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hollow-lime-green · 3 months ago

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hi, anon from "t/b discourse is dumb" ask here 👋 this conversation actually is really interesting and i wanna add a little more if thats okay. (how long is the average anon ask? im not new to fandom but i am relatively new to tumblr and its etiquette... so sorry if this is too long. ive done my best to condense it 😭 there's just too much to say and im a rambler)

i hope i didn't come off as blaming anybody for their response to harassment and such, i don't want to contribute to that. my ire is only pointed toward people who make it their business to hurt others over innocuous fandom happenings, those people who leave dickish comments on fics and send anonhate and mass qrt on twitter. but like i said, expecting those kinds of people to go away any time soon is not really something i have hope for at this point. you put it well: people get so emotionally invested --- and i too Love getting emotionally invested when it comes to fiction --- that logic stops being a factor. people all over the internet also tend to struggle with simply disliking something and leaving it there. you're allowed to dislike/disagree with something without turning it into a moral failure when it's all down to preference and the characters involved are not Real

i just wish more people saw the value in Healthy™ discourse. hell, even if someone's opinion ticks you off, that doesn't mean you can't engage in an open minded discussion with them, if you want to. but people can't do that even outside of niche online fanbases.

i would love to share my own opinions on t/b dynamics for satosugu and to learn why others may feel differently. actually, stsg is the first yaoi ship ive been this invested in, though it's been a while now, and reading fics for them has opened up a Lot of doors of thought for me that i wanna talk to someone about. but there's such hostility around the topic that opening that discussion up to the general fandom public hardly feels worth the risk, as much as i want to. that kinda leaves one floating out at sea here. so i have these conversations where i can, but i'll also block people over simple things. not because i think they're evil or their opinions are invalid, but because i really do just want to have fun, and previous fandom experiences have exhausted me with how much of the same repetitive venom i can personally handle at once

welcome back anon, and feel free to ramble away. honestly this has been a nice side quest for me during the thesis-ing, believe it or not.

if you want to have discussions/share takes on stsg (or fandom meta), then feel free to keep sending them anon, and i am happy to host that discussion in our friendly little corner. i haven't gotten anything nasty in my inbox, and i think everyone commenting and engaging with the posts on my blog is pretty friendly and level headed :)

i think it's possible that some people could get offended by your previous ask? but it's very obvious, to me, anyway, that what you are saying with "t/b discourse is dumb" is "this drama is dumb why are we doing this why can't we just have fun". you can twist the words, but that's the clear sentiment that I think 99% of us are trying to get across here.

and that also does not conflict with empathizing with and supporting people who have been targeted by this harassment. in fact, i would say out of anyone, they are probably most securely in the camp of "this drama is dumb please let's stop".

as @fushiglow pointed out, part of the reason fandom can get so vicious is due to depersonalization. none of these people would be acting so fuckin foolish in person. but across the screen, it is a lot safer and easier to be an absolute asshole than when you have to look someone in the face as you tell them that they are literal scum for your opinions on dick in ass, or something.

over the past few months i have been struggling with this in reverse, actually. one of my gaming group members almost definitely voted for trump (white women... we need to talk). i get so worked up when i think about it, because i hate her for it, especially her reasons for it (she is antichoice). and yet, when I see her in person, when we hang out, it is so easy to remember that she is my friend and she held my hair back when I was puking after my other gamer friends gave me too many free beers (blue moon isn't worth it guys).

one other thing i would like to add, and part of why i'm so happy to post this ask, is that conversations are not sentences. you get to clarify. you get to add. you get to change your mind. real 'discourse' (note: this word has lost all meaning in the year of our lord 2025) or debate is an exchange of ideas, whether it's about dick in ass or how we react socially in the situation of being attacked for dick in ass. keeping the conversation going to clarify these things, like your intent with the last ask, is important and necessary! it's what keeps us from being xitter/bluesky. we don't need to live as zingers and soundbytes on a text-based forum. we have the space to express ourselves fully, as many times as that takes. and i think that helps build back the empathy that is lost with the lack of face-to-face, voice-to-voice communication in online spaces.

so in the words of the great philosophers re: t/b discourse:

any hole's a goal

#ask #fanfic writing #smut writing #satosugu #jjk fanfic #t/b discourse

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hogwartslegacypics · 2 years ago

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HL2 Discussion Post

Figured it would be fun to make a little post about the sequel and say what I’m looking forward to/hope to see from it, and everyone else can reblog or comment with what they hope to see!

DIRECT SEQUEL!! This is the most important one to me. I want to continue with the same storyline and the same characters.

ROMANCE! I feel like they will implement this just because of how much everyone has been asking for it. Not even just romance, it would be cool to have friendship meters as well so we can see if someone is just an acquaintance all the way to a close friend.

DECISIONS THAT MATTER! I know we technically can make decisions in this game, but they don’t change anything except a few lines of dialogue. I want actual impact. I want our decisions to change what can happen, or change our friendship/relationship with the characters.

MORE CLASSES! I honestly wouldn’t mind if they had us repeat activities in classes for the same class (like if we got another potions class and again had to go through the same motions to brew a potion), because realistically speaking we would be going to the same class multiple times and doing basically the same things.

DEMENTORS! I’d love to learn the patronus charm and be able to use it on them. Maybe it could be like a POA situation where a prisoner escaped and dementors are around the grounds? I know there’s a shit ton of patronuses and it’s a lot of work to animate them, so I wouldn’t even be upset if there were only like 10 to pick from.

QUIDDITCH! This may not end up being a thing because of the other Quidditch game coming out, but I still hope it is. Even if we ourselves can’t play it, it would still be a cool little immersive activity to sit on the stands and be able to watch a Quidditch game play out. Also beater!Sebastian

DIAGON ALLEY! Going back as sixth years, we need to get our supplies so it’s a perfect way include it in the game! Imagine going with Seb, Ominis, Poppy, and Natty in the beginning of the game! Walking around and getting our supplies just like we did in the Hogsmeade quest.

CHRISTMAS AND/OR HALLOWEEN EVENTS! Imagine if we could actually celebrate those holidays in the game! Exchanging gifts with our friends (going to Hogsmeade to shop for them, and maybe we have a choice of like 10ish items and we have to pick one for each friend we think they’d like best, and they have a different reaction programmed for each gift we can give them, and it could impact how much the friendship/relationship meter goes up), and they give us a gift based on our play style or level of closeness to them?

PETS!! We know pets were supposed to be in this game so I feel like they might make the cut the second time around. Just imagine having your own cat or owl! So cute!

COMPANIONS! And I mean without needing a mod to make it happen!

RESOLUTION FOR THE SEBASTIAN STORYLINE! Ok so I feel like this one is a given assuming it’ll be a direct sequel but I still wanted to mention it. I hope we can cure Anne somehow, whether it be actually us doing it or finding something with Sebastian. Also see how Sebastian is dealing with the murder, and coping without Anne, and hopefully seeing them get along again. Anne coming back to Hogwarts too if she’s cured!

LET US SIT AND SLEEP! Especially in the Great Hall! Doesn’t need to be a frequent thing, but maybe like once a season we have a little scene with our MC sitting in there having dinner with friends in their house? NPCs need to sleep at night too!

NO MORE MERLIN TRIALS!! I never wanna do a Merlin Trial ever again. I hate the process of having to do a bunch of repetitive, tedious tasks just to unlock stuff.

MORE LOCATIONS! I don’t mean the Highlands, I mean London, the Ministry of Magic, Diagon Alley, etc. Would be cool to get to visit each of these locations at least once.

HOUSE POINTS! Give us a house points system where we can have points given or taken away from us! I guess this could kind of double as a morality system too?

#hogwarts legacy #cant think of any more rn but i’m sure there’s more

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goblins-riddles-or-frocks · 2 years ago

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That was such a good analysis. And do you think a "balancing" is possible?

Re: this ask!

I think that depends entirely on what is meant by balancing!

If you’re specifically referring to the “you were meant to be my balance” line, in the context which it is said shdhdd I do not think he remotely meant it. When he’s like “you might make me a better man :)” etc, I think he’s fully bullshitting her. He isn’t saying it with the intention of becoming a better person, or even with genuine acknowledgment that that is something that might require doing! He’s just trying to get her to hook up with him. If at that very point Alina took him up on his offer, there is zero chance imo that he would at all change his ways. He’s fully decided that he is right, and she is wrong, and she only needs to see things his way. That if she doesn’t, the fault lies with her.

That being said, I think he’s a character that’s remarkably easy to rehabilitate in one way or another. I find online discussions of redemptions often really simplistic and only from the perspective of a single type of story. Fictional/narrative morality is so fluid, all it takes to side a character like the Darkling with protagonists is to simply put him in a position where his goals align with theirs. And I find that pretty easy because he has such clear cut things he cares about, ie the political situation in Ravka. So it’s a pretty easy fix to just introduce an outside threat and force him to work with Alina/any protagonist of choice.

Or like for fanfic reasons, I’ve thought a lot about scenarios where either the stag isn’t found, or he doesn’t go immediately batshit villain mode the moment Alina runs away, and the status quo established in SaB stretches on for longer. Or scenarios that are just set earlier. Like he seems to not have been committing many war crimes, that we know of, in that pre canon time? So that’s one metric, but that doesn’t actually sand down any of his edges lol. And it’s only placing a brief interstice on his more egregious terrible behavior— I fully anticipate the manipulation and interpersonal cruelty would also still be present.

If we’re talking about balancing him out from a legit moral perspective, that becomes harder, chiefly because he is really goddamn old, and him being unadaptable, and set in his ways is literally a plot point (his hatred for technological advancement).

His age is super unclear, but canonically *at least* upwards of five hundred years old, and honestly I can understand why, past a certain point, he’d be like “WHY do I have to care what these children think, when they’re going to die in five minutes anyway?” I don’t think he can really think of people as people anymore, because he’s seen repetitions of similar things play out so many times, for so long. And being so powerful for so long means that he can afford to act pretty carelessly because there aren’t that many permanent consequences. Most typical worst case scenario (beyond the canon ending lol) is that he can literally just fake his death and come back as his own son or grandson with zero consequences. So a key factor in making him change in any way imo is stripping him of power so that he doesn’t have the luxury of not giving a damn about other people. I mean that more institutionally, but losing his magic could also be useful.

Once again, for its flaws and my baseline disagreement with the concept of bringing him back from the dead after TGT, I think RoW had the right idea wrt forcing him to pretend to be a random monk. He was, however, even trying to claw to power then lmao. I think it would just take way longer than the span of stuff we saw in RoW to make any meaningful change in him. He’s just been an evil wizard king in his little evil wizard tower for too long. And on top of that, imo, his insistence to Alina that, when herself faced with immortality, she will turn out exactly the same as him, stems from a sort of sunk cost fallacy. He honestly seems desperately unhappy as a character! He seems so jaded and fully emotionally removed from everyone and everything, where the only thing that matters to him is power, and he needs her to discover that that is the only outcome possible bc if not… well he’s just wasted centuries being fucking miserable for nothing. He doesn’t want there to be another option! So he’s just very, very reticent to having any other perspective or changing in any way, and if he ever does it will inevitably be done while kicking and screaming the entire way. (I might honestly just be averse to the idea personally because redemptions are boring to me! He’s much more fun if he sucks!)

Personally, my favorite method of domesticating the Darkling is just Alina using one of the Morozova amplifiers (possibly any amplifier if it just works like that?) on him and keeping him as her pet war criminal tbh. I think that has the most entertainment value, and the most safeguards against him finding his way to power again and committing more war crimes, or being in a place to do much manipulating. Will it fix him? Ehhhh maybe over time, since it might force him out of his usual habits? Probably not. But at least it functionally tempers most of his worse tendencies lol.

TLDR: Do I think the Darkling can be balanced? I don’t know! Sounds like a tall order! I do think he can be put on a leash though.

#also thank you!#grishaverse #shadow and bone #rule of wolves #the darkling #aleksander morozova #sorry not editing this just stream of conscious typed it out and I’m too busy to look over it again in depth #a mysterious stranger has appeared #*writer’s cap*#meta #step into my office #dark stories of the north

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philomaela · 10 months ago

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Thinking about The Take, which was a miniseries that tbh was overall pretty well done. I think in a weird way it suffers from trying to trim down its source material, despite the fact that its source material is very very repetitive. Despite the fact that the overall series is better and more consistent than the book it was adapting... I still dislike a lot of individual changes from the book compared to the show. I also think where it did make good changes... it didn't go far enough.

I mean, just first off... I do dislike how it "reduced" the relationship and simplified the interactions between the two couples. Jimmy has basically no feelings about Jackie, which I get since the things he dislikes about her are largely removed from the material, but they could have replaced it with something. Also, I get wanting to make Jackie more... "likeable" I guess you could say? Maybe less outrageous is a better word, since you know Freddie is already so outrageous. But one thing I liked in the book was how Jackie and Maggie's relationship mirrored (though less severely) Freddie and Jimmy. Jackie and Freddie lash out at their younger, sleeker counterparts out of jealousy. They kind of minimize it for Jackie to giving somewhat snide comments here and there until the blow up about Little Jimmy which makes the confrontation feel strange.

I also think... they did handle the abuse Jackie goes through respectfully I think. Like it never felt trite or anything or like it was blaming her. But what I disliked is how they made it seem sincere that he was "trying to avoid" arguments with Jackie initially. Something they kept in the show was showing how Freddie loved to intentionally provoke people and that was part of how he abused and manipulated his wife. He'd provoke her intentionally, knowing it would set her off, so that he could feel justified in doing whatever he wanted. That's important because his abuse of Maggie isn't just about Maggie or even Jimmy, it is also something he uses to abuse his wife. In the book I feel like these things are far more disconnected from each other.

Also like... I get not wanting to have Freddie murder a woman in a four episode series. His attack on Maggie is supposed to be his most shocking act and in the book, it's not at all surprising that Freddie has this in him. I personally liked that Maggie was angry on behalf of a stranger, in a world where violence is common, I think it's meant to show her backbone and morality. But changing it to be in defense of her sister still works, and it's clearly drawing from the later scene where Freddie beats his wife and daughter severely. The thing I honestly found strange in all of that is that they didn't have Maggie spit on Freddie, but they kept the part where Freddie spit on Maggie. I guess it still works in the context of his abuse of her, but idk... I liked the emphasis being on how petty and pathetic Freddie was in the book. But anyway, you have Maggie try to defend her sister and this ends up being what motivates Freddie to attack Maggie. Makes sense, but then you leave out the key point of the attack in the book. Maggie doesn't just stay silent because of Jimmy, she also stays silent because of Jackie. In the show, they really only make it about Jimmy... which feels strange even given the simplified character dynamics of their world.

I do love that Maggie gets to kill Freddie though, that's great, really great. Except then the show does it in order to keep Jimmy from knowing the truth and it's like... IDK, the most touching and weirdly well written part of the book imo... is when Maggie and Jimmy initially discuss what happened to her. First there's the fact that they can't just say what they're thinking bc cops are around, so we finally get some subtle dialogue in the book. Second, I think there's the fact that everything they had both been taunted with and afraid of over the years just... doesn't matter. Also just like, the fact that Maggie kept quiet in order to not destroy her and her sister's family and that was what everyone else in her life wanted from her. Like her niece who loves Maggie like a mother finds out about this and her first reaction is to hope that no one else finds out and wish that everyone keeps their mouth shut about it. It feels cathartic that when Jimmy and Maggie finally talk, it's almost banal, because this won't destroy them. I get that it feels more "equal" because Jimmy still has his secret about their son's death, but like idk in an ideal world I think my preferred ending is that Maggie gets the kill AND both of them are honest with each other.

#text

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olliesmoreno · 9 months ago

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okay so here’s my response

btw i’m genuinely not trying to hate on your opinion or anything, i think your takes are really interesting and i personally want to elaborate on them. will be biased obviously i’m literally posting this on a rwch fan account

these are rlly long btw 😭

1. i disagree that ellie NEVER does anything to advance the plot. she showed she was determined in the prologue by being adamant on going to rosewood and she’s the one that arranged the portman agreement in the first place.

- though plot wise, i don’t think she’s TOO active so i do see your point, but i haven’t reread the last few books so i’m a little unsure on that part.

- i think she’s kind to lottie (SOMETIMES) when she affirms her positive traits (good portman, kind etc). and the plot definitely does revolve around her. as an active character in the first two books at least she does a lot, like the fencing thing shows her ambition in some respect.

- and as an ivy character she does have a moral code she thinks is really important, that’s why she feels extremely bad for lottie and jamie. though she can be selfish, i can’t even argue with that but i’ll get to that later.

- you do seem to be talking about pah ellie and i emphasise with your feelings. in the first few books i love ellie for her bold personality, but pah ellie is really… miserable, honestly. it’s a little frustrating as a reader to constantly have ellie be like “everything is my fault” and for her not to take any action, besides meaningless things such as getting tattoos. so i understand because narratively it’s repetitive with like no pay off. AND the lack of communication, but that brings me to discuss your second point

2. i’ve been thinking about the ellie discourse and i think ellie is a lot more morally gray than rwch ever actually acknowledges. it might also be bc the majority of povs are lottie’s and she’s biased. i agree that she can be selfish, like @eleanorwolfson pointed out she was really selfish for making lottie and jamie break into the pool when she knew if she went, lottie and jamie had to go with her because it was their responsibility. although, i can somewhat give her the benefit of the doubt because this didn’t even cross my mind until it was pointed out to me (or maybe i’m just dumb 💀)

- i agree that ellie does make jamie’s life harder and she doesn’t think about that. i don’t think either of them can be blamed though, it’s natural for a teenager to want to rebel. i briefly mentioned this in the reblogs about disliking ellie but i think it just highlights the entitlement of the royal family and how they never get punished or get consequences for their actions. i think it highlights how privileged they are, so maybe it was just realistic for ellie to act that way. it’s why i think the ending of rwch where royalty gets abolished is really right. since ellie is royalty i think it makes complete sense that she acts in this entitled, self centred way sometimes without even realising. because that’s just what she’s used to - the world revolving around her and the royal family.

- the way she forced lottie to be a portman is problematic. yeah, i think she forced her. even though lottie consented, i don’t really think she had a choice. i think it just relates to her privilege but also how unfair the royal family was on this trio. the royal family still accepted that lottie should be a portman and should be subject to all those threats she experienced.

- also ellie preferring lottie over jamie is so heartbreaking, i agree. and jamie definitely was right that lottie should not have been made portman - it robbed her of her childhood and there is no reason a child should have that much responsibility. so this was pretty major of ellie to thrust upon her because it impacted lottie’s life so much.

3. can see where you’re coming from, i hadn’t actually considered that. i think again because it’s in lottie’s mostly we see her just brush aside her personal issues. like any mention of her father lottie just freezes, or when ollie mentions she had bad friends she also freezes. i suppose she maybe blocks these memories as a coping mechanism, but that could just be an excuse 😭 she also hates thinking about her father and even when people continue to bring up the last name “pumpkin” she refuses to think about why her family had to change her last name to that.

- also i think lottie is a bit of a weak character narratively. i still love her, but i think there could have been more going on in regards to her actual character. i wish rwch had explored why lottie feels so indebted to people and why she cares so much about what other people want, and why she doesn’t want to focus on herself. i think she’s selfless to a fault and that could have been explored (think tohru honda from fruits basket).

- additionally, exploration of her trauma from becoming a portman could have been really interesting. just feel like there was a lot of potential to lottie’s character that isn’t fully explored

- although, i still like her. i think her kindness is admirable even if it’s to a fault and her mantra is inspiring.

4. i really think it was weird that the friend group didn’t tell jamie that haru was part of leviathan. i really think that borderline makes no sense. i do somewhat understand that they felt like jamie actually had a connection with haru but since it was manipulative i still don’t understand why they didn’t tell him. that’s a major plot hole personally bothers me.

- jamie and haru’s relationship is one of my least favourite, if not, my absolute least favourite thing about the rosewood chronicles. i just think it makes no sense that they’re canon. of course, i’m going to preface this by saying that i respect all ships and respect if anyone ships jamie/haru.

- it all comes down to the execution of it. jamie and haru’s relationship is presented to have a power dynamic from the beginning, and jamie’s constant canonical age changing was weird, but it’s canon that haru is four years older than him. and the teacher/student dynamic. haru is ALWAYS presented to be more powerful than jamie in their dynamic, rather than them being written as equals. this is all okay, it’s fiction, but they’re then presented as having a loving and healthy relationship rather than written as problematic and toxic which i thought was what connie was intending. it makes no sense to me because i thought it was well established that this relationship has an imbalanced power dynamic and that haru definitely has at least some control over jamie

- i digress, but i think haru is written extremely poorly. his motivations, backstory and personality are extremely unpredictable and blurry and i constantly struggle to understand what his intentions are regarding ANY action he does in the books.

- because of this, anything he does is related to jamie’s character, in fact, his WHOLE character revolves around jamie. this makes the relationship feel imbalanced and hard to root for . alongside haru calling jamie “my prince” - with the power dynamic in mind it doesn’t feel affectionate or admiring (yet again idk how haru was intending these words of endearment so i can’t even comment fully). also their romantic interactions feel awkward and perfunctory to me. “well i like you, haru” —> “jamie, i’d like to kiss you if it’s okay” i just feel like there’s no build up.

- i think about jaru a lot because it confuses me and i could say a lot but i’m not gonna make this longer than it already is. i think the intention of haru was for him to be jamie’s foil but i think it completely backfired honestly.

- i agree so hard that jamie’s life is a tragedy. i can’t actually elaborate on this one. i just personally hate that he ends up with haru. i think he should have been allowed to seek his own happiness on his OWN terms, whatever that means for him, and that haru shouldn’t have been involved (bc i don’t like him 😭)

- jamie deserves all the happiness in the world and haru is just some slimy guy. even haru’s redemption arc is literally all about jamie.

- i liked jamie’s dynamic with raphael, it’s a shame that it’s established that jamie was using him for information. they could have had a really genuinely bond.

- honestly, i don’t know what i wanted to happen to jamie but his story is SO sad. genuinely.

a deep dive into my issues with the rosewood chronicles

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE ROSEWOOD CHRONICLES BY CONNIE GLYNN

(pls read so i can discuss these books w more people. i have MANY thoughts)

ellie wolf has the most insane victim complex i have EVER read about; not only does she never do anything on her own to develop the plot or help other characters develop the plot and/or themselves, she spends half the series being all moody and emo and blaming herself for everything but then she does literally nothing about it. she spent a solid three books bitching and moaning abt how she ruined her friends' lives and then she did nothing abt it.

ellie treats her friends like SHIT; this goes mostly for jamie and lottie. firstly, jamie was wronged by literally everyone ever and i will never get over it. jamie spent his entire life in servitude to ellie and her family and he lost his identity, his birthright, his freedom and his childhood because of them and yeah, it was never ellie's fault, but she continuously makes his job more difficult as a way of "rebelling". there wouldn't be a problem w this bc i also hate the royal family, but she is the only character who has the luxury to rebel bc the repercussions of her actions always fall on jamie and not her. this is shown multiple times (the portrait thing, the end of undercover princess) where ellie fucks up and jamie is punished for it. yes, she has every right to resent her position, but in acting out she let jamie take her falls and she knew it and she hated her parents for it, but she still continued to act the way that she did and blamed her parents for the way jamie was punished, and not doing anything to change the way she was acting. also she just is never grateful towards him at all. also their "friendship" was fucked from the beginning bc they literally had a master-servant dynamic (see: the time in the first book where ellie literally ordered him to be nice to lottie, also the vow in pah). you can't be friends w someone who has power over you. despite jamie standing by her side through literally EVERYTHING, ellie chooses lottie over him time and time again. and even tho lottie means more to her than anything, ellie even treats her like shit. immediately after the princess thing gets out, ellie uses lottie as a way out and lottie immediately shoulders ellie's burdens and sees it as a blessing. ellie blames her parents for lottie's troubles, but if u recall she was the one who initiated the portman deal, not her parents. and she also didn't inform lottie about any of it until after the meeting w the king and queen. she immediately dispenses of her responsibilities onto lottie bc lottie supposedly "enjoys" them. this takes a toll on lottie from the beginning when she starts getting threats, she gets kidnapped, stalked by the media, bullied at school and targeted by a literal terrorist organisation in ellie's name, and ellie never revokes the portman deal bc she wants her own precious freedom. maturing is realising jamie was right, and lottie deserved to have a proper childhood, and ellie was also right, that she and her family were the problem that took away ellie AND jamie's childhoods.

lottie is honestly such a toxic character; she has never really wanted anything that hasn't been imposed on her by others or by what she thinks other people want. she worked her ass off to get into rosewood bc she thinks that's the one thing her mother wanted. she became ellie's portman to save ellie from the pressures of being a princess. she becomes so entrenched in her role as ellie's portman that she literally can't fathom her identity outside of her job. this is shown in pah a bit but i feel like ppl forget. being a portman is NOT good for lottie. like at all. from the first book, she's already losing sleep, receiving threats, borderline sexually assaulted, kidnapped and targeted by a terrorist group. ollie was RIGHT when he said the job was too much for her. lottie looks at ellie and feels that she needs to protect ellie, and for some reason feels beholden to her, even tho by all rights lottie is the one w the worse lot in their relationship. her mother died of cancer, and her father left her and gambled away all of their money, marrying a woman not much older than lottie herself, she was raised by a stepmother that didn't care that much abt her and grew up pretty impoverished compared to the rest of the rosewood students and worked super hard to get into her dream school, but we're supposed to feel sorry for ellie bc she can't go out and party. like, i get it, ellie is isolated and caged bc of her role. it's true, but lottie has had it a LOT worse, and still she feels like she needs to shoulder ellie's burdens too. and she also deludes herself into thinking she enjoys them. i feel like these issues rlly aren't talked abt enough.

jamie was never treated right by anyone in his entire life ever; literally name a single character that ever treated jamie right. ellie, his childhood BEST FRIEND, was never grateful for him, got him in trouble all the time and chose lottie over him every time. lottie, his first love, used him as a bargaining chip in order to get information from their enemy, and literally allowed him to be manipulated, gaslit and literally groomed (i AM using this word bc no one can convince me this isn't what happened between jamie and haru) to receive scraps and clues in return. the royal family, who he devoted his life to serving, lied to him his whole life about his identity, and made him a servant when he should've been a prince. haru, the guy he trusted despite everything, spent all of their relationship manipulating and gaslighting him and literally grooming him. yes it was grooming. haru was 20 and jamie was 16 when they first met and it was pretty clear from the beginning that haru had romantic intentions towards him. and even in pah when he was like "i want to be closer to you" he was literally 21 and jamie was 17. and ykw it makes sense that jamie would trust and devote himself to haru and lottie like he did. it was literally a trauma response from being treated like a weapon and not a human his entire life. the royal family saw him as a servant and a weapon and his childhood best friend saw him as just another reason to hate on her parents. ofc he fell in love with the only two people in his life who treated him like a human being. and of COURSE he joined leviathan after finding out he was LIED TO his entire life abt who he was and after finding out lottie sold him out after he devoted himself to protecting her. and the way everyone treated him like a villain in pea like...bro everyone lied to him. for some reason no one told him haru was leviathan even tho it was most prevalent to him. even tho he was responsible for protecting them, they didn't inform him at all. bro of course he joined leviathan, he was literally betrayed by the people he loved???? and not sayuri treating him like the villain and a betrayer in pea when she was the one who kept haru a secret from him. and the way lottie, ellie, binah, ani and saskia knew haru's identity and just allowed jamie to be used and manipulated by him is CRAZY. and no one even spoke up for him except saskia. and once. and then ellie forced him into that vow literally for no other reason than "if i can't have her no one can" bc bsfr jamie was never any harm to lottie, it was always ellie and her family. I DIGRESS.

#i may add more thoughts but this is already monstrosly long #good discussion op #op txt #rwch txt #rwch #the rosewood chronicles #jamie volk #ellie wolf #lottie pumpkin

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bestworstcase · 2 years ago

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I'm sold on some sort of detente with Salem being part of the godbros' reckoning, but wonder if this series' Tolkienish beats (gold macguffins, fellowship, Cinder & Salem's Sauron-Morgoth parallel, etc) are causing *tons* of fans to write the notion off as Saruman-style undermining of The Cause-especially with Raven & Leo's examples for Team Oz pundits to point at.

ok so full disclosure this:

plus being able to identify gandalf, orlando bloom, That One Dwarf, and gollum in stills from the peter jackson films, represents the sum total of what i know about LOTR. i remember, vaguely, reading a rwby meta post along the lines of “cinder is getting worse because tolkien themes” but i’m afraid i did not retain any of the actual argument because, as i recall, the analysis of cinder’s arc up to the point when the post was written did not strike me as terribly insightful or, like, accurate as to what was going on with her narratively.

all of which is to say, there very well might be a connection that is staggeringly obvious to actual,, LOTR fans. but 1. tolkien bores me to absolute tears so i’m working off the LOTR wiki pages which i have just skimmed and 2. my general impression is that large swaths of the rwby fandom do not know how to distinguish between “common genre conventions” and “deliberate, meaningful allusion to another story” and 3. two out of three things in that list are, um, stock fantasy tropes, and nothing in the wiki pages for morgoth or sauron seem… remotely like salem or cinder? so my inclination is to conclude this is another winter-is-jadis situation. gfbfjc sorry

honestly i think the degree of fandom-wide resistance to the possibility of salem (or cinder, to a lesser extent) undergoing a villain -> hero arc mostly comes down to the expectations of the genre. the looming implacable evil sorceress doesn’t… negotiate. the heroes don’t decide she maybe has a point about the gods who sent the chosen one to go to war with her. like this is not how the story is supposed to go—and of course rwby is playing with that deliberately in order to criticize the simplicity of the moral framework undergirding the genre, but i think a lot of fans saw the familiar surface and took for granted that salem (and cinder) would function in the narrative in an archetypical way.

[which, to be fair, i did too—lost fable completely blindsided me because i also kind of went, yeah okay evil manipulative ancient witch, sure, i know this song—but then to be less fair, i also paid attention to lost fable.]

and then on top of it there’s also, like, this is an… unusually vindictive and bloodthirsty fandom. i don’t think i’ve ever encountered a fandom with so many mainline, high-profile bloggers who participate in the humiliation fantasies about the main villain getting taken down a peg, ideally in the most emotionally sadistic way possible, on the grounds that she’s a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum.

it’s… weird, and the constant repetition of that reading by the otherwise mostly reasonable mainstream has really profoundly distorted the fandom’s ability to like… parse what’s happening on screen, to the point that things like salem using the normal, universally-agreed-upon term for a type of magic gets twisted into “proof” that salem doesn’t think modern humans are people. hfghvs like this fandom is SO determined to interpret everything salem does through the most batshit, extreme lens imaginable, for… some… reason. and with that being the normal background radiation for discussions about her, like, of course “salem villain -> hero arc imminent” sounds absurd. don’t you know she kicks puppies and eats the hearts of babies for breakfast??

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discoscoob · 4 years ago

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Okok i kinda worry that maybe we need to reel it in a little with the lokious hate

Like, long time follower-love your blog, got some great sylkie content and oh my goood it gives me life!!!- I’m just worried we’re just spiraling into hating on the other ship and finding reasons to feel morally superior to “the other guys”. Which is exactly what the antis are doing

Yes yes i do agree that the mental health point WAS inappropriate; but the digs at lokius feels inappropriate too. Like…its just a ship. And its just a shipper doing what shippers do (regardless of ship). They made a headcanon that’s not actually canon. Sure we don’t care for it much but i think the actual issue is that they said something that was hurtful to people with mental health issues and not that they hoped this makes sylkie invalid. I can see the whole thing just being some young kid who doesn’t know any better getting a little too caught up in shipper brain and not realizing what they’re saying. I don’t think it should be treated as something to then stamp over all lokius shippers, it doesn’t feel fair and it’s the kinda thing a lot of antis do to sylkie shippers just so they can find reasons to hate them more

And yeah sure i can definitely see a future where kids expecting their ship to be endgame causes a mass outbreak of temper tantrums, i have seen this all happen before. And i 100% think that there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. But i DO think we can make an effort to ignore it and hopefully stop fueling the antis desire to hate on everything (remember don’t feed the troll rules, it won’t stop them but if everyone ignores them it cuts off fresh meat and they start having to cannibalize their own peers)

I know it’s really easy to fall into it. It feels great to put the other guys down and pretend like we’re “holier than thou” for reading the story “as the author intended” but idk man…it just feels weird to keep talking about lokius as tho the issue is the ship itself and not just a bunch of teenagers getting too stubborn with how they consume media (which if you guys remember your fandom history, has been happening since WE were teenager! Wouldn’t it have sucked to have a bunch of older fans seemingly moralizing against a gay ship we liked “unprompted”?)

Eh idk I’m rambling now i think. But i guess i just worry we’re maybe swinging bats at nests without checking what’s in them because we’re worried we found bees but it could just be humming birds buzzing. I think the issue here isn’t lokius but just how kids are consuming media by looking for evidence to fit their theories and not making theories to match the evidence, as the current generation of teens will always do (because they’re always changing out every few years so we start to see patterns in their behaviors). I don’t have a solution for it, but dunking on them isn’t helping.

(Ps this is directed at all of us and not just specifically you. ❤️)

You’re right I probably got a little bit carried away with myself. However regarding my rant yesterday, specifically the longer one, I wanted to keep it general because I wasn’t targeting it towards anyone specific, rather I just wanted to get my feelings about mentally ill people being in relationships off my chest without trying to make it about any ridiculous ship war because I feel like it was something I was more concerned about within real life than whatever fictional characters do on a tv show. That’s why I kept it out of any sort of tags.

But I understand what you’re saying regarding the l0kius shippers and I mean it seems like just one post here and there when I just want to say something in the moment but I admit it does begin to pile up after a while without realising and I appreciate that can become repetitive.

I honestly do try to keep it at a minimum though it’s just when it becomes something I’m particularly passionate about (and this goes beyond the TV show and the dramas within it) then I do sometimes get carried away with it.

And sometimes when you’re discussing a topic with anons, sometimes it can feel like it lasts days just because I might be answering anons all from one day over the course of a few days just because sometimes I can be slow with answering them all, but I do try to get anons regarding the same topic all answered together if I can.

But I’ll definitely try and be more aware of how often I’m discussing l0kius shippers in particular, and although I don’t really clarify it anywhere though I probably should, I honestly don’t mean to generalise them all and act like they’re all the same.

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13eyond13 · 4 years ago

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I'll try to keep it short because you're very kind but I'm becoming annoying... I actually like Soichiro. It's his morals I cannot stand. In fact, in line with his, I like Matsuda's and even Light's variations more, even with all the darkness they entail, because they're more critical. I adore L and find him relatable, but I'm not so sure if I'd like him as a person in real life, and yet I again like his morals more than Soichiro's. I still think Soichiro is generally a better person than any of the others. I still dislike his morals the most. When I say at the opposite end of Soichiro in the moral spectrum is where Near stands I'm not talking just about my personal liking, but as I interpret their views on morality. Maybe there's some detail of the manga I'm forgetting (I truly have to reread it), but Soichiro didn't seem very critical about... anything, while Near states something like "even if god came and told me this is good and this is bad and this is The Truth I'd still consider and come to my own conclusion". I like that. I care less about someone getting a moral with what I may consider a degree of grey if they do that. I myself have very strong morals that nonetheless have degrees of grey; strong doesn't mean pure. My grey and someone else's grey might be very different. But I've developed them, not accepted them blindly. Near of course, Mello, L, and even Light and Matsuda do this, but Soichiro generally doesn't. And I dislike that greatly. In fact, I think I'd find him kind in real life, and likeable, but I'd not really like him because I can't really bring myself to like someone like that even when they're kind and compassionate and good. I'm already talking more than I intended but I'll try to point out what bothers me of his attitude.

Soichiro is very very anti Kira, but he's working for a government with the death penalty and he doesn't seem to consider that even for a moment. For him, that the government does it is justifiable but monstrous if a person does it. He doesn't really have a justification, it's just like that because it's as it is. He's very against L's methods, buy L uses people who were going to die anyway at the very moment he uses them either way because of the death penalty, because of the government. From a government pov, if the government were to do what L does, it'd be something terrible. From an individual pov? Not so much. It's ugly, but it's beyond himself whether that people die or not, and his decisions are easily justifiable from an individual pov: they're going to die irrevocably, that very day at that very time, and he is using what he can to solve a very complicated case that is taking many lives, and he even might use the moral support of "I'm giving the prisoners the chance of choosing, with the potential reward of lifelong imprisonment instead of death". And again, while a government doing that is terrible, it's not as terrible for a person. L is a private detective, an individual. People can be fallible. Governments shouldn't. What L does might be justifiable, if ugly, for a person, but it would be unforgivable for the government to do. But the government lies on L and it's L who takes the slander of the rest of the Task Force. And that's what Soichiro doesn't see, and that's what bugs me. Soichiro sides with the government and the laws no matter what, no matter if they're terrible and are actually the cause if indirectly of the terrible things L is able to do (I'd have to reread to be completely comfortable affirming this, but Soichiro's attitude towards the government reminds me a bit of Mikami and Misa to some extent).

Soichiro hates Kira, and hates and criticises L's methods and his ruthlessness, but doesn't even consider for one moment the problem is not L. The problem is not the 24 yo boy/man, the problem is his government, that has the dead penalty and actually let's a private detective carry on with the investigation and do as he pleases (and I'm not even taking into consideration how L's upbringing and the lowkey if fun exploitation he was subrmited to have most probably influenced if not determined the way he acts in these cases, because while it's intriguing it'd feel like justifying L out of pity, and either way Soichiro doesn't know that; but I mention this because L's entire past at Wammy's, like the other children's, is another very terrible move from governments and adults in responsibility positions). The problem is Interpol, the governments in general, blatantly saying L is ruthless but not even setting rules when working with him. And I think it would actually have been very easy to stop L doing those things. Just change the rules of the game, tell him beforehand there are a few things he can't do. It's a game after all. Of course L would still exploit the moral and legal vacuums of the rules as he pleased, as one does when playing anything, but the government wouldn't have given him totally free way.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself very well. Years ago in a class I talked about the difference between personal vengeance and the death penalty. I feel this is similar. A person is fallible. A government should be able to stand over licit murder. L manipulating people to prove a point is ugly. A government doing that or letting someone free way to do whatever is terrible. L does whatever, and as an individual is not so horrible as it is that the governments internationally actually let him do whatever even knowing beforehand without setting rules. Soichiro sees this and it doesn't even cross his mind for a moment to criticise the government he's working with. Also, he considers his morals the best, which makes sense in a first person pov (why support x morals if you don't think they're the best? I'm not critisising this), but he's very... imposing about them, while as I say not being precisely the most critical thinker. That Soichiro is like this, morally (I'm not even talking about the policeman aspect though that's so often talked about in the fandom), makes a lot of sense to how Light ends up being Kira, and with how Matsuda thinks and acts. And I find that very intriguing, but I can't stand Soichiro's simplistic morals and his better-than-you attitude even though he's a generally good person. That's why I dislike his morals the most (of course you don't have to agree!). I don't stand by Near's morals either, but I like his "god could come and tell me and still I'd doubt" attitude. It's what makes gods mad in basically every mythology, but I love that kind of thought process. I'm very much like that too.

I'm so sorry this is so long. I tried to cut, but I got the impression it'd make it even less clear or more difficult to understand. Or maybe the lack of clarity lies precisely on how repetitive and long this is. I'd like to think English not being my first language has to do with this, but honestly the problem is most probably just me. I hope I made the point understandable enough, though. And thanks for your patience. I really liked that post of Near someone sent as an opinion and how you replied! Very interesting takes on both ends.

Hi again! You have some very thought-provoking points about it all, and don't worry, your English is excellent.

I loved Near's stance about these things as well, and that's something that really bothered me when growing up about some authority figures and institutions being really totalitarian and silencing of doubts or stances they deemed too negative or incorrect to voice aloud. I value having freedom of choice and the ability to think critically about everything immensely. Maybe it's because I went to a very strict and sheltering and weird little school as a child that tried very hard to indoctrinate me with a specific worldview, and always shamed and silenced anyone who disagreed or questioned them or felt like an outsider or wanted to have a different point of view. I remember relating the most to Matsuda on the task force when I first watched the show as a teen, because he was always speaking up with his devil's advocate questions or confusions. The way Soichiro and the others usually yell and scold and shame him for this bothered me a lot, because I wanted them to discuss things openly so I could see all the different sides of the arguments more clearly. Actually, I think this is a pretty culturally similar thing between Japan and Canada (where I am from). There's a strong emphasis on doing what's best for the entire group instead of just yourself, and being too controversial or outspoken or individualistic about certain things is often taboo and frowned upon as a big social faux pas. It's possibly quite a bit stronger pressure toward obedience and conformity and politeness in Japan in certain ways as well, but I don't know for sure as I haven't lived there myself.

I think Soichiro had a bit of nuance and flexibility with his morals and his stances in various instances throughout the plot, and to me he seemingly tries hard to see things from other angles during complicated moments in what must be one of the most difficult situations he could possibly face as both a police chief and a parent. But it's true he never seemed to doubt that upholding the laws already in place and the way his government punishes the convicted were the "correct" ways society should function. I think this series would be a really interesting one to discuss in a class that talks about stuff like justice and the death penalty and law and ethics and such for how many of these things it touches on in an entertaining and thought-provoking way!

#soichiro #near #matsuda #ask #anon #p

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curlewsteph · 4 years ago

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COVID THERAPY VIEWING

It’s been a year indeed and a struggle, but when I’ve needed an escape I’ve found solace in some brilliant tv series this year that I want to take a moment to remember. Immersing myself in characters, online discussion, podcasts and more, has kept me going and allowed me to block out everything that 2020 has been when I’ve needed to. This is my first and possibly only Tumblr post but here, the place where I’ve found so much great conversation, fan fic, gif sets and more to add to my enjoyment of my favourite things to watch, seems the best place to leave my own thoughts. So here goes from the year’s beginning to its welcome ending:

TURN - Washington’s Spies

I’ve got a thing for moody Jamie Bell (The Eagle 😍) and discovered TURN last New Year looking for other historical dramas he’d appeared in. These characters completely captured me and drew me into a historical period I’d done my best to avoid since flunking it during A Level history. Abe made quite the most useless spy but his passion and compassion sold him to me. The Culper Ring story is fascinating and the show brought to life the real lives and conflicts of those involved. Intriguing portrayals of morally corrupt characters (Simcoe, Andre etc) who surprise you at every turn kept me gripped and props to some extremely fine acting and characterisation. The found family dynamic of the Culper Ring was a real joy and Brewster will forever be one of my most favourite characters. I wanted more personal development and not really being able to ship Abe with anyone especially was a let down but it was a fine series that really kept me company.

PEAKY BLINDERS

I’ve no idea why it took me so incredibly long to watch this series but having eventually succumbed I was hooked from the very first episode. Brooding, oppressive, threatening yet full of charm and humour with characters that jump out of the screen and take your heart without asking, made it addictive viewing for me this year. The next series is light years away but I’m waiting for you Tommy.

THE 100

Thank all the stars that we had good weather during lockdown because the final series of this post-apocalyptic drama almost ruined my summer. I’ve followed every twist and turn over the past six years, had my Bellarke heart broken time over time, shared the pain and angst of an array of brilliant characters and watched through my fingers when the creators treated legions of fans of all factions, worse than mortal enemies. But the end was coming and I stuck with it - despite my misgivings since the overturning of the Writers Room - buoyed by some hopeful S6 content, but I should have listened harder to my guts. Despite some flickers of promise in S6, it was beyond clear to me that the new writing team simply didn’t have the same connection to the characters and history of the show. Instead of wanting to resolve arcs and reunite characters we’d become inexorably entwined with, the lure of the new and an opportunity to reinvent and take a detour sparkled more brightly to them - something I will never ever be able to fathom. Fans forgotten, long running storylines dropped and characters - including our leads - essentially abandoned and made for a horror show of a final act. S7 broke my heart and I should have seen it coming. When I’ll feel ready to rewatch The 100 again I don’t know, but I’ll end my run when the show should have at the S5 finale and save the CPR scene for an occasional treat. Farewell and May We Meet Again.

THE MUSKETEERS

Salvation comes in leather and 18thC lace. I ADORED this so much! Again I was incredibly late to the party because it seemed such a frivolous show but a Youtube fan vid drew me in and I’m so thankful for it. The plots are mostly light but tackle some important issues, the tension is chest heavingly dramatic and everyone looks astonishing and oh my was this the antidote to an anti-climactic apocalyptic obsession that I needed. There’s humour, kindness, compassion, daring do and a huge dollop of care and an emphasis on the value of friendship too. Clever dialogue, confident female characters, wry humour and some seriously good acting healed my heart. And yes the outfits helped. I loved it all and was transfixed by Tom Burke’s Athos.

STRIKE

...which led me to Strike. I don’t do whodunnits and crime fiction as a rule is just not my thing, usually because the core cast is always too small and I miss the found-family dynamic and they often feel claustrophobic, plus the predictable focus on difficult but supposedly fascinating men in the lead can be dull. In some regards, Strike is no different but Tom Burke’s performance and more significantly Holiday Grainger’s skill in playing Robin and how she transforms the usual “gritty detective with attractive sidekick” dynamic on its head, is really superb. I’ve read the books now too - my first JKRs. Honestly, parts are overwritten and a little indulgent but elements are breathtaking and as she’s so involved in the series too it’s a tie up I became incredibly invested in and the actors on screen are the characters on the page for me too. One does not lose out to the other, which is often the case with dramatisations. I can’t wait for the next instalment.

THE LAST KINGDOM

#TeamUhtred #TeamUhtred #TeamUhtred that’s it, that’s all there is to say, although it’s not obviously. TLK has been a slow burn for me and I began it several times when it was first aired by the BBC. The early series felt small, focussed on a pretty hateful hero who I failed to connect with, but I loved Aethelflaed and her story with Erik and Uhtred’s growing maturity was intriguing too. And then Netflix came in and the show exploded! Better scripts, more than the same 3 locations, impressive costumes and set-piece battles with characters that grew and grew. I rewatched S3 in preparation for S4’s release which I binged in style in lockdown 1 and cried when it ended. Utterly brilliant and a cast of characters that came closest to replicating the joy of my first fandom experience with the outlaws of Robin of Sherwood. Uthred has become a leader, has had to reckon with his responsibilities and shows a tenderness as he’s aged that the young callous warrior lacked. But if it weren’t for his bunch of faithful arselings I wouldn’t be watching at all. Without Finan there is no TLK for me. He’s my favourite character to have emerged in years. It’s the humour, the humanity of him that makes me cheer for him every time - as well as the arms 😍 Long live TLK. Or a final season at least.

VIKINGS (*spoilers for S6b)

2020 ended another long standing favourite series that I’ve followed for years. Unlike The 100 I’m not as deeply invested in this saga but Vikings has kept me company for so long now that the show feels part of me. It’s certainly lost it’s way over time but my favourite characters still shone brightly and those we lost were sent off triumphantly. I’ll forever miss Ragnar and the show lost a lot of its appeal with his passing, but the homage paid to such a talisman of a character was always done well. Later series did feel repetitive and the drama between the Ragnarsson brothers diluted. But Ubbe - my love - stayed true and the ending for him and Hvitserk (I always felt so heart sick for him) both felt fitting. And Bjorn’s final climax was awe inspiring (I do wish the tomb had stayed closed though). I’d have absolutely loved more time to have been spent on Ubbe’s future adventures instead of the endless hours in barren wastelands and storm lashed ships, but what we got was good. As for Ivar... an utterly unforgettable character (performed superbly) who became human again was a journey to behold. I’m glad it went that way but honestly I lost touch with him with all the time spent on the Rus storyline that repeatedly ate its own tail. Getting back to Wessex brought the show full circle and I loved it for that. Farewell Vikings. I hope Ubbe and Torvi are still doing ok in their new Valhalla.

#bbc strike #the 100 #vikings #turn: washington's spies #last kingdom #peaky blinders #the musketeers

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welcometoels · 4 years ago

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Session Sixteen - Ebeneezer’s Offer

The figure by the fire is offensive to the senses. He looks like a pile of filthy rags has somehow grown a man’s face, sounds like a cautionary tale about the perils of overindulgence, and smells like an ash tray at the bottom of a midden. Something about him doesn’t feel right, and the rest just doesn’t bear thinking about.

However, Ebeneezer Chaotic-Neutral gives all impressions of shooting straight with the group. He welcomes them to the safety of his camp, but also makes it clear that there is more to the situation than may first be evident.

Snapping his fingers, he calls over a luxuriantly mutton-chopped Human called Harry. With a beguiling shuffle, Harry passes out pieces of paper to the party. Printed on these papers are artistic representations of each of the bipedal members of the party, with their names printed beneath. According to the text, the four of them - “and also a Dog” - are wanted for the crime of grand theft at the Dragonhall Bank.

(At this point, the penny finally drops for Julius, who honestly had no idea what was going on. Bless his sweet Otter soul.)

According to Ebeneezer, these sheets were intercepted on their way out of Monthend to the surrounding towns. So far, they’ve been held within its walls, but who knows what would happen if word of rhe party's crimes spread further afield.

Fortunately, Ebeneezer has the power to put the record straight. What he lacks, though, is the funds and the motivation. Granted, he made a promise to a certain group - a group with whom Cailynn is very familiar - that he would keep them safe for the immediate future, but that period of time is finite.

So, Ebeneezer puts forward a proposition. It just so happens that, in a neighbouring town, there is a certain artefact: A certain artefact that a certain contact would pay a certain amount of money for. A very, very large amount.

Being a businessman at heart, and one with a loose definition of property rights, Ebeneezer is keen to fulfil this contract. All previous attempts, though, have been failures.

This is where our team comes in. If they can retrieve the thornéd helm of Thornhelm, Ebeneezer promises to use all of the means available to him to clear their records and ensure that word of their supposed crimes spreads no further.

The team confers. Some are less troubled than others - notably Oddsock, who barely even appears on the warrant. In a panic, Julius momentarily transforms into a chocolate Labrador, but returns to Otter form after giving it a bit more thought.

Though it quite rightly tests their morals, the adventurers agree to acquire the artefact, and they head off north-northwest to Thornhelm.

Throughout all this, Kadis has been very quiet, and it is while they are journeying that he reveals why. Before he entered the mysterious doorway and met his new friends, Kadis had spent a brief moment in Thornhelm. While he was there, he helped fend off a group of bandits who were hell-bent on stealing the very item they were on their way to take.

Naturally, he is feeling very conflicted about this. Though this plan is the simplest way to resolve their current situation, stealing the item he was previously charged with protecting just doesn’t sit right with him.

Fortunately, an unexpected distraction arrives as they reach town - a distraction in the form of a Half Orc in a utility kilt bedecked with various carpentry tools. Though Kadis has never actually seen this person, he knows who they are as soon as they speak.

Khoth is a former sorcerer, now living a simple life in Thornhelm performing odd jobs. Back when Kadis was living here, they knew each other well. It was a fraught relationship at first - Kadis being very persistent with his questions about magic and how it might relate to the ruination of his home town - but Khoth grew to like the chatty blind monk.

Khoth greets Kadis warmly, and extends that warmth to the rest of the party, inviting them to the Harp & Spider - a welcoming boozer that serves a delightful foamy nut brown ale.

After fetching a round in for the group - and pouring Oddsock’s into his special dog bowl - Khoth quizzes them on what has been going on with them.

This is where Kadis makes a very bold move - and one which results in some pained noises from other members of the team: He opts to tell Khoth everything, up to and including their mission to steal the helm.

Khoth is quiet for a moment, then makes it very clear that, while he will not stand in their way, he will not assist them in stealing from his adopted home town - this is as far as he is willing to go for a friend caught in a difficult situation.

He also offers occasional pieces of advice as the team outlines a series of bizarre, nonsensical, and sometimes outright counterproductive plans:

Suggestions of giving money to Ebeneezer in place of the helm are quickly shot down, since they don’t know how valuable it is (probably very valuable) or how dangerous the intended recipient is (probably quite dangerous)

Finding an artefact of equal value is also mooted, but rejected since they don’t know of any other artefacts

A few vague suggestions of “using magic” are bandied about, though without much certainty of what kind of magic

Just packing it in and returning to Dogwood was also on the table, which would have been nice right up until the warrants for their arrest arrived

Talion does have one bright idea off the back of all this, and mentions that he can create a replica of an item magically, which lasts up to three hours (though it is sparkly and plays music when you touch it).

Somehow, this becomes a cornerstone of the plan, so they leave Khoth in the Harp to pursue... something?

One little piece of intel they did glean from Khoth was that the artefact is being held at the church, which is very easy to find. The tallest building by several storeys, the church dominates the landscape with its tall, square tower.

The doors are open, and nobody is inside the spacious main area. The crew takes a moment to admire the stained glass windows, the simple pews, the sturdy door at the far end, and the statues of a female Gnome holding an apple.

Julius becomes quite excited by the latter, and inspects the statue to confirm that this figure is indeed a Forest Gnome, just like his dear Pa. Oddsock is also drawn to the statues, though mainly because the apple resembles a ball. He has about as much success in extricating the apple as he had getting the ball from the statue in Mansion de Mortesque.

Kadis takes a moment to make sure that everyone understands the plan. It is unclear whether or not they do. What is clear is that empty churches are very echoey, and all the chat and apple-grabbing has attracted some attention on the other side of the closed doors.

The bearer of the attention turns out to be a Gnome by the name of Father Sassafrass - at least, that’s what they think his name is, but it is impossible to be certain thanks to his outrageous lisp.

Kadis approaches and asks if the priest remembers him. One might more reasonably ask if Kadis remembers the priest - it’s not a voice one would easily forget - but the question has been asked the way it was asked, and the answer is “no”.

It transpires that the current Gnomish occupants of the church are recently new, with the previous priest having left due to stress cause by the constant threat of banditth.

Now, Kadis goes for the same bold gambit that he attempted on Khoth in the Harp. Nobody else in the team is entirely sure why, but he begins to tell Father Sassafrass all about their recent troubles, the task they’ve been given, and the bandits they are working for.

It is at this point that Sassafrass begins to panic. The mention of banditth has put him into a tailspin, and nothing the group can do will stop him worrying about banditth and the people in front of him who work for banditth.

[DM’s Note: It is also at this point that I learned that, no matter how well you plan a session, and how much effort you put into your presentation, your players may just collapse into incessant giggling over a Gnome who keeps saying banditth. I learned a lot on this day.]

Talion tries turning on the charm to help disarm the situation, but Sassafrass resists. Instead, it takes the soft brown eyes and luxuriant fur of a Golden Retriever to help calm down a manically lisping Gnome.

So delighted is he with the nice doggy, he calls his companion, Sister Rilliriwae, to share in the joy. Rilliriwae does not have a lisp, but does have her own challenges, and tells the group they can call her Wiwwi.

[DM’s Note: I learned A LOT on this day.]

Once everyone calmed down a bit, a discussion followed wherein the group outlined what would eventually become their plan: They would take the helm, hand it off to Ebeneezer, go along for the exchange with the purchaser, steal it back from them (leaving a replica behind), then return the artefact.

Though Sassafrass is unthertain, and Rilli thinks the plan is vewy convowuted, the team manages to get them onboard. The helm is upstairs, at the top of the tower, magically locked behind a statue of the goddess worshipped herein. All they have to do is go upstairs with the golden apple - handed to them by Rilli - and say the name of the goddess.

The goddess’ name is Salathawaras. After a few repetitions from both Father and Sister, Rilli writes it down for the team, and they head straight to the top of the tower.

Well, most of them do. Oddsock takes a scenic route, investigating two rooms on the way: one open, containing simple sleeping quarters and nothing interesting; the other locked, and smelling faintly of musty fabric and soap. Oddsock drags his little canine arse across the latter door, and joins his friends.

After inserting the apple and speaking the special name, they gain access to a mostly empty room. In the very middle sits the Thornhelm on a little pedestal. Over in a far corner, an oversized suit of armour keeps watch.

Something about this setup makes the team feel somewhat paranoid. Oddsock approaches the armour and investigates it thoroughly, both outside - using his own doggy senses - and inside - using a Mage Hand. Finding it to be a normal - if unusually large - suit of armour, he demolishes it in disgust, leading to calls of concern Sassafrass downstairs.

Now that the armour has been disregarded as a threat, Talion approaches the pedestal and eyes up the helm, while Julius makes thorough annotated notes for the future replica. In a departure from the plan, though, Talion makes the replica now, and takes the true helm in a manner best described as ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ style.

The switch is completed with panache, and nothing terrible happens. Then, Talion decides to take the replica as well, for reasons. Still nothing terrible happens. Sometimes a pedestal is just a pedestal.

Back downstairs, Talion shows off his replica helm. Rilliriwae is concerned about how sparkewwy it is, and Sassafrass isn’t certain if banditth would like that, but Oddsock’s charm gives them total confidence in the plan. The party leaves, and Oddsock pisses on the door on the way out. Another church successfully marked.

To celebrate a job well done, the team gathers at Cones Of Coldness, a nearby gelateria, for a round of ice creams. Oddsock eats his while it is held by his Mage Hand, to the delight of some nearby urchins.

Suddenly, Talion remembers that his replica helm only lasts for three hours from the point of creation, so the group sets off back towards camp. He then also remembers that he doesn’t actually need it yet, and launches it into the trees for a squirrel to find.

On the journey back, the group inspects the Thornhelm. The helm itself is utterly mundane, but the “thorn” rising from it undoubtedly contains a lot of magic - specifically necrotic. Oddsock tries it on, but is unable to channel the power. He does look magnificent, though.

The team puts their heads together to try and understand what the thorn could be. After a lot of thought, and some consultation of Julius’ notes, they notice how similar it looks to the teeth of the undead beholder that they fought all those days ago. Similar, but definitely larger.

Kadis’ face mask begins to twitch, and the tiny baby beholder wobbles forth through the air. It runs its tiny tentacles along the tooth and coos softly. Their suspicions as to the nature of this artefact are all but confirmed.

Arriving back at camp, they make the handover to Ebeneezer, who graciously receives the bounty. Keeping his word, he immediately despatches two of his best boys to Monthend to begin the name-clearing process.

In the meantime, Ebeneezer makes the camp’s sparse facilities available to the group. They are welcome to bed down, enjoy some freshly roasted two-faced pig, and otherwise make use of what is there.

Julius asks if there is any fish, and, though there isn’t, Ebeneezer points towards a nearby stream where the Otter can try his luck. His luck is good, and he returns to camp with a fresh fish the full length of a helm’s thorn, plus a couple of pretty little stones.

Talion also has a productive moment, penning a new song about a certain someone. It’s not as pretty as his previous compositions, but it is certainly passionate, in an embittered way.

His performance catches Ebeneezer’s attention. The wizened pile of filth knows a thing or two about the woman currently known as Zanthia, as it happens. He knew her many years and several names ago, back when she was Nora Stumbletoe.

According to Mr Chaotic-Neutral, she fell in with a band of thieves and tricksters known as Olidammara’s Revellers. She made a reputation for herself quickly, for being very good at two things. Nobody present sees fit to ask what those things might be.

After this little chat, Talion puts forward a suggestion - that he and his companions should take care of the handoff to the purchaser. Ebeneezer rejects this immediately - his right hand man Harry will be on that duty - but, after some persuasion, he allows the group to accompany Harry and a few select bodyguards tomorrow morning.

Julius also has things to talk to Talion about. For a while, he has had concerns about everything that has been going on. His dear old Pa told him not to stray too far from the cottage, but since meeting with the group he has seen and experienced so many things, good and bad.

What is on the poor little Otter’s mind is - did his Pa lie? Has he missed out on so much life? Talion comforts his friend as best he can, as the group settles in for a night of fireside sleep.

Tomorrow will no doubt be another eventful day.

#dnd #5e #dnd homebrew

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anemonereadssometimes · 5 years ago

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Top 15 characters from books I’ve read in 2020

Yes I know it’s only been six months. I’ve read 27 books, which is way more than last year, love me some having graduated college and actually have free time. This list was Not Easy, the order changes by the day, and this year was a lot of rereads but I saw this idea and I thought it looked fun so here I am. Without further ado:

1. Kaladin (The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson)

I love my too honorable, depressed, protective boy. He tries so hard all the time, and he attaches and loves everyone. He tries to give everything and more of himself to save and it might not be healthy but I relate so hard lmao. I just love him so much. He’s grumpy as hell and takes too much responsibility but goddamit he cares.

2. Jesper Fahey (Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo)

I just.... I love Jesper. His charisma shines through the pages. Jesper is the type of person I want to be, full of life, and sharing that with other people.

3. Inej Ghafa (Six of Crows)

Strongest person ever, I want to be her or I want to marry her, I’m not sure which. Every word she says is thought through, and she is deliberate, and reflective, and physically, emotionally, and mentally strong.

4. Fire (Fire by Kristin Cashore)

My favorite character from a book I’ve loved for ten years. I reread this book probably once a year, and my love for Fire only grows. She’s immensely reflective, strong, and soft at the same time. She gets to be both. I also love the strong woman who is kind and compassionate and loves children, because loving and treating children well and being strong/ having power are not mutually exclusive. She’s just wonderful, and I never get sick of watching her grow confident in herself and grow outside of her shadows, becoming something reforged. Also she’s beautiful.

5. Wylan Van Eck (Six of Crows)

Hhhhhhh okay I am wylan. I know this. I know that’s why I like him. He’s the parts of me I like lmao. He’s smart, confident when in the right situation, and just honestly the sweetest. When it comes to it, he’s brave, but he feels like everyone around him is leagues above him. Also he loves Jesper which like, yeah dude I feel that.

6. Sophie Hatter (Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones)

Sophie is mean as hell and I appreciate that honestly. She’s no nonsense and clever and wonderful. Hella strong character, I love every conversation she has with people. She also has the tendency to fall into repetitive thought patterns which is a mood.

7. Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch (Carry On by Rainbow Rowell)

Ah Baz. Loved this boy for years. We’ve run across another book I reread a lot. Baz is dramatic as hell, has a mean streak, but fiercely protects those in his circle. I am not him, and I sure as hell wouldn’t agree with him on everything, but I respect him as a mage and as a person. Also he makes me cry.

8. Sylphrena (The Stormlight Archive)

God I love Syl. I can’t believe she’s this low on the list tbh but she’s the cheerful counterpart to Kaladin. She’s an honorspren, so not a person exactly, but more of an idea, which is hella cool I wish I was an idea. She’s badass and she cares so much about Kaladin, and about doing what’s right by people. She’s kind and I got to watch her grow her consciousness and intelligence. One minute she is having a philosophical discussion with Kal and the next she’s pretending to be a rock, or sticking people’s shoelaces together. That’s a duality I can relate to and respect.

9. M-bot (Skyward & Starsight by Brandon Sanderson)

M-bot is not a person either, he’s an AI and I love him. M-bot made me cry my eyes out, actually I think every character on this list so far has made me cry except Sophie, and that’s because Howl’s Moving Castle is kind of a light book and I love that. Anyway M-bot is a sarcastic little thing and I love him. His lines are the funniest, but he also cares a lot, and is also runs a spaceship so like that’s awesome.

10. Spensa (Skyward & Starsight)

Spensa is probably my favorite character that I spend the whole book yelling at. Jk, not the whole book, but she does frustrate me. She’s so impulsive, but man she tries so hard and feels so much and I’m a sucker for characters that care. She’s a good egg, go read Skyward.

11. Eric R Bittle (Check, Please by Ngozi Ukazu)

Another character that’s made me cry! This one multiple times! I grew up alongside Bitty in a way, going through college at the same time he did, and weirdly coming out around the time he did as well. Feels like he’s been there with me, and I got to watch him mature and beat his own demons. I’m so proud of him and I squeal every time I see him. He’s such a stinking sweetheart.

12. Simon Snow (Carry On)

Ah yes, another idiot whom I love. But he cares so much!!! He loves with his whole self, he doesn’t do anything by halves. He throws himself headlong into everything, and he may be reckless and stupid sometimes but I love him.

13. Howl (Howl’s Moving Castle)

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and I honestly think that cemented my love of Howl. The Howl voice the voice actor does is marvelous, and many of his lines had me cackling in public. He’s brash and grumpy and selfish but I love him anyway. Helps that he’s funny as hell.

14. Nina (Six of Crows)

Ninaaaaaaaaaa another character to get mad at, since she has a tendency to do stupid things, but she always does them for the right reasons. She’s badass, and she gives love to her friends freely. She also doesn’t know how to shut up and I love that. Also have a mentioned she’s badass? And beautiful???

15. Calcifer (Howl’s Moving Castle)

Fuckin’ hilarious. 10/10 jokes, the voice actor’s voice was also very good for calcifer. He loves to pretend he doesn’t car but he does. Also in the second and third books he’s hella badass which is cool.

Honorable mentions in no order:

Kimmalyn (Skyward)-sweetest bby, I love her

Shallan (The Stormlight Archive)- haven’t liked her every step of the way but she’s such and interesting character holy crap

Dalinar (The Stormlight Archive)- army general, has killed lots of ppl :/ but he’s so invested in change and doing good, and he pushes himself so hard. Love the way Brandon Sanderson writes everyone morally gray. Good stuff.

Penny (Carry On)- brash as hell, damn smart, will kick your ass, does not have time for you, kinda unlikeable, wait I’m describing book hermoine wait could it be that I loved hermoine in my formative years and now I love the carry on version of her? Mmm not surprising.

#the stormlight archive #carry on #six of crows #the graceling trilogy #howls moving castle #skyward #check please #my post #kaladin stormblessed #jesper fahey #inej ghafa #lady fire #wylan van eck #sophie hatter #baz #simon snow #calcifer

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timingmatters · 5 years ago

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Finished the order!!!! Was rooting for Alyssa to die since like ep 7 so im okay with the outcome lmao. And Kepler died too!!!!!! Vera and Hamish ended up together and so did the gays. They felt like a token bc they were barely there, but with the demon storyline i hope that means they’ll have a lot more screen time with a third season.

Hamish and Vera felt like fuck buddies, but towards the end he made her know he cared for her and her grabbing his hand on their last shot also made ir seemed she cares for him. I hope their relationship gets deeper next season.

Hamish and Randall didn’t solve their arc. Would make more sense to drag it to next season of they hadn’t discuss it with the truth potion, but they did yet it seemed like a half ass solution. Which drags me to my next point, Randall keeps thinking there’s different sides. This isn’t kindergarten lmao, it is historically known (and they lade a thing of discovering on s2 but.... they had discovered on s1 when they first read the books so writers fucked up there) that the Knights used to work alongside the order. So Randall should learn to work as a team lmao. And like they mentioned (which is.... dumb i feel like this is a statement true about most establishments why did it take them so long to think that lmao) the order itself is not bad, they just have had corrupted leaders. The knights can and should work alongside them to keep them in line. Randall needs to understand that. Also, people keep doubting Vera and she has proved over and over and over again since s1 that she wants the best for everyone. Even the memory thing was supposed to be only until she learned how to get them inside the order. She didn’t trust them because they don’t trust her. Working with them she can solve shit, so really her and Hamish being a power couple and communicating from both sides actually.... would do wonders for everyone lmao.

Alyssa’s arcs have always been about her being manipulated by others since s1. Im surprised no one ever thought the danger of everyone having magic. They kept repeating the danger of making a mistake, or how without sacrifices it gives u basically cancer (which.... pretty good point not to fucking do it). But no one ever talked about.... magic is a weapon not everyone should have access to?? For such a philosophical show they never even touched on this. It was always the danger on how to do it. But absolutely not everyone should have magic. It isn’t and even field for everyone, people would use it as a weapon. When everyone has access to a weapon, shit goes down (look at the US lmao). Rapists would use the magic to rape, serial killers to kill, more people would prob be inclined to physically harm others bc they would feel more empowered, etc. It shouldn’t be just an elite thing, and the order has its corruption issues, but everyone having access to magic is like blindly giving everyone an automatic gun and telling them to have fun with it. Fucking terrible idea. Look at crazy Ellie killing eveeyone and animals as an experiment and revenge just as one example. So yes, Alyssa is supposed to be the smart leading female character but all she does is bend her morals towards whoever tries to manipulate her. Whether it was Edward, Orin (whatever the cult juice dude’s name was), or Salvador. If you offer her something she might like, she is done for. She would be a fucking awful magus. She kinda is like Edward in that regard lmao.

Gabrielle didn’t fullt get a redemption arc. I like her character now, and she has so much potential, the writers tried harder with her than with Alyssa. We know more about her past and the traumas that made her the way she is, and we saw her doing better decisions now, and now she has formed bonds with other characters (like Randall). However, they didn’t addressed how power hungry she was last season and how she harmed others. She now cares about not harming and not killing innocents, but she didn’t in s1 at all. I would like next season to at least addressed that and for her to show remorse for that. Also free her ex trapped on a doll.

Nicole has so much potential i hope they do better by her, and by making Gabrielle acknowledge her harmful past, she and Randall could make a great couple too.

Vera and Hamish ARE already a great couple with great chemistry and i really hope they connect more next season and we get more scenes. People also need to start trusting Vera more, specially Randall, every season she proves to them how good of a person she is and she keeps being mistrusted. She won’t trust them unless they trust her, and they have more reasons to trust her than she has to trust them (they have almost caused apocalypse several times now by doing shit without thinking it first).

Jack is impulsive and annoying always, but the last ep he made good choices. Hope he keeps that up and doesn’t go back to revenge bc of Alyssa, that would be recycling his arc AGAIN and throwing away his character growth AGAIN.

If the writers give more screen time to these other characters: Hamish, Vera, Randall, Gabrielle, Nicole, and Lilith. And less focus on Jack and Alyssa just... being impulsive, the show would be a lot better. I hope they do get a third season and make it more of a big main cast show, and less of a Jack/Alyssa focus, bc those characters aren’t the ones carrying the show on their backs. And honestly their storyline feels repetitive and has tired me out lmao. There’s a lot of good shit from Hamish and Vera getting together with Vera not having magic, Randall learning to be okay with that and the order, Gabrielle learning from her past and been better, Randall and Gabrielle becoming a couple, Nicole and Lilith solving their issues, and getting Lilith to be not-demon again. A loooot of good plot points that could be major that don’t have to involve Jack or Alyssa as the main points.

#the order netflix

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razorblade180 · 5 years ago

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Twin Snowflakes pt12: A Guest

“Nicholas? Niiiick? Nicky, wake up sweetie.” Said a voice called out through a void of darkness. It felt...familiar. He knew that voice. Where was he?

“Nick, open your eyes”

‘My...eyes were closed? How’d that happen? Last thing I remember was the exa-‘ the haze started to clear. ‘The exam! Val! Summer!’

The darkness slowly faded into light. Intense, blistering light. Nick felt his body began to move as if he was sitting up until a thump hit his head and felt himself fall back down on something soft. “Ow…” the hit felt like walking into a door. Nick’s vision finally cleared up and the first thing he saw was bright green eyes and orange hair right above him.

Nick:Penny?

Penny:Hello Nick. Your head okay? If I knew you were going to sit up so fast I would’ve made sure to move.

Nick:Talk about hard headed. Wait, if you’re here then am I in a lab?

Penny:No silly.

The girl helped Nick sit up; this time moving out the way. He was still in his clothes from earlier and the bed looked like it should be in a hospital. As well did the curtains around him. “Wait a second. I’m…” he pulled them away to see identical beds and a little office desk across the room. Each bed was empty but the one right next to him which held his sister. Summer looked at him a bit tired. Pillows propped her up and made leaning against the wall comfortable. A cup of half eaten yogurt was in her hands.

Nick:.....

Summer:What? Not used to being in the Nurse’s office? Count your lucky stars. That bed you’re in is the comfiest one.

Nick:I….you….what’s going on?

Penny:Simple! You passed out! Been that way for almost two hours.

Nick:Two hours!?

Summer:Why are you saying that like it’s a problem? That’s short, like incredibly short.

Nick:Not as short as yours apparently.

Summer:Well….Shiva has her benefits.

Just saying that made Summer a bit annoyed. She slumped down a little in her bed and stirred her yogurt.

Penny:Between genetics, aura, and some other factors, I’m not surprised you both are already awake from your triumphant battle!

Summer:(Wouldn’t be how I described it.)

Nick: Triumphant? We passed!?

Penny:With flying colors! I heard from Harriet as soon as she called me to treat the three of you. Needless to say, she was very impressed.

Nick:Speaking of three, where is Val?

Summer:She wasn’t as drained as us and bounced back pretty quick. She left as soon as she could move.

Nick:Aww, it would’ve been nice to celebrate together. I need to tell her thanks again since I begged her to help. Just like now I have to learn whatever song you have in store for me.

He gave a smile that made Summer a bit happy. A duet with him was something she was looking forward to, but it didn’t help her bruised self esteem. Summer gave Nick a fake smile to him before choosing to lay down. Her hair slightly hiding her face.

Nick didn’t fall for that cheap smile for a second, but he also knew now wasn’t the time to pressure her about it. If she was in a mood like this then he could only imagine what Val might be feeling. Hopefully she was fine.

Penny:Uhhh Nicholas? There’s something I’d like to ask you about. *pulls out scroll* Your match was recorded by multiple people and I saw something I found pretty interesting.

Nick:We got recorded? Honestly that shouldn’t surprise me.

Penny:The crowd was very energetic from the sound of it. Take a look.

A projection of the recording springs out of the scroll for a fuller view. Nick watched the playback of him and his team flipping around like some sort of acrobatic performance. The crowd seemed to love it though. Then came the part where Summer got hit. He looked at his sister who didn’t say anything about it. Then came Valerie’s defeat shortly after. His eyes studying the glyph he had made in order to summon the Gigas.

‘How’d I do that?’ He pondered quietly. Figuring out what he did differently this time from the others was going to be tough. The video continued until Penny paused it right where he was controlling ice blades that seemed to spin around him and obey his movements. A slight blush showing on his face appeared as Penny grinned happily at him.

Penny:They say imitation is the best form of flattery. Most of your moves are undeniably learned by your parents but I can’t help but think you had another inspiration in mind.

Nick:Hehe, I was panicking a bit in the end and all I could think about was overwhelming it with swords. Looks like I was influenced by you.

Penny:It has been quite some time since I’ve done any real fighting so I’m glad I left a strong impression from what you’ve seen. I would love to teach you some basics whenever you want.

Nick:Really? You’d train me a bit!?

Penny:Why of course! Lab work is important but it does get a little tedious and repetitive unfortunately. Teaching sounds like a splendid way to change up my routine.

Nick:I might take you up on that offer. Thanks Penny!

Penny:It is my pleasure! I enjoy supporting the two of you where I can. Oscar feels the same. I’m almost a little jealous about how much he praises your strength and conviction Summer.

Summer:He….thinks I’m strong?

Penny:He’s not the only one. Truly you are quite exceptional.

Nick:Yeah she is! She’s my sister after all. I can’t tell you how many times she’s kicked my butt.

Summer:....May we please have the room to ourselves Penny?

Penny:Huh? O...kay. Let me just-

Suddenly the nurse door flew open and hit the wall. “There you are Nicholas!” Everyone immediately turned around and saw Eliza standing with her hands on her hips and her eyes beaming angrily at her school president.

Nick:Why hello Mrs. Marigold. T-

Eliza:Cut the crap. You get the information for the play or what?

Summer:Play?

Nick:....Are you not aware I’ve been doing an exam?

Eliza:I’m aware that you got rag dolled by choice because of how impatient you are.

Penny:(But isn’t she acting the same?)

Nick:Listen it doesn’t even matter. I just told you all that stuff to get you off my back.

Eliza:You what!? But-

Nick:Relax. Have faith in your president. Isn’t that part of your job as secretary? Scrap the whole play idea; Summer agreed to a concert.

Summer:H-Hello…

Eliza:Wait, you’re actually going through with it? No flaking or half assing this time?

Summer:I wouldn’t do that for something so important. You...you have my word!

Eliza:Hmmmm

Nick:Can we have this discussion another time please?

Eliza:By another time do you mean doing what you want while the rest of us adapt? Fat chance! You do realize by not accurately informing me of your plan I’ve wasted precious time making a list of proper things we’ll need for nothing! What am I supposed to tell the other members!?

Summer:She has a point.

Penny:Indeed, you have possibly wasted resources.

Nick:This meeting was the other day. How much work could you have possibly-

Eliza chucks a scroll right at his face. Nick flinches in pain as the device hits his nose. He picks it up and to see a list of concepts Eliza had worked on. Then he scrolled down, and down, and down…..

He kept going for minutes until he eventually gave up on reaching the bottom. Nick could feel her stare on him.

Eliza:That much. That much work. Unlike you, I don’t get a slap on the rest or the luxury to slack of. I’m not a Schnee.

Nick:....

Summer:That’s..not fair. Nick does a lot for this-

Eliza:Your money and name does a lot for this school. Yes the two of you have gained achievements on your own right but out of fun or convenience. Not because you acted in the interest of the school. If you bothered to school let alone a meeting then you might notice these things; sending in your treasury report via Nicholas shows just how much you actually care.

Summer:I care...honestly.

Eliza:Then start acting like it!

Nick:Hey, don’t yell at my sister. I promise we will-

Eliza:To hell with your promises! Prove me wrong by keeping me in the loop. From here on out. The quality of your work is never the problem. I’m sure this concert idea will be amazing, but if you expect me to even show up to help set up or catch any mistake then you two will personally ask me. Because I’m not going to be proactively crossing your t’s or dotting your I’s. My time can be spent doing other things. Like making sure I get enough practice in to knock that royal bum of yours right out of the ring dear president.

The room fell silent with that declaration of war. Penny watched Nick stand from his bed then hand his challenger back her scroll. He didn’t look upset or exactly thrilled either as he stared up into Eliza’s golden eyes. He could tell that all that anger was mostly frustration and mostly exhaustion from the dark rings under her eyes. Even her signature pigtails were undone. ‘I’ve put you through the ringer huh?’ He thought, slightly guilty.

Nick:You got yourself a deal. Good luck with training. The jump from third place to second is steeper than you think.

Eliza:Guess I’ll overshoot and try getting to first. Be sure to protect that pretty face of yours. I might feel bad scaring it. I’m going home. *walking away*

Nick:Why were you even after school? You always get your work done.

Eliza:I thought that would be obvious. I heard an idiot in my grade had tried talking the expedited exam with two more idiots. Someone had to make sure their parents were informed in case of an emergency. Now go home and get some rest. Your sorry state is bad for morale. *leaves*

Penny:I probably shouldn’t say anything but by the time I’ve gotten here, Eliza had gathered whatever medical supplies I might’ve needed. As well as given me the recording. I think she might’ve been rooting for you three. Or at the very least wanted you to learn from this experience.

Nick:She wants no doubt in her mind if she manages to beat me. Or that’s what I think. She benefits from this tournament even more than us. It’s no mystery why she wants it perfect.

Summer:Then that lecture she gave makes her look like a hypocrite. So much for the pride of the school.

Nick:This school is probably more of a home than her actual home. Mr. Marigold never struck me as the nurturing type. I suppose that’s more reason why she’s so uptight.

Penny:You could stand to be more….aware. Spreading yourself then and tunnel visioning on problems not necessarily your concern tends to make you oblivious to simple solutions.

Nick:What? Not sure I quite understand.

Summer:(Of course you don’t…) Hey Nick…?

Nick:Yeah?

Summer:(Tell him...tell him the truth. He’s your twin for crying out loud. Just…) let’s go home. It’s only going to get colder and I wanna walk.

Nick:Alright. Let me just get my things.

Summer watches him gather his things quickly; ignoring any soreness he might have. A glance in Penny’s direction shows a similar expression of concern and sadness. She couldn’t tell who it was directed towards though.

Summer:(I’m so….)

Pathetic….

xxxx

“Maybe….if I told you then. Things would not have gotten so dire. My dear brother who would stop the world for me if need be. I should’ve let you into mine. Why didn’t I let you in?”

xxxx

It was the afternoon, the roads a little backed up from workers going home. Valerie looked at the busy traffic lights through the passenger window. Stewing in her thoughts.

Ren:You okay? Haven’t heard a peep from you since you got into the car.

Valerie:I’m fine.

Ren:Try again.

Valerie:I’m extremely upset.

Ren:There you go.

Valerie:Did you see the video?

Ren:I did. It looked intense.

Valerie:Then you saw how poorly I did?

Ren:I saw how much effort you put into it. That’s something to be proud of.

Valerie:I was a burden.

Ren:Without you then the battle would’ve been lost. Summer and Nicholas couldn’t have shined without you.

Valerie:We barely passed and the only one shining at the end was Nick while I played victim.

Ren:So are you mad about your performance or the fact Nick was the one who bailed you out? Not that there’s nothing wrong in basking in a bit of limelight.

Valerie:You know I don’t care about that sort of thing.

Ren:I know, winning is your motivation. So are friends, but your friend winning for you all has you upset?

Valerie:You make it sound so strange.

Ren:It is when you are a sports player that always plays support. Didn’t matter if it was soccer, hockey, or football. You took pride in defending your team so they can score. Even your semblance is remarkable for keeping any team you are on as strong as possible.

Valerie:This is different though.

Ren:Would you be saying that if Summer landed the final blow, or was the one saving you?

That struck a nerve. One she couldn’t deny but refused to admit. Valerie opted to ignore her father. A tactic that only proved him to be on the right track.

Ren:He’s gotten stronger, that Nicholas. These days you two seem more equal than ever besides height. I remember when-

Valerie:Dad, what are you doing? Just shoot straight with me please?

Ren:Don’t let whatever people might be saying at school tarnish your relationship with him. You should be happy seeing him get stronger and independent; willing to return any help you gave.

Valerie:People think he’s great enough as he is and always tell me how lucky I am to have him but it’s never the other way around. Him saving me is only going to make people talk more.

Ren:So you would rather get injured and be of no help to anyone than let Nick save you? Also, are you saying that you don’t feel lucky to have such a person in your life.

Valerie:Of course I’m lucky to have him! Nicholas is so kind and sweet. Not to mention grateful! Just before the exam he told me how lucky he was to have me in his life. There is no one else besides Summer, no, even Summer agrees that he should get nothing but the best in life. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s annoying how people see me as an accessory whenever we are together.

Ren:....

Valerie:*red* But not together, together.

Ren:I didn’t say anything. So, what you’re saying is you’re upset that him getting stronger would make you feel like what everyone says about you needing him true?

Valerie:Exactly. Which is why I can’t lose that tournament. Staying on top is too important.

Ren:If you say so.

Valerie:.....Why do I have a feeling you’re disappointed in me?

Ren:I’m not disappointed in you. I just hope you take more time to really evaluate what you’re implying and what it actually means. You owe that not just to yourself, but Summer and Nicholas as well.

Valerie:You can’t just tell me?

Ren:If I did then it wouldn’t stick. Just know Nicholas cares about from the bottom of his heart and sees your accomplishments as that, yours. I think that means more than what any gossip floating around your school means.

Valerie still didn’t get what exactly her father was trying to get at. Even so, she could feel her cheeks getting warm from his words. Nicholas caring about her wasn’t new information. It was what everyone knew since forever. Another piece of the problem. She would say it was terrible but it wasn’t. It was simply confusing, and she felt weird? That’s what it always came back to in the end. Thinking of him felt weird and confusing

Ren glanced over and saw his daughter in a clear state of not being at odds with herself. Making similar expressions that his wife did countless times thinking about him.

Ren:(You’ll figure it out. Hopefully)

xxxx

Summer and Nick didn’t speak much on the way home. The twins were too busy processing today’s events. They had accomplished their goal but the ending had soured their experience. Nick found himself with more work while Summer was sulking.

It wasn’t too long before they made it to the manor gate

Nick:Phew! I don’t know about you but I could use a hot shower.

Summer:Go right ahead. I might skip one tonight: not feeling up to it.

Nick:....Weren’t you going to tell me something before Eliza showed up? Now is the perfect time. I doubt mom and dad will just let us sneak to our rooms.

Summer:It’s alright. It wasn’t too important.

Nick:Summer you’re not, mad at me are you?

Summer:Huh? What makes you say that?

Nick:I don’t know. You’ve just felt distant lately. I figured I did something wrong.

Summer:No, just a little burnt out. It’s pretty frustrating to see you perform a full summoning. I'll admit that. It seems like I’m always just missing people’s expectations. If only I could’ve done just a bit more.

Nick:You know that win would’ve been impossible with you right? I used the ice you made and the arm you managed to cut off.

Summer:Capitalizing off my effort and actually pulling my weight are two different things Nick. If I won a match because you tossed me your sword, would you say you really helped?

Nick:Point taken. Still, it’s not like I knew exactly what I was doing. It sort of happened. I doubt I could do it again without training. Adrenaline won that match honestly. Like I said earlier, you’ve kicked me butt before. You’re stronger than you look.

Summer:Yeah well, I’m glad one of us thinks that.

Nick:Don’t be like that. I bet even Veronica would- uhhh Summer?

Summer:Did you realize you were about to say something incredibly wrong?

Nick:No, well a little. That’s not what stopped me though. Yang’s motorcycle is parked in front of the house.

He pointed through the gates and there it was, clear as day. Along with two helmets. One yellow, and the other black with yellow stripes. Summer felt a headache coming on.

Summer:Son of a-

Nick:It could be Blake!? Then again, she always grabs the purple hand black helmet. Also Vee did mention about aiding in tournament setup if she could.

Summer:You’re not helping. I’m sneaking through the back. Keep her distracted.

Nick:Don’t be like that. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen her. Besides, I bet she’s tired from her trip.

xxxx

Summer:.....

Nick:Well I’ve been wrong before. Heheheh..

The two stood in the living room and saw Veronica stretched out on their couch, watching the fight recording. Specifically the part when Summer gets sent flying. The two hear a subtle snort followed by chuckling and what sounds like a pencil scribbling away.

Veronica’s ears perk up and she turns around to see Nick who’s face palming and Summer clenching her fist.

Veronica:Well look who’s back? Hello Nicholas! *swaying tail*

Nick:Hey Vee.

Veronica:I see you’re looking just swell after an eventful day. *turns head* Summer….

Summer:Veronica…..

…..

Veronica:You ate shit today huh?

Nick:Sigh...

Summer:Couldn’t help yourself huh? Then again, self control isn’t really your style.

Veronica:I’m just not afraid to be direct unlike a certain pop star.

Summer:I also do alternative rock, some acoustic. I’m multi-talented like that.

Veronica:If you say so.

Summer:What’s that supposed to mean?

Three minutes in and already testing boundaries. Worst yet, Summer had folded her arms and took a stance that Ruby has once described to Nick as the “OG Weiss” mom was apparently a lot to deal with when Ruby first met her. The attitude Summer got around Veronica was pretty uncanny. Yang and Ruby’s words, not his.

He was thinking about nipping this in the bud but they both seemed to be too tired to actually get into it. Maybe the trip had wore Veronica down because she went back to playing the rest of the video and laying down and Summer walked off.

Summer:I’m going to shower.

Nick:I thought-

Summer:I’m going to shower Nicholas.

Nick:Take your time. I’ll wait.

Veronica:Aren’t there like five showers here?

Nick:They share water pressure. Did you really have to antagonize her like that? We’re having a bit of a rough day. A calm welcome would’ve been nice for once.

Veronica:*folds ears* My bad. I’ll hold my tongue next time, for you.

Nick:Will you?

Veronica:Do I ever lie to you?

Nick:Not that I know of. Wouldn’t see why you would though.

Veronica:Then you have your answer.

Nick:Good to see you’re still coy as ever. I’m gonna change into something comfy. Please have something different on the tv when I get back.

Veronica:Oookay. *smiles*

Nick:Nice outfit by the way. Purple looks good on you. *leaves*

Veronica:*red* Huh….guess mom was right. Geez, now I really have to be on my best behavior.

Part 11

#rwby #rwby twin snowflakes #nicholas schnee #summer schnee #veronica belladonna #eliza marigold #penny polendina #lie ren #val valkyrie #rwby whiteknight #rwby au

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craftypeaceturtle · 5 years ago

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Sanders Sides- Losing My Motivation Analysis

General:

OH MY DEAR LORD- We have done it! We have made it to the first character name. God, I don't remember learning a name this early on in the series but! Now, we can introduce Logic as Logan! Each time a name is introduced, I’ll only refer to that character by their name. God that makes things easier!

But to make a point of things. There’s nothing special about this name reveal at all but I think that actually works for Logan. It’s not some vulnerable moment or a moment of trust or anything like that. It was an accident that Logan then acts like Thomas is the weird one for not considering that they all have names. No big fuss or icky emotions involved. Very Logical.

Again, we have a video whereby Logan and Morality both join forces to help an issue. And like before, they both blame Anxiety and then Creativity before even considering that they may be the issue. (The Mind v. The Heart episode). Admittedly, this time it’ s Logan who intended to find the issue out himself and Morality didn’t really contribute a lot to the deductions but! I don’t know, this plus the previous episode I mentioned, makes it feel like they’re supposed to work really well together despite being opposites. Plus the end card suggests that they do both like messing about with each other.

Characters:

To stop myself being too repetitive, I’m going to start just making general points here that refer to a specific character rather than just stating again and again their personality traits. Obviously at this point, their characters are fairly ironed out.

Logan/Logic- No real point to be made here, I just want to go over what a precious dork he is for justifying dressing up as Sherlock Holmes to solve an issue. Like what an idiot haha! His panic at being the solution to an issue he’s caused felt really extreme and escalated quickly. The idea of him being problematic clearly worries him and he’s determined to constantly be a force of good within Thomas. Partnered with the last episode where he called the others “unnecessary” before saying I love you, it makes it seem like he both values himself REALLY HIGHLY and so he cannot afford to have any fault. Also, the ending where he dismisses his name reveal in order to properly plan is like the first time we see a side truly enjoy their work.

Morality- Still quite clueless. He claims that every Sherlock needs a Watson but then doesn’t contribute a whole lot to the conversation and even in the ending he says he doesn’t know who Watson is. Still feels like weirdly clueless rather than an endearing cluelessness. But maybe that’s my opinion! He has a moment of being weirdly patronising to Anxiety (excuse the shit quality as per usual):

He responds to Anxiety’s weak timid ol voice saying that he’s not always the bad guy and just responds with the most dismissive patronising line. I feel like I’m coming across as like a Morality hater but... it’s a weird episode for him! But I can also see how people would argue that this is just how this dad character is! He’s trying his best in acknowledge Anxiety’s concern and addressing it in a very characteristic way. But... still feels patronising.

Creativity- The end card doesn’t lie when he says that he feels like a side character. He kinda of is. I feel like we haven’t had an episode where he’s the focus just yet. As Creativity, it makes sense that his issue is with being constantly perfect and finding the best of ideas. But this video isn’t long enough to properly address those issues and so it feels weird how quickly they move on with Creativity saying “cool won’t do it again”. Like that could be it’s own video’s worth of discussion! But whatever!

Anxiety- The first time we see Anxiety object to his role as the bad guy! It’s not a loud objection or even a firm one, but it’s a stepping stone! Which is weird because we don’t see his persona change- he’s still a confident taunting figure. He’s still cocky when the other’s address him:

But I think it’s also important to emphasise that while, yes, he disagrees with being the bad guy, he doesn’t suddenly reject his role as Anxiety. He acknowledges that he does and manages a sucky part of the personality, but that’s just what he does! That’s not necessarily his fault!

Theories:

1) While we’re yet to see a big point of support for Anxiety, the others do still treat him fairly well? Like, Logan doesn’t get all offensive when accusing Anxiety and moves on quickly when realising the issue is above him. Same in the previous episode, every character has agreed with him at some point and none of them have been directly really harsh- or even as harsh as Anxiety himself as been. Does this mean that Anxiety is an abusive presence? Personally, I’d argue no. Again, his persona has dropped a few times which then demonstrates when he’s just lashing out. He’s not maliciously stopped any of them yet. Like, so far in the story. He’s just acted out and the others then feared him in response. I get that a major part in the theory that he’s abusive is the insults he casually throws around. In all honestly, I’m to address that but it will make more sense to address that during a different analysis as there’s a specific point I want to draw. For now, just know that I’m of the insults and will address that later! Now we’ve seen that his persona is dropping, the others don’t really react harshly to his presence. It feels a bit much to accuse any of them as abusive.

#SSAnalysis #sanders sides #Roman Sanders #Virgil Sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #Discussion #Fandom #analysis

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littlepurinsesu · 5 years ago

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V Watches MagiReco - Season 1 Review

*Spoilers for Magia Record Anime*

If you’ve been been following my weekly reviews on the Magia Record anime, you’ll know that my “reviews” are really more like general impressions, thoughts, and fangirling as I mentally recap the episode after my initial viewing.

For this final review of the season as a whole, however, I’m actually going to try and make it more like an actual “review" and discuss each aspect of the anime separately. I’ll be splitting my points of discussion into individual sections and giving each a score out of 10, before rounding it all off with an overall score/grade.

Oh, not sure if this needs to be emphasised, but these are just my opinions! You may agree and you may disagree, and either way is cool! (・ω・)b

Before I begin, I just want to make it clear that one very, very important thing to keep in mind when watching and reviewing MagiReco is the fact that it isn’t a direct continuation of PMMM. So many people find themselves unable to enjoy the series because it’s “not the same” or “not the PMMM they know” etc. But it isn’t and was never intended to be. It’s a spin-off, not a sequel. To expect a spin-off to have the exact same impact and level of quality as the original is unrealistic to begin with, not to mention that although comparisons will be inevitable, the original PMMM anime has reached a legendary status where it isn’t really fair to compare anything with it xD

(And for the PMMM fans who are unhappy with MagiReco simply because it isn’t “dark enough” and there isn’t enough “suffering”, all I can say is that if a lack of darkness and suffering automatically means the show is bad, then this one just isn’t for you. Dark doesn’t equal good, and suffering isn’t essential. MagiReco is not intended to have the same tone as PMMM, and those elements do not entail everything that defined PMMM to begin with anyway.)

For these reasons, I’m going to try my best to review the MagiReco anime as a standalone piece and try not to make too many comparisons with PMMM, unless explicitly necessary. Also, as a game player, the inevitable curse of “expectations” was a major issue I needed to overcome when watching the anime. I will therefore also try my best to look past these expectations and try to see the anime as a story of its own. However, there will be discussions on the changes that the anime made and how I feel the anime did in adapting the game story for a television series.

Anyway, sorry for all the additional rambling. Let’s jump into the review before I lose everyone’s attention ^^;;

Plot: 8/10

One thing I love about the MagiReco plot is that they take the original world and concepts of PMMM and actually come up with a whole new story. It’s familiar yet different, and a perfect way to please the nostalgic fans while also offering something fresh. The PMMM world always had a lot of potential to explore other girls’ stories, considering how many Magical Girls there are, and it’s nice to meet a whole new cast of characters with their own story that’s still set in the same world and uses the same concepts we’re familiar with.

I think my favourite thing about the MagiReco plot, which is the same both in the game and in the anime, is the idea of the Wings of Magius. Any story that involves Magical Girls somehow trying to undermine or overthrow the Incubators’ system always has a lot of potential, in my opinion, and it’s a creative way to delve even deeper into PMMM’s unique take on the magical girl genre without being repetitive. But the key to what makes the Wings of Magius so compelling and intriguing as antagonists is the moral issues it raises. The grey morality going on with the Wings of Magius is not too different from the issues presented by Kyubey, and these kinds of moral debates get the audience really thinking about what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s evil. The Magius are presented as being very similar to the Incubators in many senses--sometimes even worse--and I always love a compelling villain or villain group that actually gets the audience pondering whether the bad guys really are that “wrong" after all. Plus the whole idea of salvation and liberation and the whole cult impression we get from the Wings of Magius really adds another layer of that dark and creepy atmosphere that PMMM does so well.

However, I do strongly feel that many of the important scenes and major plot points were presented much better in the game. As mentioned earlier, having played the game meant I was going in with expectations for how I wanted/hoped/expected certain things to be done, and this is a common issue that adaptations have when there’s an audience familiar with the source material. I’m okay with completely changing parts of the game’s story to create something new, but there were instances where the anime intended to replicate the scene as it was in the game but somehow fell short in its presentation. These cases of inadequate storytelling thus hinder the unfolding of the plot, ultimately creating problems with coherency and pacing. (I mean, if you think about it, the “main plot” doesn’t really even truly begin until all five main characters have been introduced.) I have dedicated a whole section to this pacing issue, so I’ll go into detail when we get there xD

Characterisation: 7/10

The anime’s presentation of the characters ranges from fantastic to extremely lacking. Iroha has moments where she’s extremely passive, but also times where she’s shown to be quite proactive and brave as well. I’m honestly not too sure what to make of Iroha’s characterisation so far due to this big range, but I’m hoping that she’ll show more growth and that her changes will be written in a way that actually makes sense, rather than abrupt shifts that make you question how and when she had it in her. Either way, she’s a lovely sweet girl and a very likable character, and I do like that even if she isn’t necessarily always doing anything or contributing to a fight, the sole reason she’s in Kamihama in the first place (to look for her sister) is a good sign that she knows what she’s doing and has taken the necessary measures to go about her quest.

Yachiyo didn’t seem to display much uniqueness until her past was unveiled, and that wasn’t until we were well into the second half of the first season. In my opinion, this took way too long. I find this to be a slight problem because of how central to the plot Yachiyo is, and while I understand that backstories being revealed later on can have a bigger impact (like Homura’s in Episode 10 of PMMM), the way they portray Yachiyo throughout the majority of the season doesn’t have that constant loose thread hanging. She almost seems too “normal” at times, blending into the cast, and only when certain things happen or when someone says something in particular do you actually remember that we still don’t know what her deal is yet. I guess what I mean is that a more looming sense of “mysteriousness” could have justified the late reveal a lot better. The reveal of her past and her wish were slightly underwhelming, too, seeing as we hardly got to know Kanae and Meru before they were killed off, making it difficult to connect with those characters and thus relate to Yachiyo’s grief at losing them. And as for the revelation of her wish, I’ve ranted enough about it in my review for Episode 13, so you can check that one out if you haven’t already xD

Tsuruno has it even worse than Yachiyo because they literally haven’t revealed or even teased anything about her. All we know is that she works at a Chinese restaurant, was already friends with Yachiyo in the past (this “mystery” was later explained in Yachiyo’s flashbacks), and is super cheerful and energetic. Her backstory is the only one that hasn’t been shown yet, and they never really even hinted at there being something deeper about her character. While I completely understand that they’re intending to leave all that for the Rumour Tsuruno arc (which will most likely be done next season), I feel that they really needed to give us at least something for now. Even in the game, we got a better sense of who Tsuruno was as a person before the Rumour Tsuruno arc revealed her hidden sadness. I guess I can’t really fault the anime for this, since they’re just going in chronological order, but a little more insight into Tsuruno’s character would have been a better decision so that we don’t get another round of “info-dumping” when we do get to Rumour Tsuruno, and the reveal about her inner emotional turmoil would actually be a slight twist that adds even more depth to her character, rather than random information that never seemed important because there were never any signs of it.

But while Yachiyo’s and Tsuruno’s characterisation could have been better, Felicia’s and Sana’s were handled superbly. The anime actually made me adore Felicia as a character when I merely “liked her enough” in the game. She’s so much more than just the spoiled and rowdy child who goes berserk when seeing a Witch, and her introductory episodes (namely Episode 7) actually managed to move me to tears. Her bond with Iroha is also portrayed even more nicely in the anime, and I have a newfound love for the friendship between these two, which is quite underrepresented in the game. Felicia manages to retain all the lovable traits she displayed in the game with just the right amount of brattiness so as to not seem too annoying, and the anime hasn’t even really touched upon the cruel reality behind her wish. Whether or not they venture into that territory at some point, I just hope they continue doing as amazingly as they’ve done with Felicia so far, because she really is super cute and a lot more likable in the anime version <3

As for Sana, she’s more or less the same as her game counterpart, but something about the way the anime unveils her past makes it even more tragic. We’ve always known of her terrible “family” and the unfortunate circumstances of her home life prior to joining Mikazuki Villa. But the episodes that detail her story did a stellar job at bringing out and actually showing the sheer horror of having a family like Sana’s, and just how deep and suffocating her sense of loneliness was. Her story is absolutely miserable, but the anime manages to present it in a way that doesn’t make it seem like they were “trying too hard” just to make it as sad as possible. The things happen for a reason, and the consequences it has on Sana as a character are all realistic and believable, and even a wish as extreme as hers made perfect sense after seeing everything she had to go through.

Other characters don’t seem to have as much of a presence to warrant a paragraph of their own, but I will give honourable mentions to Rena and Tsukuyo. Rena’s Magical Girl Story made me a sobbing mess when I first read it, and while the anime obviously couldn’t sidetrack and include all the details, I think they did a pretty good job considering the limited amount of time they could spend on a supporting character. The anime also did a really nice job at giving Tsukuyo that humanising moment during her conversation with Iroha at the cafe, emphasising the good inside of her despite being an antagonist, and also taking the chance to give her a sense of individuality so that she and her sister are not always seen as an identical and inseparable pair with no personal lives or traits, so props to them for that :) Mitama has hardly made many appearances and doesn’t even seem very story-relevant at this point, so I’m wondering how they’re going to build up her importance in the next season so that she doesn’t seem like the “token shopkeeper character” who’s there for no real purpose outside of gaming mechanics (because we all know that Mitama is so much more than that). And as for characters like Kaede, she’s been changed so much that I’ll reserve my judgment for now because I simply don’t know where they’re intending to take her character. Same goes for Kuroe and her still-unclear purpose in the plot lmao

I think it’s important to remember that a lot of characterisation we get in the game is from Magical Girl Stories and Event Stories, both of which are obviously not viable to delve into too much in the anime. As a result, I guess it’s “to be expected” that the anime will have to give up quite a bit of the details that make all these characters so real, likable, or relatable. I’m not an anime writer, nor do I know anything about adapting games into anime, but I do feel that it would have been so much better if they had come up with some other way of compensating for the lost characterisation moments that are only shown in the game’s side stories. Not sure how else they should have done it, but simply removing some of these vital bits of information does harm the portrayal of these characters, especially when they’re part of the main cast.

But yeah, mixed feelings because while some characters really needed more work in the characterisation department, others were handled amazingly well xD

Pacing: 4/10

Okay, let’s be real. The pacing was almost definitely the anime’s weakest point, and possibly one of the main reasons why someone would find the show hard to enjoy or even understand. I’ve seen people complain that the story is too fast, and I’ve also seen people complain that it moves way too slowly. In my opinion, it really is a combination of both, and I’m honestly quite fascinated at how the anime somehow manages to pull off being both too fast and too slow at the same time xD

The story is almost excruciatingly slow in that it takes a whole ten episodes before the main cast is fully assembled. I thought a bit about this and, to be fair, some classic magical girl shows also take many, many episodes before all the main characters are introduced, such as Sailor Moon taking a whopping 33 episodes before all five Inner Senshi have gathered. So I guess this slow episode-by-episode “collection” of team members really isn’t something new. But MagiReco isn’t really a long-running anime that has filler episodes back-to-back to justify the slow pace of the plot. The plot is moving every week, yet it still feels like it takes forever to get the main cast together, which is slow enough to make the viewer question what they had been sitting through all this time when it’s been ten episodes and the story is really only “actually beginning” now.

And at the same time the plot somehow manages to feel too fast at the same time. How is this even possible? My answer to this is simply the fact that they introduce conflicts and mysteries, only to quickly resolve them and then immediately jump to the next one before the audience has even had a chance to really process or understand what they just watched. We’re not given the time to really absorb the development of the story or the subtle changes the characters are undergoing before we’re immediately thrown into a new mini “arc” the next week. In some ways, it almost seems like the “Monster of the Week” formula that many magical girl series adopt, only instead of being aware that we’re seeing trivial conflicts that are intended to last for one episode with characters we are likely not going to see again, MagiReco is throwing out new ideas, new terms, and new plot-relevant characters almost every episode, vomiting out information in a way that viewers who haven’t played the game will find very difficult to keep up with.

And that brings me to one of the biggest problems I had with the anime: important terms and concepts are often thrown in as a “by the way”. (This is most apparent with anything to do with the Wings of Magius before Episode 10, most notably Alina’s introduction.) Game players will obviously know what they’re talking about, but anime-only viewers are left confused and lost as to what exactly is happening half the time. I’ve seen more than a few instances where a viewer who wasn’t familiar with the game needed extra clarification and explanation before they understood certain things, and honestly that isn’t a good sign. All the important stuff should be made crystal clear so that even anime-only viewers will be able to grasp all the concepts without game players to spell things out for them. The anime should be a standalone piece on its own, not a “supplement" to the game. And the consequence is that anime viewers are constantly raising their eyebrows and wondering what the heck just happened or when the heck something was ever established, because crucial information is thrown around with no emphasis and the fast pace doesn’t allow viewers to digest anything properly. This unclear storytelling wastes the opportunity to present mysteries that are intended to keep the audience invested; rather than continuing the series because you just have to find out what something means or why something is the way it is, you’re left with question marks popping up all around your head because you’re confused af and wondering if you forgot or missed some crucial information at some point.

Another issue I had with the anime was what I’ve decided to dub the “one-shot curse”. Witches and Rumours alike are one-shot-ed so quickly and fights resolved so suddenly that I was often left wondering what the point of that fight was. Not to mention that a lot of the battles lacked real “action”. Witches appear, get one-shot-ed, and the characters return to whatever it was they were doing before as though nothing had happened. So... what was the point? I guess they really wanted to emphasise just how many Witches there are in Kamihama and just how easy it is to come across one everyday? Or maybe it was just for the sake of including an obligatory battle in each episode so there’s at least some action each week? Either way, if you’re going to include Witch battles, you may as well do them properly. For crying out loud, InuCurry, the guy who designs the Witches, is the director of the MagiReco anime! You’d expect a bit more emphasis and flourish to highlight what he’s so good at! But to be fair, there were some good Witch battles, such as the ones in the first episode, the ones in Yachiyo’s flashbacks when Kanae and Meru died, and of course, the epic battle between Holy Mami and Sayaka in the final episode. So they’re not all that bad, but I just feel like there was a lot of wasted potential.

I find that the main problem is a lack of balance between the battles, the exposition, the plot, and the fluffy slice-of-life stuff. All these are crucial to a good anime, and a lot of these moments were done quite nicely as standalone scenes. But the way the MagiReco anime has packaged them together and tied a very unattractive Bad Pacing ribbon on top just doesn’t work. It’s like a giftbox that has some lovely things inside if you look carefully at them one by one, but the way the gift is presented just isn’t very appealing and ruins the goodness of the content inside.

I get that the anime probably has issues with pacing because it’s essentially adapting a mobile game. I’m not sure if the pacing would be better if this weren’t the case and the MagiReco story was scripted for an anime to begin with, but I really, really hope they fix these pacing issues next season.

Visuals and Animation: 8/10

To me, the visuals were nearly always top-notch, and definitely a huge improvement from the original series. They managed to retain the art style of PMMM while also updating it so that it looks a lot more sleek and polished. The characters looked great, the scenery is gorgeous, the labyrinths all unique and intricately designed, and there was a lot of clever visual symbolism going on in the still shots and subtle scene transitions. I’m not an expert on animation or visual arts, but I definitely think this series deserves a very high score for this section.

There were a few instances where we saw some wonky “meguca" shots, but those were rare and nowhere near bad enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of the series. I don’t really have much else to say because, like I said, this really isn’t my forte, but I genuinely loved most of the visuals we got.

Music and Soundtrack: 9/10

I know a lot of us were disappointed when we learned that Yuki Kajiura would not be returning to do the music for MagiReco. And we all knew that whoever they hired would have very, very, very large shoes to fill. And I can definitely say that I was not disappointed at all.

Guys, the music for this series is AMAZING. Takumi Ozawa managed to capture the style that Kajiura used for PMMM in a way that retains the original tone of the franchise without seeming like a mere carbon copy of her work. I don’t think there was a single musical piece in there that didn’t make me feel like, “Ah, this is no doubt a PMMM anime!” And none of them gave me the impression that he was “trying too hard" to “rehash” Kajiura’s style. No, there’s familiarity and there’s originality, and it’s all packed together in a way that allows MagiReco to retain the charm of its predecessor while also standing strong as a work of art by itself.

I only docked one point because there were so many amazing tracks from the game and I don’t really understand why they didn’t use them when there were moments that seemed perfect for those tunes. It would be a nice sense of familiarity for game players, and it’s still considered “new stuff” for anime-only viewers too, so I really don’t get why xD Maybe they really wanted to separate the anime from the game? Which is also fair enough :)

I wasn’t so sure about “Gomakashi” as the OP when I first heard it in the trailer, but it’s definitely grown on me! While I still think “Kakawari” is superior and has a more catchy and iconic sound to it, “Gomakashi” is sweet and girly, very much like the kind of song you’d hear in a magical girl series. I don’t think this is an OP that will be legendary enough that everyone knows the tune (like the theme song for Sailor Moon, for example), but it’s a lovely song and I do like it a lot ^^

“Alicia” was beautiful from the very first time I heard it, and I’ve only grown more and more fond of it with each listen. Definitely one of my favourite EDs of all time, and perhaps my favourite OP/ED song out of the entire PMMM franchise.

And that ED song for the final episode? Gorgeous, too. Almost has a “Magia” kind of sound, and definitely sets a darker tone for the upcoming season where (I assume) sh*t starts getting real.

Overall: 7/10, B+ or A-

Despite my criticism and picking the anime apart in this review, overall I still genuinely enjoyed it a lot :D It’s far from perfect, but I was nowhere near as disappointed as I’ve been in the past with other anime adaptations, and while some parts could definitely have been handled a lot better, it was mostly still decent in my opinion. Get rid of the pacing issues and I’d probably give it a solid 9 (for context, I rate the original PMMM anime a 10/10, perhaps even higher if possible).

Again, I think my experience and knowledge as a game player definitely influenced my view on the anime as an adaptaion. For example, I already love the characters and know enough about them, and so I probably didn’t really feel the consequences caused by the anime’s sometimes lackluster characterisation. I also often have ideas of how I want or hope a part gets adapted, and then get disappointed when it’s done in a different and underwhelming way compared to what I imagined. I’m sure my impressions, comments, and scores would be very different if I were an anime-only viewer and had no idea how things went in the game. But alas, you can’t have both experiences to compare, so it is what it is xD

Anyway, no matter how much I nitpicked, I still love MagiReco a lot, both the game and the anime, and am really looking forward to Season 2! With the obvious changes they made in that last episode, I get the feeling that it’ll only diverge even further as the story unfolds. I’m okay with these new surprises and new takes on characters, but I do hope that they aren’t changing it all completely, because there’s a lot of good stuff in the later chapters that I really hope gets animated, e.g. Kanagi’s entrance, Rumour Tsuruno, Yachiyo vs. Holy Mami, basically everything that happens at Fenthope in Chapter 9, and of course, the big reveal about Ui, Touka, and Nemu’s wishes in the final chapter. Just imagining these things animated already gets me super excited, so hopefully we’ll at least still keep the core of the game’s story despite the changes (and hopefully these changes are all improvements!) ｡^‿^｡

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And since the anime is taking a break, my reviews will also be going on a break ╥﹏╥ I’ll probably still pop up in the MagiReco tag every now and then if I can think of something to talk about, though? Depends on what I can come up with xD But yeah, I don’t really post updates about my gameplay here (unless it’s something major like pulling my favourite character lol), so if you’re interested in seeing any of that stuff, you can follow me on Twitter instead, since I’m much more active there nowadays. I’m always happy to discuss things and scream with fellow fans, so whether it’s here or on Twitter, please feel free to approach me anytime if you want someone to fangirl with (๑ゝڡ◕๑)

I’ll be ending this post here! Thank you so much for reading, and please continue to love and support MagiReco while we wait for the second season ღゝ◡╹)ノ♡

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