#I JUST!!!!!!!! WANT MORE LOL!!!!!! THE SAME EFFORT AND THOUGHT THAT GOES INTO THE OG DIVISIONS MANGA

[akkivee]

the tl reminded me pics like this exist and i miss the old nagosaka mangaka so much 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[lloydfrontera]

Oh that og lloyd returns and suho goes through the reincarnation gate ask and answer were incredible. I'm usually like happy ending and would have said that what if javier does the same where he goes to verkis and try to get suho lloyd and does bring him, because i can't imagine suho lloyd staying in seoul alone or worst, but then would it have a happy ending? with him there with og lloyd, he'll also have mixed feelings because it's not the og lloyd he talked at the train or its the same buy forgot their conversation

let's not forget the before suho lloyd comes back and weeks passed by already lorasia, the people of the county, the engineers, the white calvary, alicia, solitas, cordius, orcs, elf, sees og lloyd act and well this is not the person the person that they allied and spent time with

I sincerely agree with this "all in all. not a good time for anyone! which i think fucks i love this scenario it really woke up the brain worms <3"

about this

it's such a fun au because it makes everything immediately worse <3

i also tend to like happy endings more than anything else but i do admit i like putting my blorbos in situations even more salkdjsfds

and yeah javier definitely went looking for lloyd in this au too. probably even sooner than he did in canon lol. cause at least in canon he was certain that lloyd had just been reborn, he thought that he was lost to him forever, that the best he could get was to know if he was happy in his next life. in this version he wouldn't be so sure. after all lloyd crossed the gate and now og lloyd is back. so clearly the reincarnation gate doesn't work as straightforwardly as one might first have assumed.

i think the moment he snapped out of his "should i just throw him back" moment and the guilt over his momentary lapse of control passed he would've gone straight to the jewel of truth and asked what happened to lloyd. and then gone bother one of the most powerful beings in the universe into opening a portal to his bf.

fuck the consequences he wants his lloyd back goddammit

this would simultaneously make everything better and also worse.

better because at least now lloyd isn't, y'know, dead and so everyone who cares for him in whatever shape or form isn't mourning him. arcos and marbella would especially be overjoyed, because now they have all of their children together, they're all okay, they're all safe and this time it will probably stick. julian,,, would be conflicted because he now has to deal with the fact the brother he thought he knew had been lying to him for years and (non-maliciously as it might have been) tricked him into forgiving the person who made his life hell almost his entire life and now there's no handy grief to make it easy to overlook all of that. but i do think he would be very, very happy his hyung he loves and admires so much is alive and safe and now they can get to know each other for real.

worse because now lloyd isn't dead and og lloyd gets to see just how much everyone loves him. just how much respect and affection he earned, how much he achieved, how loved he became in just five years compared to what og lloyd did in his entire life. and man would that suck for the guy. like. genuinely would be a terrible thing to go through. but again. i don't think he would do anything about it. like. he wouldn't see the point. he'd be angry, he'd throw some epic tantrums but i don't think he would put in the effort to change his behavior.

in canon og lloyd achieved some kind of resignation and peace with his situation because he saw first hand the kind of stuff lloyd did, he followed him around, he saw how much effort he put in, the kind of things he went through... it's hard to deny someone has earned something when you see them put their sweat blood and tears into it.

in this au, this og lloyd doesn't get that. as far as he knows he passed out one night and then woke up five-ish years later to find that no only did some fucker walk around in his body for all that time but everyone that he knows is mourning the man. the fucking guy who stole his body. like. yeah i would kind of also be pissed i'm not gonna lie.

he doesn't know how bad things got, how hard it was to save the estate, hell, the entire country, he'd only see all the results and none of the struggles. he wouldn't get why people, his family especially, are so happy to have him back. and he'd get very angry about i think.

and to be fair his anger would be mostly outrage at lloyd stealing his body (unintentionally but still), jealousy and some genuinely hurt feelings. i do think he'd be understandably hurt that his family is apparently more concerned about the guy that impersonated him than for him who was gone for years (*cough* even if i do think he kind of earned it *cough*)

as for lloyd,,, yeah no this is not an ideal situation for him either. he'd be over the moon at being able to come back, don't get me wrong, that part wouldn't change, but to come face to face with the guy he accidentally replaced, whose family he kind of took as his, and who doesn't remember the conversation and tentative truce they came to in hell,,, definitely not how he hoped this would go.

i don't know if he would actually feel very guilty cause like. well at least the guy is alive now. and he's no longer doomed to a self-caused premature death. and he gets to live in a debt-free estate that's been turned into the most powerful territory of the whole continent. so like. he thinks og lloyd got a pretty good deal out of it. yeah losing five years sucks but he would've died a couple years ago anyway.

i do think he'd feel very awkward about calling arcos and marbella 'father' and 'mother' like he wanted to. if he already felt awkward in canon it would be even worse in this au with og lloyd glaring at him from a corner any time their parents so much at smile at him. i don't think it would stop him completely, but he'd definitely tone it down when they're all together.

let's not forget the before suho lloyd comes back and weeks passed by already lorasia, the people of the county, the engineers, the white calvary, alicia, solitas, cordius, orcs, elf, sees og lloyd act and well this is not the person the person that they allied and spent time with

ooff yeah, it's one thing in canon when lloyd just goes away and then comes back with a new face. here they would actually have to deal with the original guy and like. he sucks </3

i do wish we had more info about how much of the situation is public knowledge. we know a couple people know about the whole kim suho thing once he comes back but i don't know how much the fronteras would've told anyone about it beforehand. my guess would be nothing, because honestly it was none of their business lol but i guess in this au they would have to offer some kind of explanation. either they tell the truth or they pretend og lloyd has amnesia and that's why he's different of the way people expect him to be. either way i think it would be a very hard sell in either scenario. funny enough i think the lie is actually more believable in this case lol

again. not a great situation for anyone involved! which i think it's fantastic! maybe not to them but to me <3 which is the most important thing here <33

[inhuman-obey-me]

What are your thoughts on OG obey me not getting anymore lessons after 80? It worries me because it kinda feels like they are trying to kill it slowly.... This is making me not enjoy nightbringer because i thought i would be a spin off new game with a new story that we could play while waiting for OG obey me to come with season 5, but now it seams like nightbringer will be their only foucus and season 5 will never happen. Sorry this kinda turned into a rant just not liking what's happening now.

Yeah, we weren't too happy when we first heard about it, which was the AMA the devs did on Reddit. It was a shitty way to release that information, and it sucks that they really only said so when people ASKED if OG was going to get season 5/more lessons. It did create backlash right away, which we guess they were...attempting to avoid in the first place lol. But they definitely should have handled that announcement a lot better than they did.

In terms of what it means for the future of OG, we don't think they are trying to kill it per se so much as they just sort of...wrote themselves into a corner, and this was their way of hitting reset, on that and other things.

(no need to apologize for ranting, ours is even longer LOL -- rest under the cut!)

We definitely have some criticisms of the writing in Season 4, particularly how they squandered much of what was narratively set up in Season 3, and they didn't really set anything up on where it goes from there. It's also unfortunate that the original game is just going to be doing the same events as Nightbringer, rather than separate ones, which just means there's really nothing to motivate people to stay. And in that way, it does also sort of feel like a waste of all the effort people have put in to strengthen up our cards and grind affection and stuff, because we can't transfer ANY of that. They probably hope to continue that both sides will make money for them, but realistically speaking, it does feel like they are effectively just pushing everyone to migrate to the new game, and that the original is being sort of abandoned to just a maintenance mode kind of thing.

One thing they did note about the decision was that Ruri Tunes was originally supposed to just be an additional mode, but they decided to split it off as part of a separate Nightbringer game/story in order to not make the original "unplayable" with all they wanted to add and change "under the hood". Part of that, at least at a guess, may be due to the difficulty curve of the original -- despite them adjusting the difficulty in a patch, plus their zero-AP lesson battle promo campaigns, they probably were seeing a lot of drop-off just for people who gave up because they couldn't make it through those earlier lessons to even finish Seasons 2, 3, and 4. In that sense, it's good and bad to shift the continuation of the story to this new game even though they don't seem to have actually learned their lesson with the difficulty curve problem... But that's another thing they get to hit reset on by making a new game.

As for a Season 5, we do know from the same AMA that the story from the original is supposed to "continue" in Nightbringer, which suggests that it might pick back up from the end of Season 4 as effectively a Season 5, like maybe MC will make it back to their own time and continue from there, just in this other game instead of the original. Which, um, is certainly a choice on their part, especially since not everyone has the time or interest in a rhythm game. It kinda feels also a bit like this sudden time travel thing in Nightbringer may almost be a way of buying them some time while they figure out what to do as a continuation to the OG plot.

All of that said, however, considering the lack of direction for the original, we've actually been really enjoying Nightbringer's story! It dives into a lot of super interesting questions and content that fans have been begging for and brings back some of the darker themes from Season 1 that we've really missed, so even though it's not quite the Season 5 we've been waiting for, we're really hyped for the new content to keep coming!

[poisonedlovedarling]

Milo Murphy’s Law Theory

Okay I’m sure somewhere out there someone has had a theory like this. However! I just wanted to put it down in my own words, mostly to get it out of my head. 

In a short, my theory is that Balthazar Cavendish and his lovely partner Vinnie Dakota, (If not the entire time traveling agency) are the reason Milos family are cursed with Murphy's law.

Evidence! I hear you cry into the void, yes. Well the best I can offer you is theoretical science. (I hear you complaining in the background well you don’t have to listen...lol.)

Theoretical Science time! 

According to the laws of time travel, you might know this one. You go back in time and step on a butterfly and next thing you know all of humanity has never been born. Now the problem with this is that there are many theories saying that if you change time you can erase yourself from existence. However if you did that you then couldn’t have gone back in time and changed things in the first place. Causing a Paradox. Or less commonly known as Circular causation, you can’t change the past if you don’t exist 

Now on the other hand, there is a theory that you can change history causing yourself to never having been born but still existing to be the one to go back in time and change that point in history. Basically if you change a point in time you’re not changing your version of time but instead creating an alternate time line that runs parallel to your own. The future you return to you may not have been born but can still exist because you are from a timeline where you were born and are just riding the waves through a new timeline. Basically visiting an alternate earth where the history was change and you never existed. 

There's a ton more like this, such as self fulfilling prophecy, you couldn’t change time because what happened. Happened and you were suppose to do what you did anyways. 

Basically Time travel’s a messy.

However by changing history, you can cause unknown havoc. Example (though not proven by science) you drop a rock in the ocean in California. The ripples that the rock causes become bigger and more dangerous eventually reaching Japan not as ripples but as tidal waves. Causing havoc.

(For examples look at Futurama, Rick and Morty, or The Flash.)

Now if you are still reading theirs another time travel theory this one actually relating to my idea. This time theory states that if you do change history the time line will try to fix itself to change around it. Something small like stepping on a butterfly that was suppose to pollenate some flowers. It will make another bug or even wind do it instead, no big deal. Yet, if you do something big like prevent the death of a President. The timeline will have them die another time, car ride home heart attack. It will change history but not by much and is a lot harder for the timeline to fix. Sometimes that little rock becomes a tidal wave that hits but doesn’t kill who wasn’t already meant to die.

A lot of time this will effect those closest or those related to the target. Which Theory Time! Loops me back to Cavendish and Dakota. The time travelers who don’t follow the rules of time travel. My theory is the Milos families curse is because the timeline is trying to fix itself.

In the episode ‘The Island of Lost Dakotas’ (Spoilers ahead) we learn that one of our favorite characters Cavendish has ‘died’ many times over. Each time Dakota has gone back in time and changed the outcome. Saving his friend and then his past self goes on a trip to a lost island where versions of himself are making shoes and watching film of his travels with his friend. 

Now one or twice the timeline would just change how Cavendish dies, but Dakota keeps changing it. Which means that the timeline can’t fix itself the easy way. Instead the pebble Dakota keeps dropping is rippling back in time. 

If we follow this theory this means that either Cavendish or Dakota are related to the Murphy's. Great great ex. grandchild of Milo Murphy. Now based off the show it sounds as if the curse only effects the males of said family and follows the name not the people of the family. Which means that one of Milos kids finally change their last name perhaps in an effort to end the curse only to give birth to the curser or just another Murphy with a different last name. 

Well other than them not sharing the Murphy name, one of them could still be a Murphy.

Dakota is a popular choice, the bad things happen around him and though he doesn’t look much like Murphy’s family being a great something descendant he could still be. Especially with Milos love interest looking more like Dakota, and we can expect Milo and Amanda end up together in the end. Also we can see that in Milos experience the Murphy law effects the people around him equally if not more than it does the Murphy's themselves. So if Dakota is a descendant his curse would effect Cavendish as much if not more than it effect himself.

Now the best bet under this thought is that it’s Cavendish whos related to Milo. Between the two Cavendish looks more like Milo having the family hair trait. As well as the same body type as Milos father and Great ex. grandfather the original Murphy. Body types of all the characters at first look fairly similar but things from their noses to face shapes and body types tend to stay accurate within families. This means that through his family ties all the bad things that ‘kill’ him ripple back and instead effect his family. 

Cavendish’s deaths over and over again would effect the timeline. It would try fixing itself, effecting every last member of Cavendishs family. The epicenter being Milos ancestor the original Murphy in his own time travel version of the Bermuda triangle. Creating the Murphy law that the timeline needed to exist anyways. Now since the time line can’t kill any of the past Murphy's it also explains why the Murphy’s are so good at escaping deadly situations. The timeline can’t kill them but it sure can mess with them. 

Now if neither of them are related to Murphy then it just means that there relationship with Milos family, Dr.D. (Spoiler- Professor Time), and the time agency. All the things they change through out time made a time Bermuda triangle where the OG Murphy lived. These negative probability particles in that triangle could potentially be causing his family to be effected by it until those particles eventually run out if they run out. 

Now this theory is lengthy and all over the place. So here’s the long and the short of it. 

Cavendish or Dakota or even the time agency itself. Are the reason Milo and his family are cursed with Murphy’s law. By changing time they cause havoc which is centered around the Murphy family, because of their personal if not family  related relationships with Time agency. 

You don’t have to believe me honestly I just needed to write this down to get it out of my head. I’ve got many more theories about other tv shows, that might or might not be coming your way.

[fromtheplanethexagon]

the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd​ reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

[vydante]

New Idea: “The Good Days”

So. Male! Reader, of course. Set in the Marvel Universe, but no specific canon. Freeform.

Not sure if I wanna do a series or a one shot; if it's a one shot, the ending will be ambiguous.

No pairings in mind as of yet. Maybe Steve or Bucky. Or both.

Someone from the main group of Avengers. Maybe Tony, because I'm tired of type-casting him as a dad and not a love interest. Not sure about Bruce and Clint, but I'm open to that. Sam and Thor too. Also open to no love interest at all.

Basic gist, there's 2 universes, the... "Original", and the "Alternative". Basically parallel universes of each other.

Imagine "Original" as the bad ending in a video game. "Alternative" is the good ending. 

O! for original, A! for alternative.

For preface, O! (Name) has reality bending powers, similar to MCU Wanda's, but not based off of the Infinity Stones. I don't know if I want A! (Name) to have powers.

Original world follows this gist:

Steve get's super-soldiered and goes under the ice.

The Avengers are formed: OG's include Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne).

Steve gets defrosted and joins the Avengers. A few years passes.

O! (Name) discovers his powers and is taken under the Avenger's wing. Powers is very weak at this point.

Others join, like Sam and Spider-Man. Wanda and Pietro joins the Avengers, and you and Wanda become friends as well as training pals.

You may or may not start dating XYZ.

Bucky gets found and joins the Avengers.

You notice your mental health has been deteriorating so you leave the Avengers.

Years passes and some shit goes down, similar to the Accords or the SHRA, where it splits the Avengers in half.

Basically, a war happens, and it's a mess. Key figure heads die. Like. Perma death, hard mode only, no revives. 

Steve kills Tony in the heat of the moment. 

Steve later dies from an assassination or something. 

None of the casualties are resurrected. Sam or Bucky takes over the mantle. Or, if they're dead, no one does. No one's there to take the Iron Man mantle.

The Avengers are effectively no more. You can only watch and mourn, as the public feasts in both fear and veneration for the shitshow. Some even call you out, but none of it was ever important.

A force from the universe comes to Earth and attacks them. The Earth is sorely underprepared after having all of their enhanced/ heroes basically kill each other, we lose, and the Earth turns into a wasteland, similar to Infinity War/ The Blip.

OR. You help win the fight, but at the cost of too much. And now you have to pick back up the singed and tattered pieces.

Whatever was left of the Avengers/ supers/ enhanced/ meta’s are only a handful, including you.

Ever since the big event, years has passed and you’re leading the effort to just help people survive. By now, your powers have grown exponentially, but at the cost of your mental and physical health. You can basically feel and control what's happening on the fucking moon. You haven't slept in months, keeping your body alive purely through your powers.

Something happens, but basically you accidentally get transported to another parallel universe, the Alternative one.

[Insert depressed and exhausted (Name) meeting a way too happy (and healthy) (Name)]

O! (Name) is cautious, but at this point, you're waiting to just drop dead, so whatever happens, happens, and who knows if you’ll put up a fight.

You're dropped in the middle of the casual lounge where almost all of the A! Avengers had been chilling. Like, you land ass-to-couch.

Well, more like ass-to-lap. A! Thor's lap, specifically.

And after a whole shit show, and confirming that you're 99% (Name) and not evil, they calm down and realize, wow, you look awful.

Like, "this tall elderly child needs to be put into a medically induced coma before he overworks himself”, kind of awful.

A! (Name): Wow, you look like shit. When's the last time you slept?

O! (Name): Mm. # months ago.

A! (Name): Lol, funny.

O! (Name), a man who watched his world essentially die: Do I look like someone who's told a joke recently?

A! (Name):

O! (Name): 

A! Avengers:

A! (Name): Oh my god, you’re really serious-

Basically, A! Avengers figure out that O! (Name) is a MESS and whatever it was that happened in his universe was bad.

O! you find out that this universe has it... really good. Like, really good.

A! universe went pretty much the same, but instead of the Avengers being broken by the SHRA/ Accords, they united together and signed it, but ended up doing a ton of revising and made it work.

And the baddie from out of space? Easy.

And everyone lived as a result. 

Wow, and doesn’t that fucking suck for O! (Name)? Seeing someone live your dream? That someone being literally you? A happier, healthier, and more well off version of you?

In the event that A! (Name) doesn’t have powers, O! (Name) is shocked, and decides not to use them. If A! (Name) can live without powers, then O! (Name) deserves to not have to use them since you’re so, so tired.

If A! (Name) does have similar powers, it’ll be significantly weaker than O! (Name) since A! (Name) hasn’t had to use it as extensively as O! (Name) did. A! (Name) will basically constantly ask O! (Name) to train him. Same thing goes for A! Wanda.

Unsure if O! (Name) ever will.

Anyways, that’s what I had in mind so far. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, let me know. I’m mildly buzzing with ideas right now.

(Inspired by some Stony fics I’ve read over the year(s).)

[norgestan]

crisana, norandro, jorgeva and amira x dani

ha, anon just wanted all the canon couples. fair enough!

CRISANA:

see, skam s3 is my favorite season of all time, but it has never been because of the love story. isak's story hits in a lot of sensitive places for me, and isak was also the first main character i encountered that was my age. i have a really special connection to him for that reason. on the other hand... i enjoy evak for what it is, but i never saw a future for their relationship after the season ended. in a lot of ways, isak's season ended just as their relationship started, a trope that i've never liked because how am i supposed to think that they will last? how am i supposed to know how they will work as a couple? it's just, ugh.

i had similar thoughts about crisana when i watched s2, except that the love confession scene and cris as a character made it even harder to get into the couple. moreover, the way people brush other characters' roles and presence on other seasons because they're so caught up on cris and joana is like... blegh. like it makes me forget that they're actually a well-written couple at times. because imo, og they never did anything really interesting with evak once they got together. but eskam........ oh, dear eskam.

there's something so beautiful about thinking of all the girls, the teenagers that will grow up watching a relationship like theirs on popular media. their entire subplot (??? can i even call it that) in s4 is proof of how GREAT of a relationship they turned out to be. like, i just wanna SCREAM thinking about it because, how is it possible that eskam saw evak and said "we're gonna make this SO good and we'll take our time and then tie it up in an incredibly satisfying and emotional way" and then did exactly that!!!!!! the way they respect each other, communicate, genuinely try to get to each other without dumb miscommunication. the way they understand each other and lift each other up! the way joana knew how to recognize cris' intelligence when everyone was telling her she's dumb, the way cris knows how to make joana feel worth it and show her affection in such a selfless, loving way. their last scene on joana's pov in s4 was the first time i cried during that season, just because it was all wrapped up so beautifully. because eskam understood that although the appeal of their relationship comes from the soulmate status of every evak couple, they had to also put in serious work to make it all work and they also managed to get that across with grounded drama, and also a hopeful message for people struggling with mental disorders. like AAAAAAAAAAAAA god what a great couple they are. maybe i'm too much of an eskam bootlicker but they're genuinely the best evak there is. i'll die on this hill. i'm so happy young wlw get to watch them as a guideline of what they should expect of a relationship.

NORANDRO: already done :)

JORGEVA:

i mean... it's eskam's fault, without a doubt. i love what eskam did with them in s1: the change of pacing, the way they created jorge, the little story changes to make it more nuanced, i think come together in a pretty satisfying way to show a teenage romance with no real support to last for more than a while. i don’t think eskam fully got the gist of what jonas was supposed to be, but it’s for the better if we think of the message in season 1. for that reason, jorge is like the one jonas who i really wouldn’t mind coming back to his eva. so why don’t i like them?

the answer is simply that i don’t enjoy their trope and i don’t think eskam made a real case of eva and jorge getting back together. they work well as friends, sure, and it’s clear as day that jorge still has feelings for eva, sure. but like, what tells me that they’re just ready to go all in again? eva goes through a really great arc and i would definitely agree she’s in a good place to be in a relationship again, but we know NOTHING about jorge’s journey. he’s just, silently pining on eva and that’s it. i do think it’s sweet and the hints of their lost romance throughout the show are wholesome, but there’s just nothing more to it. jorge and eva work AMAZINGLY as friends! i don’t see why they should push a romantic endgame for them. in my head, eva kissing jorge at that party was just a mesh of the excitement of a new era, the nostalgia of ending highschool, the high of being on this place with someone she really cares about, stuff like that, but it just ends there, and it’s great that way. nothing about eva’s character really led to her aching to be in a relationship again, and for me it feels right to end things with her being single and surrounded by great friends.

MAYBE if eskam had devoted some time showing us their progress and romantic potential instead of trying to convince us that kasim was a real, compelling character. maybe. lol.

DAMIRA:

(god, i don’t know how long this will be LOL)

i have. so many thought about this fucking pairing. let’s see what we can do LOL. the thing about damira is that i don’t think it’s a pairing that eskam had in mind when they laid out the first two seasons. the little hints of a friendship/childhood crush that happened during cris’ season really got the fandom and they quickly became the most popular non-canon ship in the show, so that’s where i think eskam said “okay, let’s run with this”. but it’s just...... meh. like i can tell that relationships like crisana were carefully crafted (well implemented in nora’s season, greatly wrapped up in amira’s season) but i cannot say the same for dani and amira. it’s almost like virihugo, where they just started giving each other Eyes on the middle of season 3, out of NOWHERE. it just feels forced to me and so i never really felt anything for the couple in question... like, for starters, i think nora and miquel were WAY more shippable than those two, strictly talking about their setup.

if you ever saw any of my posts during s4 then you should know how i actually feel about how they developed their romance (check my anti damira tag for more?) and i don’t wanna go through all those specific points again... but damira is not only an infuriating romance, but also a bad pairing in a narrative setting. like, damira clearly exists to answer amira’s questions about how would the future of a romance with a white guy would be, right? does she get an answer? no she fucking doesn’t, their final clip is like “after all these weeks, we still have no idea so we’re gonna cut things short, go back to our initial dynamic, and wait to see if amira any of us change our minds <3″. so like, even in that sense damira is a HUGE waste of time, and just like everything that happens to amira during her season it has no lasting impacts on her character or her settings.

and personally, i love couples where they’re both equal, and communicate at last, and both make great efforts to change so the relationship can flourish. this is why i offer so much praise to norandro and crisana, where in the first couple both character go through tremendous character growth and work through their problems individually before getting together, and in the second couple they show them clashing and fighting just to display their resolutions and show how willing they are to actually talk to each other and keep their relationship stable. dani and amira, on the other hand.... blegh. eskam wants me to think dani is a knight in shining armor for liking amira but that’s all he ever does. he doesn’t defend her in front of his friends, he doesn’t make efforts to get to know her and her world, he doesn’t communicate his real feelings to her, and the one time he did he humiliated her in public. like, idk, like, even MIQUEL explicitly defended nora when his roommates berated her for not drinking alcohol LOL.

at the end of the day the problem with damira is that it completely misses the point of yousana and its target audience. making yousef a white guy is not necessarily a bad choice if you implement it well (which eskam didn’t do btw), but you have to take into account that sana’s season exists to make a primarily white christian-raised audience relate and stand up for the muslim characters in the show. when the lazier partner of the main couple who makes zero efforts to work on the relationship happens to be white, it just means people will be sympathetic of him, and nor amira - and that’s exactly what happened in the show. people either thought amira was being too harsh by laying conditions for dani before they even began dating and making sure he respected her boundaries, or just wanted all the drama to go away soon so amira could kiss dani by the end of the season. so like, yeah. terrible stuff.

i would’ve liked damira’s impact on the season and amira’s journey a lot more if it had been about a one sided childhood crush from amira’s part. i thought their friendship was charming up to s3, and i simply hate that dani is literally in no way an older brother figure for the girl squad, since it’s a dynamic that’s lacking in the show and it would be a nice way to make dani be some sort of non-creepy eskild for the girl squad (but noooo, his only interactions w the gs are hooking up with eva and dating amira. smh). it would’ve been fun to have amira intimately dealing with those feelings just to learn a lesson by the end of it, at the time that she also falls for her muslim love interest - which is actually the isak/jonas/even dynamic when you think about it, also something that eskam didn’t really do with cris’ season. but also, all of this would mean that eskam had to do the good writing thing for s4, which they kinda forgot to do throughout the entirety of the season so, yeah.

[goldrockyroad]

i literally don’t make posts but here i am writing about chuang 2021 because i’m having thOUGHTS after watching ep 3.1. the names of the trainees that i’ve mentioned are italicised! 

omg where do i even start 

i don’t usually keep up and get this invested in these sort of shows and that’s coming from someone who’s been known since the og pd101 let’s start there i guess 

as a monster stage was literally made for hu yetao but can we pleASE talk about xue bayi man looked hella fine 

actually mans been looking (but more importantly!) performing super well but somehow always get shadowed (case in point: yall forgot he was also freestyling alongside santa x liu yu in ep 1.2 didn’t ya) 

coccoon break was a stage that i was really looking forward to seeing but it didn’t have that effect the way as a monster had 

but stellar nonetheless！

jing long nailed his parts and the high notes as expected from the kING  

gan wangxing’s performance was a pleasant surprise which is always great to see 

yu yang was a strong center mad props to him 

did not think i would pay attention to kazuma but he did really well

super heartwarming to see all the guys being so supportive of each other after this round (and for subsequent rounds!) 

now super champion vs lit (very not used to calling it that btw) 

man honestly rikimaru hard carried his team 

KING SHIT his performance my gOSH i honestly don’t understand how he didn’t get mvp like what were you thinking (as nice as it is to see yi han and ren yinpeng’s efforts pay off) 

yes this is the hill i will die on 

mannnn i really started seriously watching this show for rikimaru cuz i’ve been following him for years and i want good things for him! like when he got emotional over the fact that he will miss that team oh mannn i needed a moment 

liu yu choosing lit over any other song made the most sense considering his dance & preferred music style but he made it work towards what rikimaru was going for and he was great 

very interesting to see li luoer choose lit and honestly? he nailed it fr considering how he’s not much of a dancer 

now idk why the eng sub of super champion is put down as football gang but ok 

tencent with their questionable eng subs hit again 

tbh the groups who performed in ep 3.1 all choose stellar centers which (i personally believe) boosted their overall stages 

so super champion’s he yifan was no exception but all of them put up a really strong performance together even though they were up against one of the stronger groups in this round 

now butter-fly vs i like like you !!!!

ok first of all can we talk about bo yuan 

he’s literally the reason why i paid for a wetv membership so that i can vote for him 

[also can someone pLEASE tell me how to vote through wetv i litreally can’t get to anything and it’s stressing me out send help i need to vote for bo yuan why is he ranked at 46] 

yes but butter-fly stage was just good vibes fun times and i love that for them! 

the lightsticks made it 10x better than it already was 

bo yuan as a center didn’t seem to hard carry (in the actual performance not the preparation for it) as much as rikimaru did in lit which was nice! i felt like i got a chance to see everyone while he had extra moments to shine at the same time 

his hair is so frickin cool i love it i started ogling at it since the trailer from last ep and at first i didn’t know who it was so i was like ‘who’s that with the hair i ove it’ and when i found out i deadass screamed 

again why did he not get mvp mans was rOBBED of it 

but more importantly is robbed of the voTEs please vote for him [and teach me how to vote so that i can do it myself] 

k gotta move on from talking about bo yuan so 

i like like you was super sweet! i love how all their voices blended together in their harmonies just as much as their individual voices which are all different 

dai shaodong’s voice was breathtaking but the little rap in there was so nicely done! esp when zhou zhennan literally goes ‘during rehearsal the rap was like ‘i like you, and if you don’t like me back i’ll force you to like me’ (not actually what he said but idk how else to translate it) 

i’m so glad we got to hear more of rong yao !! (my biases are showing oh no)  

but yes! wow i did not think i would be saying this much about the performances alone but here i am lol! 

i’m having high hopes and much excites for the remaining performances they all look super cool!

ok thank you for coming to my ted talk it was hella long 

[silver-wield]

What's your thoughts on when the plate falls and Cloud went to go help Tifa?

My thoughts or my analysis? Cause you’re getting the latter anyway lol I love doing action analysis, there’s so much happening and getting the chance to slow it down is great for getting a fuller picture.

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be long.

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that’s cool and we’ll agree to disagree.

You’re also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I’m grabbing them from Youtube and it’s frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Other analyses if anyone’s interested.

Shinra HQ vision scene (Cloti/plot analysis) 

Chapter 3 (Cloti reblog) 

Tifa character analysis 

Aerith Resolution (plot analysis/theory – I should probably update this since I’ve had other ideas since then) 

Train graveyard (not really an analysis, but I got some sweet screenshots of Cloti) 

Clotiscrew tunnel analysis 

Cloti reunion analysis 

The Promise Analysis 

Andrea’s approval (Cloti ask response) 

Leslie analysis (not mine, but a good read) 

Cloti action touching 

Aerti friendship analysis 

Cloti body language chapter 3 

Cloti healthy disagreement 

Cloti post heliboss battle (chapter 15) 

Clerith playground scene 

Now, strap in and enjoy the ride.

Recap time!

This is a 6m scene I'm going over, so I'm gonna skip anything not directly relevant or I'll be here all night lol

So despite our brave heroes best efforts the plate is coming down. We get a power slide from Rude, a call from Tseng (who times it so perfectly was he watching?) and some cloti.

First thing we see if Tifa looking distraught. She has no idea how to stop the plate from coming apart and from the way she's looking at this consol wouldn't know what to do even if she could work the computer. They were so close to winning and now defeat is about to stomp all over them and kill everyone she loves. Tifa is someone whose driven by the desire for those she loves to be safe no matter what. This is a crushing moment for her.

Murderous Cloud is murderous (and kinda hot). I mean, we know he's got very little reservations about killing people in cold blood because he's SOLDIER!Cloud when it comes to a fight, but I do like the deadly intent we see on his face at different points in the game. He looked at Johnny a bit like this back in chapter 3 and now he's looking at Reno the same way. He means business.

And then he doesn't because Tifa's in trouble and we all know Real!Cloud prioritises Tifa's safety above everything else. That's not me saying he's no longer SOLDIER!Cloud, but the difference between the last screen and this is that he was fully in that badass merc mode about to kill Reno because it's what badass mercs do, whereas this is Real!Cloud urging him to refocus all that skill he's got into protective ability and go save the woman he loves.

I get some people might not see the distinction between the two personas, but it's actually really easy when you break it down. If it's about Tifa then Real!Cloud is gonna push for dominant action to keep her safe. If it's any other situation then he's just gonna let SOLDIER!Cloud do what he needs to. Sometimes it's a more conscious battle between the two and sometimes they co-operate. That's how a fractured psyche works within the context of Cloud's character. Don't believe me? You see both of them on screen at the start of chapter 8 in the church. Real!Cloud is the one saying “You okay, buddy?”

How many times can you count that we get an 1st person pov with Cloud in the whole game? Like literally looking through his eyes? Because this is 1st person pov. We are Cloud at this moment in time and he's rushing Rude, but still takes a glance at Tifa. I don't think this happens at any other point. This game is a 3rd person game. We're over everyone's shoulder. We don't get in their head to see through their eyes. This is deliberate framing. We obviously can't see his face or his reaction, but the fact we're seeing this moment as Cloud and he's chosen to look at Tifa is a big thing.

So Rude's pushed the button and Barret's yelling. Cloud actually looks more halfhearted in this swing than I expected. It's like Barret's fury just isn't enough to get his blood boiling lol

He's about to go after him anyway, when Tifa's voice stops him dead. I can't think of a moment in the game where someone else calling for him to stop actually makes him stop.

AH! Honestly this is such a move! Romantic hero hello! I know it's a classic move from Cloud – which is kindly weirdly implemented since we first saw it after OG, but it's been retconned as one of his signature moves with Tifa and only Tifa.

Also! EYE CONTACT! I'm gonna scream about Cloti eye contact until my own eyes cross lol they do eye contact so damn well! The only other person who got Cloud to look him in the eye was Andrea Rhodea lol Everyone else it's either confrontational eye contact or total avoidance. Cloud and Tifa have good eye contact. This highlights how much they trust each other. Even though Real!Cloud is afraid of letting Tifa know how weak he really is, he's ok with her looking him in the eye. He wants her to see the real him.

Now, I know some people go on about Tifa's chapter 3 comment of “Cloud, you're scaring me/your eyes didn't used to look so” as a negative thing. I've already explained why this is fucking bullshit, and I'd like to add that if Tifa wasn't comfortable with him in combat situations or otherwise she wouldn't make eye contact with him. Eye contact is fucking terrifying! You're able to see so much. These two aren't afraid to look in each other's eyes, even with their “I don't think he/she likes me” misunderstandings.

And just to cap it. They both smile to reassure each other they're ok.

Ok, so Reno and Rude are making their exit. Barret tries the FF7 boomer version of turning a computer off and on again by shooting it. Then Tseng proves he's either psychic, a stalker or just dramatic af by appearing on screen at just the right point to answer Tifa's question.

And look at her face! Whoever said she's a heartless bitch can stfu forever! This is the face of a woman who is broken by what's about to happen! She's lived in that slum for five years. She probably knows every local by name, and takes time to actually get to know them too. She cares. So much. She doesn't want anyone hurt. She's pleading for their lives. Pleading with her enemy. Who literally smirked when he said “there's nothing you can do now”. Tseng has no conscience.

Just adding this to be a butt. This is Cloud's reaction to Aerith when he sees her....what reaction? Yeah...

Then he asks where she is in his SOLDIER!Cloud way.

So Aerith gets dragged away and explosions start happening. A siren goes off. Barret and Cloud turn away from the computer. Tifa turns and says, “No no no no no” and Cloud immediately turns back. His eyes widen and he looks a bit lost for a moment. There's nothing he can do for her and he's not got the first clue anyhow, and there's no time. It's hitting him just how much she cares. I mean, he knew, but he didn't know, you know?

Notice the awkward hand there? Yeah, that's an “I don't know how to comfort you, what do I do?” hand gesture. Cloud's literally never seen Tifa like this. She's always trying her best to remain optimistic. She fights hard to protect what she loves. She doesn't fall to her knees defeated.

I'm actually loving all the extra insight all these analyses are giving me into just how reserved, how introverted, how determined Tifa is. She's had a hard fucking life. Born in a dust bowl, lost all her friends to the big city, saw her father murdered, almost died, her town got burnt to the ground but she still somehow managed to pick herself up and build a new life. She did that on her own. Nobody got her to Midgar. When she arrived she was lucky Marle took care of her. She could've been left alone with no support system. She got in with Avalanche and built a new family – even though they don't always see eye to eye on method, she also believes in their goal to stop Shinra and save the planet. She's principled and brave, focused af. But she's not unbeatable. Stuff gets her down. She tries her best to be cheerful, but doesn't always succeed. She keeps her problems to herself. But this? This is too big. This has broken her. She can't stay up and Cloud doesn't know how to help. Not emotionally, anyway.

OMG HE OFFERED HIS HAND!! I didn't see that before!! (Check the spot where his name is, his hand is between Tifa’s hair and arm, palm open.) I knew he grabbed her by the arm and hauled her up when she didn't move, but he's actually holding his hand out for her before that!! She's too in her head to do anything, though, and I don't think Cloud really understands that. Any devastating feelings he had about personal tragedy he's locked away because they literally broke him. It must be distressing on some level for him to see his own emotions mirrored in Tifa. I said before the urge to comfort her starts at the beginning of chapter 13, but maybe the first spark of that is this moment here, when he can't do a thing for her, except pull her along behind him and hope he can keep her alive.

There's some really nice still shots in this game and this is one of them. I don't really have anything to say about it. I mean, we knew Cloud had both hands on Tifa's shoulders so he could direct her where to go and she's not really with it until the moment the debris falls in front of her and shocks her out of her stupor. Cloud's focused on the job at hand, no time to worry about anything but the next obstacle. By keeping both hands on Tifa's shoulders he's ensured he doesn't have to keep checking on her to make sure she's with him. He's basically piloting her because she's not capable of decision making for the moment.

Someone tell me, do action backhugs count? That's non-optional embracing right there. How many of you have seen this exact moment? Because I have literally been replaying the same 4s clip to get the screen for this bit and this is the first time in about 10 replays that I stopped it here. This is the between 1 second frames when the debris falls.

I mean, this is what a bodyguard actually looks like. Cloud's focus is all on keeping Tifa safe. He pulls her close to him, offers strength while she's feeling weak. He is literally using himself as a shield for her. They're such a balanced couple. When one is weak the other is strong for them, and whatever flaws they have they accept. They really are just a great couple!

Probably the worst screen I've ever grabbed lol

I was trying to figure out the moment he took her hand but I can't quite stop on it and it's just a touch too much out of frame. Instead, I got this. EYE CONTACT. I don't need to explain it again, right? We get the whole Cloud/Tifa eye contact deal by now.

Although, at the same time, that's a fucking scary shot of Cloud lol reminds me of that meme with Rinoa and Squall where she says he's the best looking guy there and it's all pixellated lol

Ah! I remembered why I was trying to get their hands, to see if Tifa grabbed his first or he took hers. But I could see through the playback that he took her hand. He initiated contact.

Yknow, I know people often compare the whole one half is always the summoner or mage and the other half is the warrior, but this screen right here looks a lot like another FF couple.

Tidus and Yuna.

I mean...do I have to say more?

Cloud looks behind to check Tifa's ok – I mean she's not but you get the point. Still getting Tidus and Yuna vibes from this moment tbf. This is the exact same type of sequence they had of them in FFX-2 when Yuna's dreaming Lenne's past and she and Tidus replace Lenne and Shuyin. They're running down a corridor and Tidus looks back at her. I mean, seeing how this type of comparison is usually only reserved for the whole mage/warrior pairing, it's strange that their body language here mirrors Square’s first fully voice acted installment. At the time the graphics were cutting edge and the cut scenes are still lauded as some of the most beautiful storytelling. Strange that Tifa and Cloud could have this comparison to Tidus and Yuna, especially with the whole Suteki da ne always being used to prop up a certain ship.

Anyway, Cloud’s checking on Tifa cause he’s totally not in love with her and wants to make sure she’s safe. You get the idea lol

I'd like to point out that Cloud doesn't – despite popular opinion – have hold of Tifa's jubblies. His arm is under them, wrapped around her ribs, which is actually a very secure hold for him since he's trying to hang onto Barret and keep hold of Tifa too. You'll notice she's not exactly paying attention to her own safety – which makes sense since Cloud literally had to haul her up when she wouldn't move. She's not in a good headspace during the end of this scene, so he's being very protective towards her.

Conclusion

Another great piece of action! I mean, does it really matter if these two are in the trenches or just hanging out? They have a synchronicity that's impossible to deny. They balance each other in pretty much every single way there is for a couple of be two halves of a whole. The FF10 comparison is a new one on me, especially since I don't look at two titles and try to see what about each one is like the other. They're both different and unique with their own charm. But, the second I caught that screen of Cloud pulling Tifa along I was immediately hit by the thought of “That's what Tidus and Yuna do”, so I couldn't not mention it.

We get a clear look at how devastated Tifa is immediately after the realisation hits that sector 7 is about to get crushed. She's just gone. Checked out. If Cloud hadn't stepped up to save her she'd have died. She wouldn't have got herself over to Barret in time and he would've died going to get her and get them back to the zip line. This is why it's so important that Cloud picks up the slack. He was strong when she needed him to be. She's strong for him later when he becomes weak. They really are two halves of one whole. 

I love that Tifa gets her own character development. She’s not just “the love interest”. Barret is basically a supporting character here, but we know he’ll get his turn in Corel and he does get his own moments to shine in Midgar, but this is cloti, so sorry dude, next time.

[wendibird]

SPN 15X18 Observations

Let me preface this by saying, I apologize ahead of time if I and/or my notes seem a bit cynical. I’ve had a rough week. (I think everyone has.) But for whatever it’s worth, here are my notes, observations and meandering thoughts on tonight’s episode.

Oh, one more thing though. For episodes 19 and 20 (and anything really to do with them) in addition to my usual tags for the episodes and season, I’ll be tagging them with #dontspoilthefinalhunt for any who wish to avoid spoilers for them.

Pre-Episode thoughts:

So, I’ve heard enough rumors already to know that mooooost likely Cas is going to die this episode. And let me be clear, he’s my second favorite character in this show after Sam. But I have trouble feeling strong emotions for something when I go in knowing that I should. But I’m going to try to go into this one with an open mind. 

Also, in the past I liked Billy as a character because though she still had some biases, she still seemed mostly neutral, like OG Death had been. And from previews it looks like maybe they’re turning her into an outright villain like they’ve done with God? Yey. 

- Where’s Chuck? Did he just bampf off?

- So he’s gonna blow up in the Empty?

- Yep.

- So now Dean cares about him? (Jack)

- Poor Jack. He doesn’t get what’s going on. 

- Yey! Jack is back! 

- “You’ve snapped me out of worse.” When?

- They’ve prayed to Michael? Yey for not overlooking options! (Not being sarcastic.)

- Charlie!!!! And yey she has a girlfriend! (Are they gonna kill her?) 

- Aaaaaaand there she goes.

Commercial thoughts:

So, I get the whole narrative idea of taking a character that everyone assumed was kinda on your side and revealing that they were always working towards their own interests. I get it. And it can be effective. I still don’t like it with Billy. 

I’m glad Dean said what he did to Sam. Even if Sam says (and probably thinks) that he doesn’t need to hear the apology, sometimes it needs to be said anyway. And I think saying it all helped Dean a bit too. He needed to know that Sam understood. 

I’m glad Jack’s back though!

- Oh Jack. You’re worth more than your death. 

- I’m glad Cas is saying this, but sadly, I think the “we” only applies to him and Sam. 

- So Jack is powerless when he came back? Did the bomb thing burn out it all out?

*is confused*

- Yey! Eileen! (Please don’t have her just vanish….)

- I’ma cry….

- Oh no……

- “If I let myself go there I’ll lose my mind. I can’t go there right now.”  

- Oh Sam. Always trying to push down his feelings because there’s other shit going on. 

- Hug!!!!!!!

- Sam’s gonna drive Eileen’s car. Just shoot me now….

Commercial thoughts:

So yeah… Wonder what Billy’s plan is here with this random picking-off of people but not like, all at once. She COULD do it all at once, she has the personel. (The Empty didn’t kill all her reapers.) 

I think she’s setting her own kind of trap or something. 

Also, I take it Chuck just vanished? They didn’t say anything about it but that seems to be the impression given.

Still pisses me off though that after bringing Eileen back and only half-assing her role they just had her vanish. (At least Rowena’s in charge of hell, so if she wound up down there again, she SHOULD get a better shake than she did the first time.) 

- Donna!!!!

- Eileen’s Car…… *cries* 

- Sam’s got so much emotional stuff going on this episode. He’s got this grief for Eileen in the background and he’s worried about Jack and trying to help him, and trying to save all these people.

- OUch……. Double ouch. (Were in references to the expressions on Sam’s face when Donna first comforted him about Eileen and then Charlie made her comment about not wanting anyone else to go through what she did.) 

- (Yes, I’m worried about Dean and Cas too.) 

- Sam’s still their “Chief”.

- That's weird….. Why does his touch kill plants? (Not people at least.)

- Yeah, she (Billy) was waiting.

- Oh dear…..

- So what IS causing this?

- NO! NOT DONNA!

- WTF?!

Commercial thoughts:

So Chuck is doing this? I mean, it makes sense. He’s gotten petty enough. But now what? 

Also poor Sam. I mean, he tries so hard to save people. And time after time it just doesn’t work out. It could be seen as part of “Chuck’s Plan” because of how he wants his big story to go. So now I guess he’s just being more direct about it. Sam isn’t allowed to do well unless it’s been authorized by the Narrative. (AKA, him.) When he tries, he just gets shown the error of trying. (But he’s beaten down if he doesn’t try too. Like S8.) 

Also still don’t like how Billy’s character has changed.

- She thinks she’s Freddy Kruger?

- Heart attack? His first “death” was supposed to be his heart. (In “Faith”) Wonder if that’s intentional here?

- Oh god… please don’t tell me they’re going to…. 

Commercial thoughts:

Okay. I don’t ship Destiel. At all. I’m not an anti though, cause I’m firmly a ship-and-let-ship kind of person. 

But that scene while very heartfelt just didn’t do anything for me because it felt more than a bit like revisionistic history. However, I will say, congrats to the Destiel fandom. They killed Cas, but that scene was definitely for you all. 

They’re killing off so many people though it’s like… this is one of my problems when I’m going into a situation where I’m “supposed” to feel a certain way. It makes me awkward. (Like the Episode “Lebanon”.) 

- Gah, poor Sam. 

- WTF?! Is Chuck taking everyone in the world? 

- FUCK?! THAT’S WHERE THEY’RE LEAVING IT OFF?!?!?!?

Okay, so my hope is now, since they’ve gone THIS far with what Chuck is doing, that unless the ultimate resolution of the story is going to be “everything goes away forever” they’re going to have to leave some way to bring people back. 

I’ll be honest, I had trouble connecting emotionally with this episode. But that may not be the episode’s fault. I’ve been working some long hours lately and I just today found out that someone I work with has tested positive for Covid. (I just got tested today.) Plus with all the election stuff still going on, there’s a lot of real-world things on my mind. 

Also, as I said, knowing that these are the final episodes, it’s pretty much a given that things are going to ramp up. (And the people involved with the show have been telegraphing the hell out of Cas’ death, so it wasn’t unexpected. And I get it. Some people really do need that time to prepare emotionally and adjust their expectations.) But I still feel like a lot of the things they’re asking/expecting us to care about, they haven’t put the actual effort into the storytelling to make that happen. I love the absolute shit out of Eileen, but for most of this season she’s been written as little more than an accessory to Sam. And just so he can have some “feels” about someone. And then she gets vanished without so much as a last glimpse of her? (And this episode was filmed before everything closed down due to Covid.) 

I mean, his reaction STILL tore me up, because Jared is that damn good at conveying those emotions. But once again, like LAST time they killed her off, it was amongst so much other shit that there’s barely time for him to even feel it. In fact, he even said that he couldn’t because of what else was going on. And by the end of the episode pretty much everyone else in the world is Thanos-snapped too? 

And I get it, this episode is clearly not about her. It’s about the whole situation. It just still feels like a disservice to the character.

And speaking of disservices to characters…

So, about what Cas said in his speech/confession to Dean. The revisionistic retelling of history has been strong this season, but that was especially bad. We know from past episodes that Cas has ALWAYS had “a crack in his chassis” and always had sympathy and love for humanity. We know that he cares about a lot of people, and has put a lot of effort into becoming a better being. (Just a few episodes ago he talked about how he truly found his purpose when he became a father. And he also had talked about finding his true family.) But no. Apparently all of that character development was just because of Dean. What bothers me isn’t that he told Dean “I love you.” What bothers me is that it truly feels like Cas’ entire character was reduced to one half of a ship. 

Okay, and what also bothers me is that Sam was literally an afterthought in all of that. When for most of these years, Sam has been the one who’s been the most supportive and understanding of Cas. Sam is the one who lately has had the closer connection with him. But naw. He ain’t important, except as an extension of Dean. 

And I get they were trying to throw some fanservice to that corner of the fandom, especially since Cas was slated to die 3 episodes before the end. But they could have done it better. I’ve read fanfic that handled Destiel in a more believable way. (I was reading for the Saileen content as they’re often put in as a sister-ship and it can be hard to find fic of them without it.) And technically this wasn’t even requited. Dean looked more shocked than anything, though I admit that's up to interpretation. But someone in one of the discord servers I'm in posted a picture of that part of the script for this episode and it outright said in the directorial notes that Cas said what he did knowing that Dean didn't/couldn't return his affection the same way. So, there is that.

There were other aspects of the episode I also had thoughts on, like, wtf is up with Jack not having his usual powers but wilting plantlife? Some extension of the bomb-thing? Is he radioactive now to anything with “Celestial energy”? But wouldn’t that have made him give Cas problems too? Or is this supposed to be indicating something else? Amara did that too before she started turning lighter, back in Season 11. Is he somehow turning into the Darkness? Or did he come back from the Empty partially possessed by Lucifer? Gah. I don’t even know. I’m just throwing ideas at a dart board now. *LOL* 

And at this point, wtf CAN they even do against Chuck? I really don’t know. I’m hoping the next episodes are better, but I know 19 was written by Buckleming and they don’t have the best track record. True, a few of their episodes I’ve actually enjoyed. But sometimes they fall short on writing the Brothers Winchester. 

Anyway, I think I’ve probably rambled enough for now.

[beneaththetangles]

Light Novel Club Chapter 30: Reset! The Imprisoned Princess Dreams of Another Chance! Vol. 1

So I have a confession to make: I just received the memories of having lived through a bad future in which the world was destroyed, and the only way to prevent catastrophe is to cover a second light novel about a princess going back in time to avert a bad future! …okay, so I don’t have any such future memories (so don’t ask me about next week’s winning lottery numbers), but all the same, we have a nice light novel from Cross Infinite World here about that subject, so join me, Jeskai Angel, and Gaheret as we take a look at how a more selfless princess deals with the challenge of changing the future.

As a reminder, all Light Novel Club discussions are held publicly on the Beneath the Tangles Discord, and anyone can join in on these discussions! The next light novel volumes we will be discussing will be at the end of this post.

=====

1. What are your overall impressions on the novel?

Jeskai Angel: I like it (I mean, that’s kind of why I picked it for this month’s reading, LOL). Beyond that… I find it really difficult to talk about Reset! without making reference to LNC-favorite Tearmoon Empire. If I said “This story stars a princess who suffers tragedy, then goes back in time to when she was twelve years old, after which she attends a school for nobles, learns to ride a horse, strives to change the future, and has flashbacks to her first life (and there’s a major character nicknamed ‘Bel’),” you wouldn’t be able to tell which light novel I’m talking about. That said, Tearmoon Empire is awesome and saying “This reminds me of Tearmoon Empire,” is a compliment in my book.

Reset! also differs in several significant ways from Tearmoon Empire, and I think it’s necessary to talk about them to properly appreciate Reset!. First, there’s the straightforward, traditional medieval fantasy setting, which stands in contrast historical inspiration behind the setting, events, and characters of Tearmoon. On a related note, Reset! is explicitly fantasy, meaning it has magic, unlike Mia’s world. And this story has a somewhat more serious or dramatic tone compared to Mia’s extremely humorous adventures.

stardf29: So I definitely enjoyed this novel, and while there are similarities to Tearmoon Empire, I’m glad that there are also enough differences that it doesn’t read like just a slight variation of that story. So as for Reset, there’s obviously a major element of magic to the whole thing, giving it more of a fantasy story feel, and in particular there’s intrigue behind what actually happened at the end of the old timeline, before the, ahem, reset, and how the whole thing happened and how that might affect things later on in the story. Also, Bel is a wonderful protagonist, but I’ll get to that and the other characters in the obligatory “what do you think about the characters” question.

Gaheret: I liked the story. Though the setting felt less developed than, say, Tearmoon Empire, and as you mention there were less interesting characters with different backgrounds or agendas (Ed, Annabel, Charles, Daniel and their friends are all more or less people of similar upbringing and motives). I suspect that Karina may be a sorceress, which would fit with the odd, anti-strategic behavior of King Daniel, with the news of tribes using black magic in his kingdom, and with the fact that magical powers (or lack of them) have such an important role both in the status of Annabel’s kingdom and in her life. The romance was enjoyable, too. But what really did make the difference for me was Edoile’s sacrifice at the beginning defining her second life, protecting her from harm and giving her a chance. It was beautiful, and felt similar to how the life of a Christian feels, knowing that Christ has rescued us out of love. This is a sacrifice that can protect her from chains and beatings, even when Ed was beaten to death and chained with the anti-magic artifact, the sign of that love being the red stone that is, we are told, a part of the soul of its owner. I found that very compelling, even universal.

2. What do you think of the characters?

Annabel

Jeskai Angel: Annabel is surprisingly mature compared to Mia. I say “surprising” for a couple of reasons. First, Mia is technically older (having died at 20, versus Bel going back at 18). Second, before ending up in the dungeon, Mia actually saw quite a lot of the world. She witnessed the fall of her empire, participated in governmental duties, visited other countries, etc. On the other hand, although Bel’s family does seem to genuinely care about her, they were crazy overprotective in a way that seriously reduced her range of life experiences the first time around. I think many of Annabel’s more genuinely immature moments stem from how sheltered she was. On the other hand, a wonderful aspect of Bel as a character is her pseudo-immaturity: her deliberate efforts to be more childlike and have more fun. These aren’t moments of thoughtless indulgence, but a purposeful rejection of the borderline ascetic lifestyle of repressing any and all desires to which she adhered in her first life. Reset! is not just a time-travel-to-prevent-disaster story, it’s also time-travel-to-make-better-life-choices. Finally, I liked the Bel-tries-to-learn-magic subplot, with the way it addressed her feelings of inadequacy and showed her dogged perseverance in trying to do something long after others gave up on her ever doing it.

stardf29: Given how this story is directly from Annabel’s point of view (with no narrator to make snarky commentary about things), we have a very personal protagonist here, one whom we really get to know how she thinks. So it’s a good thing that she’s just a nice, likable girl all-around. She’s realized how sheltered she was and starts to question whether just following her expected role is what is best. All the same, she’s still overall a nice girl who is trying to make the most of her second chance at life.

While I don’t want to get too much into comparisons with Mia, there is one thing that caught my interest: how their periods of imprisonment seems to have affected them. In Mia’s case, it gave her a better appreciation for things she took for granted or considered to be beneath her. However, in Bel’s case, it felt to me like her imprisonment actually freed her to think outside of just following along with her parents, and instead pursue what she wants herself. In other words, while Mia’s imprisonment mollified her self-centeredness, Bel’s imprisonment actually increased her self-centeredness, albeit in a healthy way.

Gaheret: On the whole, I like her a lot. She is humble, grateful and determined. She works hard, both for Edoile and for her magic, and does not allow herself to live in resentment or hate. And I really empathized with her when she was jealous.

Edoile

stardf29: Ed is a great character and love interest for Bel. He’s got that “cool knight” aspect to him, but he’s not above a bit of playfulness, like trying to use a frog to kickstart Bel’s magic. It was definitely nice to get a bonus chapter from his perspective, and it’s amusing that the guy he’s most worried about… is himself, from a different timeline. (Definitely a twist on the whole “you vs. the guy she told you not to worry about” thing…) He’s obviously trying to make sense of his “duplicate” Magic Stone, and it does make me wonder if at some point, should Bel attempt to tell him about the past timeline, what his reaction would be.

It’s interesting that the differences in events in the current timeline has led Ed into going down a different path in life from the past timeline. Whereas before, he settled for being a knight and channeling his feelings for Bel to simply being her protector, now he wants to become a high-ranking court magician so he has the standing necessary to marry her. Perhaps he was inspired by Bel’s determination to break past what society expects a princess to do.

Jeskai Angel: Ed is the only character who really comes across as a distinctly different person in each timeline. Bel is the same person, and for most other characters we only get to know them in one timeline or the other. Whether it was romantic or not, there’s no question that OG Ed treated Annabel with loyal and self-sacrificial love. The presence of his magic stone, continuing to protect Bel even after the reset, regularly reminds us that OG Ed went to great lengths to protect her and is in some sense still influencing the story. I’m curious what he may have known that hasn’t been revealed (was he just bluffing when assured Bel that help was coming?). How is he connected to the reset, such that his magic stone went back in time with Bel?

And then there’s Reset Ed. He is the most vivid example of the timelines diverging, even apart from Bel’s influence (e.g., his mediocre sword skills in the new timeline vs. being a master swordsman in the original). I thought it was super cute watching how he starts falling for Bel, demonstrated through sweet moments like when he tries so hard help her learn magic, or just tries to improve as a swordsman to live up to her expectations.

Gaheret: Edoile was a very interesting character too. An ambitious, noble, self-sacrificing knight-in-the-making who has to become the kind of man he was in the other timeline. We know he has a brother, a good relationship with his brother’s bride, talent and ambitions, and admiration for the mage that established the kingdom in its present form (and married a princess). He is also a good friend for Charles, and it seems that King Daniel was jealous of him. His courtship of Annabel seems a risky move, and I thought he wouldn’t consent to it, but I’m happy he has chosen to go for it.

Bel’s parents

Jeskai Angel: Let’s talk about Bel’s parents, who are ironically one of the points she and Mia have in common. That is, they both have some terrible parents who dote on them but don’t actually raise them well. I am honestly kind of angry with Bel’s mom and dad. Who thinks it’s a good idea to keep a kid in the castle her entire life until the moment you ship her out to another country to get married?????? How is that not a self-evidently horrible idea?????? And don’t get me started on the whole secret-transporter-rooms-we-never-mentioned! What had they planned to do in Bel’s first life if they suddenly needed to flee and Bel happened to be in some part of castle where they couldn’t conveniently fetch her? Just leave her behind? It’s like they simultaneously distrusted her AND were obsessively protective toward her. It’s nice that they begrudgingly let her do stuff like go to school and ride horses when she pushed for it in her second life…but even in her second life you see the same impulse to shelter her. Look, I know they were upset when Bel ran off into town on her own, but was locking her in the castle for six months REALLY the best way to handle the situation? I’m surprised Bel turned out as well as she did with such a smothering, disturbingly overprotective family controlling her life. (I don’t really blame Charles because he’s probably just a kid obeying his parents’ instructions, not the one responsible for any of this.) So yeah, I think Bel’s family totally wronged her. They did so in a different way than Mia’s highly irresponsible parent(s?), but they still were bad parents..

stardf29: Oh boy, her parents confining her for half a year daring to get kidnapped… I mean, that’s basically victim-blaming, isn’t it? And yeah, their overall sheltering of her is just terrible. They don’t recognize Bel as a person with her own agency or desires; you could even say they outright were responsible for suppressing her agency and desires in the first place. They didn’t love her as a person, but as their “property” that they have attachment to but expect to do what they want her to do. And to think they were so scared of her possibly escaping that they didn’t even want to let her know about the emergency teleporters… Ed has a line about how “a bird that has flown the coop cannot be caged again”, and I think that really shows that the king and queen wanted Bel to be: a caged pet bird.

Gaheret: I didn’t perceive a mistreatment of Annabel by her family. I recall she saying that she had had a happy childhood at least twice, and their parents gave her presents, took into account her desires and dined with her everyday despite they being royalty. They also encouraged her to visit hospitals and do voluntary work for the wounded, at least while she was under punishment. And she seems fond of them, even if she is determined to take an active role and avoid being a doll this time. Being so sheltered may be reasonable in the world, which is quite grim. We are told that these countries depend on complicated strategies for their survival. All the male rulers or heirs, as well as the queen, are subject to constant threat of assassination, while a girl is a valuable asset for controlling the kingdom. Being married to one is said to be sufficient to legitimate any usurper, in the eyes of the people. Prostitution and human trafficking are also a danger. It is never clear what are the dangers of the Academy that Charles warns Annabel about, but every noble seems to be destined to some branch of the military, and knights are primarily bodyguards. When Annabel is sequestered, the guards offer the king their own lives, no less. I think this is a feature of the world. In that context, putting herself and others in danger by going out without protection and following two strangers in a street she knows to be dangerous seems serious enough to me to justify confinement in the castle. I also think Annabel thinks her punishment is justified.

I know frogs are commonly used for magic but not like this…

Other characters

Jeskai Angel: Compared to Tearmoon Empire, I thought Reset! had far fewer well-developed, interesting characters, choosing instead to focus overwhelmingly on Bel and Ed. Bel and Ed are great, but I don’t have much to say about most of the other characters. Of the secondary cast, my favorite was Charles. The teasing and goofiness, the protectiveness, the desire to impress his younger sibling… It all just came across as a fun, realistic big brother character. I also give Charles 2.0 bonus points for revealing the existence of the teleport pads to his sister, rather than clinging the over-the-top secretiveness of Bel’s family in the original timeline.

stardf29: Charles is a cool older brother. In contrast to his parents, he’s actually receptive to his sister doing what she wants, even while still having his protective side.

Gaheret: Charles was a good brother, loving and protective, but I don’t think Annabel and him are very close. There is only a year between them, but she never thinks of telling her about the future, nor that she likes Edoile. For his part, he doesn’t tell Annabel much about his ambitions, crushes or dreams. Annabel points out that Ed knows how to manage Charles, flattering him or calming him. He seems competitive, sometimes preoccupied with his standing in the class. I think Karina may court him, not Daniel, in this timeline.

We get a lot of mentions of the other friend of Charles, the noble with golden eyes who wins the tournament, and who is mentioned to be stronger than Edoile. I think the two will fight, at some point.

stardf29: While we don’t get any particularly deep characterization for Olphia and Claude, they’re a nice little side couple, with the added aspect of how we don’t know if they survived in the last timeline, so obviously Bel is motivated to keep them safe this time around. At the moment they just add a bit of extra sweetness to the story between them and their friendship with Bel, which I’m not going to complain about.

Gaheret: Concerning other characters, it surprised me when Claude and Oliphia work together to protect her from potential fortune-hunters in her class (or so it seemed to me). They maintain their budding romance from 12 to 15 and, we are told, even beyond, in the other timeline. Oliphia is the person with whom Annabel laughs, eats cake and visits the town, and who knows about her crush, too. Claude is a future diplomat, and we are told that the survival strategy of the kingdom depends on careful diplomacy. He also hands Annabel the book about Daniel’s magic laboratories. We’ll see.

stardf29: Finally, a bit about Daniel: as long as we’re comparing with other novels, I’ll bring up another Cross Infinite World title: Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends. In that one, the female protagonist was in a similar situation, in that she was engaged to a prince, but then another woman schemed to spread lies to get him to break up the engagement. In that novel, the prince had a serious inferiority complex, which is what allowed him to so easily doubt the protagonist’s loyalty and instead believe the lies of another woman. I can’t help but think something similar is going on here with Daniel. He seems to be wanting to bolster his country’s magical power, to make up for how it’s inferior to that of Najir, and while he might have genuinely fallen for Bel, at some point the worries of her not being able to use magic probably caught up with him, thus leading him to believe she’s cheating on him (something that Karina probably came up with) and thus causing everything to go downhill from there.

Jeskai Angel: So what’s going on with Daniel and Karina seems like one of the big mysteries of the story. Your scheming-woman-exploits-inferiority-complex theory has merit, but it’s still strange that Bel didn’t pick up any negative signals from beforehand. Like, in Fluffy Friends, the protagonist didn’t expect to get dumped, but she at least acknowledges after the fact that the prince was quite flawed and that it’s not entirely surprising that he could be manipulated into lashing out against her. So, was Daniel just a better actor, and he covered up his flaws / insecurities? Bel seems totally blindsided his betrayal, and at no point does she suggest there were any warning flags with Daniel.

I mention this because of the conflicting reports we’ve gotten about a character who hasn’t actually appeared “on screen” in any meaningful way: Karina. Based on the original timeline, she seems totally villainous. But in the reset world, Bel hears that Karina is supposedly a wonderful person. What’s up with that? The ambiguity surrounding what kind of person Karina is reflects back on Daniel: it’s harder to surmise how Karina may have influenced him when we don’t really have a strong reading on Karina herself.

stardf29: Yeah, Karina’s supposedly being a nice person in the current timeline is another interesting wrinkle. Obviously, there’s the possibility that something happened that turned her evil, which could make for an interesting future plot point in which Bel must recognize and try to stop something that corrupts her former enemies, like how a certain sage has to deal with certain serpents of chaos. But it’s definitely just speculation at this point.

Gaheret: Daniel and Karina. Daniel did everything right, treating Annabel well, reassuring her about her lack of magic, courting her… And one day, he insulted and punched her, conquered her kingdom, broke their engagement and put her in prison. It was literally the first sign that something was wrong. So, my thesis is that, rather than being insecure, he may be bewitched. His laboratory seems to be a novelty of this timeline. Well, this is mysterious. Concerning the cruelty and open hate of Karina, I think it can only be explained if either they had met in a forgotten timeline, or she hates her kingdom or her family for some reason. I think she is behind the black magic users, and that she is older than she looks.

3. What do you think of how the story uses the “turn back time to prevent disaster” trope? (Feel free to compare it to other stories that use this trope.)

Jeskai Angel: This question connects back to my comments on how Reset! differs from Tearmoon Empire. I think Reset! has more of a sense of mystery, especially with regard to the “prevent disaster” plot. Mia witnesses the fall of her empire, and thanks to Ludwig’s lectures, knows many of the reasons for that fall. But as Annabel herself realizes, she isn’t even absolutely certain that OG Ed died! She doesn’t see the fall of Najir or have any idea why her ex-fiancee turned against her. At one point, she lampshades how illogical it was, noting that even from a coldblooded realpolitik perspective, Daniel could have gained more from marrying her then murdering her than from just breaking off the engagement. The “prevent disaster” part of the trope becomes much more difficult when there’s so much Annabel still doesn’t know.

This is compounded by another difference between the two light novels. Every change in Mia’s second life (aside from her initial act of time travel itself) can be traced back to her own influence. Not so in Reset!. On multiple occasions, Annabel observes that her second life differs from the original timeline in ways that can’t reasonably be attributed to anything she did. This again complicates the “prevent disaster” goal by obscuring what Annabel needs to change.

I think this sense of mystery is one of Reset!‘s distinguishing features, something that sets it apart from many other “turn back time to prevent disaster” tales. Annabel’s gone back in time…but rather than her conflict focusing on how to change the timeline, so far she’s still just struggling to figure out what’s going on!

stardf29: So Jeskai has done a good job breaking much of this down, so now I have to find some other aspects to talk about…

I think one important element to these stories is how the “disaster” of the past timeline mentally affects the protagonist in their current life. In the case of Tearmoon Empire, Mia becomes more wary of death, and how her actions may lead to bad consequences; as mentioned before, she also becomes more patient and grateful, as her life in imprisonment gave her perspective of how bad life could get. As mentioned before, in Annabel’s case, she starts wanting more out of life herself, refusing to just blindly follow her expected roles. Both are interesting avenues of character development–certainly moreso than, say, just wanting to get revenge on those who caused the disaster.

Beyond that, adding to the mystery to all this is how the two timelines may actually be “connected”. At the very least, there’s Ed’s magic stone, an item from the past timeline that isn’t just a “hey, remember what happened” thing like Tearmoon’s diary. What role will that stone have in the future of the story… who knows.

Gaheret: A story of time travel is always, I think, a story about vocation or a tragedy. You may discover that things cannot be changed, or discover that you are called to change them. I think Annabel’s story works in that level: she was mostly passive, but now will be active. She wants to respond to Ed’s sacrifice by loving him. She may marry, not another king to keep the balance of the powers, but a genius that may change the game entirely. I’m definitively interested. What I find a little odd is that she doesn’t seem to think much about the future invasion, or of warning anyone, checking the defenses, understand what happened or why they were defeated… That was an aspect Tearmoon Empire handled well. I don’t need this story to be about that, but, were it me who knew my country will be invaded in five years, I don’t think I’d be able to focus on my daily life like that.

4. What do you think of the novel’s depiction of self-denial vs. acknowledging one’s desires / striving for a formal sense of perfection vs. having fun? (from Jeskai Angel)

Jeskai Angel: I mentioned it a bit before regarding Annabel as a character, but I think this is a really interesting aspect of the story. First, I was curious whether everyone agrees in seeing it as positively as I do. I can imagine a negative interpretation, but I don’t think the story is promoting rampant selfishness. Sacrifice and self-denial can be good and noble (as OG Ed demonstrates), but it’s not an end unto itself. Annabel in her first life sounds like someone who engaged in a kind of asceticism, ignoring her own wishes out of little more than a vague sense that that’s what people around her wanted. There was no specific purpose or higher meaning to the kind of self-denial she practiced. It brings to mind the apostle Paul’s condemnation of a sort of meaningless, arbitrary asceticism in Colossians 2:20-23.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

This way of life contrasts starkly with the love-based self-sacrifice we see demonstrated by Ed and also taught in the Bible. Whether it’s love for God or for our fellow man, the kind of “dying to self” the scriptures depict is all about love, not just a nebulous sense of duty.

Happily, Bel regrets and rejects this way of life, and makes better choices with her second chance. This is a theme that shows up in other stories, too. Bel’s efforts to enjoy her second life more than her first, to live without regrets, remind me a bit of recent posts stardf29 and Twwk have written regarding the positive “Don’t be a workaholic” message found in I’ve Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years And Maxed Out My Level. I think we could also find parallels in The Saint’s Magic Power Is Omnipotent!, another LNC favorite which stars a recovering workaholic using life in a new world to slow down and have more fun.

stardf29: So I kind of already answered this question when I talked about how Annabel’s imprisonment affected her in the current timeline. Going deeper into that, she felt that all her self-denial was basically meaningless. It’s interesting that you bring up Killing Slimes, as Azusa there ends up feeling a similar sense of regret over how she “sacrificed” her life for work before.

The point you made about how love was missing is key. For Azusa, when she found a life spending time with her new “family” and helping the village; for Sei, who saw how much her potions helped people and saved lives; even for someone like Mia, who realized that she’s more likely to end up happy if everyone is happy… they all found someone else to care for. And likewise, Annabel finds herself wanting to change a bad future, to protect her friends, family, and Ed.

Now, as for how doing stuff for fun fits into all this… it’s really not that much different, at least as far as the feeling that it’s ultimately meaningless to pursue “happiness” just for its own sake. Think Solomon in Ecclesiastes, or the prodigal son. But add in love and a greater perspective, such as Annabel wanting to enjoy her time with friends while making sure they survive, and “fun” might actually start to feel fulfilling.

Gaheret: Self-denial is certainly very important, more so in a king or leader, but as Jeskai notes, not for itself, but for the importance of the things you affirm with it. Loyalty is not against creative response, questioning, putting your own initiative there, disagreeing or even disobeying, when necessary. In fact, it is the opposite. Annabel thought that by letting herself be guided, not creating trouble and denying herself would help her family and kingdom, but it was not so. Now she will try the other way, and I think she will truly help.

5. Final thoughts?

Jeskai Angel: I’m glad to see Cross Infinite World releasing some excellent new licenses in the past year. No offense, but I felt like some of their earlier works were…well, let’s just say I could understand why none of the larger publishers had bothered to license them. But light novels such as Reset!, the aforementioned Fluffy Friends, and Reincarnated as the Last of My Kind are every bit as strong as what Yen, JNC, and 7Cs are putting out.

Gaheret: These days I’m watching HBO’s John Adams and reading about Lincoln, so it’s a lot of politics and family life, people trying to reach the difficult balance between pressing public issues and family life. Stories about kings and princesses have these two naturally intermingle. So despite what I said about the invasion and the world, I appreciated the fact that this was more of a family story where I could observe and appreciate without distraction the small interactions between Annabel, her parents, her brother, her friends. It has been a fun ride.

=====

If you read through all of our discussion, thank you! If you haven’t read the novel yet and want to, you can get it from Cross Infinite World.

The light novel we will be discussing starting later this month is Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki, Vol 2! Whether you had followed our discussion of the first volume, or are curious after having seen the anime, or simply want to read the story of a gamer trying to win at the game of life, this should be a nice change-of-pace from all the bad-future-preventing fantasy adventures. Our discussion starts on May 21st and will run for several weeks, so whether you have one or two volumes to read, there’s still plenty of time to join our Discord and our discussion!

If you want to get ready for the discussion after that, our following Light Novel Club discussion will be on The Faraway Paladin, Vol. 1! This is a fantasy story that is definitely quite different from the usual fantasy light novels, and with an anime adaptation coming this fall, it’s a great time to check out this title. Our discussion on that starts on June 23rd!

[thejudgingtrash]

My unpopular opinion: Chiron is a horrible teacher, protector, whatever. He’s as bad dumbledor. He often manipulates children and put them in danger? Also is RR really trying to tell me not one single demigod from before percy’s generation made it to adulthood? Not even demigods of minor gods? If not then why haven’t we heard from them, why weren’t they called to fight in the war so that literal children didn’t have to? I have more but I’m not brave enough to post them lol

Fuck, I gotta check my asks more often. Too much stuff laying around and oh please people! Send your stuff in! Don’t be shy! It’s so interesting to see what’s on your mind! Let’s have that conversation and ask me!! :D I mean a bunch of people agreed and disagreed with my stances (Part 1/Part 2), let’s see how I feel about yours!

Anyway HERE WE GO BOYS! LET’S GO LESBIANS LET’S GO! 

LET’S HAVE THAT WHOLE DAMN ESSAY!

Chiron is clearly a self insert from Riordan. I mean come on…

That’s a solid Chiron if I see one. Which is pretty ironic as Chiron’s the shitty teacher who we all know and love. Got something to admit, Riordan? You as a former teacher? HMM?

Hiding incompetence under the disguise of the gentle old wise teacher is definitely something that Dumbledore and Chiron share. Chiron is the old centaur who lived for aeons and helped out the most famous heroes of their times, so shouldn’t modern times be considered to be an easier job for him? He’s barely present, highkey vague and has absolutely no problems with tossing children literally out into the open across the entire fucking US and A to clean the gods’ bathroom messes.

Had the heroes been in their 20s like in the original myths (or even older) it would’ve made more sense to let them find their own ways. It would be rude,  but somewhat okay. You could expect adults to find the way and connect the dots. But this is just messing with a bunch of 12 year olds because you can at this point.

Chiron is that supposed sweet teacher that just fucks up. We all had one, you know the one. Seems gentle and nice and but has clearly chosen the wrong job. Don’t know if that’s the trauma of living that long and/or seeing kids dying constantly that’s hitting him in the back of the head.

I have the feeling that people are projecting their teacher fantasies on to him just like step-father fantasies that include Paul. Because we want a guide who is trustworthy, we want an authoritative figure that we can share our concerns with and who guides us to solid solutions without betraying our trust.

But like I said, he’s essentially sending out kids to deathly missions and encouraging deep traumas. Yes, we can partially blame Chiron, but most of the blame goes to the gods who enable and encourage this weird dynamic. Would all of them straight up cut the bullshit and mostly resolve their own issues without using their children as pawns, it would’ve been easier for everyone involved. Additionally, there are many kids in camp to keep busy, look after and care for. I don’t know how many there were pre-TLO but I’d assume the number was in the hundreds? Of course, in larger cabins are camp counsellors that help out and guide next to camp schedules. But since Percy’s the only kid in the Poseidon cabin I guess that thought went south? Percy being the special kid would actually mean that there should be a focus on him unless you’re going for the “I’m neutral” spiel. Chiron knew from day one that Percy was walking Poseidon seed, come on.

Also like I somewhat implied, seeing people die left and right might have impacted Chiron to make him feel indifferent/despressed (could also be a stretch, who knows). Which isn’t an excuse, but might explain some takes. Explaining the same stuff for millennia in its essentials is probably getting tiring.

I think this is the third time that I mentioned it on my blog but showing and telling are the most powerful story telling concepts/fundamentals and you see Rowling and Riordan constantly failing at that which is concerning. Instead of Chiron (or Dumbledore) just simply getting down to the point and telling and explaining stuff briefly, he only eludes, vaguely formulates and it is simply confusing especially for a child in a brand new environment who just lost his mother (if we’re speaking about TLT). This does nothing but add more stress in such a fragile situation especially when a new and bigger threat makes its way.

There’s also the discussion on how much of Greek myth Percy actually gets. He has the basic/ obvious knowledge which many tend to forget. He doesn’t come in with no knowledge. He had Latin classes back at the academy, he studies with Annabeth, he knows some of the monsters. What he simply doesn’t know, is the magic of it all. That is the most confusing part for him.

The actual magic is not explained, which it doesn’t have to be in all of its entirety, but needs to be addressed somehow and gradually.

Percy asking a simple question like how the camp stays sunny and covered 24/7 and how the wardens work and Chiron casually sitting here like you a stoopid one

doesn’t help.

What many people forget: Magic doesn’t erase logic. Even in a magical setting, unless clearly stated, there has to be some kind of logic to connect the dots. It doesn’t need to be a clear cut A to B, but it should be comprehensible for both the readers and the characters in a particular situation. And that’s just not happening for Percy as the character. This also sets up the premise of Percy being ”stupid” which he isn’t. He is surrounded by incompetent teachers and staff that don’t bother telling him how things work and assume that he’ll just manage.

Yeah. Both Dumbledore and Chiron are awfulness in a sweet calm disguise.

Onto part two of the ask. I have had so many talks with people on that exact problem. It simply boils down to one issue:

Rick Riordan‘s inconsistency in world building and setting. The story telling doesn’t make any sense.

So kids are dying like flies before 18 but many are also super famous and in powerful positions? Many are historical figures that made it well over 18? Make that make sense. Also was WW2 supposed to be kicked off by some 12 year olds with that logic? The biggest man made catastrophe of the modern era boiled down to a bunch of fighting kids? No. We all know it. Just simply no. I actually don’t mind the WW2 background but Riordan should’ve given it another thought and be a bit more sensitive…? Like the whole fascist gang being team Hades? Uhh… sure…. nope.

Also the same logic applies to Civil War? You’re telling me a bunch of kids were supposed to have started this stance? Who was for and who was against slavery then? What in the actual fuck? Using children as child soldiers to stand in for these large complex historical issues that stretch over years and show many of humanity’s horrifying sides is just….eh.

No. This whole thing about campers dying as soon as they reach the magic number of 18 are either bedtime stories to scare the kids or toughen them up orrrr my guess, Riordan actually managed yet again to fuck up his own lore.

It’s the same logic with New Rome. You have a whole city full of adults but have a few kids run that bitch? You did your ten years of service as a child soldier and then do one of these?

As if adults magically exit this world. Like is that the reason why Percy’s been 17 for a whole damn decade? Because otherwise he gotta hand riptide in and all of the boys scout medals he has collected so far? Adults would’ve had the experience and expertise to win those fights but it would break the magic and charm of the books that a bunch of kids are saving the world for the younger demographic. Let’s do not forget that the targeted audience of the books are middle schoolers. Makes somewhat sense with PJO but with HOO Riordan really shot himself in the leg. He should’ve matured the OG characters at least.

(Also speaking about the actual myths again. A good chunk of them died in their 20s/30s/40s. Odysseus guided as an old man. The heroes weren’t twelve and dipping by the age of 16. The Trojan war went on for 10 years for example. So whereas the real Perseus lived a longer life and had a somewhat happy ending in comparison to his peers, he wasn’t the only one that made it into adulthood.)

Riordan mixing up his own lore is just a shame. Yes, it’s human and he already gets a lot of flag for other stuff. I also get it as a writer with my fanfic where I really have to scroll up to search tiny details that I’ve embedded and not noted down. Perhaps it’s my inner capitalist speaking, but for I’m way more forgiving towards a free product, a gift like a fanfic, rather than something I’ve paid actual money for when it comes to this. The process of publishing a book is large. You mean to tell me that there was no editor at Disney that bothered to fact check? Riordan got a check from us all and doesn’t even bother looking up his own stuff. A little bit more effort, Ricardo. Please. You have an entire damn wiki you could use to check for free if you’re too lazy to read your own books/don’t use authors softwares. Like what?

It’s stupid. You know it, I know it. And as you can see, I fully agree with you.

[xenoredux]

Balto but its been rewritten 24 years after its release

Okay so here's the Balto rewrite lol. It's quite a bit different then The Actual Thing but the plot itself is much the same, as are the major beats of the story. I dropped a lotta goofy shit in there just because it made me laugh, but try and imagine this stuff happening as if it's from an actual 90s movie made by a studio on its last legs.

Some things to know going into it:

I cut out the live actions segments because they seriously didn't matter at all. Like, who cares. The plot is fine without them and I don't think that one line from Rosie at the end makes a huge difference. I guess it's nice to see the statue but even than it's like..... whatever

In my fantasy world, Balto was a standalone movie that didn't spark any sequels. Eventually I'll write out my version of the sequels if they'd actually been good, but in the universe of this rewrite for this film, a Balto "franchise" never existed, hence why the ending is sorta different

It's still a "historical" fiction that holds very little relation to the actual events. There's a touch more actual history in there, but c'mon. You're not reading talking dog movie fanfic to learn anything. Pick up a book if you care about the actual serum run and don't get on my juicy ass about it if some things remain inaccurate

Please also note that I didn't baby this as much as I should have, so some major plot elements that are kinda stupid are likely still in there (I'm not a good writer lbr). I don't believe this is necessarily "better" then the OG, I just tweaked some stuff that always pissed me off about it. I also re-included cut content I thought was more interesting and made more sense then what we ended up getting. 

There's also a handful of fake screenshots throughout for shits and giggles, and I'll likely have at least one or two more to share later this month. Some links to past character designs are also provided for easy reference so you can make up scenes in your head but with Brand Spankin’ New Designz.

So here's Balto v2.0!

The year is 1925, and it's wintertime in Nome, Alaska. Two dogsled teams are participating in a race. A malamute named Steele leads his team against a powerful, but older and more experienced mutt named Wild Joe. Steele, despite being a decorated and much beloved champion lead dog, is a massive dick, and he snaps at a critical moment at one of Joe's teammates. Joe's team wipes out, his chances of winning are in shambles, and Steele is waaay in the lead.

A flare is shot into the air to let the enthused waiting townsfolk know that Steele's team has passed the race's 3 mile mark. Meanwhile, watching from his perch on the balcony of a house, a wolfdog named Balto excitedly bounds back and forth, unable to contain his excitement. He simply cannot sit still despite the protests of his closest friend Boris, an old Russian-Jewish goose who isn't a fan of all the excitement. Balto drags Boris around the roofs of the houses, ignoring his chiding all the while, until he can see the finish line of the race.

Back down on Earth, a young girl named Rosie is inside a woodworker's shop. She's receiving a gift she adores: a beautiful handmade sled, perfectly fitted to her size. The sled includes a harness in front that also perfectly fits her dog, a purebred copper Siberian husky named Jenna. Rosie's parents playfully lecture her to not lose the sled like she loses her other belongings. Almost as quickly as she receives the sled, Rosie and Jenna are trotting down the street in their new getup.

Jenna comes to rest in the race's sidelines among a group of other female dogs. The smallest of them all, a Pomeranian named Dixie, chides Jenna for allowing herself to be made a sled dog, even if it is in the spirit of make believe. After all, a canine of her slender frame and social standing shouldn't be performing manual labor. Jenna sighs at her friend's internalized misogyny and eugenics talk, rolling her eyes as if to say "oh you!"

Nor should someone of her persuasion be meeting up with any strays, Dixie continues while going on to show her racist side, for Balto and Boris have just plodded up to the group. The other girls scoff and huff at Balto's arrival, but Jenna and Rosie both are glad to see him. Rosie gives the wolfdog a hug, telling him to keep outta sight of The Parental Units. Just then, Steele's team rounds the corner, and Rosie waves her hat at them as if it's a foam finger and this is the most arduous baseball game in history. A sudden gust of wind picks up her hat and sweeps it into the path of the oncoming team. Rosie begins to panic and, while Jenna soothes her, Balto runs out alongside the advancing sled team to retrieve it.

Balto manages to snag and deliver the hat before Steele passes the finish line, which visibly upsets Steele. His owner speaks to the man who leads Wild Joe's team. He seems unimpressed with Steele's performance, enough so that Wild Joe's owner admits it's likely time that Joe was retired. The two imply that if a sled dog can't even outrun Steele, it's time for him to hang up his harness, even if he is wearing a bitchin' little number they speak in awe of called "A Golden Collar", a veritable necklace of medals awarded to sled dogs who have proven they don't suck. As one can imagine, this pisses Steele off something fierce. He gazes into the reflection of his face in his own golden collar, getting a bit of anger-saliva on it in the process.

The important thing, of course, is that Balto managed to save Rosie's hat. Jenna thanks him and playfully teases him about how nuts he'd have to be to do something like run alongside a car made of dogs, to which the quiet Balto just smiles. Rosie's dad isn't smiling very much, though, because all he saw was the town's favorite punching bag running wild with his daughter's hat. He swears at Balto and kicks snow his way, spooking him into running off down the street. Rosie's dad herds his child away, scolding her for playing with wild animals, while Jenna tries to follow her friend. Unable to recognize where he's not wanted, Steele blocks Jenna's path and starts flexing about his elite gamer/sledding skills. The other girl dogs can barely contain their ovaries around him, but Jenna just politely excuses herself as Steele begins spouting off insensitive remarks about "the howler from the cannery".

But Balto's not going home just yet. He knows exactly how to navigate the neighborhood and find his companion. Boris complains about the cold and how much he's walked around today, so he pisses off back to to their place. Balto simply shrugs and wanders until he finds Jenna again. He trails behind her, hiding in various places along the street as Jenna follows her masters home. Jenna talks passionately about how she'd love to do something big and hella just to show up guys like Steele. Balto encouragingly comments on how he's sure she'd be the best at whatever she did, and she smiles at him in a particularly heterosexual way.

Eventually the two part ways, and Balto decides it's time to go home. As he trots along, he notices a glove that Rosie dropped. He smiles and rolls his eyes as he picks it up and turns to head to Jenna's and give it back. Unfortunately for him, Steele's ego bruises like a banana and heals just about as well, so the meat-headed malamute has dragged along his team to harass the town's token minority once he was alone. The only dog on the team who seems against harassing someone for something they can't control is Star, Steele's smaller, weaker, more cowardly little brother. Steele jeers at Star for being too much of a puss to participate in the g-rated hate crime before rolling a barrel in Balto's direction. Balto's bowled over by it and falls face first into a bucket.

Steele's team howls with laughter, then literally howls in an effort to insult Balto. The words "howler" and "feral" are thrown around a lot as Balto struggles to free his face from the pail. He never manages to, and before Steele can harass him some more, his musher calls out for him and the rest of the team. Steele calls his men to his side and makes his way out. The only one who trails behind is Star, who gingerly pops the bucket off of Balto's head. The two stare wordlessly at each other for a moment, the stunned Balto dwarfing the underdeveloped Star, before Star gets too scared to stay any longer and books it. Balto looks around himself for Rosie's mitten, but he can't find it. He sighs and begins heading towards the harbor.

As Balto walks through the cannery, the other stray and unloved dogs take notice of him and begin jeering at him. Despite how pitiful-looking they are, almost all of them feel the need to tell Balto in livid detail about just how shit he is in comparison because of his wolf heritage. Those who don't jeer hateful words hole up and hide from him as he passes them by.

Boris takes notice of Balto returning home, and he goes to wave to him with his one good wing before noticing something peculiar on the hill by the shoreline: wolves! A small pack of wolves take notice of Balto. They even begin howling to him. It's clear that they're inviting him to join their DnD party, and for a tense moment Boris is afraid Balto will run after them. But Balto simply shrinks away, shaking his head. His shoulders slump and he makes his way to the wrecked boat he and Boris live on.

Boris attempts to cheer Balto up with some wAcKy SlApStIcK cOmEdY before having to realize that harming himself is increasingly silly ways will not cure Balto's bigotry induced depression. He slumps against Balto as the two notice a flock of geese flying overhead. Balto asks Boris what it was like in "the old country", and Boris soothes in the most Russian voice ever conceived what are likely concerns he's heard many times before by assuring Balto he came to Alaska for good reason because the old country sucked. He also assures Balto that the busted wing he has was the best thing that ever happened to him, because it meant he got to live in Nome and find that lonely wolfdog kid those several years back. Balto can't help but crack a smile.

When the sun has gone down, Balto begins to leave the hovel he calls home. Boris reminds him to be careful on his nightly excursion to find food, to which Balto merely smiles and nods. He pads past the sleeping cannery dogs and back towards town.

Meanwhile, Jenna is sitting outside of the hospital doorway. She watches as her masters lead Rosie inside. Rosie's gotten a nasty cough, and she makes an odd wheezing noise when she breathes. As mom and pop speak to the very busy doctor, Rosie gazes out the window at Jenna, waving and smiling at her. Jenna stands up excitedly, but feels her heart sink into her stomach as Rosie has the sort of coughing fit a Flintstone's chewable can't fix. Her parents come to lead her away from the window. Jenna tries her damnedest to find a way to peer inside from around the back. There is a window, but she's unable to reach it, even as she's standing on her hind legs.

Balto, dirty from digging around in garbage, spots Jenna's vibrant red coat from across the way. He calls out to her softly, and though she does acknowledge his greeting, she barely responds. This concerns Balto, and he comes to join her under the window. She explains that she wants to see in, and Balto allows her to climb up and stand on his back to do so. She obliges, too worried about Rosie's well-being to thank him, and gazes longingly inside.

She climbs down from Balto a beat later, saying how she wishes she could understand what was happening in there. Most of what went on was just the doctor talking. Balto pauses and thinks for a moment, and then tells Jenna he has an idea. He leads her around to the boiler room placed adjunct to the hospital where the doctor's dog, a St. Bernard appropriately named Doc, spends his nights. The two make their way inside.

Doc is in fact there, snoring like a buzz-saw on crack. Balto gently wakes him up, and at first he's both annoyed to be woken and offput by The Wolfdog being in his face, but when Jenna explains the situation to him he becomes much more amiable. He leads the two over to the crawlspace under the hospital, stating there's far too much of him to love to allow him to fit under with them. Balto and Jenna thank him and go inside.

The two creep through the creepy underside of the hospital until they find themselves under a grate beneath the doctor's desk. The doctor discusses with the nurses how the children of Nome have diphtheria, a fast acting, aggressive disease that causes fatal epidemics. The anti-toxin he was able to treat the first few cases with has run out, and without it, all infected children will surely die within two weeks' time.

Jenna is unsurprisingly distraught at the idea of her favorite person on the planet dying a slow, painful death, so she scrambles out of the crawlspace and begins crying. Balto follows close behind her to see that Doc has already begun to comfort her. He apologizes for bringing Jenna here, to which Jenna states she's glad he did. Aside from Jenna's gentle sobbing, all is silent for a moment. Suddenly, a loud crash can be heard outside. Everyone turns to see Steele and his dogs have come back to ruin another scene. Doc becomes upset at the sudden influx of uninvited guests crowding up his personal space, so he goes to alert the doctor and get them all the fuck outta there. Meanwhile, the team menaces Balto while Steele tries to impress Jenna by pulling Rosie's missing mitten out of his collar. He offers to walk Jenna home to deliver it to her family as the team, lead by a pitifully unintimidating Star, back a snarling Balto into the corner.

Jenna's obviously not interested in Dog Gaston's posturing, but she's also got an IQ higher then 6 and understands that he's not going to go away simply because she asks him to. As Balto watches from out the corner of his eye, Jenna flirtatiously backs Steele into the glowing red boiler. She mutters something about meatballs under her breath as Steele begins to howl and shriek in pain. The smell of burning dog ass and the cries of a defeated jock archetype alert people to the scene, and all the dogs begin to scatter. Balto and Jenna try to join the reverse flash mob, but Steele flings himself hard into Balto and forces all of them to stumble. Lanterns shine in the literal dogpile's direction. Steele refuses to get off of Balto, so Balto insists that Jenna get away. She forgets about Rosie's mitten, which Balto snags to keep away from Steele's posturing self, and the men finally descend upon the dogs.

Someone pulls Steele off of Balto, and he begins making as if he's injured, intentionally limping and stumbling melodramatically around. The men start to make a fuss about the wolfdog injuring the town's best runner when one of them, Rosie's dad, notices his daughter's missing mitten in Balto's mouth. He begins yelling and kicking at the dog, going on about how he's dangerous and he'd better not go anywhere near his child ever again. Balto tucks tail and barrels out of town, and all the men stroke a miraculously healed Steele to compensate for the trauma of being attacked by a dog half his size.

As Balto pounds pavement, he passes the telegraph office, wherein an important message is being sent. A request for more anti-toxin to treat the epidemic is being relayed, and in it are the details of why this situation is uniquely urgent: the Alaskan winter is doing its worst, bringing blizzards severe enough that ships and planes alike cannot manage to deliver the medicine. Nome's best bet becomes obvious: use a train to deliver the medicine as closely to Nome as they can, then set up relay teams of sled dogs to receive and deliver the anti-toxin.

The morning after the message has been sent, the town organizes a race to test which dogs in town have the highest stats in stamina, speed, and agility. Almost every husky in town is lined up to race... all except a very upset Jenna, who keeps insisting the other dogs make room for her. Some dogs look at her with concern. Others laugh. But most of them seem convinced that her place is here in Nome, keeping her people company and not chipping any of her nails. Dixie tries to lead Jenna away from the race, but Jenna's so pissed that she angrily stomps away from the race altogether.

Balto, who has been hiding around town this whole time, slips out of the shadows to meet her. She vents loudly to him about being disallowed to participate because of the snot-nosed chauvinists running the race. If Balto didn't know the depth of her conviction before, he certainly does now; she begins to cry angry tears over what will happen to Rosie.

Balto can't stand to see a grown womandog cry, but he's worried about what will happen if he tries to line up with the other dogs. Everyone believes he attacked Steele, after all. Nobody would tolerate him joining the race... at least, not while they're all there. He wordlessly slips away from Jenna, assuring her he has a plan. In a moment he's disappeared. The race is about to start, and Boris has hobbled into town. He goes over to Jenna and begins complaining about how Balto didn't come home last night. Jenna tells him it's a long story, but that she's sure he'll turn up again soon. Maybe. Hopefully.

The starting gun is fired off, and the dogs take off with the speed and accuracy of drunken Nascar drivers. Just as soon as they've all bolted, Balto boltos past the starting line right in tow, which causes some reasonable upset among the crowd given word of Steele's definitely-real-not-made-up scuffle with the wolfdog has spread fast.

Despite the jeering Balto is faced with, he continues on. By this point, Jenna and Boris have noticed him running, and they begin to cheer him on as they scramble to keep up with him. Turns out wolves and their relatives are pretty fast.

In contrast to the other dogs, Balto's saving grace isn't just his speed, but his ingenuity. Balto breaks off of the track as he begins advancing on the dogs in an effort to avoid their snarling and snapping at him. He shows his cleverness by traversing obstacles like frozen ponds, hanging pulleys, and crumbling wooden beams that bridge buildings, all while maintaining pace with the other dogs. Any townsfolk who are capable of seeing him are too impressed with his abilities to remember his alleged attempted dogmurder.

To the surprise of literally nobody reading this, Balto manages to cross the finish line before anybody else, which includes an especially tilted Steele. Unexpectedly, several townsfolk cheer for our parkour-loving protagonist, and Balto's face lights up in pleasure, having never experienced praise from basically any human person.

Steele and Wild Joe's mushers come around to give Balto the once over, discussing how he'd be an invaluable asset to any team. Joe's musher believes he'd made a good replacement for Joe now that that dog's been laid off of his animaljob. Balto ingratiates his coy self with a gentle tail wag, and Steele has literally never been more angry in his life. His ego as sore as a freshly kicked-in face, Steele looks around for some way to prove Balto is totes nasty. A toothy grin spreads across his face as he spots Jenna leading a hobbling Boris over, and he quickly rushes the goose and snags him up, carrying him away.

Balto doesn't like seeing his surrogate feathered father being doghandled, so he snarls and chases after Steele, startling the men. The men follow Balto, who is following Steele, who is following his own evil agenda. Steele tosses Boris off the nearby harbor, and the bird struggles to collect himself in the icy water. Balto rushes Steele, still snarling. This spooks Steele's musher, and he begins throwing rocks at Balto. The man tells the wolfdog to stay away from his animal, and he states to Wild Joe's musher why Balto would be useless as a sled dog: he can't manage to get along with other canines. He's too wild. The two men collect Steele and depart as Balto similarly collects Boris, who is little more then a honking popsicle by now.

As Balto begins carrying Boris home, Jenna stops him and asks what happened. Balto gruffly states that Jenna's master would be angry to see her speaking to him. After all, he doesn't get along with other dogs given how wild he is. Jenna is so surprised by her friend lashing out at her that she can't speak, and she watches solemnly and wordlessly as Balto and Boris make like Rosie's health and disappear.

That night, the relay teams are being dispatched. The electric cross hanging on the church steeple is turned on - the pastor says that so long as there's hope for the children, the light will stay lit and the electric bill will stay high - and a handful of teams are sent out, including Steele's. The sick children watch from inside the hospital. Jenna watches from her new favorite spot just under one of the hospital's front windows, her face contorted in worry. From his ship, Balto ignores Boris's cacophanic snoring as he watches the teams head out. He gives a sigh.

A day passes as the relay teams power through the awful weather. Steele's team receives the medicine from another team who just had it delivered to them by train. Now Steele's gang is intended to deliver the medicine once again to the team of a dog named Togo. Unfortunately, Steele's unwarranted self-importance prevents this, as he dislikes the idea of not being the guy to deliver the goods to town. He tells Star that he doesn't need to follow the rules of the relay - he knows the way home and he can do this himself. He intentionally ignores the path to Togo and drags his team helplessly onward, and none of them but Star are any the wiser.

The governor's dog calls a meeting in the boiler room for all the other dogs in town. It's been longer then the townsfolk expected it to take for the meds to arrive, and everyone is getting ants in their collective pants. Balto watches the meeting from outside a window to maintain some discreetness. Doc tries to calm everybody down once they begin panicking, but they're all too much in a tizzy thinking about what will happen to the kids to hear him. Suddenly, the rabbling of the crowd is halted when a sharp, reverberating bark cuts through the noise. Everyone turns to the door.

In the doorframe stands the tall, bulky silhouette of an unknown beefcake. The dog steps into the light, and Wild Joe finally announces his presence verbally and not just cinematically. He informs the dogs that he's had a lot of time to wander since being unharnessed, and tonight he wandered by the telegraph office. He's a gifted enough fella to understand Morse code and the hopeless sighs of an old man sending 1800s text messages, and he informs the dogs that Steele's team broke the relay chain. Nobody knows where they are, which means, more importantly, nobody knows where the medicine is. Wild Joe suggests that the dogs make peace with the passing of their childfolk before he steps back outside and disappears into the snowy night.

Whatever the dogs inside the boiler room are saying, Balto can't hear it. Not just because their voices are drowning each other out, but because he's stricken with too much grief to care. Rosie has only been getting worse. What's going to happen to her?

Meanwhile in the hospital, the doctor is managing as well as one can to explain to the parents of the sick children that their one hope of salvation may or may not be lost to the elements forever. This barely registers with the horribly ill Rosie who, despite being in the same room as a doctor forcing her parents to confront her mortality, is now too sick to lift her head from her pillow. In an effort to afford their child a sliver of comfort, Rosie's folks allows Jenna into her room. Jenna pads loyally over to her girl, and for just a second Rosie's eyes flutter open. "Jenna?" is all she can manage to wheeze out before passing back into unconsciousness. Jenna gloomily rests her head on her owner's chest, whimpering softly.

Balto pads through town. Nobody is really out at night anymore. They're all crowding the hospital to keep close to their children. Balto's main goal is to find Jenna, to discuss this horrible thing with her, but he's distracted as he passes by the woodworker's shop. The same jolly man who had made Rosie her bitchin' new sled was now hunched sadly over a new, much less bitchin', much more morbid project: tiny coffins, each no bigger then 4 feet tall. A small collection of them has formed in a corner of the room. Balto shakes his head and gasps, breaking out of a stupor he was not previously aware he was in. Something has to be done.

The morning sun is peaking out over the horizon when Balto begins to depart from his home. He trots down from the harbor and along the shoreline, aiming to enter the forest the teams left through. Boris is plodding behind him, slipping around on frozen patches of sea water and flopping around in puddles of slush. He's going on and on, trying desperately to convince Balto not to waste his efforts on a town of people who'd be perfectly happy if he were dead. Balto doesn't reply, instead flashing Boris a solemn look. His eyes light up with new intention, and he grabs Boris by the beak, dragging him along as the old goose honks angrily.

Balto releases Boris as the two come to the back of the hospital. Jenna, who had once again settled out front, hears the commotion of the intensely pissed off bird wailing and honking. Balto wordlessly releases Boris, and just before Boris can complain further, Jenna comes over to the two. She and Balto share one miserable, knowing look before Jenna begins to cry. She presses her face into Balto's neck, weeping softly into his fur. Another child is herded into the hospital by a concerned parent. The girl wheezes and shakes violently as the door closes behind her. Boris looks on, all anger having subsided. 

Instead, he says in a very business-like tone that Balto needs to hurry up if he's going to find the lost team. And he shouldn't keep Boris waiting. Boris is an old man who hates waiting more then he hates traveling. Boris begins to waddle off back towards the forest, and Balto can't help but smile. Jenna presses the pause button on crying long enough to ask what Boris means, to which Balto states that neither he nor his old man can stand idly by any longer.

Jenna understands, and she insists that the two allow her to come with them. It pains her to leave Rosie, but the child is barely ever awake at this point, and inaction won't make the situation better. Balto's smile grows wider, and the three take off to find the missing team themselves.

Hours pass. The three haven't ceased their journey, nor does it seem they've given up hope. Boris certainly has got a lot to bitch about, though. And he does this loudly and frequently as Balto and Jenna lead the way, exchanging words. Jenna vents about how it's ludicrous that Steele, a gloryhound who loves the smell of his own farts, was even selected to do the relay given how hard he is to handle. Balto agrees, if a bit softly. Jenna interrogates him gingerly, asking what happened the day of the race. Balto admits that the townsfolk have gone even more sour on him as of late, and that he's been genuinely afraid to be around anybody now... except for Jenna, of course. Jenna reassures him with the same viciously heterosexual smile as before that she'll stand by him no matter what. Balto can't help but smile back.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the frozen over Hell that is Alaska, Steele is blindly trying to redirect his team onto the trail, but the trail has long gone from his sight. Star, exhausted and growing antsier by the minute, suggests turning around and going back; it's totally obvious now that they're lost. Steele buckles for just a moment before snapping at his brother about how he knows where he's going and, having just told the worst lie in history, begins running directionlessly through the blizzard.

Expectedly, this sends his team careening down into a gully he failed to notice on account of the whole reduced visibility thing. The sled tips over - though it seems the anti-toxin is still secured and unbroken - the musher falls out and hits his head on a rock, and the dogs tumble into a heap. Some of them are bruised. Some of them are worse. But nobody is dead, not even the flame dancing inside the musher's lantern. The only thing that looks dead is Steele's spirit. He stares wide eyed and panting as he realizes the team truly is lost. "What are we gonna do now, Steele?" Star asks hopelessly. Steele doesn't respond.

Night has fallen. It's cold as shit out in the forest, but the three musketeers haven't ceased their journeying yet. Boris, effectively feeding into every stereotype about old men ever, complains about how long this road trip has lasted. Neither Balto nor Jenna have the energy left to respond to him, so they don't. Boris gets huffy and says the kids can keep going if they want, but it's time for him to sleep. He decides to set up a nest on a large snowdrift, and Balto finally gets frustrated and turns to explain to Boris that there's no time to stop now. And then the snowdrift stands up.

A polar bear, hulking and powerful, is standing on its hind legs in front of the dogs. A screaming Russian goose is flapping around on the crown of its head, and the bear immediately begins trying to attack its winged hat. Balto leaps to his grandhonk's rescue, but the bear lands an easy hit on him and sends him flying. The goose isn't nearly as threatening as the wolfdog, so the bear turns to Balto, ready to tear him to pieces.

This understandably displeases Jenna, and she flings herself headlong into the bear to save her friends. She's more lithe and agile then Balto is, which makes it easy for her to dodge most of the bear's swings, but she's not as quick as Balto is, so she still ends up taking a pretty nasty blow to the legs. She flies across the forest floor and strikes Boris, knocking them both to the ground. Meanwhile, Balto's trying to deal with the bear situation on his own. He's not doing so hot, though, as the bear makes like a 90s sitcom bully and starts wailing on him. This sends Balto careening down a hill and across a frozen lake.

The bear quickly follows him. It doesn't seem to notice the ice below it cracking like splintering glass as it walks towards Balto, but Balto sure as hell does. And so do Jenna and Boris, who, despite their injuries, are scrambling to reach Balto before the ice gives. But they're too little too late. The bear takes another step and the busted ice snap crackle pops apart, taking the bear under as it shatters. Balto stumbles away from the gaping icehole that's growing larger and larger.

The bear is thrashing wildly around, foaming up the water and swinging its claws around in the air. Boris thinks fast and grabs Jenna's bandanna to toss out to Balto. As the bear struggles to grab both Balto and the edge of the ice, Balto snags hold of the bandanna and hangs on as his friends drag him from the freezing water. As Balto collapses to the ground, the bear's struggles begin to subside, and finally it drowns.

Balto is badly shaken, but ultimately unharmed. Jenna, however, bit total shit, and now that Balto is safe her strength has left her. Balto and Boris drag Jenna off the lake and lay her down. Balto lays down beside her, shivering hard from his time in the water. Without thinking about it, Jenna pulls herself on top of him, murmuring about how cold he is. Balto tries to argue she should go easy given her injury, but the two go silent instead, smiling gently at each other. Then Balto's eyes light up as he turns to Boris. He thanks the bird for not just saving him, but for coming along in the first place. Boris absolutely beams.

But his grin disappears when the dogs get up... and Jenna falls back down. Balto insists she's too hurt to continue the journey. After all, who knows when they'll find the team? Jenna tries to argue, but falters when Balto insists that without her help he'd be dead now, and he'd be devastated if something happened to her out here. Jenna asks Boris to take her back to Nome when she notices that he's waddled a short distance away. He's gazing intently at something, looking worried and guilty. Balto pads over to where Boris is staring into space to see what the fuss is about.

Turns out the fuss is about two hairy little things: twin polar bear cubs. One is slightly bigger then the other, though he may just be bigger boned then his brother. The two are huddled close to each other, whimpering and cooing. It's obvious they're very young, toddlers at most. "Oh no," murmurs Balto. The cubs gaze up at the two with wide, frightened eyes. Nobody has to guess what happened to their mother, and Balto feels himself overwhelmed with guilt too.

The cubs follow Boris closely as Balto goes back to Jenna. He tells her that he's sorry she can't continue the journey, but that she can help by keeping the bear cubs safe until they know what to do with them. Jenna agrees and the two smile warmly at each other. Jenna offers up her bandanna to Balto "to keep him warm" despite how small it is as Boris helps her onto a large tree branch. Boris begins instructing the cubs on how to help, going demanding grandad on them in record time, and Jenna wishes Balto good luck. Boris pulls Balto aside and, out of obligation to the source material, tells Balto that a dog cannot make such a journey alone... but maybe a wolf can. The group depart, leaving Balto by himself in the snow.

It's a snowy night in Nome. A somber mood hangs so thickly in the air that one can almost taste the chunky sadness. The streets are empty aside from one stray black mass. It's Wild Joe, makin' his way downtown. He passes the hospital and sees a child who is obviously ill but not in bed. Joe's face crinkles in pain as the child, a boy, coughs so hard he wracks his body in great tremors. Joe pulls himself away from the sight and, face to the ground, starts walking faster. In a moment he passes the telegraph office. His ears perk rhythmically to the beeps of the morse code. He whispers sweet nothings to himself like, "Cannot send more antitoxin. Weather too severe. Lost sled team only hope. Our prayers are with them."

Meanwhile, in a somehow less depressing part of the Alaskan tundra, Balto has finally caught sight of a glowing pink light. The wind is too hard for him to smell properly, but as he mounts a rise in the path, he can see clearly what rests at the bottom of the slope. It's the team! The pink glow is the light from the sled's lantern. Balto's so beside himself with joy that he throws himself headlong down the slope, previously unaware of how slippery the embankment really was. He only just manages to gain his footing at the bottom of the hill. The sled dogs look up at him in amazement, unfurling themselves from the miserable balls of fur they'd tried desperately to wrap themselves in. "Balto!" is heard in a wave of gasps.

Balto begins asking a slew of questions. What happened, is the musher okay, etc. etc. Everyone does their best to answer. Everyone, that is, except Steele, who has been sulking wordlessly since Balto arrived. Once he's gotten a satisfactory amount of info on the situation, Balto picks up one of the now empty harnesses on the sled and tells the dogs he can lead them home. Steele is none too pleased with this, and he steps on the harness, jerking it out of Balto's mouth. Steele insists the dogs will be able to find their way home by themselves - after all, he's leading them.

Everyone immediately becomes uncomfortable as the tension rises. Balto shrugs, assures Steele that he can do as he likes, but that the kids need the anti-toxin and they need it now. Balto knows the way back for certain, so he'd be happy to just take the medicine. Steele just about goes batshit at the suggestion, crouching over the crate of medicine like a wild animal, snarling at Balto. He threatens to rip Balto to pieces if he so much as tries to touch the crate. Someone tells Steele to lighten up, and Steele just about shits himself.

He flings himself headlong into Balto, telling him to get out and leave them be. In the scuffle, the medicine crate is tipped over, where it begins sliding down a tiny incline towards a cliff's edge. Balto eyes it nervously and tries to get to it, but Steele continually throws himself at Balto, snapping and snarling and threatening. The other dogs begin telling Steele to stop, that Balto isn't worth it. Star suggests that maybe just this once the howler might be useful, so the team might want to listen to him. Balto looks Steele dead in the eyes and tells him that children are going to die if everyone can't be all kumbaya for a second.

Steele sneers eerily and simple states that he doesn't care. And with that, he outright flings himself into Balto, tearing into him viciously enough to send him whimpering in pain. The fight halts for just a moment as Steele looks down at the wolfdog, who is now battered and bleeding. Steeles give a triumphant huff and bares his fangs before he notices something. The other dogs are advancing on him. They've stopped their gawking long enough to realize that Steele's intentions haven't just soured. They were never good in the first place. The medicine crate continues its gradual trip down the incline.

Steele is spooked by the dogs encircling him, and he demands they get away from him and back into their harnesses. Meanwhile, Balto, despite his injuries, has wormed his way over to the escaping crate of anti-death juice, finally securing it between his paws. Star turns and notices this, praising him. The other dogs gaze over at him too, finally realizing he's probably an okay guy actually. If Steele was angry before, he's furious now. He leaps over the hoard of dogs that had formed a tight circle around him and barrels at Balto and the medicine, screaming for the wolfdog to let it go. Balto quickly shoves the medicine away from the cliff as Steele snags him by the bandanna. The two dogs teeter totter on the side of the cliff before the bandanna rips in half. Steele unceremoniously falls off the cliff's edge, tumbling down into the valley below.

Balto cringes at the sight as Steele refuses to get up from his epic fail landing. Still, there's no time to lose. Balto hobbles over to the sled, surprised to find the other dogs are securing themselves in their harnesses. All except three, that is. One dog, a Chinook by the name of Kaltag, notices an especially icky wound on Balto's leg, and he uses what remains of Jenna's bandanna to wrap it. Another dog, a chow mix named Nikki, is placing the musher in the sled. The man's in rough shape, but he's still alive. Finally Balto takes his place at the head of the team, where Star is holding the harness up for him. Balto slips into it, and it fits like a glove. He takes a moment to breathe and marvel at the situation.

The dog sled takes off again. As it departs, a couple of white paws grapple their way up the cliff's edge. Steele hoists himself out of the valley. He's bruised all over, but he's alive, and he's none too happy. He wastes no time. He tucks the remains of Jenna's bandanna into his collar and begins rushing after the dogs. The guy may be bulky and injured, but he's full of enough rage adrenaline (ragedrenaline?) to overpower an elephant's higher thinking, and he's not slowing down til the sled has stopped.

It doesn't take long for Steele to catch up to Balto. He tells Balto to stop the sled and leave the team alone, but Balto insists Steele doesn't know the way. The other dogs all but tell Steele to fuck off given they've seen what kind of person he is, but Steele doesn't care. He pulls out a handy dandy trick he's been itching to repeat since the beginning of this summary and snaps at Balto's legs, tripping him up. Balto regains his footing quickly enough so as not to slow down the team, but oh no! A moment later, Steele snaps again, this time grabbing Balto's injured ankle.

The wolfdog can't recover so easily from that, and he falls over. The team goes tripping and spilling across the icy forest floor. Steele allows himself to fall behind and watch the destruction unfold. The team is barreling towards another cliff's edge, and Balto's meager frame isn't enough to cancel out the laws of inertia. Balto slides out of his harness as the other dogs try to stall their descent, finally bringing everything to a standstill as the crate of medicine teeters on the cliff's edge.

Balto dives forward and snags the crate, and the team praises him... seconds before the cliff's edge starts to crumble. As the rock breaks to pieces beneath his feet, Balto and the antitoxin fall into the snowy abyss below. "Aaaaaa," is how Kevin Bacon put it.

The next morning, everyone is abuzz is Nome. The people even pull themselves away from their sick kids in the excitement, curious to see what's happening. Something has arrived, though it's not the medicine. The dogs are equally riveted, huddled in the boiler room to discuss their own canine-centric news.  Turns out Jenna returned home the previous night, aided by two polar bear cubs and a goose. The dogs prattle on excitedly, asking a weary Jenna all about her journey. But, in all honesty, they seem most concerned with how - and further, why - Jenna would ever be brave or foolish enough to pair with a howler while on a wild goose/dog/plot chase.

Jenna tiredly begins to explain what happened, why the goose and bears were there, etc. when a ruckus can be heard outside. The dogs all look up, but nobody gets up. Not yet. A few moments pass, and then the door, which has been only halfway open up to this point, swings open in full. Standing in the doorway is Togo's team, along with an exhausted looking Steele. Togo remarks that they found the dumb jock wandering delirious through the cold. He was just lucky enough to meander past their relay station. Togo shrugs and leaves the room.

Everyone immediately starts flipping shit again, asking a new flurry of questions so loudly they drown each other out. Finally, Steele breaks the silence by asking "Where's Jenna?" Everyone goes quiet and looks over at the token girl husky. Steele pads over to the middle of the room, looking at Jenna but speaking to everyone, as he explains in a voice so sincere it's sickening that his team died in the cold. Balto did in fact find him, the last dog alive, but all he cared about was taking the anti-toxin away. Balto never meant well, Steele asserts, his chest heaving with every passionate word. All he wanted to do was get back at the town for turning its back on him! Everyone gasps except Jenna and a stoic figure sitting in the corner of the room.

Steele says that Balto took the anti-toxin and, in a desperate effort to get revenge on Nome for never accepting his boorish, violent ways, threw it and himself over the edge of a cliff. The medicine, and presumably every bone in the wolfdog's body, shattered on impact. Why, Steele even tried heroically to stop Balto from this suicide mission by grabbing him by Jenna's bandanna, but... He punctuates his speech by handing Jenna the remains of her neckerchief. She gapes at it.

Steele says that this has been a tragedy for certain, but all the dogs must band together and be strong. Heck, he even generously offers to be a shoulder for Jenna to cry on in her time of need. Such a noble guy, that Steele. Except Jenna has a finely tuned 6th sense she uses solely to detect bullshit, and it's going crazy right now. She tells Steele to his face that she knows he's lying. Balto isn't violent. In fact, the primary reason he left to find the team was to save the children. To save Rosie.

The dogs in the crowd begin to murmur among themselves, but Steele casually states that it's such a shame the wolfdog managed to manipulate Jenna so efficiently that she honestly never saw him going feral, never considered his more selfish motives. Steele reminds the room of dogs that Balto attacked him several times before the relay teams were dispatched. Everyone seems a bit swayed by the reminder.

Everyone's trains of thoughts are prevented from actually leaving the station by the dog in the corner clearing his throat. Surprise surprise, the mysterious guy in the shadows was Wild Joe, resident lurker. Steele almost looks intimidated as the dog pads over to him. Joe basically goes off on Steele, detailing how it's hard to believe a dog who has proven himself violent for the sake of winning, is mysteriously the only dog out of about 15 to survive, and thinks himself a hero despite failing to bring back even one ounce of medicine. Everyone is silent as Joe and Steele glare daggers at each other.

Steele huffs at Joe and leaves the room, stating that he won't be insulted this way after having had such a traumatic experience. The dogs watch Steele go, then look at Joe and Jenna, then awkwardly begin to file out. There's nothing else of importance to be said, and damn has it gotten awkward in here.

When the two are alone, Jenna quietly thanks Joe for believing her. Joe snorts and states that he knows what Steele is like and he knows when he's lying. Then Joe tells Jenna plainly that he doesn't have much hope of the anti-toxin arriving, and that even if it did it's too late for his fallen boy. Taken aback at the realization, Jenna expresses sympathy for Joe, but encourages him to keep his chin up. Balto is a dependable dog who won't let the town down, because despite everything he's faced, he understands how important this is. Joe smiles for probably the first time in 50 years, then asks Jenna where the goose and bears she mentioned went.

That night, the electric cross on the church steeple turns off. Rosie's mother notices this from the hospital window, and her husband hopelessly wraps her in a hug. Rosie's condition continues to worsen.

While this is happening, Jenna abandons her post under the hospital window and leads Wild Joe to Balto's boat. Some of the dogs at the cannery ogle Jenna, but Joe sets them straight with a well directed glare and a scolding about the male gaze. Boris and the bear cubs are understandably shaken when they are met with a sentient hunk of muscle, but Jenna assures them that Joe is a friend. Joe makes himself comfortable in Balto's home and asks the goose if he can wait for Balto to come back with him. The two cubs remain anxious around the old dog, who playfully teases them by asking if they think he's gonna turn them into mukluks.

As all this is going on, miles away at the previously mentioned snowy abyss, the snow in the depths of the gorge begins to shift. In a few labored, measured movements, Balto manages to pull himself from the snowbank. He collapses exhausted back into the snow, realizing how dire the situation has truly become. God only knows where the medicine has fallen, let alone whether or not it's shattered. "Kids... Rosie... I'm sorry," is all he can manage to mouth as he begins to weep.

Soundlessly, a large mass moves across the snowy terrain towards him. The world is a void of white, and the figure is too, but when he looks up, Balto can just make out the dark features of a canine face. A majestic white wolf, large enough to dwarf any dog, is gazing down at him with vibrant amber eyes. The wolf howls, then pauses as if waiting for Balto to respond. He doesn't, instead shrinking away in embarrassment. The wolf gives him a strange look, then gazes past him for a moment, then finally withdraws, quickly disappearing from view.

Balto allows his eyes to wander. Suddenly, those wandering eyes widen. The medicine. It's sitting unharmed no more then 10 feet away. And after offering the cliffside its own glance, he believes it might be possible to get it back up.

Balto rises slowly but surely to his feet. He eyes the tracks the white wolf left behind as it departed. He reaches out a paw to touch one, and quickly realizes that his paw fits inside it perfectly. His shame melts away. He raises his head up high, nose aimed at the moon, and lets loose a howl.

As if by magic, the white wolf reappears in the fog. Balto continues to howl, feeling as if it's the most natural thing he's ever done. The wolf rejoins him, and it fills the air with its own howls. The blizzard rages on around the two, but for just a moment it feels as if the world around them shimmers with a newfound clarity.

Up on top of the cliff, the sled team is huddling close together. Their spirits all seem to have been broken by what they presumed was Balto's death and the lose of the medicine. The dogs straighten up, however, upon hearing... the howling of wolves? Everyone huddles in closer together, suddenly terrified. A second later, though, they realize the howling has stopped, effectively being replaced with the sound of shuffling snow. Wait, huh? Everyone peers over the cliffside.

It's Balto, very much not dead, and very much pulling the unharmed crate of anti-toxin behind him. The dogs yap with joy, cheering Balto on as he mounts the cliff. The moment he's within reach, several dogs lift him and the crate the rest of the way up. Balto collapses in the snow, absolutely pooped. He lies there for just a moment, beaming coyly as the dogs praise him for his feat. Is this what it's like to be respected? When Balto can stand again, the dogs go through the motions once more: musher in sled, lantern on crate, crate secured, Balto up front. And nothing can stop them now.

Well, they figure as much, anyway. But they're proven wrong a short while later. The team enters a deep valley, surrounded on all sides like a great white bowl made of high pale mountains. The air is eerily still. And then, breaking the silence, someone sneezes. The sound reverberates around the cereal bowl that is the mountain range. A moment later, a cascade of snowfall begins barreling down the steepest mountain. An avalanche! The team runs for cover in the nearest cave.

As the team enters the cave, the sled thumps loudly against the ground. The dogs hazard a look up as the tinkling sound of ice on ice becomes apparent. To their horror, they see a barrage of icicles begin to plummet down towards them. One severs the handles at the back of the sled, only inches away from the musher's head. Another slams down just beside the medicine crate, causing everyone to promptly flip shit. The team rockets forward as quickly as they can, just managing to clear the cave as the worst of the icicles shatters behind them. Okay, NOW it's gotta be over, right?

Dawn is just about to break. The cannery dogs are all struggling to rest in the cold weather. One of them, a shabby, long nosed creature, gently lifts an ear in his sleep. Some sort of sound is reverbing in the distance, so far away that it can't reach the true populace of Nome. But it's there, and it rouses him awake. Other dogs begin to take notice as well. On Balto's boat, the twin cubs follow Boris to the railing as they listen. The sound starts as a very low bellow, but soon it becomes clear...

Someone is howling. It's a foghorn! It's a train! No, it's... Balto!

Balto lets out another very primitive howl as he and the team advance towards the cannery. Everyone is overcome with joy. They're so close! The cannery dogs begin running to meet the team, eyes bulging in surprise. They didn't expect this because they really only skimmed the story up to this point. The sled team keeps pace, everyone acknowledging the cannery dogs with excited yips, as they continue towards town. Boris and the cubs climb out of the boat to greet Balto.

But the team is brought to a halt as a dog steps directly in front of the sled, unmoving. Everyone rams into one another, but at least the medicine isn't being flung off a cliff this time. The dog who stopped them is, of course, Steele. His bi-colored eyes shimmer menacingly as the sled's lantern's light reflects off of them. He says he's amazed that the dogs made it home, sarcastically giving Balto in particular a "Bravo". Very cute, very heroic.

But what does Balto expect to happen? Does he think all the townspeople are just going to accept that some guy they've always hated brought the medicine back? Balto has no idea what he's gotten himself into. His only choice, obviously, is to slip out of the harness and allow Steele to lead the team back into Nome. Now.

Wild Joe leaps out of Balto's ship, finally coming to see what all the hubbub was about. He pushes his way through the crowd of stunned cannery dogs and glares daggers at Steele, telling him that he never deserved to be the lead dog and now he's still so greedy for glory that he's holding up the cure for a child killing illness. Steele snarls at Joe, clearly not caring about his opinion. Then the other dogs in the crowd begin jeering "Yeah!" and "You tell him!" and various other cliches meant to show solidarity.

But the real surprise comes when the only dog who actually does slip out of his harness is Star. "Steele doesn't deserve credit for this!" Star spits at his big brother. "In fact, he doesn't even deserve the golden collar he's wearing! All he's ever done is boss everyone around. He's bossed me around since we were pups." Everyone's eyes drift towards Steele's neck. The golden collar and all the medals adorning it shimmer dimly. "You're the hero here, Balto," Star continues. "You deserve that collar. And you're gonna wear it."

He steps towards a stunned Steele, looking as frightened but unflappable as a weeaboo asking out a girl he likes, and lunges at Steele's throat. He yanks the collar off in one swift tug, stepping back and letting it fall to the ground at Balto's feet.

Everyone looks equally amazed at the sight of Star standing up to the guy who's shat on him his whole life. Balto looks at the collar before him, then at Star, then at Steele. "Thank you," he says awkwardly, "but he can keep it. It obviously means more to him then the kids do."

Now Steele is Peak Tilted. The team moves forward again, bypassing Steele and stepping on his collar as they do. Steele stands, chest heaving, for a moment's time before he loudly snaps "no" and drives himself at the team. He shoves cannery dogs out of the way left and right as he plummets towards Balto. Balto notices and comes to a stop beside a coal shoot. The team warns him to LOOK OUT BRUH and Steele flies at him, mouth agape and ready to bite. Just as Steele is about to land on Balto, Balto rolls over, sending Steele tripping over him in the process.

The coal shoot's hatch opens as Steele lands against the lever behind it. Steele tries to claw his way up out of the slowly opening hatch as the other dogs watch horrified. Balto tries to reach out to him, but it's too late. A load of coal drops down from another hatch above the ground. Hundreds of hunks from hell hit the hedonistic Steele as his grip slips. He screams as he falls down the shaft below, a 2 ton torrent of coal following right behind him. Eventually all that can be heard is the sound of stray chunks of coal bouncing around in the shaft. The sound fades as both hatches close. Steele is gone.

Wild Joe walks over, gazes at the closed hatch, and gives a low grunt. He laments on how it couldn't have happened to a nicer dog, then turns to Balto. He says that Balto can't stand around all day when he's got medicine to deliver. But first there's something he needs to do. Star was right, Balto does deserve a collar. And to make sure he has one, Wild Joe slips his own golden collar off his neck, effectively stripping naked in public, and puts it on Balto. Balto is awed. Boris comes up behind him and wraps a wing around him, complimenting him on his new look. Joe tells everyone to hurry into town, and so they do. Balto lets up a torrent of howls once more.

The team FINALLY enters town, and already a whole slew of townsfolk have gathered to see what's going on. They can't contain their relief and their joy upon seeing the medicine has honest to God arrived. Balto brings the team to a stop right in front of the hospital, and immediately the doctor and several other people pry open the crate. A wave of people descend upon the dogs of the team, petting and hugging them. Balto is no exception to this, as people he never expected to respect him begin rubbing his ears and stroking his back.

One of those people is Rosie's father. He hesitates for a second before stroking Balto's head, then leans down and wraps his arms around the dog's neck. Balto withdraws for a moment, but then allows himself to be held. When he's satisfied with the amount of wolfdog hugging he's done, the man coaxes Balto into the hospital, where the staff is already going about administering the anti-toxin to the children.

Balto is brought in to meet Rosie. It's been some time since he's seen her, and she's just been given her injection of the medicine. She's still too weak to lift her head, but she smiles at him all the same. She reaches out her hand to stroke his muzzle, and he licks her. "Balto," she cooes half asleep, "I'd've been lost without you."

She gives a sigh and begins to snore gently, and Balto considers this an appropriate time to head outski. As he turns to leave, he sees Jenna in the doorway, her face scrunched tight in a misty-eyed grin.

The two dogs throw themselves into each other, romping in the doorway. Jenna allows herself to weep, and even Balto's eyes get a little wet. Part of her had truly believed she'd never see her closest friend again. As the two pause and settle back down, she goes to git it and plants a kiss (or the dog equivalent of one I guess) on his nose. He returns the gesture and the two lean into one another. They sit in an embrace as the town continues its celebrating.

A year has passed. Balto, Joe's golden collar still adorning his neck, runs across the cannery harbor to the boat he used to live in. Boris can be seen teaching Luk how to sweep the deck with a poorly held together broom. Muk watches in amusement. Balto calls to Boris that it's time and that he and the kids are invited if they'd like to come along. Boris, overjoyed, leaps onto Muk's back and tells the cubs to pretend they're Paul Revere and hurry up. Everyone who lives in the cannery greets Balto as he rushes by.

Balto passes Dixie on the street as everyone hurries along. Dixie's owner is offput by the presence of the polar bear cubs hi hello what the hell, but Dixie nonchalantly asks Balto what all the fuss is about. Balto explains that it's time, and Dixie congratulates him. He continues his trek, and it goes very much like it did when he was competing in the trial race before the Great Race of Mercy took place.

Finally, Balto reaches the hospital's boiler room. Inside huddle a small crowd: Rosie, her parents, Wild Joe (who is looking a little green), Doc, the actual doc, and, of course, Jenna. Jenna's the center of attention, and she's clearly exhausted. But she's not so exhausted that she can't look up at Balto with a smile on her face. Wild Joe grabs the blanket that she's tucked into and pulls it off of her as Balto and his friends gaze over her.

A litter of 6 puppies whimper out complaints as they reorganize themselves against their mother's warm belly. They're sickeningly precious, squeaking and huddling together. Most of the little ones are varying shades of red like their mother, but the smallest newborn looks remarkably like her father. She lifts her tiny, trembling head and lets out quite possibly the smallest howl any living thing has ever uttered. Everyone chuckles, and Balto leans his head into Jenna's cheek. Their faces are awash with pride.

So there you have it, Balto But Not Balto But Still Balto. Happy 24th year of existing, you trashfire of a movie you. I genuinely love this movie more then I should, and this has been fun to work on. Later this month I'll dump some more Balto stuff here, but it's just about time for me to start a new project for this blog. Hope yous guys enjoyed the wolfdoggy content. Cheers.

[faunusrights]

OFFAL HUNT REMASTERED LIVEBLOG // CHAPTER 14

IN THIS EPISODE OF THE OFFAL HUNT LIVEBLOG:

On the other end of the line, Cinder let out a tight sigh. “Yeah. Okay, well—I’m in a difficult position right now. I’m balancing a lot. So, that wasn’t, you know, directed at you or whatever… I’m just trying to deliver you to Atlas. That’s all.”

“Yeah,” Glynda said. “This apology sucks.”

CINDER FALL TRIES TO HAVE MANNERS. AND FAILS. BUT SHE TRIES.

it’s been a WHILE but i’m STILL HERE!!!!!!!!! also i’m a little late to the draw and also unlike w/ prior chaps i did actually read this one when it came out so i’ve had my first run already. BUT that means i actually get 2 Focus so lets get this party started

so we’re now entering into the New Umbraroot Arc which Frightens me on a deep and intrinsic scale because now i have no padding to ready me for whatever the Hell is going to occur, but i do know it will be gay(er) than the current content was (is/shall be) and here’s the proof

It had only been a day, but the sound of Cinder’s voice was a relief to Glynda’s senses.

glynda that’s gay. hey. hey. glynda have u been told yr a lesbian. lesbeeb. besbion--

“Not at all.” Thank god. It was one thing to be traveling with Cinder Fall. It was entirely another to have her checking in on Glynda’s well-being.

cinder: my well-being is SHIT but thankfully there’s someone nearby doing WORSE than me, which makes me feel better at least,

“Oh.” Our sounded strange in her mouth.

my favourite thing abt any gay media and content is that it’s gay in ways that hettie(tm) nonsense can only dream of being. when a story is abt a guy and a gal all the romantic tension comes from like. looking at a tiddy or getting naked or w/e the shit. here? it’s literally found entirely in the use of the word our. such power. i love it.

I went from unknown to one of Atlas’ most wanted overnight, which is charming… And also annoying, because they refuse to stop pasting wanted posters on every street corner.

i feel like cinder is the type of bitch to send pics of them back to emerald like ‘is my face ACTUALLY that janky??? my hair is a state. you think they’ll use a selfie if i ask nicely???’

Cinder hummed, affirmative. “Which would be unnecessary, if you hadn’t reported me.”

Glynda returned, “I wouldn’t have reported you if you hadn’t been committing a crime.”

glynda you snitch. you narc. you bootlicker. does be gay do crime mean NOTHING to you,

We left a funny taste in her mouth, almost as strange as when Cinder had said our. She tried not to examine it too closely.

again. look at this shit. this is real slowburn hours. this is how u DO IT.

Her heart was beginning to feel like a pin cushion with all the needles pulled out, little holes left in their wake.

would i be showing my age if i glanced at this and wondered if it were a reference to the inciting og offal hunt inspiration fic or. it does doesnt it. okay moving on.

“Okay.” And then, in an effort to change the subject to something lighter: “I’ve never broken into a country before.”

glynda’s complete and continuous inability to actually like. do what she plans on doing is SO funny to me. she’s going to be stealthy, she says, throwing a man aside in obvious fashion. i’m going to be subtle, she says, being as conspicuous as possible. she’s a disaster and i live for it.

"The Faunus." Cinder's voice was cold. "Don't speak to her."

this part of this fic is subtitled ‘cinder’s rank opinions time’, apparently. not that u can tell. but it is. dsfhgjsdfghjghfjdk

In the silence that followed, Glynda thought of the stunted horns jutting above Cinder's hairline at the restaurant.

Glynda murmured, "That’s a horrible thing to say."

"Don’t start." There was no concession in her words. “I mean it.”

“...I just didn’t expect that from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

There was something in Cinder’s tone that told Glynda that nothing she said would be correct. She said nothing.

cinder’s! rank! opinions! time! honestly this section victimises me the MOST as i very famously cried over an earlier section in which cinder thought abt all the faunus she grew up with, so i know that kc and diesel were looking to hurt me directly. that said i DO find it funny that cinder, yet again, looks like a pile of shit.  she can’t do anything right. naturally inclined to be the villain completely unintentionally. what a moron.

A harsh laugh. “What do you think we are, friends?”

“Well, no—um. Not really, but—”

YOU SEE. CINDER. PLEASE. £10 FOR U TO BEHAVE FOR FIFTEEN SECONDS.

“Then, just—just listen to me. I’m going to get us there. I p-promise.” There was a soft sound, like disgust or the prelude to a gag. “Urgh, your soul—give me more space.”

cinder: i’m inclined to being an asshole glynda: every time yr mean 2 me i’ll make u feel worse cinder: ah no. ah shit. i have to be nice??? ah fuck. what the shit is this.

Glynda thought of Ozpin. It wasn’t a comforting thought—more like the memory of a near-accident, like sliding on ice and feeling the world shift beneath you. It was a flinch-thought, and it would have made her miserable instead of just homesick had she not shut it out so quickly.

god the writing in this fic is so especially pristine. everything feels so real and visceral and you just know Exactly how that feels. it’s brilliantly punchy and i adore the way u get have the exact sensation click into place. it’s SO good.

She wondered if it was the same moon Bacia and Vivienne had looked upon. If they had felt the same beneath its pale light. The Great War had seen two shatterings of the moon, so perhaps it had appeared different, but… Glynda couldn’t help but wish that it was something they shared, even lifetimes apart.

👈😎👈

actually im a little nervous abt doing fingerguns because WHAT IF SMTHNG HAS CHANGED... but i think this bit is. safe. maybe. diesel. kc. am i safe,

Glynda closed her eyes and tried to feel out that instinctual power within her. Tried to know herself better. It resonated around her like a water in a tank, nearly palpable.

again this is just GREAT storytelling. i just LOVE how well kc and diesel turn abstract ideas into such physical manifestations it’s completely unreal. r y’all seein this shit???

upon checking his number, she’d discovered it had been blocked.

i love that glynda is abt as knowledgeable abt little jumps like this as the reader is. are we surprised as a reader? yes. is glynda also surprised? HELL YEAH SHE IS. SHE AIN’T GOT A FUCKIN CLUE MY DUDE.

Remembering the notes to herself not to trust Winter, Glynda opened the log hesitantly.

glynda no yr sending read receipts to yr future gf and thats a bad move on everybodys part

The indicator showed this wasn’t the first time Glynda had accessed the message. She couldn’t remember doing so. 

OH NO BITCH U ALREADY DID

“Special Operative Schnee, things are…” Glynda paused, searching for something suitably vague to say. “Proceeding.

do you see what i mean abt glynda’s ineptitude. it’s slapstick levels of ridiculous and i’m living for it.

Do you suspect she’s attempting to cross the border?”

“Maybe.”

‘sure,’ glynda says. ‘you could word it like that if you wanted to.’

“Bold of her, if nothing else. She should know there will—” Glynda skimmed through the rest of the paragraph to reach the end, the corners of her mouth curling. “—can make arrangements. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

HGSDFGKHJSFDGHKJDF JESUS CHRIST

its like in fallout 4 when someone tells u important info and when u click past it the main character just goes ‘uh huh’ ‘yeah’ ‘okay’ ‘sure’ ‘mm-hm’ as the text boxes whizz by GLYNDA PLEASE

Bubbles appeared, showing that Cinder was typing. Glynda waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The bubbles appeared and disappeared four times.

She flipped back to Cinder’s conversation and found that, after all that time, Cinder had finally settled on a reply.

It said:

“Good.”

i just had to pair these up for a second if only to say: dis me lol

okay let’s double back for a second just to cover this Juicy Lore:

If you’d like, I can arrange a bouquet of flowers to be left at your mothers’ memorial site. My thoughts are with you.”

For a long moment, Glynda simply stared at the screen. [...] In quick succession, she realized that it had been sixteen days since she’d met with Cinder in the restaurant and that it was soon to be the anniversary of her mothers’ deaths.

WHAT IS THIS LORE MA’AM AND MX??? **MA’X**??? firstly idk what the HELL the Black March tragedy is but im fascinated but also: did u have to do that. can ONE person in this fic not have [spoilers redacted cant say that yet no sir] problems??? no??? die. dsfhjgghjkfsddf

Glynda picked herself up from the armchair, neat and tidy, and disassembled into bed, pulling the covers up to her throat. With her Semblance, she turned off the lights. She closed her eyes.

It was quiet. Cold. The only thing she felt was the weight of her soul.

Her Scroll buzzed. Glynda answered it.

“Glynda.” It was Cinder. “I can feel that.”

okay following on from cinder’s text message, i just. love that cinder’s having such direct repercussions to her shitty shitty actions. like this is all tying together in some 👈😎👈 instances but having cinder be her usual callous self and having to literally turn around and start fucking Being Nice For Once is VERY gratifying. fuck you you lil round-faced one-braincelled baby. time to learn to have some Manners. jgdsfghsdfghfjd

She’d simply resigned to the loneliness of having no one to trust but Cinder, and then, not even having her.

... thats gay. hey lads is that gay? its gay. it feels gay.

On the other end of the line, Cinder let out a tight sigh. “Yeah. Okay, well—I’m in a difficult position right now. I’m balancing a lot. So, that wasn’t, you know, directed at you or whatever… I’m just trying to deliver you to Atlas. That’s all.”

“Yeah,” Glynda said. “This apology sucks.”

this feels like a reference to 👈👈👈😎👈👈👈 (IS IT. AM I RIGHT. IT IS ISNT IT) but also: LOOK AT CINDER GO. TRYING. BADLY. BUT TRYING. i love her she sucks so much shes such a dumbass. feel the consequences. feel them.

Glynda chided herself; Cinder Fall wasn’t capable of remorse, but she was more than capable of simple math. It seemed the worse she treated Glynda, the worse she herself would feel.

glynda: she’s doing this because it makes her feel better, not me cinder in like idk 20 chapters down the line:

(i guess thats another 👈😎👈 moment but for GOOD REASON)

There was a shift, like Cinder was rolling over, or maybe propping herself up. Was she in bed also? It triggered the remembrance of Glynda’s own physicality, and she turned over as well, searching in the dark for the nightstand and the lamp upon it. The light clicked on. The room brightened. Glynda settled in, ready.

OOOOOH THE PARALLELS. glynda turning the lights off and sinking into darkness and the void versus perking up and sitting up and turning the lights on when talking to cinder!!!!!!! POETIC CINEMA. OOF. OOF. HOW DOES FIFTEEN POINTS OF LOVE TASTE.

“Great! Lovely. Glad to hear it.” Fangs rounded out the words like scissors. A pleasant sense of satisfaction unfurled in Glynda’s chest. “So, once upon a fucking time—”

there were two gays and they were enemies to lovers but didnt know it yet. but they will be.

THATS CHAPTER 14 BABEY!!!!!!!! i LOVED this chap and i can rly feel kc and diesel gearing up for umbraroot. its great being able to like. feel the shift of focus goin on here and im SO ready to see this arc play out. once again offal hunt is the best fic ever made. this is a fact.

[murasaki-murasame]

I’m still a little salty about how few units actually got mana spirals this month, but the ones we did get were surprisingly powerful, and the new banner also introduced some surprisingly meta-changing units, like the sentient potato who just wants to be vored.

There’s a lot to talk about so I’m gonna put my rambling under a cut, lol.

OK so first of all. Pipple. This fuckin’ non-limited 4-star water wand built with defense and energy buff skills, who is LITERALLY A TALKING VEGETABLE, is somehow the actual meta-changing start of this banner. After waiting more than an entire goddamn year for our first 5-star water blade, he ends up getting overshadowed by a goddamn potato. And as much as I love Valerio as well, I wouldn’t have it any other way, lmao.

It feels insane to even say it, but with the way his kit works, he honestly feels like a lite version of Gala Cleo. He can probably do just fine on his own in a normal water team, but if you get four Pipples together and give them something like Odd Sparows, they become a group of tanks who can deal surprisingly high damage, while sustaining themselves with healing doublebuff.

When I first saw his skills I thought that he was basically just a slightly better version of Pia, and that he’d basically just be a meme character, but honestly his passive abilities are enough to make him genuinely great. They give him a really unique play-style, especially with how he approaches energy.

I wasn’t sure what to make of his first ability at first since it’s description is super vague, but apparently it makes it so that his basic combos are 120% or so better than those of a normal wand unit. Which is pretty insane on it’s own. But then you have his third ability, which is basically just the one Yaten already has, where he gets buffs along with his energy level, up to a maximum of 40% strength and 15% crit rate when he’s energized. But unlike basically any other unit in the game, who wants to dump their energy stacks into an attack skill or a heal, Pipple doesn’t do that at all. He doesn’t even have any attack skills or heals, so if you ignore weapon skills and dragon skills, he doesn’t have anything to use energy on like that. Instead, he’s meant to basically stay permanently energized so that he doesn’t lose the buff that comes along with it. So once you get him energized, it basically means that he has a 40% strength and 15% crit rate buff for the entire rest of the fight. Plus he can trigger strength doublebuff with his S1 to give him even more strength.

I don’t think the DPS charts do justice to his true potential because of how weird and indirect his kit is, but I think he’s genuinely really strong. He’ll probably work really well with the eventual water element 6-star weapons, since the skills on those are just buffs, so he can use it without losing his energy buffs.

People have already cleared expert and master HBH with 4 Pipple teams, and apparently it’s not very difficult at all, and it’s basically impossible to get killed with that comp. It’s probably slower than other water team comps, but it seems very tanky.

I think he does enough damage on his own to be very good in a team with other units, but I’m not as sure about that. You’d probably end up designing a team around him like you do with Patia, to make full use of strength/healing doublebuffs.

At the very least I think he’s immediately better than Lily. Which probably isn’t a huge achievement, but still, lol. If he ends up being good for regular teams and not just 4-Pipple teams, I think he’ll help let Gala Elly run without Chocolatiers, which could be nice.

I was thinking that, until Thaniel eventually gets a buff, I might use Xainfried for HBH now that he’s gotten his own mana spiral, but once I get a HDT1 water wand, I’m kinda tempted to just play Pipple instead, lmao.

In general i really like units like this who have weird and unique play-styles, and it’s really fun to get some silly and non-human adventurers like this. And since he’s a non-limited 4-star, it’s not a bad thing if he ends up being really meta-defining. Overall his existence is just a net positive for the game and I’m wuv him :) I’ve been kinda bitter lately about how the non-limited water roster as a whole just doesn’t stack up well against limited water units like Gala Elly and MH Sarisse, but Pipple [and Xainfried getting his mana spiral] really helps with that. I feel like Pipple might end up being a popular budget entry point into HBH.

He also might be basically the only unit in the game to make good use of The Petal Queen in order to immediately energize himself, which is fun. I like how these sorts of units who don’t use attacking skills end up benefiting from some weird and niche wyrmprints that you usually don’t use otherwise. It seems like Chocolatiers is better for HBH, but for basically any other fight I think The Petal Queen would probably be better, since the immediate jumpstart on his offensive buffs would probably be better than the immediate defense buff.

And on the topic of the mana spirals we got, I’m still super salty that Norwin didn’t get one, or even any of the other gacha 4-star shadow units, but at least the three mana spirals we got were really great.

Xainfried’s probably getting overlooked by Nefaria and OG Cleo’s mana spirals, and also by Pipple being the hot new water unit everyone loves, but his mana spiral seems like it’s really helped him, and I don’t regret getting him up to around 64MC immediately. I think the DPS sims put him at around the level of Victor and Kirsty, which is a pretty big deal considering how underpowered he was before this. There’s also the fact that we don’t have a frostbite punisher wyrmprint or dragon yet, so his true damage potential probably hasn’t been reached yet. I think he’s probably going to end up being readily accepted into all levels of HBH after this, which would be great. I think he’s always been perfectly viable for HBH, but never ‘meta’. But he seems really strong now. And once we get a frostbite punisher print, he might become a really meta unit since he and Valerio are currently the only frostbite enablers in the game, though I think Mitsuba will probably get frostbite too, and they’ll probably give it to some of the existing water units through their mana spirals. He’ll probably be one of the better frostbite enablers, though.

OG Cleo getting a buff wasn’t exactly a surprise, and it mostly went the way I expected, but her getting buff dispel was a surprise. I think she’s probably the best healer for Kai Yan, but I dunno if buff dispel will be a huge deal in HJP. But since Nefaria also got buff dispel, I think S-Verica is still gonna have a space in the Kai Yan meta. People probably won’t want to run much with Heinwald in that fight, sadly, lol.

Nefaria, on the other hand, was a huge surprise, since it looked like they’d just skipped over her entirely. But she got a mana spiral out of the blue, and apparently it’s made her extremely powerful, maybe second only to Gala Cleo herself, lol. I’m still annoyed at how their approach to fixing her was just ‘slap the poison meta on her existing kit’, but oh well. It did the job with making her extremely good, I guess. I’m happy that she’s finally a good unit, even if I wish they had been a bit more creative about it.

Since they have basically the same kit, and wind also has it’s own poison meta, they’re probably just going to give Hawk the exact same buff [maybe without the buff dispel, though], and hopefully that’d also lead to him being extremely strong. 

The Kai Yan fight also came out, which is it’s own whole thing. I’m currently just grinding standard to get the materials to max out the shadow tree, but from what I can gather, both difficulties are apparently a lot easier than Volk, which is . . . kinda surprising. Maybe it’s just because the shadow roster is stupidly powerful, but it sounds like the requirements to get by in Expert aren’t very high at all. Which probably means that the meta surrounding it will probably be more accepting of a variety of units. But probably with a preference for the 70MC ones.

I was worried that they’d tune the fight too much around Gala Cleo and just make it super punishing and impenetrable, but it feels more like they just didn’t even bother putting effort into designing the fight in a way that shut her down. Which is probably a good thing in the long run, since it makes the fight more accessible. I thought they’d at least make the satellite things absorb some of Gala Cleo’s S1 hits, but apparently not, lol.

I’ll see how expert goes when I get to it, but I wonder if in the long run, it’ll be easier to break into Kai Yan and get a MUB 6-star shadow weapon to take into HJP, instead of doing HZD first to get a shadow HDT weapon. That’d be interesting.

The shadow 6-star weapons also seem to have some interesting effects. I thought that all the 6-star weapons might just get alternating strength and regen buffs, but the shadow ones have attack rate and defense. I guess it’s probably designed with each Agito fight in mind, since healing is important to Volk, while Kai Yan has more unavoidable damage.

I have no idea what they’ll do with the other element types, but one way or another I think, as I said, Pipple’s gonna really benefit from a water Agito weapon, since it won’t have an attack or a heal [hopefully] for him to waste his energy stacks on.

I kinda hope the wind one gives a crit rate buff, since wind needs more of that in general.

Oh yeah, and Valerio also exists, lmao. I still really want him, but I can live without him at this point, especially with how much I’ve come to love Pipple as a character. I do like how unique and interesting Valerio’s kit is, though, and I’m glad that he seems to be pretty strong overall. I wish they’d stop designing blade units that are dependent on high combo counts, though. It’s just not a good weapon type for that, lol.

I don’t think Nimis is particularly amazing at the moment since there’s not many water units who can reliably get high crit chance in the first place, but since Pipple can pretty easily get a more or less permanent 15% crit rate buff, Nimis might be pretty good on him. Basically water needs a unit like Ezelith to really make use of him. And thus far we don’t really have that, but I still feel like Laranoa might end up getting basically the exact same buff that Ezelith got when she gets her mana spiral, in which case she’d probably use Nimis. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mitsuba ends up being based around crits when she comes out, as well.

And on that note, the second part of the current banner should be starting in the next few days, and it’ll almost certainly give us Mitsuba as a 5-star water dagger, and Picaro as . . . some sort of 4-star. Unless they invent an entirely new dragon for the banner, I think they’ll just have Nimis on rate-up for it again, or feature an existing water dragon like Leviathan. In general I’m just not very interested in the idea of the part two banner at the moment. Mitsuba’s a fun character, but I like both Pipple and Valerio more, and in terms of burn res water daggers I think I like Orsem more, too. I also just kinda hate Picaro so I have no real interest in the idea of getting him as a playable adventurer, lol. I’m not even sure what type of unit he’ll be, honestly. I think he’ll be a flame 4-star, going by his character design, but I’ve got no clue about his weapon type. He doesn’t really seem to be holding a weapon in his art like Valerio and Mitsuba are, so it’s hard to guess. I’m also not even sure if the flame roster has any notable gaps that can be filled by a new 4-star. I guess it might be neat if he’s a sleep res healer that has sleep cleanse, but I guess we’ll see.

I still think Pipple’s gonna end up being the real star of his banner as a whole, lol.

Anyway, for the time being, I’m gonna keep grinding Kai Yan, and I’ll probably do a few runs of HMC to get Pipple his HDT water wand. After that I’ll see if that’s enough investment to let me break into eHBH with him. I’ll probably end up having to max augment Odd Sparrows first, but I’ve at least started on that already. I at least have Xainfried as a good alternative option to get into that fight, but I just really really like the idea of taking a sentient potato creature to fight a flame dragon :v

[dailydoseofcolor]

Taking Stock of Units in Fire Emblem Heroes, Part 2

Next! Let’s take a look at the merged heroes I have and feel some sort of affinity for:

My 5*+10s:

Nowi (+Atk): She still puts in WORK. My first 5*+10 and she is an evergreen feature on any Grand Conquest teams, first runs of Lunatic maps, etc. She deserves a kit upgrade sometime soon, but somehow LB/Aether/SB/QR/Threaten Res/Distant Def still get the job done almost every time. Sothe (+Spd): Sothe is one of the first characters I ever really fell in love with from Radiant Dawn. He was an easy +10 decision. Again, I need to upgrade his kit soon, I have Broadleaf Dagger+ fodder....I just feel like I have to choose between him and Matthew, and I adore Matthew’s personality and I feel like I just need to bite the bullet and just raise both. Ross (+Spd): I literally yelped when he was released. Favorite character from the first game I actually beat (played FE7 first but beat it after beating SS). Every major decision in summoning since his release was clouded by “but I should still summon on Green for Ross merges.” But he’s done! This little dude runs so many builds and is also a main staple on teams. The Almosts (Most of these I actually have the resources to +10 but have been holding off because of a need to keep resources on hand to remain competitive):

Lyon, +7: My sweet boy. Major staple on most teams for a while before he just...couldn’t keep up. He needs a refine BADLY. Sophia literally takes him behind the woodshed and beats him within an inch of his life. We all know he likes it. He was the first person I sacked a Counter skill to. I love him and I want the best for him...but not until I know what his refine is.

Mordecai, +7 (+Atk): Another soft boy. Honestly, I merged him up because I had them available and got drunk while playing PoR. He functions very well at this merge level. I’ll get him up one day, but he really can’t be a focus right now, given he serves a very similar combat function to Nowi.

Shigure, +6 (+Atk): This is one of those scenarios where the voice actor really drew me to the character. Matt Mercer kills Shigure’s voice lines and also I got pitybroken by him a LOT. He’s got a pretty balanced stat-line, but performs better as a player phase duelist....except I want to eventually use Valter instead. That’s 99% the only reason I’ve held off, the other is having Harmonic Lance+ fodder just in case. I have the merges for Shigure, but I have a feeling this is as far as he goes.

Micaiah, +5 (+Atk): Best girl from RD (we all know this). Honestly, I haven’t ever sniped for merges on her, these are all organic, which is impressive. But she deserves the +10 and I think I would rank her pretty high in terms of trying to achieve that. Too bad I just missed several good opportunities to do so. This is why I should have done this a while ago.

Nino, +5 (+Spd): I have uncovered a not-so-secret trend. I have a major bias towards characters from Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn and, to an extent, Awakening. These were the games I played growing up, so it makes sense that they stayed. ANYWAY. Nino, adorable and punches through everything. I find I don’t really have a ton of space for her on teams, though...she was easy to merge and offers no fodder. I have all the materials, but she’ll honestly have to wait, like Mordecai.

Now, I think I should list out every character with at least +1 merge, to sort through who should be a priority. So this will go in descending order:

Mia, +3 (+Res): One of the only speedy sword girls I actually give a shit about (unsurprisingly). I would love a +10 eventually. Masked Marth, +3: A product of a bygone age. I never spent any real fodder on her, so I’ll chalk this one up to *meh*. OG Eliwood, +3 (+Atk): I have all the resources to +10 him. He’s my favorite Lord. He’s incredible in combat. He has amazing Resplendent Art. Why the fuck have I not finished him. I’ve failed my boy. Forgive me Eliwood. He’s clearly a high level priority. What have I been doing. Astram, +2: He’s a strong unit and has a great niche but I just....don’t care about him. I built him for this week’s Arena needs. His cost is just way too high as a Grail unit. He’ll stay at +2 for now.    Joshua, +2: He was almost my first grail merge project and I...held off. Idk, his cost is so high. but I love his personality and he’s near the top of the grail pile that deserves a refine. I might wait until then?? Idk, I’m torn. I think he could put in good work if I took the time to kit him properly. I need to put more thought into him. Eldigan, +2 (+Def): Multiple pitybreakers that have been merged. Garbage. Next. Donnel, +2 (+Atk): Donnel’s another character I’ve always really liked, but held off, because my Blue Enemy Phase Infantry slot remains filled. His new refine gives him an interesting niche, but is he worth the resources? I have the merges and feathers, but I’m hesitant to pull the trigger. Hawkeye, +2 (+Def): Another random decision I made months and months ago for...no particular reason? He’s got a great refine, but there’s nothing he can do that Ross or Brave Ike can’t. Brave Ike, +2 (+Atk): Speaking of...amazing typing, amazing refine, I sacked my only Nailah to him in order to finally make it to T21 in AR. I have one more waiting in the wings, because I worry that I might need Steady Breath for someone in the future. But I think the ship has sailed on SB’s hey-day. An extra merge for survivability is likely better. Rath, +2 (+Spd): I love Rath so much. His personality, his art, all great. He got SHAFTED stat line wise but....we shall prevail. I have a +Atk waiting in the wings, but I think I’ll keep the +Spd. Speed is king and will remain king until something drastic changes in the meta. He could be +7 with the copies I have, so I’ll likely up his merges soon. Lissa, +2 (+Res): I love Lissa. She’s so cute and she was the first true defensive healer, and I LOVE healers...but she’s incredibly outclassed at this point. Resplendent Lissa when??? I don’t see this going forward without some kind of refine/Resplendent. Adult Tiki, +2 (+Atk): Tiki has the misfortune of just not appearing as fast as Nowi did in terms of merges. I don’t love all dragon teams, and Nowi has the better color. Plus her refine isn’t amazing. She’ll remain here for now. Y!Marth, +1 (+Atk): I am on the fence about whether I feel regret for not pulling more for Y!Marth. His weapon is so strong, he’s got great stats, and not great fodder. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I decided +1 was better than trying for the +10 and getting mad when I spent money on orbs. But he puts in work. I love him as a unit. OG Alm, +1 (+HP): Funnily enough, as an almost day-one player, I didn’t pull an OG Alm until halfway through his availability as a Limited-Time Divine Code option. He was a free pull on some random banner and obviously got a merge afterwards. I like his character, but I don’t know if I will ever make an effort to +10. Saber, +1 (+Atk): One of my absolute favorite units. One of the characters I had Summoner Supported for a period of time. His refine is very interesting and allows for some really interesting builds. I might need to make more of an effort for him in the future. Ayra, +1 (+HP): I’ll be honest, I don’t love Ayra. I don’t like the speed arms race she kicked off, and I’m bummed I didn’t just use her as Swift Sparrow fodder. Whatever. Black Knight, +1: Big surprise here: I love the Black Knight. I think he still holds up as a viable option for Red Armors. His cost remains high as a Grail unit, but I think it might be worth it, given how many armor skills exist now. Elincia, +1 (+Atk): The trend continues: character from PoR and RD that I love. She’s got amazing player phase capabilities, and eventually she’d be a great +10. Lukas, +1 (+Atk): The OG physical tank. Great personality and solid niche, but I have others who do the same thing. Nephenee, +1 (+Spd): The Halberdier class in PoR still ranks as one of my all time favorite character ranks. Nephenee languished as -Spd for a long time before I snagged another merge. I love her character and need to prioritize her builds. I’d love for her to demote one day (lol), but she’ll go on the list of 5* exclusive merge desires. OG Azura, +1 (Neutral): I feel like OG Azura is still outclassed, even with her Resplendent stats. Although she has a strong niche as a triple Chill support unit. I need to actually build her and deploy her before I sink any real assets into her. Legendary Ephraim, +1 (+Res): I pulled Legendary Ephraim long before I ever pulled OG Ephraim. He finds use mostly as a Grand Conquests lead. Which makes me realize that I don’t have a ton of lance cavaliers....or really any that I would really love to build. I’ll look into this. Altena, +1 (+Def): I adore Altena. She’s one of those characters that FEH really introduced me to and I fell in love with her personality, and she’s got a great kit. I’d love for her to be 3*/4*, but I find myself thinking I should pull for Blue on random banners, just in case I pull extras. She’s a high priority merge project. Halloween Dorcas, +1: Another case of a strange decision made without any real thought. Especially since Hack-o’-Lantern+ is a solid axe to have in a unit’s back pocket. I’m suddenly mad at myself for doing this. Minerva, +1 (+Atk): You know, Minerva was the third 5* I ever pulled in this game, and I never really found a use for her somehow. I suppose I avoided flying units for a long time, just because they were always physical, and usually less useful than infantry or cavalry units (what a time). She’s merged because of a pity breaker. Young Minerva, +1: Ironic, I know. Y!Minerva is near the top of my list for Grail projects. She’ll likely get a +10 eventually, it’s hard to top the skills she has available. And I’m weirdly a sucker for tiny children who destroy enemies. I love this unit. Legendary Alm, +1 (+Def): My first pull of L!Alm was -Spd, which was a major fucking bummer. I ultimately decided I needed to fix that when I pulled one a while back, it was a good decision. I am never going to have the resources to pump more into him, though. So his base kit will do for now. Matthew, +1 (+Atk): Let’s talk briefly about how fucking bad Matthew’s attack stat is. At lvl 41 with a 14 mt dagger equipped and attack boon he has 43 attack. Literal garbage. His refine makes him useable and I want to +10 him so badly because I love his character, but again, it clashes directly with the Sothe I already built, who only loses out on the defense that Matthew’s packing. It’s hard to justify, ngl. Kagero, +1 (+Atk): I am only human. Every once in a while, I am susceptible to the pull of a waifu or two. Cool refine, solid niche, but hard to justify when I have characters that do the work better. Julia, +1 (+Def): Another character I didn’t have for literal years, and got in back to back banners long after she had a hey-day. Crystalelemental on Tumblr loves Julia and, honestly, that love kinda rubbed off. She doesn’t even have skills equipped, but I’ve been on the lookout for a way to deploy her. She’ll get a good kit eventually. Legendary Female Fallen Robin, +1 (+Spd): Describing some of these characters becomes a mouthful. Solid niche, and she got a merge because she kept pitybreaking me on the road to Bramimond. The rest were sacked for Res Smoke fodder. She’s useful from time to time, but not a favorite. Lethe, +1 (+Def): I always liked Mordecai more than Lethe, but she hits a lot of criteria for me. Her typing holds her back a little bit, though. I also don’t run all beast teams very often, and that’s where she really shines. It also doesn’t help that her first appearance was as -Atk. Sometimes heroes with bad IVs that you love kinda lose their luster, which is sad. Kaden, +1 (Neutral): Both times a pitybreaker. Great niche as a unit, sees plenty of use when I’m running Bonus Doubler shenanigans. Doesn’t see a ton of use outside of that.

Phew. That was a lot to write. If you read through that....I am deeply impressed. I think next is taking stock of what I actually want in terms of unit niches, and which ones would fill those roles that I could target.