell of a good first impression. Thornewind seemed colorful and vibrant and he wanted to explore every last inch of it. He gently kicked Asha’s side and she began walking at a slow, leisurely pace.

     Thornewind was a town nestled in the mountains north of Aurora Zenith. The tiny glimpse he saw of it left him awestruck, from its tall, rich buildings packed closely together to its bright windmills scattered across its many open fields. Then there was the sight that awaited him over the ridge, stealing his breath away.

     There were tulips that stretched as far as the eye could see. A sea of blue, red, orange, pink, and yellow blossoms swayed in the summery breeze. It was strange how all these tulips were in bloom when Augvesta had just rolled around but he didn’t put much thought into it. Botany was more of Ven’s expertise and she would be positively thrilled upon seeing this.

     It was soon after crossing the garden he arrived at the entrance. It surprised him to see how lax security was if they let a complete stranger in without so much as a request for papers. He didn’t mind it, though; it just struck him as odd since no one was allowed entry if they weren’t deemed trustworthy back in his childhood home. He and Asha passed through the threshold and was rendered speechless.

     Towering brick buildings loomed over him while a rainbow of others stood further ahead of him. Paths of smooth stone ran in every direction, the opposite of Aurora Zenith’s dirt roads that swept up dust with enough energy behind it. He could hear the tinkling of wind chimes and the fervor of voices all around him. Thornewind certainly had Brinegarde beat in its lively atmosphere.

     He hopped off Asha, making sure to keep the reins in a firm grip. Her deep brown eyes met his as he slowly put a hand on her face and stroked. She didn’t flinch, which was a good sign of progress.

     “You’re such a good girl, Asha,” he murmured, moving his hand down to stroke her neck. “Let’s find a place for you to rest, hmm?”

     It didn’t take long to find a stable. He led her into one of the empty stalls and fed her a couple sugar cubes as a reward for all the hard work she’d done over the past two weeks. The last thing he did was tell the stableman how to care for her during her stay and that he’d be checking up on her daily. Waving goodbye to Asha, it was time to explore Thornewind.

     With it being mid-afternoon, it was pleasantly warm as people crowded the streets on their day-to-day routine. The sound of the wind chimes grew louder and the scent of delicious meals made his mouth water in anticipation. Thank god his anxiety wasn’t ruining this for him. He could hardly contain the bounce in his step as he excitedly toured around the busy thoroughfares. It was rare for him to see and visit new places so he wanted to make the most of this trip.

     There were two things he noticed. First was that most of the people he saw weren’t humans nor were they elves. Their ears were similar to Ven’s and they had what seemed to be like fangs sticking out from their upper lips. What really threw him off, though, were their sizes. Many of them were easily a foot or so taller than him just from a distance and were definitely well-built. Whatever these people were, they’ve caught his eye and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t enticed.

     Then there were the stares. He initially thought they were wondering what a human was doing here till he realized it was what he wore. It wasn’t like he was wearing an extravagant suit but he still clearly looked like a noble, or so he assumed. He wasn’t trying to show people up. He was just taught to always dress his best for important events and he considered his reason for being here to be one such.

     Now came the realization he was lost. He had become so engrossed in his surroundings, an hour flew by without him noticing. He needed to find the lord of this town and talk with them about the relationship between them and Aurora Zenith. Allies were essential in political affairs, after all. The bad part was, he had no idea on where to start looking.

     Well, as much as he hated to, he had to ask someone for directions. It couldn’t be that hard, right? All he’d have to do is go up to a random person, ask them on how to get to the lord’s house, and that’d be it. Simple and easy!

     He felt a hand touch his shoulder and heard a voice ask, “Hey, are you okay?”

     He let out a startled shriek and turned to face the stranger. There was a man in front of him with his hands up in a conciliatory manner towards him. One of the first things he noticed was just how big he was.

     He’d never seen anyone taller than Alek before and it honestly unnerved him. The man had the same pointed ears and fangs as everyone else so he must’ve been one of the not-human, not-elf people. He had dark brown skin, messy brown hair with a small braid that reached his shoulders, and bright green eyes. What was really peculiar about him were the bandages starting from the middle of his arms and ending all the way down to his fingertips. He was definitely hiding something underneath those but Eric could care less about what right now.

     “Hey, hey, hey, calm down, okay?” the man said in a soothing tone. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

     “I would hope not!” Eric breathed in, placed a hand on his chest, and breathed out. “It’s not every day some random stranger walks up, claps a hand on my shoulder, and asks if I’m okay right in my ear.”

     “Well, you seemed troubled so I thought you might’ve needed help,” the man replied, putting his hands down.

     Feeling rather embarrassed with himself for that pathetic display, he cleared his throat and asked, “As a matter of fact, I do. Could you please tell me where the lord of this town is, I need to speak with them right away.”

     “You wanna talk to Bris?”

     “If that’s their name, then yes. I have some important business to discuss with them.”

     “He’s not far from here, I can take you to him if you want.”

     That would probably be the best course of action. He was never good at memorizing directions and reciting them to himself only confused him more. He had no one to blame but himself for being in this situation to begin with so…

     “Sure, that’d be great,” Eric conceded. At least this guy was kind and generous enough to show him the way there.

     “All right, let’s make our way over there.” The two men began walking down a street that wasn’t as busy as before. “By the way, my name’s Ferreth.”

     “I’m Eric, it’s nice to meet you,” he said, flashing him a friendly smile.

     “So what brings someone like you to our fair town of Thornewind?” Ferreth asked. “I thought I’d recognized all our visitors since those don’t come by very often.”

     “It’s as I said. I’ve traveled a long way to see Bris in the hopes of discussing important business with him.”

     “What kind of business? Are you an important person?”

     “I’d say being lord counts as pretty important. I’ve come all the way from Aurora Zenith to see if our two towns could potentially become allies.”

     “Oh, wow. I, uh, didn’t think someone as cute as you could be lord.”

     He tilted his head in both curiosity and confusion. “I don’t see what my appearance has to do with anything but I can assure you I wasn’t lying.”

     “I didn’t think you were. I just wasn’t expecting a man in your position to be so…good-looking.”

     “So what were you expecting?”

     “You know, somebody the complete opposite. I mean, I’m figuring you’re, like, smart, charismatic, kind, and everything else Bris is like.”

     Ah, that’s what was happening here. He had an inkling of it the first time Ferreth mentioned his appearance but now he was sure. Alek had never done it with him and there wasn’t really a need for him to. As flattered as he was by it, his heart was and always will be Alek’s.

     Chuckling, he said, “Well, I think my boyfriend would agree with you on some of those things but I’m more modest about them.”

     “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Ferreth had a defeated smile on his face, gracefully accepting his loss. Eric liked how easygoing he was.

     “So what’s your relationship with Bris like?” he asked.

     “Oh, me and him are best friends. We’ve known each other since childhood but I’d say we’re more like brothers than friends by this point.”

     “Sounds like you get along with him really well.”

     “Don’t get me wrong, Bris and I have had our fair share of arguments but what friendship hasn’t? We have each others’ backs and no fight’s ever gonna change that.”

     Ferreth had a certain fondness in his voice when he spoke about Bris. It was easy to see the love and devotion he held for Bris and it warmed Eric’s heart. He was admittedly envious of their friendship. He never had any friends as a child aside from Alek and, while Alek’s irreplaceable, he wished he was able to make some back then. At least that seemed to be changing with him befriending Ven during his trip to Brinegarde so maybe he still had a chance to form everlasting relationships.

     “Here we are!”

     The two stopped before a giant windmill. Dark red brick made up the exterior and the blades turned gently in the breeze, creaking ever so slightly. There were hardly any windows aside from the two in front and there was a wraparound balcony set up just below the wooden roof. Eric didn’t know windmills could be habitable, which made him want to live here if only a little.

     “Wow…”

     “Let’s go on up, shall we?”

     They climbed up the stone steps leading to the front door. It was a tall, dark wooden door stretching up towards the wraparound balcony, with a black, wrought iron ring on the side as its knocker. Before he could think of a script in his head, Ferreth grabbed the ring and hit it against the door a few times.

     Almost immediately after, a woman answered. She wasn’t much taller than him, though he figured the top of his head would be just scraping her chin, and the slim blue dress she wore did little to hide her defined muscles. She had porcelain skin, long, wavy rose pink hair flowing down to her waist, and sandy brown eyes, reminding him of the shores of Aurora Zenith’s beaches. She was stunningly beautiful and his throat felt suddenly dry.

     “Ah, Ferreth, are you here to see Master Brirsyrun today?” she asked. Her voice sounded soft and airy like a lovely breeze.

     “Hey, Aissyl, I’m actually here because my new friend wanted to speak with Bris regarding some important matters, right?” Ferreth put a hand squarely on Eric’s back and pushed him forward slightly.

     “Oh, uh, yes!” he spoke quickly. “My name is Eric Travere and I’m the lord of Aurora Zenith. I’m here today because I needed to talk to Brirsyrun about improving the relationship between our two towns.”

     “I see. I shall ask Master Brirsyrun if he’ll see you now, please wait a moment.” She closed the door.

     That could have gone a little better, he thought as he released a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding in. He heard Ferreth trying to stifle a laugh from beside him and promptly wanted to die. Guess he wasn’t the only one she had that effect on, if this has happened before.

     “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Ferreth asked, pretending like he didn’t know the answer.

     “Yes, well, I can’t deny that she’s quite beautiful,” he replied, clearing his throat. “Have you tried anything with her?”

     “When I first met her, yeah, and she swiftly turned me down.” He clicked his tongue, as if remembering the memory wasn’t pleasant. “Let’s just say she’s not interested in men like us. Or any man, really.”

     Before he could say any more, the woman known as Aissyl opened the door and invited them inside. The room he entered seemed to be what he’d liken to a waiting room or lounge. What little of the walls he saw that weren’t decorated in exquisite murals were painted a warm honey color. There were a couple of cushioned chairs sitting by the small window and a low table set in front of them. He didn’t have time to check out much more before Aissyl led them through an arched threshold into another room he presumed to be Bris’ office.

     It wasn’t terribly big but it worked fine for its purpose. Unlike the lounge, the walls were a cerulean blue, similar to the sky at dawn before the sunrise. There were tall bookcases standing on one side of the room and a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor on the other. A leather chair sat behind a pine desk atop a nondescript forest green rug. He figured the unusual empty space in front of the desk was for additional chairs if they had guests over. They must not get many of them if they hadn’t gotten a chair specifically for this room. A man was sitting at the desk when he looked up and Eric believed him to be Bris.

     The first thing he noticed was the cream-colored scarf worn around his neck, which he found odd since it was late summer. He looked to have a lean yet muscled body and, when he stood up, seemed to be just shy of Aissyl’s height. He had sun-kissed skin, cropped blond hair, and cloudy gray eyes. A smile broke out across his face upon seeing Ferreth and he walked around his desk.

     “Hey, I was wondering when I’d see you,” said Bris.

     “Well, I was planning on coming by here anyway but my new friend here--” Ferreth wrapped an arm around Eric’s shoulders, making him jump slightly-- “needed help finding you so why not save a trip?”

     “Right.” Bris walked up and offered a hand. “I’m Brirsyrun, son of Nulzrot and Tallo of the air.”

     That was a…unique way of introducing himself, he thought curiously as he put his hand in Bris’ and said, “I’m Eric Travere, lord of Aurora Zenith.”

     “Aissyl said you had some important matters to discuss?”

     “Yes, well, I wanted to talk with you regarding the relationship between Thornewind and Aurora Zenith.” He took a step forward, shrugging off Ferreth’s arm. “You see, I’m planning on going to the rest of the major cities and asking them for their cooperation. In simpler terms, I’m in want of allies. I already have the town of Brinegarde as one so Thornewind’s my second stop.”

     “I see. Well, I’d like to talk more of this tomorrow morning because I have some things that need attending to today. Will that be all right with you?”

     “No, that’s good, that’s great! I’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

     Wow, a guaranteed meeting? No waiting for someone because they were fooling around instead of doing work in their office? This trip was already leagues better than Brinegarde’s and it was all due to Bris being a responsible adult. That pompous jackass Lianthorne could take some pointers.

     “I think, with that being settled, we’re done here.” Bris gestured towards Ferreth. “Ferr, could you show Eric to the Dravitae Inn so he’ll have a place to stay during his time here?”

     “Of course, my lord,” Ferreth replied with a joking smile.

     “Don’t call me that, even if it’s a joke,” Bris protested, despite his own grin.

     Aissyl led the two men outside with Bris following behind. Eric and Ferreth gave a short wave goodbye and they were off. He made sure to remember any and all distinctive markers on the roads as they walked. He didn’t want to be late for the meeting tomorrow because he was lost again.

     “So, how was your first impression of Bris?” Ferreth asked, folding his hands behind his head. “Pretty nice guy, right?”

     “Yeah, he seems like a really decent person--” he let out a chuckle before sighing wearily-- “which is a lot more than I can say about Brinegarde’s lord.”

     “I’m guessing they weren’t as nice.”

     “God, you would not believe. They’re probably the most arrogant and pretentious asshole I’ve ever met.”

     “At least Bris isn’t like that, thankfully.”

     “Yeah, thank god.”

     Despite his complaining of it, he didn’t regret his trip to Brinegarde. It was a beautiful town, like many other coastal towns, and the sweets were to die for. Meeting and becoming friends with Ven, however, was easily the best part of that trip. No beauty or tasty treats will come close to the joy having her in his life brought. She was Brinegarde’s saving grace.

     “You know, I’m curious…” He put a finger to his chin as if thinking about something before continuing. “What do you do around here, Ferreth? It must be a job that gives you a lot of free time if you’re allowed to cart me around all day.”

     “Oh, I guess I’m what you’d call a handyman,” Ferreth replied. “I do general repairs wherever they’re needed and I basically do work people don’t wanna do themselves.”

     “So it’s like you’re an errand boy, then?”

     “I’d say handyman’s an upgrade from that but yeah. It may not be the most ideal job but it lets me help people and it doesn’t pay so bad, either.”

     “No offense and all but…isn’t there something you’d rather be doing than being a handyman? I mean, I guess I don’t really understand it but still… Do you have something to aspire to?”

     He swore he saw him tense up and a glimmer of something he couldn’t quite detect before it disappeared as he answered with, “Not really.”

     That was most definitely a lie. He couldn’t figure out why Ferreth would lie to him over an innocent question like that but it was none of his business. There might’ve been more going on underneath the surface and they had only just met earlier today. No sane person tells a complete stranger their entire life story hours after meeting them. He was entitled to his secrets, as was he.

     It was soon after they arrived at the Dravitae Inn. It was a simple four-story building, with pale green walls, a dark red shingled roof, a pair of large double doors serving as the entrance, and windows on either side that allowed passersby a peek inside the establishment. On the corner was a hanging metal sign that had the name of the inn inscribed on it with a sleeping dragon below. It seemed like a good enough place to stay in during his visit.

     “Here we are.” Ferreth turned towards him. “You gonna need help getting to Bris’ tomorrow?”

     “No, I should be good. Besides--” he placed a finger to his temple-- “I have a pretty good memory so I think I have the path there memorized.”

     “All right, well, good luck tomorrow,” he said, gesturing his hand in a motion reminiscent of a salute. “Enjoy the rest of your stay.”

     He began walking back the way they came. Eric watched his figure shrink smaller and smaller before he was out of sight completely. He hoped he’d have a chance to talk with him more throughout his stay here in Thornewind. He had questions he wanted answers to, such as the nature of the people here and what he was like. For now, though, it was time to check in.

     A quick chat with the innkeeper later and he had his room. It was slightly smaller than his room back at home but it brought some comfort. A queen-sized bed sat on the right side of the room and an average cupboard opposite it. The armoire was tucked away into the upper left-hand corner while a small table and chairs were in the upper right-hand corner. A single window was set at the back, which gave him a decent view of Thornewind in the late afternoon.

     He set his bag and key down on the table before flopping onto the bed. God, he wanted nothing more than to lay there for a minute or hour. He still wasn’t used to walking and talking by himself so he was thankful for the short rest. Hey, maybe by the time he goes to Emberranth, he’ll have the skills of a functioning human being and not that of an introverted shut-in.

     He sat up, reached into his pocket, and took out his pendant. The crystal inside the bottle glinted slightly upon being held up to the light. He smiled as he brought it close to his chest, hoping his mother was watching over him.

     Tomorrow was his meeting with Bris. Other than that, he had a few days to spend time doing whatever he wanted. Sightseeing, buying souvenirs, trying out Thornewind’s cuisine, he may as well treat himself as a tourist more than a visitor. He never got to do these things before now so he wanted to make the most of it.

     May he leave Thornewind with an unforgettable experience.

[jcmorrigan]

How was your element of harmony fic gonna end?

OOH NOW THIS ONE HAS BEEN SUCH A WHILE THAT THIS ACTUALLY SOUNDS FUN TO TALK ABOUT

Context for those unaware: EoH was one of my many attempts at a multicrossover. A predecessor to TBTC. It was my goal at being an EVERYTHING CROSSOVER and taking forever to highlight every little thing that could be explored in the canon of each work used. And I was in a difficult relationship with KH at the time, even though it was obviously a KH derivative, so I didn't want to actually use Sora and co. as the main cast. MLPFIM was a comfort show for me, and I was already used to the br0n135 using the Mane Six in crossovers with everything you could imagine, so I was like, hey, let's do this, Mane Six are now multi-world travelers and Discord is assembling every villain ever to stand in their way. (KH then ended up in the mythos anyway!) This is also where I was playing the infamous Twilight Sparkle/Mozenrath ship that is now very very dead.

To explain exactly what all was going on with the lore and politics of it to make this last bit make sense would take too long, so from there, please just...roll with it. I'm about to detail you THE FINALE ARC

The original idea was actually, at some point, to begin work on the Finale Arc when most of the main players were introduced. Then go back in time and keep editing the middle of the story to go on indefinitely. A bad business plan for many reasons, first of all being that I didn't even get to introduce the players that would've made it possible to begin the arc. That's how long I took to explore EVERY FRICKIN THING.

Over the course of the story, Discord has been interfering on every crossover world you can imagine, to the point of sometimes altering their canons into "fix fic." The story is aware of this. It's kinda like in the Loki series (of which I've only watched episode 1) where there's a "sacred timeline" and Discord's crossover actions are deliberate attempts by him to break it. We learn at some point that paradoxes and timeline changes are what broke the Age of Fairy Tales into the KH worlds we know today. So Discord rounds up his Old Ones (the Lovecraftian monstrosities that are more powerful than gods) and they all band together to strike at all the cracks he's put in the structure of the multiverse, and it all just falls APART. Worlds are destroyed, time has no meaning, suddenly everything is shards floating in void. The main players survive, mostly. Countless civilians die. Some named characters are given tragic deaths.

I've actually written one little snippet from this arc because I wanted to. It details two particular characters, who at the time were side villains I enjoyed and was just digging the vibe of, going down defending a stronghold from the creatures of Darkness (oni, yokai, Heartless, Grimm) that emerged from the void when everything broke. By the way do you want to take a guess who these characters IT WAS ARCHIBALD SNATCHER AND ROMAN TORCHWICK. GOD, THAT SHOULD'VE BEEN THE SIGN RIGHT THEN AND THERE THAT THEY WERE WHO I WANTED TO BE WRITING ABOUT FULL-TIME

But! I had a friend who'd lent me the book "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," and I was REALLY into that book's whole concept of "all stories in existence are threatened to end." So I lifted Khattam-Shud, a personification of The End (and I have since heard is also a political caricature), as the ACTUAL final boss. Discord wanted to blow up the multiverse because of the CHAOS that would ensue! KS, however, wanted to end EVERYTHING. (If I were doing this today, he'd just flat-out be Ansem, Seeker of Darkness instead.) Discord would realize he'd been played as KS makes a bid to line up one more cataclysm that will reduce everything to dust.

Heroes and villains alike, Discord included, find each other across the wastelands and amass into one last survivors' army led by the Mane Six. They approach the final field standing between them and KS and they charge. KS unleashes Dark creatures (Echthroi, as I had it) to gun them down. Pretty much everyone dies in this battle except the Mane Six themselves. (Which should give you a hint as to how this REALLY ends, but let's keep going.) The Mane Six fight their way to KS (and I'm REALLY gonna date myself here - the final line of defense before him was gonna be Paige the freaking Notebook from DHMIS as a personification of creative control). He shatters the Elements and then un-exists the Mane Six, but they don't die.

Instead, they end up in a sort of...white realm, inspired by the development rooms in The Stanley Parable (I was into even weirder fandoms back then than I am now apparently?). At one point it was gonna be "inside the author's laptop" and they could see doors to other timelines (i.e. crossover fanfics my friends were doing). They can also see all the files here for all the worlds they visited on their way and all the friends they made. Y'know, everything that's now DEAD.

The memories of everyone and everything they loved, however, allows them to forge one (1) new Element stone. This is...wait for it...THE ELEMENT OF HARMONY. Its surface shimmers with a rainbow of all colors! But wait! When it's flipped over, there's another side to the same gem, with colors dissonantly swirled around in an ugly way. Our heroines realize that the Element of Harmony also serves a dual purpose as the Element of Chaos, since you can't have one without the other!

The Mane Six find a way back to KS' battlefield, where he's about to finally UN-EXIST EVERYTHING. Twilight gets to say the one and only "FUCK" she's allowed to say in the whole story (I really...want to use this same joke on Mozenrath in TBTC...I know I've said he curses inaudibly to keep him IC but just imagine in the finale arc he gets the one and only FUCK he's ever allowed in his life). The six huddle around their Element of Harmony and activate its magic, casting a rainbow aura that begins to heal the broken multiverse. KS then tells them there's no way that will ever work because he and the other Old Ones caused so many paradoxes that it'll fall back apart again. To build a multiverse that's stable under these conditions would make no sense. And Twilight goes "WHAT FUN IS THERE IN MAKING SENSE" and flips the Element over to the Chaos side! Now the Chaos energy basically...fixes all the plot holes and physical impossibilities of the multiverse, allowing it to rebuild everything that had broken without a single issue!

Discord petrifies Khattam-Shud and it was fairly badass but I can't remember exactly what one-liner I gave him to end it.

Lights up on a rebuilt multiverse. Everyone's alive again and nothing's broken! YAY! And everyone in the survivor army (though they're not "survivors" anymore since EVERYONE is alive again) has come to Equestria to give the Mane Six a celebration for saving literally everything! AND THEY'RE ALL PONIES OR OTHERWISE MAGICAL CREATURES BECAUSE OF MY RULES OF FORM CHANGING IN THAT FIC. HAHAHAHAHA IT WAS A VERY COMICAL MENTAL IMAGE AND STILL IS.

The Six get their ships (Twilight/Mozenrath, Pinkie Pie/Megavolt, Fluttershy/Sakuya from Okami, Rarity/Stork, Rainbow Dash/I would really rather not say this one because it was taboo in a way I don't wanna touch again, Applejack/I don't even know anymore because it was gonna be Emma Swan and then it wasn't and then I just got confused). And everyone just has a good time.

The Six then take off in the ship again for THE ADVENTURE CONTINUING, EVEN THOUGH AFTER THIS I WOULD JUST GO WRITE ETERNAL ADVENTURE LEADING UP TO THIS MOMENT

Also I heard the song "We Come Running" by Youngblood Hawke on the radio once and I was like "This would go great over a credits sequence" so I used it for a while as my inspo for a KH-style "credits montage" where you see each of the most major worlds and the factions that live on them, and an early concept for the WHAM ARMY was one of these factions and this cracks me up so much because they graduated from a shot in the KH montage to WE ARE THE PROTAGS OF THE NEXT FIC

And that's pretty much it!

[nbapprentice]

You said a while back that while Supergiant games (Bastion, Transistor, Hades) was mostly okay, you had some words about them. I was curious as to what those words were, since Hades' full release is soon.

okay. alright. ive been playing hades lately so i definitely want to give my two cents (or dollars by the size this is gonna get). but let’s go Step by Step

the good: i want to throw a whole Endorsement over supergiant games with the art direction and its characters, which is what keeps me coming back again and again, and what i can assume is that most people are attracted to. 

gameplaywise, they have a Format they stick to which has become their staple, not to their detriment but to their advantage, like... gameplay tropes, so to speak, that they stick to (such as the addition of special conditions that give a disadvantage in exchange for more long-term rewards)

i fucking adore that they take one concept per game, go for it, and when they’re done they are Done; they don’t bother with sequels, they don’t want to run things to the ground and i fucking respect that. They have their themes, and they stick to them (to various degrees of success).

that said, like every piece of media, they are not perfect and this has to be analysed and spoken about

CONTENT WARNINGS: genocide and ethnic cleansing, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, suicide, and mentions of incest, and a general Spoilers warning

bastion: touches on ethnic cleansing, and not in a way i’d say is satisfactory. our narrator and one of our Sympathetic characters is one of the men who worked on a world-ending weapon meant to use against the Ura (a group of people coded as East Asian) which after a bit of googling is literally called “the final solution” if there was ever a war between the Ura and the Cael (who feel like rly tan white people to me). jesus fucking CHRIST.

we also meet more Ura other than our two named characters and we have to kill most of them. so that fucking blows.

the game tries for “being a genocidal monster will get you fucked up and blown up” which duh, but i feel we shouldn’t have had a person responsible for war crimes be one of our friends no matter how bad he feels about the whole thing, or the people victim of war crimes become villains in the latter half of the game. zia’s father could’ve taken ruck’s role ez pz.

transistor: the weakest of their games, imo; the lore and writing are fairly flimsy and i did not come out feeling Satisfied, especially because it had this rly good build-up that did not pay off. not to mention... their villains? 3/4 were gay people. lol. two married guys (not even explicit, you only realize by their shared last names) and the ps*cho lesbian trope (iirc she wanted to kill the protagonist’s lover or something). the female protagonist also ends up killing herself to live forever in a digital paradise with her dead lover. it’s. god. 

very Aesthetic, GORGEOUS music, interesting gameplay; had potential, i do not feel like it lived up to it at least as far as the story goes.

pyre: now this one. this one’s BEEFY. where transistor felt flimsy, pyre is rich; lots to sink your teeth into, rich in lore and loveable characters, again w the beautiful music, themes of cooperation and togetherness. my favorite of the cast is volfred sandalwood, the only Black (or, well, Black-coded) revolutionary i’ve ever seen portrayed with this amount of sympathy.

onto the bad: they literally have a Class of character named “Savage”; there’s the “mystical mentally ill person” trope; there is an overwhelming amount of explicit m/f pairs (one of them being. a romance that formed in a single day and then both of the characters were somehow willing to risk it all for each other? PLEASE) while the only hints of gayness are... hints. especially when Jodariel (another of my favs) is teased to have feelings for the player regardless of gender then only gets an ending with a male character with whom she has nothing in common 🙃

hades: and now. this one. music: gorgeous. character designs: spectacular (aphrodite is straight up naked but it’s so... natural and casual, it doesn’t feel sexualized at all). voice acting amazing. character interactions charming and endearing. as a greek mythology nerd, it was nice to see them go for the obscure shit like Zagreus at all, NOT portray Persephone and Hades as a loving couple, AND portrayed the gods as the bunch of petty assholes (some more benevolent than others) that they are. imo they’re too generous with their portrayal of achilles but i’ll allow it.

and finally... it seems all those criticisms about having all the gay characters hidden in the shadows paid off, cuz we got (aside of patroclus and achilles) a bisexual polyamorous protag. Holy Shit! and it’s not even playersexual, romance whomever you want shit without the routes recognizing each other: he explicitly talks about how he’s thinking abt them both (though it’s like “yeah usually mortals take one lover but gods love many huh” polyamory is a human thing too bro!!!!!)

and this is where it all goes, well, at least vaguely downhill lol. ok so the incest warning i gave up there? well. it’s not... outright incestuous. but it has some ugly implications. i want to emphasize: the characters never refer to each other as siblings, nor do they treat each other as such (thanatos, in fact, only recognizes hypnos as his brother, and megaera only sees the other furies as her sisters), but they were all raised by the same woman, Nyx... zagreus and thanatos even grew up together (im assuming megaera didnt meet zagreus until he was fully grown).

this is complicated even worse by the fact that they tried to trick zagreus into believing Nyx was his mother. he realized pretty early on this was not true but like... adoptive mothers, anyone? granted i can believe that bc of the attempt at deception that probably ruptured any attempt at actual familial closeness, and it’s not like hypnos and thanatos saw zagreus as their brother at any point, so they were p much aware of the truth too. with the fact that thanatos even looks like goth miles edgeworth (im not kidding you can google him up right now its literally edgeworth in a cowl) i rly feel they were aiming for Childhood Friend Anime Rival Man than the “surprise kiss bc ur not actually related <3″ shit. zagreus never once refers to nyx as his mother in-game, and also refers to thanatos and hypnos as her sons, never his brothers.

so yeah, like. if one’s feeling generous, zagreus and thanatos are more of a “my father is emotionally closed off and neglects me so my best friend’s mother basically raised me” kind of situation... just pulled off in, perhaps, the worst way possible (why didnt they just say Zagreus was told Hekate was his mom, that’s such an easy fix? or that he was born of nobody other than Hades??? [gestures at athena])

but then, the gods. aaaaaaaahhhhahahahh the gods. demeter shows up! and she calls zeus, hades and poseidon... her foster-brothers. which somehow would make the persephone thing less fucking awful, apparently. they really. really really did not need to do that. she could’ve just said “my fellow gods” or whatever. or my “god-brothers” or something, to pretend it was just a weird god alliance thing??? i dont know but implying that foster family isn’t family is just... bro, the dynamics still exist.

Don’t Like That.

i even contacted supergiant games over this. they reassured me they were even trying to avoid the incest of the original myths bc they didn’t want to mess with such a heavy theme. i believe them... but i really think they didn’t think this through. compared to something like fire emblem fates this is nearly benign, but the implications don’t look good :/

tl;dr of the tl;drs: i admire their artistic philosophy and the heavy emphasis on fresh gameplay, characters and their relationships; i appreciate that it seems that they listen to criticism?; i don’t appreciate that they didn’t think to at LEAST talk to adoptees when making a game about family.

[gamer2002]

Danganronpa - Review2002

Danganronpa is a mystery VN, where 15 high schoolers are trapped in a murder school, and in order to get out one has to kill another and frame somebody else for it. Observed and manipulated by the headmaster of the school, a sadistic robot-bear called Monokuma, our main character, Makoto, has to survive and not lose his hope. Because there is a lot of despair. And hope. Despair. Hope. Despair. Light. Darkness. Kingdom Hearts.

But we’ll talk about that later.

Despite all the murder thingy, the game is just an edgy shonen and is very animu. It’s not a bad thing, because it’s entertaining, and that’s what matters the most. Characters are mostly simplistic, often stereotypical, but are distinguish and memorable (aside from meh protag). What is good about the cast is how the group dynamics changes with each case. Thanks to that, the characters seem more alive, and the surrounding drama seems more impactful. And sometimes the drama is really good, though it’s dragged down by the meme writing. But about that later.

The trials, where we try to figure out the killer’s identities, are good gameplay-wise. Aside from the rhythm minigame. I get the creators wanted to demonstrate losing arguments by lack of confidence, but, until half of the game, that minigame had nothing to do with logic or deduction. Every other minigame was good or ok, though.

Comparing to Ace Attorney, the trials were more dynamic, with constant new arguments and questions. It helps that the equivalent of AA’s testimonies is briefer (as it’s on a time limit). Not to mention, the filled with moving camera direction really made non-animated and non-moving characters feel alive. The music was ok – it serves its purpose, but it isn’t memorable.

The gameplay between trials was ok. Investigations didn’t drag too long. The free time did sometimes, but that’s because I was collecting more coins than it was necessary. The coins are spent for presents, which we can give to other characters, in return for learning more about them and gaining upgrades for the trials. But, to be frank, some upgrades were “turn off the setting we put to make the gameplay purposefully shittier”.  

It’s an entertaining game with some good ideas, which earns 7/10 in my book. But there are reasons why this game doesn’t earn any higher, which I’m going to elaborate on. The subject is Kingdom Hearts Meme Writing, Monokuma being a letdown villain, the big revelation being a lot of nothing, and how the writers could’ve made the Hope vs Despair nonsense actually work. The last two are impossible to write about without spoilers, but I can explain the first two without them.

Despair. Despair. Despair. Despair. Do you get it? I hope.

I know this is a shonen, regardless how edgy it is, and the writers were pretty self-aware of this. But the despair/hope meme drags down the writing. Monokuma goes on and on about how he will turn all the hope into despair, and this is just as ridiculous as a talking cartoon bear that kills a man by literally blasting him into space can be. It’s a meme writing. A ham-fisted, forced meme writing.

Other examples of meme writing is Kingdom Hearts, with its light and darkness, or Ace Attorney, with its truth. We all roll our eyes over that. Characters are bringing up some concept in a melodramatic way, repeatably, with a ridiculous zeal that doesn’t just seem alien, but straight out autistic. But it’s okay, all those titles, including Ronpa, are still shonens. Kingdom Hearts is a battle shonen where you fight against forces of evil alongside Donald Duck. You can turn your brain off and enjoy yourself, no biggie. But turning your brain off is a bit harder in, you know, a murder mystery.

Yeah, Ace Attorney is murder mystery as well, and yet I give it a pass. That’s because “truth” is just an ideal of idealistic characters. Phoenix, Edgeworth, and the rest, are melodramatically motivating themselves by simplistically expressing their ideal. And  melodrama is part of a wrestling, and logic wrestling is what Ace Attorney boils down to. So, why this isn’t the same in this logic wrestling game?

The problem with hope/despair is that those are not just some concepts or ideals, but those are emotions. Emotions that the writing does attempt to make you feel, sometimes pretty successfully. Case 4 is an example of a beautifully set up tragedy, it’s the game’s emotional peak. The reveal is shocking and sad, and the dramatic confession is filled with genuine emotion. And then the confession has the word “despair” in it, and my brain is immediately going back to Monokuma and his antics. Good thing that the official translation team has realized that they would have killed the mood sooner, if they had included that word in an earlier appearing evidence. Same thing happens whenever the word “hope” appears – it just makes us recall the memes.

In my AI: Somnium Files I’ve explained to you the need of being explicit about what is supposed to make the player feel emotions. But you can’t be ham-fisted about what the player is supposed to feel. Turning hope and despair into KH’s equivalent of light and darkness is turning them into a material for jokes. It is a repeatable telling us what to feel, and that simply can’t work. If the game didn’t do that, a lot of good moments wouldn’t be dragged down by being a reference to something we joke about.

Monokuma is just the biggest kid tier villain

There are spoiler reasons why Monokuma fails at being a villain, but I’ll mention them in spoiler section about improving the whole hope vs despair conflict. But the basic problem with Monokuma is spoiler-free, because it all boils down to the game’s initial setup.

Generally, Monokuma is a recurring type of villain that mixes nihilism, cartoonish silliness and cruel sadism into one, disturbing package. Other examples of such villains is the Joker, or Killer the Butcher from Zambot 3. When you look at Monokuma alone, he is (aside from spoiler reasons) a good example of such a villain. He is over the top, entertaining, scheming, memorable, gets all the attention in every scene he is in, and is constantly disturbing. All his bases are covered, so all is good, right? But only when you look at Monokuma alone.

Character in a story isn’t just some element you can look at alone, it’s an element you see among all the others. Great villain needs a great hero. Great hero needs a great villain. If one is unimpressive, the other can’t impress us with their triumphs.

The reason why the Joker is a great villain is because he is a challenge for the goddamn Batman, creating a clash of an unstoppable force against an unmovable object. Killer the Butcher’s enemies are kids piloting alien giant robot with superior firepower. What makes the Bucher a good villain is that, regardless of his lost battles, he still succeeds at causing significant collateral damage, which constantly contributes to his stated goal of slowly killing all humans. And Butcher doesn’t just rely on his show reaching logical conclusions about consequences of battles between giant robots, the entire arc before heroes directly attacking his HQ is about him using a weapon they can’t fight with a giant robot – kidnapped people turned into living human bombs. The amount of sacrifices, losses and traumas that kids from a 70s (!) super robot show have to go through is why Killer the Butcher is an impressive villain you love to hate.

But Monokuma isn’t an unstoppable force going against an unmovable object. Neither he is battling heroes that are capable of beating him in a direct confrontation, forcing him to rely on different forms of accomplishing his goals. He targets fifteen uninformed kids, with like three giving him a reason to worry, and puts them in a situation where they can’t initially defy him at all. It’s not a spoiler to say that the kids initially can’t find any clues that would’ve allowed them to free themselves from Monokuma. Their exploration of the school is limited, and next areas are unlocked only after class trials. Meaning, Monokuma limits kids’ ability to gather information required to beat him, until the next killing occurs. If the kids don’t kill anybody, they can only hope to (hah) apathetically accept their imprisonment by Monokuma.

To sum it up, all that Monokuma accomplishes is making some confused kids kill one another, when they are in a situation where it’s their only option to free themselves. Wow, what an impressive villain, doing whatever he wants with helpless children and driving them to murder.

It doesn’t help that the actual conclusion of the conflict with Monokuma is underwhelming, and all his actions only make us respect him less as a villain. But more about that later, in the spoiler section. But not immediately, because first we need to focus on the game’s disappointing big revelation.

Who cares that the world is over?

All attempts to escape the murder school were pointless – the world has already ended! Play the laugh track.

To give the writers credit, Genocide Jill’s explanation of that was funny and played out as a dark joke. And that’s the only way this revelation could be played out.

When it comes for the twist being a twist, it’s okeyish. The twist itself isn’t hard to guess, by the end of the first trial, and it’s almost given away by the third one. On the other side, there are photos of kids that died in previous chapters, and you could wonder if they aren’t going to reveal that everybody lives and this all was a simulation, or something. It can be easily guessed, but there is room for speculation, and you may not know which route the writers will go. Even if those routes are “predictable” and “a disappointing backpedal”.

But even if you end up being surprised… it’s an emotional bunch of nothing. Makoto gets his answer to what could’ve happened to his family, and he still doesn’t even realize it. That’s how the writing poorly handled one way it could’ve made us care about end of the world – through Makoto’s reaction to it.

Makoto is such an uninteresting, purposefully average, and ultimately unimpressive main character. We know he has family, parents, and a younger sister, but one picture of them is all we got. We don’t know the dynamics of their relationship, and we don’t know why Makoto loves them. Just saying “they are his family” isn’t enough. When Superman and his family are written well, we know why Clark Kent cares deeply about them – Ma Kent is such a great mother, Pa Kent is such a great father, and each scene with them demonstrates it.

Through the game, Makoto could’ve flashbacks to his family, as an ongoing C plot. That way we would’ve been shown why Makoto cares about them, why he wants to make sure they are safe, why he could feel tempted about escaping via murder (leading to him rejecting that idea because his family wouldn’t want it that way). And then boom – yes, the world has ended, and they are probably dead.

But Makoto never ever connects the state of the world to the state of his family. And that’s a big mistake, because that was a way to spice up the ultimate clash between Hope and Despair.

How to argue that Despair can be better than Hope

Before I focus on the topic, let me first expand on the topic of Monokuma being a disappointing villain, by telling you why Junko is a disappointing villain.

Junko just pulls everything out of her ass. Ok, she happens to have a super soldier sister, who was capable of killing Academy’s entire adult staff, letting her to take over the school. This part is acceptable by shonen standards. It was the Acadamy that was responsible for sealing the building and setting its defense, ok. But then everything else is an unexplained bullshit. Endless Monokumas? She has them because the writer says so. Ability to take away memories? She has them because the writer says so. Hijacking all TV channels? Performing ridiculously complex executions? Securing supplies to the Academy in a post-apo setting? She can because the writers says so.

She simply isn’t a formidable villain. She is nothing more than a bored girl, that could’ve been successful as a normal person, but the entire universe decided to grant her everything to let her play a supervillain. She doesn’t accomplish any impressive feat by herself. Even taking over of the Academy was solely thanks to her sister. With her granted unfair total advantage over the cast, there was no other way for her to lose than keeping screwing herself. She can’t even gain respect as a formidable opponent from sticking to her rules, because she not only purposefully handicaps the most competent person in the cast, but also keeps breaking her own rules.

The second aspect of a good villain is understandability. And Junko is a stupid incomprehensible mess. She always feels despair, and that somehow makes her constantly bored. But she wants to prove that’s better than hope. For some reason, she is a sadist. She is also happy about facing ultimate despair in form of her own death, but she didn’t yearn to that enough to off herself before all her plans. Nothing adds up, and she just does whatever crazy shit the writers needs her to do at the current moment. This is the aspect where she just sucks as a Joker-type villain. Such villains, when done well, aren’t just twisted, wrong, crazy edgemasters. When done well, they are also, despite everything, still somehow understandable. That’s what makes them actually shocking. It isn’t just shocking that they do horrible things, it is shocking that they can argue that everything they do serves a purpose and is consistent with a coherent belief.

Joker (when written well) and Killer the Butcher do have nihilistic philosophy that is wrong and twisted, but does have some shocking points. Joker believes that normal life is pointless, because one bad day can drive you mad, so it’s better to embrace awfulness of the world as your entertainment. And this philosophy is consistent with him wanting to commit macabre crimes. Killer the Butcher believes that humans are ungrateful bastards and will even treat their saviors like crap. And this philosophy is consistent with him wanting to kill all humans. Even if you don’t agree with their believes (I hope), you understand why somebody with such believes would be doing what they are doing. This understandability is what elevates banal conflict against a bad guy that does a bad thing that has to be stopped, into a conflict against a personified idea. Batman doesn’t just fight the Joker, he fights a nihilistic view of a pointless mad world. Zambot 3 kids don’t just fight Killer the Butcher, they fight view of humans as unworthy of living and being saved. That is why those conflicts aren’t banal.

Meanwhile, Junko makes a big promise for a Hope vs Despair conflict, arguing that the latter is better than former, but...

What is “despair” anyway? Is it to give up from stuff like escaping the school, and accepting whatever you end up having, however shitty it is? But what does it have with Junko’s boredom and embracing her own death? What is the point of the over-the-top executions? Junko is gleefully sadistic, what about despair makes you sadistic? Did she want the cast and her viewers to embrace sadism as well?  How’s that better than hope? It’s incomprehensible, and fails to make any point. The blame lies pretty much on the out-of-place sadism that exists just to make Junko an edgelady.

Danganronpa is a murder mystery. And despite being an over-the-top shonen, it does focus, decently, on motives for committing murders. Every single killer in this game is understandable. Their actions were wrong, but you understand why they did everything they did. There is just a sole exception to this rule – the games’ main villain.

During the final confrontation, Junko was arguing that futile hopes of previous murderers drove them to committing murder. That alone does make a good point. Then she offered everyone safe peaceful life, if they acknowledged her belief and abandoned all hope. Ok, that’s a good dilemma. Surprising that with such a good prepared dilemma Junko bothered to handicap and eliminate Kyoko, when she could just guide the cast towards Junko and this dilemma faster. Still, Junko does make a point about despair being better than hope, and does make the cast face a dilemma, in a way that is consistent with her belief. But then she adds she wants to punish someone for lulz, and that person has to be our bland player character.  

And how killing Makoto proves that despair is better than hope? It was a yet another act of Junko’s pointless sadism, which only made it more difficult for other characters to agree with her. Anyway, Junko is ultimately unimpressive, because she loses to Makoto just saying “let’s have some hope, guys”. All that buildup of understandable motives of past killers lead to a rather banal final conflict with a completely banal resolution.

Things would be different, if Junko didn’t forget about Makoto’s family and did bring them up during the final argument. I still think that trying to kill Makoto was counterproductive, but I understand the need of putting MC’s life at stake. But Junko could single out Makoto for execution because he was pushing for the idea of everyone leaving the school, despite the revelation about state of the world, and she could accuse him for selfishly risking lives of others, just for a hope of reunion with his own family. Imagine that being the payoff of flashbacks to Makoto’s family and his wish to reunite with them. Sure, here, Makoto has proved he wouldn’t directly murder anybody over it, but would he willingly disregard safety of others? He can’t really refute that, without giving up on leaving the school.

And that’s how Junko could undermine Makoto and make her point. Living trapped in the school and abandoning all hope for the outside world was bad, but it could be worse. At least it was safe, peaceful, and they had food plus entertainment. Looking for anything better outside was risky. Hoping for anything better was risky. Hope was bad. The state of despair, where you no longer hope for anything better than what you have, was good. Unable to accept this Makoto was spreading ideas that were dangerous for the well-being of others. How Makoto, willing to selfishly drag everyone else into a dangerous hell-word and risk their lives, was that much different from every other killer? Sure, they killed others directly, but at least none of their victims had a slow and painful death. Makoto was willing to potentially doom others to that. And this is why he had to be put down, like all the other killers had to be, regardless of their understandable motives. In the current state of the world, any reckless hope is a dangerous thought crime.

Here, the final debate could be more complex. Makoto could’ve pointed out that, even if he could be accused for having a selfish hope, it was the same with others. Everyone else wanted their situation to improve, and giving that up for hollow safety wouldn’t do. Hope is better than despair, freedom is better than safety. The future of post-apo is libertarian, and if we can’t live with the freedom to pursue our hopes, then we won’t live at all. No more lockdowns!

You don’t have to agree with such a statement, but at least it is some statement. Here, we have a clash of hope that accepts the risk against despair that is unwilling to accept any risks. Unlike what we got, where despair is somehow tied to sadism, and hope simply rides on the power of friendship.

[sibyl-of-space]

Final Fantasy IX ~ Melodies and Memories

"Jesters of the Moon"

There are a lot of very good video games in the world, but it takes some luck and circumstance outside of a game's control for one to reach me at just the right time(s) and place(s) in my life that it has a tangible impact on who I am -- who I want to be. One that carves out a space for itself in my soul that will never be removed or replaced.

I've just finished playing Final Fantasy IX for the first time, and there's no doubt in my mind that such is the case here.

(Continued below readmore.)

I drew this art last year, when I was mourning my attachment to an old favorite game that I just don't feel the same way about anymore: Majora's Mask. I wanted to draw something that captured my feelings about it, because sometimes art is the best way to talk about something when the words don't want to come.

Why is "Jesters of the Moon," the name of a random song in the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack, plastered in the middle of this Majora's Mask fanart? Especially considering I hadn't even played Final Fantasy IX yet when I drew this?

The reason is exactly that "luck and circumstance" that allowed me to fall so uniquely in love with the game.

"Mt. Gulug"

In 2008, someone on YouTube uploaded a Majora's Mask parody-slash-let's-play series called "Majora's Mask: The Things Which Were Taken Out." The series has since become unlisted and won't be linked here out of respect for the creator who probably doesn't want things they said and made in 2008 being spread all over the internet, but because of Unregistered Hypercam 2 reasons, the series inserted other background music over the video and didn't record the actual game audio.

I didn't recognize any of the music, but I watched these parody videos on repeat because in addition to being funny (...at the time, in my mind, at least), I really really loved the music. It got to the point where I would sometimes be playing Majora's Mask and get disappointed when I approached Goht and the Mt. Gulug theme wasn't playing in the background.

I had forgotten about these videos for a really long time in the interim, but I remembered them at some point when I was thinking about Majora's Mask and I found them again. The creator had cited the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack for virtually all of the background music used in the videos, and I realized that despite knowing literally nothing about the game, I had become really fond of - and weirdly nostalgic for - the songs from it that I now recognized.

So I looked up "Jesters of the Moon" and played it on repeat while I drew out my feelings in colored marker. A few months later, I realized that my backwards compatible PS3 can also play PS1 games, and eBay had FFIX for PS1 at a good price. I had nothing to lose by ordering it and seeing what the source of all that fantastic music was like.

"Vamo Alla Flamenco"

I started my playthrough knowing nothing about what to expect from the game. I'd never played a Final Fantasy game before and my overall JRPG experience has been mostly limited to Tales of, Persona, and more recently, mainline Shin Megami Tensei. The only things I knew about Final Fantasy were a) the Tidus laughing scene, and b) Sephiroth. IX seemed like it had vibes I would enjoy, but beyond that I knew nothing about what the experience would be. So I approached it with a "let's have fun and see how it goes" attitude, naming my party members the first silly thing that came to mind, ending up with "Swaggy," "OwO," "Bitchin," "Gunz," and "SWOOORD" to start with.

(For the record I do not regret those names whatsoever.)

I was immediately struck by how differently the game uses music in comparison to all of my previous JRPG experiences. This was not a game where the composer was given a list of theme songs that were slapped on top of a mostly completed game-- this was a game constructed with the soundtrack in mind as a part of the writing process.

The opening act plays almost like an opera (side note, yes I know one of the other FF's has a literal opera, I haven't played that one): you traverse the same locations from different perspectives as different characters, introducing the cast with lighthearted humor and dramatic irony out the wazoo. While you traverse the city as OwO, OwO's theme is playing in the background, coloring your perspective of the city and the narrative. When you switch to Gunz patrolling around the castle, Gunz's theme accompanies your movement and informs his character and mission. I am so accustomed to "location themes" being the norm in virtually all video games that experiencing character and/or narrative themes as BGM instead while I bumble around town changed my entire perspective on what music in games can do and be.

The operatic feeling is definitely intentional, because the game uses a play-within-a-game narrative device to hit you over the head with its themes in a way that is somehow poignant and artful while also being extremely blatant. That is a hard balance to strike, but it manages. The whole game is like that: it is completely straightforward and tells you exactly what it's about at heart, but it does it beautifully.

At any rate, I was enamored with this intro and had a very fun time, but I wasn't obsessed or anything and ended up putting it down. I spent several months on the first half of disk 1 with weeks passing between play sessions. I liked the game plenty, but life stuff happened and I decided to get obsessed with Dai Gyakuten Saiban and Ghost Trick for a while. No regrettis.

It was already clear, though, that FFIX was going to be special to me. My compositions for my team's game in the Global Game Jam in 2021 were directly inspired by FFIX's opera-like intro. I wrote two character themes for our game that would serve as background music when you play as the two protagonists, coloring your journey differently even when moving in the same spaces. I was intentionally trying to mimic the way music is used in FFIX as an exercise. The themes I wrote are definitely some of my strongest work so far.

(You can check out the game here if you want, I promise it is significantly shorter than Final Fantasy IX.)

"Melodies of Life"

Music caused me to pick up FFIX the first time, and music caused me to return to it. After months of not touching or really thinking about it, just earlier this week I was inspired to play it again, because - again - I listened to the right song at the right time.

I was again mourning the loss of something, in this case a friendship, for reasons I'm not going to share here. I had already heard the song "Melodies of Life" because it came up when I was looking up FFIX songs to reblog on Tumblr a few months ago, and I decided to listen to it again. Even without knowing the game context, the song itself really spoke to me in that moment: "a voice from the past, joining yours and mine, adding up the layers of harmony" - it kind of made me feel at peace with the fact that I had a lot of positive memories of that friendship and I could keep those at heart while also moving on in the present. ...I'm also a sucker for music metaphors, so there is that.

I was really moved by this song, cheesy as it is, and I was also definitely in the mood for a distraction. Picking up FFIX again felt like the best move.

It was, and my life is forever changed.

The game never stopped being beautiful and funny and touching, and the soundtrack never ceased to amaze. I recognized concepts I've seen in other games but never had I seen them used so artfully. I adored the fantasy world and non-human cast, I found myself enticed by random encounter for the first time because it made me feel like I had to struggle to survive a difficult journey. Music, gameplay, visuals, and story felt like one cohesive work of art for the entire duration.

Life circumstances got me to play the game again, but the game itself was so captivating and wonderful that I binged the entire rest of it - disks 2-4 - in less than a week. Everything else that the game had to say, it told me itself, in its own context, and I was ready to listen.

"You're Not Alone!"

This is going to make me sound like an emotionally-stunted twenty-something, but it has been years since a work of media has got me to have a really good cry. I used to cry playing games all the time as a kid but recently I'll find myself getting emotional, sure, often tearing up, but getting completely red-faced and snot-nosed because I physically cannot contain the emotions being evoked by a work? Years. I can't honestly tell you the last time it happened with certainty.

I feel like an emotional band-aid has been ripped off. I was f*cking sobbing during the entire duration of the "You're Not Alone!" sequence. It didn't matter that what was happening was obviously coming from a mile away, because the delivery was so raw and emotional and human!!! A whole game's worth of Swaggy punching first and asking questions later to save his friends, being Protag McProtag endangering himself for others in any and all circumstances, for the payoff of all of his friends forcing him to stop being such a primadonna and let them help him for once. It's true, too! He relies on them just as much as they rely on him! And the game doesn't just tell you this, no, it lets you try to solo all these fights and waits until you realize how boned you are until they come bail you out.

When Bitchin showed up with her "looks like you need a hand" I wanted to straight up yell at my tv. YES I DO!!! YES I DO NEED YOU BITCHIN!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!! I half knew that SWOOORD was going to heal me before I got truly KO-ed but I had been unmercifully wiped in "unwinnable" battles before in this game, so I legit thought I might have to re-do that whole part of the game again, and I was so relieved and thankful when she showed up and healed me.

This moment exemplifies everything that I adore about this game. It doesn't just tell you its story. It shows it to you, it sings it to you, and it and lets you play it out and feel it for yourself.

"Game Over"

This song is all too familiar to me. Gizamaluke's Grotto was very unforgiving for a first-time Final Fantasy player, especially one who didn't happen to pick up Big on the way for a fourth party member early on.

I hadn't heard the piano part in a few months, though, because when I picked the game back up I started just mashing to reload before it got to that point any time we wiped. I didn't hear it again until the game was truly over, this time for good.

I let it play for a while. Not too long, because I have a CRT TV and didn't want "The End" to get burned in. But a while. Enough to meditate on what I'd just experienced, and how I was feeling about it.

There's so much more to say about the game, far more than I could put in a blog post. But I don't think I need to describe these thoughts in words. I can do what the game did, and use music, use art, use stories, use metaphors, and use symbols to communicate what I mean; and hope that someone else is able and willing to listen.

And although a written record of my thoughts likely won't be preserved for all that long, maybe the feelings and the memories will be, so long as they have been shared.

[bigskydreaming]

Speaking of Riley and other friends who are excellent, allow me to take a moment to pimp some of their books if anyone’s got some spare coin and is looking for good reads while on lockdown.

Noteworthy by Riley Redgate

It’s the start of Jordan Sun’s junior year at the Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts. Unfortunately, she’s an Alto 2, which—in the musical theatre world—is sort of like being a vulture in the wild: She has a spot in the ecosystem, but nobody’s falling over themselves to express their appreciation. So it’s no surprise when she gets shut out of the fall musical for the third year straight. But then the school gets a mass email: A spot has opened up in the Sharpshooters, Kensington’s elite a cappella octet. Worshiped . . . revered . . . all male. Desperate to prove herself, Jordan auditions in her most convincing drag, and it turns out that Jordan Sun, Tenor 1, is exactly what the Sharps are looking for.

Rio’s got two other books you should also check out, I just grabbed this one at random because they’re all great (though its actually ‘7 Ways We Lie’ that’s my personal fave because Reasons).

Forest of Souls by Lori M Lee

Sirscha Ashwyn comes from nothing, but she’s intent on becoming something. After years of training to become the queen’s next royal spy, her plans are derailed when shamans attack and kill her best friend Saengo.

And then Sirscha, somehow, restores Saengo to life.

Unveiled as the first soulguide in living memory, Sirscha is summoned to the domain of the Spider King. For centuries, he has used his influence over the Dead Wood—an ancient forest possessed by souls—to enforce peace between the kingdoms. Now, with the trees growing wild and untamed, only a soulguide can restrain them. As war looms, Sirscha must master her newly awakened abilities before the trees shatter the brittle peace, or worse, claim Saengo, the friend she would die for.

This one is the start of a new duology and doesn’t actually come out until June 23rd, but Lori’s got a couple other books out already that are also worth the read. Her Infinite series starts with Gates of Thread and Stone and has the first two books out, there will be a concluding third volume still to come. But I’m lucky enough to have gotten to read Forest of Souls in advance cuz Nyah nyah (I’m so mature, phear my age and wisdom) and its by faaaaar my favorite of hers to date, including more than just the other two books she’s had published so far, and just look at that cover. Ugh. I love it so much. 

(It wasn’t her original cover, actually, they originally wanted to go with this cover of Suck that made me go umm how do you say “Eww” in polite, and authors have little to no feedback they can give on the cover, but Lori took a shot and sent in some examples of other cover artists she really liked and thought had styles fitting her image of the book better, and they picked one of the ones she sent and commissioned a whole new cover, and voila, ended up going with the above cover in all its spooky, thematically ominous glory.) 

On The Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis

A thrilling, thought-provoking novel from one of young-adult literature’s boldest new talents. January 29, 2035. That’s the day the comet is scheduled to hit—the big one. Denise and her mother and sister, Iris, have been assigned to a temporary shelter outside their hometown of Amsterdam to wait out the blast, but Iris is nowhere to be found, and at the rate Denise’s drug-addicted mother is going, they’ll never reach the shelter in time. A last-minute meeting leads them to something better than a temporary shelter—a generation ship, scheduled to leave Earth behind to colonize new worlds after the comet hits. But everyone on the ship has been chosen because of their usefulness. Denise is autistic and fears that she’ll never be allowed to stay. Can she obtain a spot before the ship takes flight? What about her mother and sister? When the future of the human race is at stake, whose lives matter most?

Cory is actually one of my oldest friends lmao, like, I first met her through another writing friend when we both roleplayed on this messageboard X-Men: Evolution RPG over fifteen years ago, and just....somehow never lost track of each other through all our various hyper-fixations and divergent fandoms and even with years-long ‘vanishing from the internet’ periods by yours truly (I am was mysterious and enigmatic, hear me roar). This is actually her third published novel? Or maybe second, I forget the order....her first, Otherbound, is great too, she’s written a Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in novel for Marvel, and she’s got her next book, “The Art of Saving the World” coming out this September, and its soooo good and head-trippy and the premise is so mindfucky that I have no idea how she pulled it off as well as she did and its great and you will love it or you will answer to me (lol no you won’t, I am all talk, I bruise like a peach, don’t doxx me yo). But On The Edge of Gone remains my personal fave of hers, Denise is an in-text disabled autistic black girl and suuuuuuch a fantastic main character, and her love for her family against the backdrop of an apocalypse actually in its on-going stage, no post about it, is like.....unfortunately a little too prophetic in various ways, lolol, but like, timely as hell and resonates. 

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

Welcome to Andover, where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship--only it turns out to be for the towns most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, whom Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then theres the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious “M,” who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether.

I actually met C.B. on tumblr here, via this account, thanks to a mutual mutual, which just goes to show you never know who you might end up meeting on tumblr dot hellsite dot org, and only after that fact did we find out that we had various other mutual friends from our writing/publishing circles of friends, including Cory, lolol, so y’know....small world. But this series has three books out, with a fourth to come, and its such awesome fun, with superpower hijinks galore, an Asian protag and tons of LGBTQ+ supporting characters, trans superheroes, and compelling plots. She’s also writing Ben 10 comics for Boom! Studios, a comic book company that does original content but also publishes a ton of licensed properties like various other cartoons like Ben 10, the Power Rangers, etc, etc. And this reminds me there’s a certain story she was working on the last time we met up for coffee like, lololol probably three years ago now, which means I am way overdue to bug her about it and ask “Is it done yet is it done yet can I read it yet is it done yet” because I am a paragon of patience and a bastion of self-control, obvsly.

Anyway, here endeth the pimping of my friends, go forth and buy ye their novels, verily and such. Or y’know. Don’t. If you don’t want to be cool, I guess. Nerds. (LOL no but if you like my content and posts and topics I think you stand a better than average likelihood of enjoying at least one of the books by the aforementioned ladies, and you’d be supporting LGBTQ+ authors as there’s nary a straight among them. LOL, like I would ever have straight friends, hahahaha could you imagine, what would we even do).  

[sulkybbarnes]

could you recomend some podcasts? because i want to get into them but there are so many i dont even know where to begin... i've already listened to the bright sessions tho and i love it!

Hey anon!! Of course, I’m more than happy to give podcast recommendations so I’ve included my faves here which are from wildly different genres, but all have lgbt+ characters and awesome representation!!

Alice Isn’t Dead: This podcast follows a truck driver on her mission to find her missing wife. I’m not a horror person at all, but this podcast is the exception for me. It has some horror elements as the protag faces different supernatural scenarios and creatures on her road trip through America, but each story somehow ends up reflecting the reality we live in and is far deeper than some scary story. It genuinely has some of the best prose and storytelling I’ve ever heard/read, and slowly starts developing an awesome plot along the way. It also has a kickass wlw couple at the heart of it, is narrated by a woc, and handles the protag’s anxiety beautifully. You can’t get better than this tbh! 

The Bright Sessions: I adore this podcast and I’m adding it for anyone who hasn’t listened to it yet. TBS is presented as a collection of tapes/recordings made by DR Bright, a therapist who exclusively treats patients with super powers known as atypicals. Each tape is a character with different powers, and the story of each individual slowly starts becoming part of a bigger plot. Excellent lgbt+ representation, great character dynamics, and has one of my favourite lgbt couples in fiction. TBS also deals with mental health issues and trauma super well.

Wolf 359: A story following the crew of a space ship sent into deep space. This one starts up all funny and light hearted, with space shenanigans and an annoying af yet somewhat lovable narrator, and slowly gets darker and crazier as you go. Another one that develops a plot along the way and suddenly you’ve gone from “haha this idiot’s best friend is the spaceship’s AL system to ....what the fuck just happened?!”. It has some kickass female characters and the gift that is Isabel Lovelace, but not much of lgbt+ representation (as there’s really no romance in the podcast at all) until the very end and even then it’s only mentioned in passing, although some of the cast are lgbt+ in reality and the dynamics are left up to your own interpretation.  

The Two Princes: A really short, happy, cheesy af podcast following two princes on their quest to defeat an enchanted forest and falling in love in the process. Super predictable but really funny and cute if you’re looking for an easy listen! And extra points for them casting Middle Eastern voice actors to play the Arab characters (one of the princes and both his parents). So full points for lgbt+ and poc representation! 

EOS 10: Another space podcast! This one is set on a space station in the future and follows Dr Ryan Dalias, a tired bisexual who should probably get paid way more to deal with all the shit he has to deal with. A pretty funny, light hearted podcast for the most part with more lgbt characters that show up a bit later on. I haven’t listened to season 4 yet but the first 3 were pretty enjoyable!!

The Strange Case of Starship Iris: Space stories again but this time with lesbians! If you want to see space pirates and a baffled scientist trying to survive them and deny her attraction to one particular kickass female pirate, you’re gonna like this one. I haven’t listened to this one since s1 ended so my memory is shaky on it, but it’s got wlw characters, genderfluid characters, AND space pirates so it had to go on my rec list!

The Orbiting Human Circus (of the air): Don’t know how to describe this to you but it’s a whimsical dream-like story that follows Julian the janitor, who works at the Eiffel tower and spends his days dreaming of joining a fictional radio show. It’s strangely comforting and weird and guaranteed to make you feel emotional. The main character is gay, as confirmed by his (also gay) voice actor, but it only comes up in passing because the story doesn’t have any romance.

The TryPod: This is the only non-fictional podcast on this list, and I included it because I adore its hosts and the podcast makes me laugh a lot. A podcast run by The Try Guys, a youtuber group of four guys, who sit around for one hour and talk about everything under the sun. They’re genuinely funny without being mean to anyone, and Eugene Lee Yang our Asian gay icon always delivers on good opinions while Zach and Keith mess around, Ned tries to keep everyone in check, and Miles (their podcast producer) gives hilarious, weird af yet strangely useful advice!

Limetown: I debated whether or not I want to include this one because I didn’t like the second season much and therefore haven’t finished it, but the first season deserves the mention. This is presented as tapes recorded by a journalist investigating the disappearance of an entire town’s population, over three hundred people, that happened overnight ten years ago. A bit horror-y and chilling at times, but the first season is so good. There’s science and sci-fi elements involved.

Please let me know what you think if you listen to any of these, and happy listening 💕

[goth-apoca-lips]

Writing Advice: Description

Hello! Welcome to my office, today we will be discussing writing description.

I probably shouldn’t have such the audacity to post any sort of writing advice on a topic so controversial, but here I am, tossing my two cents into the writeblr well.

Scenery!

We love it and we hate it. Description can be a hard thing to master. Do it right and you end up with a beautiful poetic prose that flows naturally, do it wrong and you end up spending a whole page describing a forest. I’m looking at you Tolkien…all respect though…

In this post I will give some good and bad examples and explain what makes then work and what doesn’t. Come! Sit!

Descriptions are often times hard to understand and hard to get right. Especially in an action sequence. Often times, people get too invested in describing the area around the characters while the stakes are too high.

This presents multiple problems as it brings the reader out of the story, and then thrusts them back in after all the information has been poured upon them. It’s unnatural.

Here are some examples:

Amelia dodged into the alleyway as the drunk lawman stumbled behind her. As she sprinted in, she took in her surroundings. The walls were cracked and a dirty beige, the stone beneath her feet was uneven and crumbling. Flower boxes hung from the windows, filling the otherwise putrid alley with an overwhelming perfume. The alley misleadingly lead to a large, dark brown door, before it turned sharply to continue down the maze of the city. The lawman swung his baton at her and she rolled out of the way. She ran down the turn in the alley as the lawman stumbled into the door.

See what I mean? This description is unnatural because, even though I added the detail that she “took in her surroundings,” the stakes are too high! Really the only thing she should’ve “taken in” was the sharp turn and the door.

Do you see how it brought the reader out of the action and then thrust them back in? It felt like time stopped just so we knew what alley Amelia was running into. Now for the next example!

Amelia dodged into an alleyway as the lawman stumbled behind her. Despite her desperate attempt to escape, he was still hot on her heels. The perfume of flowers mixed with the smell of alcohol on his breath overwhelmed Amelia, he was right behind her! Her feet flew across the crumbling cobblestone ground as he lunged for her, swinging his baton. She rolled out of the way as his baton cracked against the dirty beige wall. She sprung down a narrower path that jutted out of nowhere as the lawman stumbled into the door. With him distracted, Amelia made her escape.

See how much better that was? The description was mixed into the action.

In a high stakes scene it’s important that you put action as your top priority. Sprinkle in description when it becomes absolutely relevant. It also gives you wiggle room to do more showing not telling. At first I just said the drunk lawman, but in the second one, when I had to use another way to describe the flowers, I could use her other senses besides sight, and alcohol from the drunk came out and gave us more hints as to what the antagonist was like.

So in action, use description when it becomes relevant while keeping the action moving. Use all the characters senses, not just sight.

Alright Godmother, we know how to do high stake description, but what about low stakes?

Well I’m so glad you asked. As litty titty as it is to describe every leaf on every tree as your knight rides through the forest, it’s irrelevant.

Low stake description mostly has the same rules as high stakes except your more focused on the emotion of your characters. If they’re happy describe happy things about the environment that reflects their mood. Reflect the tone of the scene. Here are some examples!

Alex crumbled against the rod iron fence. She stared at the street that she called home… It was breathtaking at this hour. A large black tree stood against a pale pink sky. The fancy townhomes stood in a line, gold, coppers and pinks to match the sky above them. A large glass like puddle lay before her, capturing it all. She didn’t belong here.

While this isn’t bad, it has its flaws. For instance, it dumps too much information on you without giving you emotion.

It’s just a block of text picking out colors, you don’t get to experience Alex’s emotions until after the narrator is done talking about what color the houses are. It’s not fair! The text is dumping information on us! It had our child and then dumped it on us to raise on our own. We want a steady relationship with the text, we want feelings! If she doesn’t feel like she belongs, make the description reflect that.

Alex crumbled against the rod iron fence. This…place she called her home was growing too much for her. Everything about it was too perfect, especially at this hour. The dark tree reached it’s limbs out across the blush rose colored sky. The townhomes stood proudly, their regal golden colors almost mocked her. As she looked into the mirror-like puddle, she saw all these reflected, but most of all, herself, and just how much she looked out of place. She didn’t belong here.

Do you see how much more powerful that is? You can feel her emotions, and feelings towards her home much clearer than you could from the first.

In a low stakes scene you want to know the characters emotions, thoughts and desires because this is when the audience and the protag can really connect. The description shouldn’t get in the way of that, it should aid in it. Description that focuses on emotion and tone of the text works best for a low stakes scene.

But yeah! That’s all I have, and I sure do hope it was helpful!

If you disagree with any of these points made, please share your own thoughts and opinions on scenery description and enlighten me, writing is in fact a learning process.

I really hope you learned something from me, and I hope I can do more of this! Next time I’ll be sure to explain character description, because I hear that not a lot of people understand it!

Now if you’ll excuse me, that’ll be all for today. Thank you and goodnight!

[uneryx]

Renee Gets Salty About Dark Magic

This post got long, and got away from me, so I’ll tl;dr it

1. dark magic is a metaphor for consumption and materialism and is ultimately bad because it harms others unnecessarily and is not a sustainable resource

2. the elves were dicks for banishing humans but (especially if humans sucked all the magic out of the land themselves) they were kind of justified, even if it was an extreme measure

3. Eating meat is not the same as dark magic if you’re looking at things from an animistic point of view, which the elves likely do

4. it’s okay to like problematic characters and you don’t have to portray Ezran as a monstrous enfant terrible to feel okay about thinking Viren is justified in what he does.  In fact, pretty please stop doing this, everyone in all fandoms. It’s fine if you don’t like the protags but that doesn’t mean you get to say Ezran or Rayla or whoever is EVIL. It’s called Ron the Death Eater and it’s a fandom trope that has pissed me off for going on fifteen years. Deliberately misreading the text isn’t cute. Stop doing it.

5. The show isn’t over, be patient, you’ll probably get to see some comeuppance for stuff anyway. And if you don’t, there’s always fanfiction. 

6. For the love of baby adoraburrs please tag posts that go in the vein of “the writing is bad because Viren is portrayed as a classic villain/elves good humans bad/the protags aren’t held accountalbe” with “TDP CRITICAL” I would greatly appreciate it because I’m getting super annoyed with posts that deliberately misrepresent canon to uphold a favored side and it’s affecting my enjoyment of the show. Now! Actual long and discourse-heavy post under the cut!

 Ugh I don’t want to start a big ol’ argument with people because I’m still on vacation and don’t want to spend the rest of today arguing about cartoons on the internet, but this has been on the kettle for a while and I feel QUITE STRONGLY about some of these things, so just... let me express my views here and don’t come for me because I’m about to talk about religion and sociology. 

Dark Magic is a metaphor for unchecked consumption and capitalism.  1. The theory i’m seeing floating around that got my dander up is that the elves and dragons drained the western half of the continent of magic to keep magic away from humans. I think that, based on what we’ve learned from canon, this is highly unlikely and would be weaker writing than what I think actually happened. Instead, Dark magic was going on for a good solid 800 years (Rise of Elarion is 2000 years before canon) before Sol Regem faced off with Viard (1200 years before canon). The division of Xadia was another 200 years after that. Humans had a solid honking millennium of unchecked dark magic. It is quite likely that the reason the west is entirely devoid of magic, and that humans were banished there, is because they sucked all the magic out of that half themselves. Poor innocent baby humans nothing. They got a taste of power and progress and, like real world humans, let that get WAY out of control.

2. “But Lujanne eats bugs, she’s a hypocrite for saying Claudia can’t squish bugs for pancakes” I want you to go down to your local new-age/witchy bookstore and find yourself an animist that eats meat. You are going to get glared at SO HARD if you whip out the “you think animals have souls but you eat meat!” chestnut. Because here’s the thing.

Eating meat/animal products is an act of life, necessary to sustain the life of someone else. We don’t vilify wolves for eating deer. You gotta eat to live your life, and the human (or, we can assume, bipedal humanoid) diet includes a need for complex protein chains, quite often found in animal meat. 

But the reason that we find cannibalism repulsive in western society is because it’s eating another human, despite the fact that humans are made of meat. It’s eating something that we consider sentient, dignified and possessed of a soul. Of course, the taboo also derives from the fact that you can contract prion disease from consuming human meat, but people in 11th century Normandy didn’t know that.  It is quite likely, especially given what we’ve seen of magical creatures and Ezran’s ability to talk to animals, that elves view non-human/elf creatures as sentient and possessed of a soul. If that’s the case, then OF COURSE they would see dark magic as horrific.

But eating meat is not on the same level because, as we see from the assassins, death is a part of life, and sometimes necessary. I imagine that hunting and taking a creature’s life for food is an act that is done with respect. The creatures are honored or thanked before they’re eaten or turned into leather. Highly ritualized to dignify that creature’s life.  Dark magic doesn’t do that. Dark magic sucks the whole life out, without so much of a how do you do.  It’s treating a person like a thing. It’s sucking all the life and essence out of someone so you can shoot fireballs or make fluffy pancakes. Lets be real - you don’t need to do either of those things, so the creature thus died in vain. 3. “The elves are selfish bastards for hogging all the magic.” I agree. Granted, their attitudes may have cooled in the ensuing centuries. It’s a new dawn, the era of Zubeia. We might see elves getting over their uppity selves and working to help teach humans magic. We might also see the show explore that kind of prejudice as Callum learns more magic. In fact, I hope we do. However, two wrongs dont make a right.  If Japan bombs the absolute fuckshit out of Hawaii, that does not make it okay to flash-fry Nagasaki with a weapon that blights the land and its people for years and years afterward.

To the elves (who are magical creatures and therefore totally usable as spell components), that’s what dark magic is. Suddenly, haha oh fuck, the humans have a fucking NUKE that every elf and dragon in Xadia is vulnerable to.  If a weapon was devised that ONLY a certain portion of the population was affected by, you better bet your sweet bippy that people would panic and make it forbidden and illegal, and severely punish the people who created it. ESPECIALLY if those people were already marginalized. Sucks, don’t it? Doesn’t mean the writing is bad for portraying people having a realistic reaction to something that is harmful to them. The elves aren’t justified in hogging the magic, and I hope future chapters will explore that. But the elves ARE a liiiiiittle bit justified in freaking out. I hold they could’ve come up with a better solution than BANISH HUMANS, but they didn’t. Makes for interesting story conflict, doesn’t it? 4. “Humans NEED dark magic!” / “Calling dark magic a shortcut is dumb” Did they tho? Did they really? Really really? We, modern day humans, don’t NEED smart phones (which rely on several rare earth minerals and are causing untold ecological disaster in areas where they’re miend). We, modern day humans, don’t NEED coal power (which is controlled by coal companies, who keep telling us that we totally do, despite many scientists saying that renewable energy is ready to go whenever). We don’t NEED blackberries from Mexico year-round, or a whole hell of a lot of the things we have come to rely on and consider part of our every day lives. All of these things are unnecessary and shortcuts to progress.

The only - ONLY! - good, necessary thing we’ve seen in canon that dark magic was required for was using the magma titan’s heart for saving people from famine.

A lot of the complaints about sustainable energy and efforts to heal the planet as climate change become increasingly a crisis stem from the fact that doing things RIGHT, in a way that is sustainable and doesn’t strip every last resource out of our home, is that it takes time. It takes SO MUCH TIME to do things properly. Yeah, we can keep going with our coal and our gas-guzzler cars and our fracking and our rare-earth metals... but we ARE going to run out. And then what?  Dark magic is the same principle. Eventually, you’re going to run out of resources. 

5. Where I think the show is going My main beef with those (and there’s a lot of ya, so I’m not intending to single anyone out) who say that the writing is lazy for dark magic bad elfs good is that the show is not over. Wonderstorm is doing their damndest to give us the saga. And they’ve said, out right, that there WILL be books, if nothing else.

You can’t judge a story’s merits when it’s only been half told. Right now, what the show has done is it has shown us the worst and best of the elves (for example, Khessa’s purity test vs Rayla refusing to kill Ez so she doesn’t perpetuate a cycle of violence) and the worst and best of the humans (ex: Viren forcibly turning thousands of people into monsters against their will vs Viren risking his life in order to save thousands of people from famine). The show has done well to demonstrate that there is good and bad in everyone, and it’s the choices you make and the respect you show others’ autonomy that makes you a good or bad person. The dominoes are in place. The saga has only begun. Being mad that Ezran burned an army (that he likely knew from Soren was invulnerable to fire) or that Aanya shot Kasef in the face (when Opeli would have told her that Kasef conspired behind Ezran’s back to usurp the throne, which is AN ACT OF WAR btw) means you aren’t looking at the big picture. There WILL be consequences for those actions in later seasons, mark my words.

I’m sorry if you’re a Viren or Claudia stan, but they have made choices that hurt other people, and it is in no way shape or form Ezran or Callum or Rayla or ANYONE ELSE’S fault that they made the choices they did. Instead of being mad at the show for not portraying your fav as an innocent victim, be glad that you got such a wonderfully complex set of villains who, quite likely, will get a bomb-ass redemption arc. In fact, I’ll bet you anything that Viren’s walk back from the edge has already begun. The dude fucking DIED, and he’s not going to be eager to get in there and get all grabby with the power any time soon. 

That’s what good writing IS - conflict. Tension. People making morally questionable choices. We like it because every day people are hypocrites and morally questionable. You, and I, and everyone we know. Nobody’s perfect and getting cranky and painting the protagonists with the broad villain brush so you can feel good about liking a problematic fave is... some peak tumblr bullshit, tbh.  It’s okay to like characters who aren’t perfect. How fucking boring fiction would be if everyone was perfect.

Now if I can ask my mutuals to please tag their criticisms of the show that go in the vein of “the writing is bad because dark magic is portrayed so negatively/they don’t hold the protags accountable/elves good humans bad” with “TDP critical” I would greatly appreciate it. It’s getting to the degree where things are becoming very not fun and making me cranky.  Thank you, Renee out. 

[aj-anime-blog]

Deca-Dence - Review!

Wooooo Deca-Dence!

Deca-Dence was a summer 2020 anime, and that’s when I originally watched it! I've watched it about a dozen times since, as it landed itself right on my roster of my favorite animes, if not my favorite of all time.

Deca-Dence is an original piece, so no manga source material (whaaat!) and comes from the genius brain of Yuzuru Tachikawa, the director of other fan-favorites like Mob Psycho 100 and Death Parade (a review for Death Parade is in the making!). Original mangas are such a hit-or-miss recently, and I think that this one got the bullseye!

What's our concept?: Set in the future, the world is now plagued by monsters known as Gadolls. In an attempt to keep humans safe from them, mobile fortress Deca-Dence was constructed, where Gears, who live near the top, fight the Gadolls, and Tankers, who live at the bottom, provide support from inside Deca-Dence. Our protag, Natsume, is a Tanker who wants to fight with the Gears, but her prosthetic arm keeps her out of battle. That is until she meets Kaburagi, an older Tanker who seems to know his way around fighting and might have more to him than he lets on.

It's gonna be hard to go through this without spoilers, but I promise that I'll keep it spoiler-free until the section at the bottom!

So overall, what do I think?: 10/10! I've already said it, but Deca-Dence is one of my favorite animes of all time, and it deserves the spot! It has incredible characters, a story that keeps you hooked even through twists and turns, and a pace that manages to cram so much plot into only 12 episodes without feeling overwhelming or rushed! Deca-Dence presents ideas that, at the surface, may seem overused or old, but spins them in such a way that they're completely original. It follows through with character relationships, making them worthwhile and fulfilling.

Let's start with the story this time!: 10/10!! It's going to be really hard to explain the beauty of Deca-Dence's plot without spoiling it, but I'm doing my best! I really do recommend just giving the show a try, though, as it's really worth it! (Don't just drop it after episode 2, like a lot of people did :( That's just judging it wayyy too early!!)

Deca-Dence has a story that's thrilling and new. Everything that happens builds off of itself in a way that's natural and smooth. The elements of the story, no matter how different they may seem, play their part and work together well. The show isn't predictable either - don't go in thinking that you know what's going to become of it. Each twist feels surprising and new without feeling like they're coming out of left field.

I won't say much more in fear of ruining it, but Deca-Dence's story holds up well, and with its strong cast of characters supporting it, it becomes absolutely suburb. I think a lot of people fell into this pit of seeing only the beginning and tossing it aside, but no matter how strange the concepts in it may be, they wind together to form something really unique!

So those characters, huh?: 11/10, I love them so much! I'm a character nerd through and through, and Deca-Dence sends my little character-obsessed heart wild. The protags, Natsume and Kaburagi, are both fascinating, have incredible development, and engage in a character dynamic that is so natural and well-written that I never doubted it.

To be honest, Natsume doesn't have a personality that's anything new. She's young, determined to a fault, naive, and a complete sweetheart. She wants to fight the Gadoll and she'll do anything to achieve that dream. She's not a natural at fighting but her motivation to do so makes her believable and relatable. She's looked down upon because of her prosthetic arm and forced into a job that she doesn't like, but she never gives up on her goals. Even though she's so simple, her interactions and energy make her lovable and a wonderful protagonist.

Kaburagi follows the washed-out warrior trope, as he's an older man assigned to clean-up duty who keeps to himself and never shows too much emotion. While this type of character can sometimes get annoying, the show gives Kaburagi enough time to show his real feelings and explain how he got to his position. This proper development keeps him down-to-Earth and shows him as even more flawed than Natsume. Kaburagi's motivation, which I can't explain for spoiler reasons, is entirely believable and explains perfectly why he decides to put up with Natsume, even though she's his polar opposite.

The relationship between the two characters is balanced and beautiful. It's given the proper time to grow, mature, and ends up being extremely worthwhile. Natsume relies on Kaburagi, as he sees the potential in her and continues to support her in ways no one else ever has, and Kaburagi understands that Natsume is everything that he's trying to rebel against. Their relationship is emotional, runs deep, and leaves you wishing that there was more of them to watch, even after the show has ended.

The villain! The villain. I cannot talk all that much about the villain at the risk of spoiling. He is evil. I really really hated him, and that is a very good thing because it means that he's well-written. His motivation makes sense, his actions make you want to strangle him, his design was really really good! He's not the most interesting thing in the show, as his character is really only there to move the story along, but not every villain needs to be incredibly deep for a show to be good.

Lastly, our supporting characters! While none of them are as wonderful as Natsume or Kaburagi, they're still interesting and hold their own. They play important parts in the show and all of their interactions with the main two feel natural. Their conflicts make sense, their resolutions feel well-earned, and their personalities are all unique! For a 12-episode anime, there's a larger cast of supporting characters than you would think, and nearly all of them are memorable and loveable.

Time to shut up about characters, what about the art?: 9/10, ooooh yes the art! Deca-Dence is gorgeous! It's animated by studio Nut (bwahahhaha), who haven't done that much else in the anime world. Still, for a relatively new studio, it's absolutely amazing! The characters all have unique looks that make them stand out and the fight scenes are to die for. They lose a point on the CG, since it's a little bit less than amazing, but again, for a new studio, it's definitely not the worst I've seen!! (Admittedly, I also don't like CG much at all, so I'm always harsh towards it when it's used).

Deca-Dence switches between two styles that vastly contradict each other, one which is a colorful, happy-go-lucky style, and one that's the more typical anime style. I'll speak more about them in the spoilers section, but they do a wonderful job at maintaining the tone of the show, as to not let it get too dark, and forming a clear divide between the events of the two parts.

Oh goshhh the Gadolls look so cool. I'm so obsessed with cool monsters in anime and woah they look awesome!! They're original, with cool designs that I haven't seen elsewhere. The show could've so easily slapped in some pretty typical-looking dragons or wolves or whatever, but they instead spent time on these epic creatures, and it's so worth it! It makes the setting that much more unique and allows it to stand out from other animes.

Surely there's a flaw in this anime? The pacing, maybe?: 9/10. Yeah, I would argue that the pacing is Deca-Dence's weakest point. Not that the pacing is particularly bad compared to other shows! I still think that, for a 12-episode anime, it does a wonderful job of fitting in a large amount of plot into only about 5 hours! But, at some points, parts felt rushed or confusing, as the show would zoom into them. I never felt like I was truly lost, though. Even if I did wish that there was a break from the action, I never found myself really thinking that the show was leaving me behind in the dust. It's not the kind of show that you can turn on and leave running while you multitask, though. Blink for too long and you might miss something important, which can ruin some of the hard-hitting twists that the anime works so hard to build up.

OK! Time for spoilers! I beg you, go watch the anime before you read past this, because it's totally worth it!!

Woahh episode 2 am I right?? I thought that I clicked into the wrong anime when I began it, it took such a wild turn, and so soon in the anime too. This is what I really mean when I talk about a show not being what it appears to be! Again, I really encourage you to watch it for yourself, but if you're that stubborn on reading this through before you turn it on:

Deca-Dence is not about the heart-wrenching battles between Gears and their desperate attempts to keep humanity alive, because Gears are just avatars for cyborgs! You see, there's a civilization of cyborg people who are living above the Earth, who log in to fight in mobile fortress Deca-Dence as a game. So the Gadolls are genetically grown as prey for the Gears and the entire story surrounding Deca-Dence's battles are scripted. Crazy right!? The best part: the Tankers aren't in on this at all. You heard me: Natsume and her human friends have no idea that Deca-Dence is staged.

From here, Deca-Dence has two distinct parts: we'll call them "Natsume's half" and "Kaburagi's half". Natsume's half refers to the mobile fortress, the Tankers who live unaware of the cyborgs, and the art style that premiered in the first episode. Kaburagi's half is the Solid Quake organization, the Gears who are avatars of the cyborgs, and the goofy, stylized art style with big lines and bright colors.

The twist and the diverging sides of the story set this show up as not your typical sci-fi anime, but as something a little deeper. The stakes are the same, as humanity is in just as much peril as it was before - it becomes abundantly clear that the Gears and cyborgs don't care about them - but the name of the game completely changes as you realize that our so-called "heroes" aren't really all that heroic, and there's a lot more going on.

Kaburagi is, of course, one of these cyborgs, cursed to live among the Tankers because of a mistake he made while playing as a Gear. Now, he's in charge of eliminating "bugs", or mistakes that the system finds. He's upset with his life, frustrated at what he's doing, and contemplating suicide. But when Natsume walks into his life, a little girl that the system considers legally dead, Kaburagi sees a chance to rebel, even the slightest, against the system. He's supposed to kill Natsume, but instead, he takes her under his wing, determined to protect what he's been instructed to eliminate. This development gives their relationship a deeper meaning, even if Natsume doesn't know it.

Deca-Dence does a wonderful job at showing the watchers both sides of the story but keeping Natsume's side in the dark. Even though we see scenes from Kaburagi's side, Natsume knows nothing about them. When Kaburagi leaves after Hugin kills his avatar, Nastume doesn't know where he's gone and has no reason to believe that he hasn't run away. There's no way she could guess that Kaburagi's new form - his weird orange Gear avatar - is the mentor that she once knew. And when Kaburagi, back in his original form, is killed in front of her, she really believes that he is dead. When Natsume finds out about the truth of the Gadolls - that the world she knows is fake - her horror is palpable and realistic, because there's no way she could've known any better.

Kaburagi's world has a goofy style to it, with the cyborgs looking cartoonish rather than realistic. While it might initially seem off-putting, I think that it ends up balancing the tone of the story much better. Consider the hellscape that is the reform facility that Kaburagi visits. Imagine how dark it would've been if it was not in a silly style! By keeping the style cuter rather than realistic, the show doesn't dip too far into dark and gritty, and I really liked it!

It also set up this harsh divide between Kabruagi's half, where things are easygoing, done for pleasure and fun, and not nearly as harsh as Natsume's world (Look at the name of the series! Decadence literally means living in excessive luxury!). Even when the cyborgs are in their Gear forms, which are drawn in Natsume's style, they're still a lot more colorful and vivid, showing that their lives aren't as harsh as that of the Tankers. The art styles reflect the differences between the two halves and give them both distinct tones and personalities!

& finally, let's take an in-depth look at one scene!: I had a really hard time picking what I thought summed up the series in a single scene. In the end, I think that Natsume and Kaburagi's discussion at the end of episode 7 was the best. Here, we see a culmination of a lot of the character development going on. Kaburagi, in this scene, is in a Gears avatar that Natsume doesn't recognize, meeting her for the first time since his normal avatar was killed. Natsume's been working with the Tankers to protect them from Gadolls that infiltrated the fortress, and she's motivated them all to rise up and fix the hole in the fortress themselves.

Kaburagi has encouraged Natsume to be a stronger person, even though she had to be independent and not rely on him any longer. His pessimistic view on the world - that they'll never defeat the Gadolls - has rubbed off on her, but it's only made her more determined to be stronger to stand up to them. In this scene, we see her breaking down as she considers that Kaburagi might be right, and that she'll never kill them all, but that she needs to continue fighting.

Though Kaburagi previously doubted Natsume and her endless determination, he now feels filled with the same motivation. Natsume has convinced him, time and time again, that he can't give up, and so he decides that he's willing to do anything to make sure that she never loses that hope. He wants her dreams to come true, and he knows that she can't accomplish them alone.

This perfectly shows the effects that they have on one another. Natsume is now stronger than she's ever been: independent, able to take down Gadolls on her own, and determined enough to patch up the hole that no one else thought could be fixed. Kaburagi, in stark contrast to his suicidal thoughts from episode two, is now completely devoted to make the world a safe place for Natsume. Their relationship has shaped one another into being the best versions of themselves, and this isn't even the end! They still complete their growth in the last few episodes, but I've rambled about them enough.

We're done!: That's my review of Deca-Dence! I really believe that it's one of the masterpiece animes in recent years, and I wish it got more attention. I'm sure that there's plenty of anime out there like this one - forgotten diamonds in the rough - that I'd love to dig up and fawn over. Tell me if you know any! Or, if you disagree with my review, tell me where you think I'm wrong!