#I see this a lot with Taka in particular and Taka's story is really fucking tragic

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

I see a lot of discussion in the DR fandom on some characters that die early having "missed potential", and while I agree that definitely a few of them could have been written better or differently, part of me wonders if that missed potential is kind of the point? A character is shaping up to be something, so you get invested in their story, which then makes their early death all the more tragic. I mean, of course it's still a tough needle to thread to get it to land as tragic versus falling flat, and I'm not sure how closely some of these characters hit the mark. But I Do think some characters aren't actually "missed opportunities" and instead played their role in the plot how they were meant to, if maybe a little suboptimally.

[jams-sims]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

Omg- this is gonna be a rough one cause I have current favs and old favs.

In no particular order-

1: Buddha (ror/snv/ records of Ragnarok)

Reason: He is the first God to openly say fuck the other hods and fight for the human. His style, his attentuide i could marry this man i love him so much.

2: Alucard (hellsing)

Childhood crushes goes hard and I never stopped loving this character. It's also partially because of his voice actor both the original and the abridge version. Shout out to Taka and Crispin Freeman.

3: Gojo (jjk)

Here man hate this man but I am in love with him. It's his everything! It's the way he is going to lose everyone he loves. I foam at the mouth over this guy.

4: Denji (chainsaw man)

I firmly believe I could bully fugimoto into marrying me and that why I like Denji. Nah but fr it mostly because I love like sad pathetic character and have a bit of a savior complex. Denji just a wet noodle of a boy and I wanna hug him!

5: Hisoka (hunter x hunter)

This one is pretty contentious because everyone has something they want to say about this character. As if they haven't misinterpreted both him and illumi. I just like a character who doesn't give a fuck but is full of spite. Like this bitch so so full of hypocrisy, we love to see it.

6: Naraku (inuyasha)

This one super old crush, I wish there was a reason. But their not I just remember really likening him as a kid so it's just followed me into adulthood.

7: Gaara (Naruto)

Again another childhood crush that followed into adulthood. This one stems from the fact when me and my friends would make OC. They would always pick the main guys and I wouldn't have anyone cool to pair up with besides the lame side characters. So I became more aware of what side character did because I wanted them to be just as important that the main character my friend picked. It's the favor of childhood trauma.

8: Rin (texhnolyze)

The only female on the list and she does a horrible death and spirals the main lead to die as well. Rin is just the stand it for the whole cast in this anime. Don't watch it unless you are in the right mental state. Cause I wasn't :D

9: Medcine seller (Mononoke)

Just- watch the anime and and the movie this guy comes from. It's hard to put into words what I like about him.

10: Naota (FLCL)

This one was hard to pick because I have a lot of old character I like. And someone were fighting for this last spot. But I decided to pick Naota simply because I invested so much time into his story. Into the world. It's how I met one of my best friend. This character holds a dear place in my heart.

Honorable mentions: Kyo from samurai deeper kyo, Kuzuma (S-Cry-Ed), Shinji (EVA), Ibrau (kuuchuu Buranko I also bought the book) imma just put the name of the anime cause i love it (Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai) that whole cast. This made me go down a wild ass rabbit whole in search for this ome fuckin anime i can not for the life of me find.

[catgirl-catboy]

I agree with you so much about Ryoma lol

He and Kaito would be explored better cause Kaito's blatant idolisation before knowing Ryoma being a pussy according to his idiotic beliefs are interesting, I would love to see more detailed exploration and more reaction about Ryoma's death. I hate how they forget it, fuckers.

And well now I need to ask the real question

Do you want to talk about our saviour and christ? *Intends to talk about ishimondo*

I really adore that ship and a detailed explanation or analysis for them from someone I like their opinions would be fun

Yeah!!! I wish Kaito's character flaws got explored slightly more than they do in canon. For all of Kaito's belief in Gonta, he certainly didn't attempt to help Gonta understand the investigation when he said he was struggling to read the monokuma file. It feels like Kaitos belief in others is usually rewarded, and the one time he's wrong in canon most of his angst is self-inflicted.

This isn't a criticism, thats what makes Kaito so interesting.

I am literally always down to talk about Ishimondo. Idk if this is like, a proper analysis, but its something that sticks in my brain a lot when I think about the ship.

Ishimondo may seem like a wholesome ship, but it is one of the most tragic stories in Danganronpa and fans don't talk about it enough! Because yes, I ship them, but Taka was also a brother figure to Mondo. Thats important.

Mondo almost repeated the worst mistake of his life. He confessed because he couldn't bear to live with the guilt of another brother willingly dying for him.

It really makes me wonder what Mondo would do if Taka's idea of dying in his place worked. Now, he has two seemingly contradictory legacies passed down to him and a desire to uphold both of them. I imagine Taka likely wouldn't even ask him to attempt to overwrite his grandfather's legacy, but Mondo would take it upon himself anyway.

This sounds slightly silly, since Mondo's whole thing is toxic masculinity, but I feel like another interesting way they could have proceeded post chapter 2 is for Taka to take a page out of Mondo's book and promise to keep the class together, at the expense of grieving in what would normally be a healthy way. Hell, you could even use Ishida as a concept here if you wanted.

This is more Taka and Hifumi that Ishimondo, but you could reframe the Taka vs Hifumi conflict as Taka not wanting Hifumi to repeat his mistakes. If nobody gets attached to anybody, then this killing game is easier.

I also like (it makes me sad) the idea of Mondo coming to see Taka as a surrogate brother to a degree, which is all kinds of fucked up. It might help him get over his canon guilt, but absolutely not in a healthy way.

Taka got his first friend, Mondo got his first friend back. >:)

That being said, Mondo's execution in particular was dogshit because there were tons of ways to include a lesson and they chose not to in favor of body horror + referencing a myth. If I were monokuma, I'd make the execution a race, and I'd have Taka strapped to the other bike. >:)

Hell, you can do the memey body horror thing afterwards to if you want, I just need my fix of phycological horror!

That being said, a lot of non-despair and pre-canon fics I've read for them (I've read like 99% of fic for them!) just re-create the sauna scene, which I don't think makes very much sense. Due to the high stress nature of the killing game, it doesn't make very much sense for it to happen twice. Also, there's so much potential variety on how the two of them became close! Do you have a personal headcanon?

Honestly, I can go on about them all day.

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Castlevania Season 4: I’m not mad, just disappointed

Season 4 is poorly written fanfiction, which is...better than a lot of things could be, I guess.

Spoilers below the cut.

Content warning: trauma, sexual assault, psychological manipulation

The Gods Have Had a Change of Heart

Or, “Season 3 Blocked and Ignored”

Season 3 felt like the fabric of the universe had been twisted just to inflict additional pain. Season 4 overcompensates in the other direction; trauma evaporates, and good things happen for no other reason than to make our favorite characters happy.

The Season 3 finale left two characters in particular totally devastated: Alucard and Hector. Alucard is violently betrayed in a horrifying sexual assault by the first two people he’s spoken to since Trevor and Sypha left. He ends up killing them in self-defense and puts their bodies on stakes outside the castle, alluding to his father’s habit of doing so and potentially hinting at a turn toward evil. Hector is seduced by Lenore and then enslaved using a magic ring.

Yet at the start of Season 4, it’s as if these things never happened. Alucard is troubled, but not totally devastated, certainly not evil. Taka and Sumi are referenced in exactly one conversation with new character, Greta, in which she says the rather tactless throwaway line, “I had a boyfriend and girlfriend at the same time once. But they never tried to kill me.” Hector is nominally imprisoned, but immediately seems highly agentic, perhaps even more so than before. He studies, lays traps, and makes secret plans with other people. Furthermore, his relationship with Lenore is completely transformed. From falling to his knees in abject horror and despair at being enslaved, he suddenly switches to light banter, in what is apparently a basically okay, mutually enjoyed romantic/sexual relationship. Manipulative, selfish Lenore is now a sympathetic character struggling to reconcile her own role and feelings with Carmilla’s plans.

The events of season 3 happened, remaining canon in the most basic, literal sense. But the emotional weight attached to them has disappeared into thin air.

Not gonna lie, I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that Alucard and Hector were okay. I’m soft-hearted! I don’t like seeing characters I like suffer! I mean, conflict is important, and I can deal with (or even enjoy in a certain sense) seeing characters suffer if it makes sense and serves a narrative purpose. But as far as I can tell, the season 3 finale was nothing more than lurid, meaningless violence. I probably wouldn’t have continued watching the show if it devolved into nothing more than finding novel ways to torture the characters.

Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to pretend like nothing happened either. Or, really, not that nothing happened, but that those things didn’t matter, didn’t hurt, didn’t leave lasting scars. That’s...almost kind of worse.

But, I thought, I can sort of forgive this sudden shift in the stars, given that there may have been some sort of change in creative direction relating to Ellis’ decreased involvement with the show.* Plus, season 3 was insanity. It’s not like it was full of great writing choices, so if we quietly ignore some of them, maybe that’s for the best.

*I only later learned that Netflix actually chose to continue with Ellis’ season 4 scripts. It is not lost on me that maybe Ellis doesn’t know how to write about the lasting effects of traumatic sexual experiences or how power dynamics can make a sexual relationship problematic because he doesn’t understand that those things exist.

Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening

Pretty Pictures, Not Much Else

Unfortunately, the disconnect between seasons 3 and 4 isn’t the only problem with this season. Although I felt that season 4 was a bit less boring than season 3 (I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier episodes of season 4), it suffers from the same basic problems of Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening.

None of the characters experience any significant development, let alone any sort of coherent arc. Sypha has changed slightly, becoming more rough and jaded. I did really like the scene where she talks about becoming the kind of person who says “shit.” I think it really speaks to how entering into a relationship with someone means taking on aspects of their lifestyle, and how that can change you in ways that you can’t predict and therefore can’t exactly “agree” to. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re neutral, and sometimes it’s difficult to know. But you have to accept that you’re sacrificing some aspects of the person that you could have been if you chose to live completely independently, or with someone else.

Trevor really hasn’t changed since season 1 when he first decided to take up the mantle of hero again. Likewise with Alucard. Hector and Lenore change, as previously noted, but that change is sudden, jarring, and occurs completely off screen in between seasons 3 and 4. Carmilla dies as exactly as she lived: bitter, angry, and violent. Saint Germain just kind of...gets fucked over in a nonsensical subplot, which is its own whole can of worms.

We also get several new characters in season 4, none of whom have developed personalities or motives, nor do they develop any of those things over the course of the season: Greta, Zamfir, Varney, Ratko.

And nobody. Does. Anything.

Trevor and Sypha spend the entire season trying to explore and aid Targoviste, which comes to absolutely nothing. They’re unable to help anyone, Zamfir dies, and they end up just jumping through a magic portal to the actually relevant subplot in the finale. Carmilla literally does little more than draw maps until she’s ultimately killed. Hector plays a minor role in Saint Germain’s extraction of Dracula from Hell; otherwise, he and Lenore basically just exchange banter. Saint Germain does sort of do some stuff? But it’s often unclear how he’s made his connections, who the people who are helping him are, or what exactly he’s doing in terms of his magic beyond “whatever it takes to get back to his lover.”

Sure, there are fight scenes, but they feel meaningless. There’s no context, no stakes. There’s also a LOT of dialogue, and it is. Not well written. Exposition is embarrassingly clumsy at times, and the philosophical musings are cliche at best, muddled and confusing at worst. There’s just not all that much going on.

That is, except for Isaac. But more on him in a second.

What Kind of Show Is This?

When the plot line adapted from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse ended with season 2, the show struggled to establish a new identity.

Despite nominally dealing with themes like whether humanity is inherently good or evil and how to cope with wrongdoing and loss, seasons 1 and 2 ultimately boiled down to a pretty generic action-adventure/fantasy plot with found family/power of friendship elements. Main characters Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard don’t really wrestle with big philosophical questions or suffer any major defeats. They know that they have to take down Dracula for the good of the world, and they work together as a team to do it, with a little character development relating to their various backstories sprinkled in.

Then season 3 happened, and things got weird. The trio is broken up for what feels like a pretty trivial reason—Alucard has to protect the castle and Belmont hold, I guess? And the result of that decision is that the dynamics for the three main characters are completely unbalanced.

Ellis openly admits that he basically went feral with the writing of season 3, and it shows. The messaging in seasons 1 and 2 was cliche, but consistent. The message of season 3? Anyone’s guess.

Season 4 reversed the darkening of tone from season 3, but shares its inability to pick a story and tell it.

Isaac is the Main Character

Always has been.

While I can’t say that his character or arc are perfect, I can say that he actually has a character and an arc. He starts off motivated by his fierce loyalty to Dracula, then has to struggle to find his purpose once Dracula is gone. He goes from subservient to agentic. He goes from fully endorsing the genocide of humanity and not caring about his own life to seeing some worth in humans and genuinely wanting to live. He has an interesting moment that deepens our understanding of what night creatures are, while also serving as an exploration of the meaning of one’s fundamental nature. Most importantly, these changes happen naturally over the course of the show. They never feel forced or out of the blue, and while I feel like even more could have been done with Isaac’s character, there’s a lot to appreciate about what is there.

If there’s any thread holding Castlevania as a single, coherent work together, it’s Isaac. Not only is his character the best executed and the most coherent over the course of the show, his character explores themes that are larger than himself and relevant to the show as a whole, like those mentioned earlier: misanthropy versus a belief in the value of humanity; the ability to go beyond one’s “nature” or initial circumstances; and how to respond to being wronged or losing something important to you. Exploring the individual lives of characters is great, but really good writing usually requires going beyond that to reflect on broader questions and ideas. Isaac is the only character here that serves that larger purpose.

Sorry...I Just Don’t Buy It

The season 4 finale is crazy, although in a different way from season 3′s.

Varney being Death makes no sense on several different levels. I’m not going to spend a lot of time picking that particular plot twist apart, but I will talk about why I think it doesn’t work at the largest scale, and how I think season 4 might have been done better.

Last minute twists with zero foreshadowing are rarely a good idea, and this is no exception. Why introduce this “Death” entity at the last minute to be the most important battle of the season? The finale of the entire show, even? Besides the lack of logic or emotional buildup, this robs the show of the opportunity to make use of the antagonists that it already has. Since Dracula died, Carmilla has been the obvious choice for a new big bad. Why hasn’t she done more?

Season 4 feels crowded with characters and plot lines that amount to nothing. Why not bring some of these characters together? If Carmilla is the main antagonist, how come she never meets any of the protagonists (except Hector, who is a pretty minor player in this ecosystem) or even affects them in any way?

Season 4 feels like maybe it was trying to make something out of season 3 and the model that it presented, but it ultimately fails to do so. The writers throw the trio back together at the end anyway, so why not have them rejoin sooner and work together? Maybe Sypha and Trevor’s past experience with Saint Germain could have helped Alucard and Greta piece together what he was plotting sooner, rather than all four of them being completely blindsided by it in the penultimate episode. (Sypha and Trevor know that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula, but they fail to find out any actual detail about the plans, despite their supposed attempts.) Have characters actually do stuff, figure stuff out, advance the plot!

Likewise, maybe Carmilla becomes aware of Saint Germain’s scheming, sees it as a threat, and tries to take him down. Maybe she tries to get involved and somehow use alchemy or the Infinite Corridor to her own benefit. What does it look like when power-hungry Carmilla, who wants to rule the world, finds out there’s an entire multiverse out there? That could easily set her up to be a foil to Saint Germain, causing him to realize that what he’s doing is wrong.

What actually ended up happening in the show feels disjointed and often empty. In particular, most of the events that happen in the last two episodes just don’t really work for me. I didn’t like Trevor suddenly sacrificing himself to this random, new, super powerful enemy, or how the gems and dagger that he found just happened to be the perfect weapon to kill this new enemy, or how he inexplicably returns from the dead.

This kind of thing is what I mean when I say that this season feels like fanfiction. Trevor comes back from the dead for no discernible reason other than that it would really suck if he died. Greta as a character seems to literally only exist to be Alucard’s girlfriend and support him so that he doesn’t have to continue to be alone and potentially turn evil. Alucard’s trauma from Taka and Sumi and Hector’s trauma from Lenore are both conveniently erased. Even Dracula and Lisa are resurrected somehow and get their happy ending. And it’s like, I guess I prefer deus ex machina to the opposite (Does that have a name? When everything is going well but then something terrible happens for no reason other than to make things worse for the characters?), but they’re both bad writing.

God. This isn’t even getting into what happened with the Council of Sisters. And I don’t even really like those characters, but that doesn’t mean I want to see their characters handled poorly.

I’m not sorry that I watched until the end, but I can’t in good faith recommend the show as a whole. If you’ve yet to watch Castlevania, just stop at the end of season 2. While there are some shining moments in seasons 3 and 4 (4 more than 3), it’s just really not worth it.

[crazynekochan]

Dangan Persona AU

Palace #7

Ruled by Makoto Naegi.

Captive is Mukuro Ikusaba (held captive in cell; will be executed for her crimes in the alternate reality if not rescued in time; picked very much the worst day to dress as Junko).

Shadow manifests as Makoto but wearing a creepy long black cloak, like he is the judge, jury and executioner (which he is), who turns into a 4-armed angel, one wielding a shield, the other a huge revolver (like truth bullets), and the 2nd pair holding up the weight of the world’s hope on his shoulders as a shining globe that seems to get heavier as the battle progresses. It’s also immune to Curse skills, which is rather unfortunate because that’s what everyone was betting on it having since Lincoln (and therefore Makoto)’s weak to Curse skills.

Palace is Hope’s Peak as ala the first game but much more pastel, with the walls instead draped in soft silk, light shining down in jarring contrast to the giant metal plates over the windows. It gives everyone the creeps, especially when the 2nd half starts with much more blood and gore appearing on the pristine sheets and floors.

As a little peep to the next palace, this is also where they get a glimpse of a Shadow Nagito. The original had gotten curious and just barely went a bit into the Metaverse. He managed to get out right away, but not before causing his shadow to be spotted tending to a strange memorial garden of class 78 before vanishing.

Finally after frankly too many puzzles, they arrive at the midway point of Mukuro’s show trial at a near exact replica of the red door to the trial grounds. They open up and find the elevator, but what is much more relevant is the metric fuckton of Junko photos and Monokuma memorabilia all over the room, almost all of them horrifically destroyed in rage, aimed at the faces in particular. Since Mukuro was dressed as Junko the day she got abducted (Junko had a scheduling issue and made Mukuro dress as her for class, even though no one else really bought it), this makes everyone rightfully very nervous and reluctantly head down, despite the sick feelings roiling in everyone’s stomachs, because they’re not gonna like this. And nope, they didn’t like it at all.

They came out to see the trial already underway, 2 large stands loaded with masked figures to the sides of the room and a high circle of 15 podiums surrounding Mukuro, chained into a kneeling position as the Judges gazed down upon her. The party looks up to see them, and finds something rather strange. On one side are 9 funerary portraits on raised poles, with the 6 judges in black robes in front of them, all focused on Mukuro. The Judges are cognitive versions of the DR1 survivors, all looking much worse for wear (cognitive Hiro looks exhausted, cognitive Hina is silently sobbing with a funerary portrait of Sakura in her hands, even cognitive Kyoko looks like she was in mourning), with Shadow Makoto in the center as the chief Justice. It’s right at the ending of the trial, and Mukuro is declared guilty for conspiracy to end the world, to the disgust and horror of the crowd.

Mukuro tries to argue, saying that this must be a mistake, they have the wrong person. Shadow Makoto tells her that no, they know full well who she is, Mukuro Ikusaba (full name, no honorifics). He continues, telling her, in no uncertain terms, all of the crimes he knows of from the alternate timeline committed by the Ultimate Despair. “And to prevent that from occurring, we must tear the despair out, root and stem. Junko would be nothing without her little cronies, after all. What better way to end this right now than by her dearest sister’s death, leaving her powerless?” Then the Shadow has her trapped inside of a cage and sent down to the dungeons to await her execution, before the party can help her.

The rest of the palace works in a similar way to the first half, but everything goes into straight up horror movie territory. Like they were creeped out before, but now it was fucking all sorts of terrifying. It’s pretty much an amalgamation of all of Makoto from the other timeline’s trauma and survivors guilt from the first game. This part of the palace also has a bunches of minibosses that they have to fight through in the second half because holy crap, those things are fucking horrific. The minibosses are all the souls lost to the killing school life and it is very much not pretty. Sayaka covered in blood impaled with knives; Leon tied to a pole, pummeled to a pulp, chucking bloody baseballs; Chihiro with his head bashed in, using a mess of cables and screens to interact with the world; Mondo as a hellish biker that seems to be melting; Taka the terrifying sergeant with his head bleeding; Hifumi with his head bashed in as well, using his horrific Junji Ito-style magical girl drawings for attacks; a thing so burnt and smashed up that they could only identify her as Celeste because of the twin drills; Sakura as a silent warrior, constantly coughing up poison and blood. Even a makeshift “Mukuro”, hardly able to move from all the spears through her body. Holy crap, did that freak everyone out and make them very glad when they next saw their friends again at dinner because they’re alive!

The time limit this time is because Shadow Makoto, while being a twisted mess of repressed anger, sadness, and misery, is also fundamentally a good person and doesn’t want to kill Mukuro before she had even done anything, even though he knows that she’s guilty as sin of conspiring to destroy the world and everything in it (in the canon timeline). That’s actually where the party comes in, because by the time they clear the palace, the Shadow had finally decided that it was now or never and he needed to do this now. When they rush in to stop him, that’s when the boss fight starts.

The fight is genuinely hard as hell and the Shadow isn’t holding back. The attacks are all similar to the various minigames from DR1, just with a Persona flair. Makoto’s providing as much support as he can without being able to control his own persona, with the Shadow lashing out every time that Makoto offers his emotional support. Eventually, they notice that the giant ball of hope is getting heavier to the point of nearly crushing Makoto, who’s holding up the globe like Atlas holding the sky. His Shadow’s about ready to cry, begging the others to stop as Makoto encourages them all to keeping fighting and to not give up now. The battle only stops when they finally get Makoto to confess that he’s not always the bright ball of sunshine that they think he is and that even he needs help sometimes. With that resolved, the shadow returns to being Makoto’s persona, now instead of Lincoln, he is Logos (basically the closest to Jesus as I can get without making an even bigger mess in the MegaTen universe)

[Holy shit, I feel like I wrote a whole novel here! I’m ending this here, good night!}

---

Mod: The design for Makot's shadow is so flipping awesome. It’s so fitting for Makoto considering that he’s the main speaker during the class trials (cause MC and all) and this is literally a trial his shadow is holding, with the shields and revolver in each hand. Though my favourite is him holding up the worlds hope like Atlas with the sky, cause it’s still my favourite part of his character development that he admits in the DR3 anime that he’s sometimes really overwhelmed with always having to be positive as the Ultimate Hope but still keeps it up for ever (and as entertaining the anime was, it was one of the only good things it did story wise, but that’s a different topic altogether...)

The palace must be so disturbing for the party, cause up until now every palace was basically a fantasy place representing something of the person’s life/personality. But now they are in a twisted and later on gory version of their own school, and still don’t know anything of the past timeline. But things are starting to get unravelled now. Though most disturbing must be the memorial garden for their very much alive friends. The fact that the survivors, who were not among the memorial photos, are the judges who look like they experiences something very awful and traumatic. Not to mention the tons of destroyed Junko photos

That the minibosses are the victims in an all horror like fashion, where I’m imagining something along the lines of DR3 anime with Makoto’s despair hallucination, must be so brutal cause these are literally the “corpses” of their friends that are attacking them, who are in this timeline alive and happy

I can only imagine how hard it must have been for everyone to see how Makoto’s shadow actually is, which is basically being overwhelmed with all the support he has to give all the time. Cause everyone does lean a lot on Makoto (not that leaning on people is bad, but there is a limit how much one person can handle, even for Makoto)

[asotin]

what're your thoughts on castlevania (the netflix show, not the game, ive never played the game) what do you like, what don't you like? make it as long as you want. i don't care if i have to scroll for 5 minutes. go feral (personally trevor is extremely hot and i would like to date sypha. i'm not really into alucard's whole sickly victorian child aesthetic, yknow?)

oh god this is way too long, but you did say to make it as long as i want, and i have a lot of thoughts that i need to inflict on the world

i played two castlevania games, both from the nintendo gameboy era, so please don’t get mad at me, gamers

details below the cut, but since i’ll be talking about season three, i need to preface this with content warnings for mentions of: graphic violence, rape and sexual violence, racism, and the holocaust

before i get into it, i usually don’t go for alucard-type characters either, but knowing that he was redesigned to be bishounen sexy specifically because the boring, middle aged man look he originally had in the games wasn’t appealing makes me enjoy him. and he’s fun with trevor and sypha

do like:

the voice acting

it’s all good. i can’t think of any characters whose voices were awkward or fit poorly. they don't make sypha’s va use the standard flat affect or false high voice women tend to be assigned, trevor sounds suitably worn out but not monotone, and alucard sounds exhausted but in a sexy way

and the spanish dub is killer, arguably superior

the animation & design

it isn’t full-on artsy, but it’s definitely got a distinctive style that’s easy to look at. the color use and effects are gorgeous. it’s a story set in the medieval era, and the mixture of desaturated and oversaturated elements works so well with that

dracula’s castle and the belmont bunker aren't revolutionary in design, but they didn't need to be. they're suitably creepy and empty, and i enjoyed them

the monsters were unique enough to have obvious different types, and the scene where a monster commits blasphemy in a church by accusing a priest of committing blasphemy was good writing

lisa

she shows up to a stranger’s spooky home and scolds him for being rude. she really looked an ancient vampire in the face, told him he had no manners, then had a kid with him. what a phenomenal woman. 11/10, no notes

“start with me, and i’ll start with you.” you know what? i’d fall in love, too

dracula

this ancient, unfriendly vampire let a human woman walk into his home and tell him he’s got no manners. and that made him fall in love with her. just like that. lisa walked in and handed him his ass, and dracula thought “oh i love her”. and when she was killed (more on this in the bad section), he raised literal hell to destroy the world for doing it

speaking of lisa being killed, it fucks me up that it happened because she convinced him to leave the castle and experience the world. he left her alone to see what she loved so much, only to come back and find that the people he’d come to like- the people lisa had loved so much it drove her to help in a way that got her killed- had burned her at the stake. i love a good tragedy, and that’s good tragedy

the way he weeps when he has to fight alucard?? during a showdown in their home?? the “i must already be dead” moment in alucard’s childhood bedroom??? when he speaks to lisa about killing their boy, her greatest gift to him??? poetic cinema.

the trio’s dynamic

three bisexuals with two total brain cells and only alucard bothers using them. incredible

i went so hard for this ot3. it's right there and so good

sypha

she initially seems to be assigned the role of the adult™️ ie she's the only woman and gets stuck being responsible, but surprise! she’s just as annoying and dumb as alucard and trevor. she dropped a castle she didn’t understand on the ground and didn’t think too hard about it. then she argued about breaking it. i love her

if we don’t get an ot3, then she needs to have a dumb gf

alucard

he's got a stupidly low neckline and lower pants. they really leaned into ayami kojima’s redesign, as they should have. his little curl annoys me, though. why the fuck does he have a random section of hair that’s like three inches long when the rest is shoulder length or longer? love that he really looks like lisa

if you say he's canonically bisexual and polyamorous, no he isn't. yes he is. no he isn't :)

trevor

disgusting. a nasty man whose appearance mirrors his state of mind. he's 50 mental illnesses in a dirty jacket and his coping mechanism is… alcohol? maybe? he’s a mess, and i dig it

him trying his trick of kneeing alucard in the balls during their fight? and finding out it doesn't work? (which…… why doesn't it……?) juvenile but suitable

hector

his love of animals makes him my favorite. normally, i won’t touch anything with this much animal death, but i’m willing to set that aside because hector loves them so much. he’s so sweet and kind, and he loves his monster pets

yes he sided with dracula and has some really fucked up ideas about what constitutes humane treatment of people, and yet i love him. 11/10, but i have a lot of notes

isaac

i support him, including his murdering and his decision to support dracula. dracula throwing him out of the castle to save him was so cruel in that it was an attempt at kindness from a man who hated the whole world, but it was against isaac’s wishes

his time with the captain was great

idk enough about islam to know if he's portrayed correctly and haven’t seen any complaints, but given the show’s track record……… i wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not great

the forging

very cool. fresh and interesting! hector creating pet friends is cute and heartbreaking. love isaac for his dedication to reducing, reusing, and recycling

season 2’s big battle with all those vampires

the new version of “bloody tears” is phenomenal

this goes back to the animation, but listen……. it's so good. i loved the smoke vampire, and alucard’s fluid wolf transformations. his flying sword looked really good, and incorporating them together? super good to watch. and trevor’s whip?

the type and level of violence are suitable for what it is. it would be weird for a gritty show like this to be bloodless, but i don't think it would work if it were bloody to the extent of a slasher. it's also more clean violence, if that makes sense. you don’t linger just to look at gore; you see it because stabbing someone spills blood. the games weren't about extended, gritty scenes of realistic murder, so the show sticking with quick, slice and dice type fights fit with what i remembered of them

please watch this fight if you don’t remember it or haven’t seen it (part 1, part 2)

trevor’s whips

trevor’s weapons don’t follow the physics of normal whips, and they shouldn't. they’re heavily stylized and clearly a fantasy weapon, but they still have rules that they (mostly) have to obey. his morning star-whip hybrid in particular is so good 

it’s easy to follow, too. a lot of times, speedy weapons disappear, which is an understandable effect but one i find boring because there’s nothing for me to do. i’m just sitting on my ass with nothing to do

trevor’s whips don’t disappear. they’re fast, but you can always see them. and they have weight! you can see them slow down and gain speed. i don’t need physics to be real; i want movement to be pleasing, and that’s exactly what i get with the whips

don’t like:

fridging lisa

she could have been kidnapped (possibly make dracula think she was dead bc people want to lure out her scary demon husband, idk), then s2 could have ended with her and dracula reuniting as he died. she and alucard go on a trip together to attempt to make amends for the pain dracula wrought in lisa’s name. orrrr she dies a tragic death with him and we’re left to hope that they find each other in the afterlife. do vampires get to go to the afterlife? can alucard reintegrate? can he be happy with his new friends? or will he go back to his crypt and sleep again? will he ever be rediscovered? if so, what will he do? deep questions. i would prefer to cogitate on these instead of experiencing the shitshow that is s3

season 3

they should have ended it with dracula’s death. the quality of storytelling goes down immediately. just plummets. i’m sure there were problems in the first two seasons, but this one is so bad, i genuinely can’t remember

but i may as well get specific, so here we go:

abandoning alucard

trevor and sypha leave their friend alone in his childhood home where he just killed his father. where they helped him kill his father who, as i’ve said too many times, raised literal hell to get revenge for people burning alucard’s mother to death

yt they don’t talk about alucard. they don’t make any plans to touch base ever again. trevor’s entire family got killed. sypha’s culture, from which she’s now estranged, is family-centric. if ever two people should give a shit about alucard and know why alucard shouldn’t be left on his own, it's them

so what the hell is going on?

trevor and sypha’s relationship

look. it could be good. it would be better with alucard but they could be together and it could work fine

but this……….

trevor hates what they're doing. he hates traveling around and fighting. he's clearly tired and deeply depressed

sypha not only doesn't care enough to address it (did they forget the first two seasons?? sypha is annoying partly because she doesn't stop poking people) she might not even notice? yes, she's having fun, but trevor is basically dead on his feet in front of her

racism

hector, sumi, and taka all got done dirty 

sumi and taka

i hate the way they died. i hate that i’m certain that the plot won’t bring japan back into the narrative (or if it does, i don’t trust it not to be shitty). i hate the fact that by killing them off, i’m not going to get any more of them. they were interesting!!

speaking of the japanese vampire: the biphobia, arguably, given what happens with alucard

the addition of sexual violence

i don’t need or want lenore. if all she’d done was manipulate hector, i could have lived with that. she’s a villain, so she does bad things. that’s the point. but what she did was a massive escalation. we hadn’t had any sexual violence, and then the last few episodes gave us 

tumblr feminists who love her for how she treated hector need to be quarantined until their brain worms have been cured

everything that happens to hector

what was this shit? why did i open my netflix app and tap castlevania and find them making this man walk around naked in the cold to torture him? and starving him? he got manipulated, degraded, chained up, collared like an animal, and raped. and why? to show us how bad lenore is? that the other vampires are bad because they let her do it? i didn’t sign up for this

the holocaust reference

the imagery at the end of s3 when it’s revealed that the judge has been killing people he’s decided are undeserving to live and collecting their shoes in that barn was chillingly close to images of shoes taken from victims of the holocaust. there's no reason to invoke the holocaust here. it’s unnecessary and in bad taste

[veilder]

Castlevania Season 3 was insane and in this essay I will--

Okay, I’ve never made a post on this website before, but here I go cuz Castlevania Season 3 has me just that fucked up. (Everything here is my own opinion, fyi.)

***SPOILER WARNING FROM HERE ON!!***

Okay, so yeah, that was a wild fuckin ride, wasn’t it? First off, while I did very much enjoy this season and I still love the show as a whole very much, this whole thing felt a lot like a setup season. It was a lot of maneuvering the characters into certain places and roles and it was a lot more focused on their emotional development (or regression, yikes!) than it was on a central plot like the first two seasons were. In those, all three mains had a singular goal: destroy Dracula. But now? Well, we’re left in the aftermath. I feel like this season was certainly necessary for where the show seems to want to take things, but yeah, I think I didn’t love it quite as much as the first two. And I think a lot of that stems from just how fractured the main party is. And I’m not just talking about Trevor, Sypha and Alucard, either, even though I consider them the main focal point. Because, building up off of season 2, I would absolutely consider both Hector and Isaac as main characters in this show as well. But after the final confrontation of last season, all of them (save Trevor and Sypha) are scattered. And while they certainly still seem to impact each other somewhat, they never actually... y’know, meet in this season. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore Trevor and Sypha’s dynamic and I think they are #RelationshipGoals, but you can certainly feel the absence of Alucard in their scenes. Hell, Trevor remarks on that himself at one point, about how they just... left him behind. About how lonely he must be, shut up all alone in his father’s mausoleum, taking on the duty to protect it because he’s the only one who can... There was a scene in one of the middle episodes (forgive me, I did not mark down which) where Trevor encounters a fox in the forest. And there is a prominent cut to the creature’s golden eyes. And Trevor smiles at it. It just makes me think that he, at least, has been thinking about their wayward companion in his downtime. I’m glad that the showrunners took the time to make sure we all could see that consideration, even in small moments like this, because it really didn’t sit well with me, how they left him all alone at the end of season 2. It’s nice to know that at least Trevor is thinking about him and it makes me hope that we will actually get these three back together in season 4. And along those lines, I think it was very interesting, how ultimately, Isaac’s whole goal in this season was to reach Hector. Literally, that’s all he is doing for all 10 episodes, just travelling across continents to find the man who betrayed Dracula... and to make him pay. But damn if I didn’t absolutely love all of his scenes, too? Isaac has really risen to prominence for me with this season. I could never quite get behind him in season 2, but here? I daresay that he might’ve been my favorite part of this season. All of his interactions, with the old collector man, with the Captain, with the FlysEyes, with Miranda, they were all so varied and philosophical. I really loved how the show delved into such heavy topics with him and fleshed out his personality a bit more. Special shoutout to the Captain who was, imo, absolutely amazing. I honestly hope they meet again, I loved their dynamic so much. But even so, he’s always still focused on Hector. Always moving towards Hector. I like that their story continues to play out from where it left off in season 2, with their fates interwoven like this. I do hope that we’ll get to see a confrontation between them eventually, but God, it would be very unsatisfying right now with Hector’s current situation. Which... Jesus, he is in dire straights, isn’t he? I honestly felt so bad for him throughout this entire season. He has been abused and manipulated so horribly through this whole thing. And yes, maybe he came across as a little naive and, well... dumb for trusting Lenore, but... Honestly, with the way he’s been suffering? Clinging onto those few scraps of kindness she throws him is really his only salvation. He has nothing, literally nothing, not even clothes, when the season begins. He’s been travelling with Carmilla for a month and then is immediately thrown in prison when they finally reach Styria. And God, despite all of that, he still has the gumption to try and attack Lenore at first. To try and trick her into a vulnerable position when vulnerability is his new MO. I was proud of him for trying, for keeping that spirit alive within himself despite his horrible circumstances. And watching as Lenore manipulated him further and further was just... so horrible. Honestly, she probably didn’t even need the slave ring at the end. Hector was so desperate for any sort of love and validation that he almost certainly would’ve happily crafted their legions just to make her happy. He has such a soft soul and it’s always being taken advantage of. His story arc was so fuckin sad and I really need better things for him going forward. And speaking of characters who deserve better... Omg, what did they do to Alucard? Seriously, his entire story arc this season was just... highlighting how devastatingly lonely he is and how he’s not coping very well at all with the aftermath of season 2. And I understand, everything that went down last season and everything he was forced to do, it broke him so completely. He hasn’t really... moved on at all from where we last saw him, weeping his heart out for the family he lost. So what does this show do for him? It lets us think he might be able to find a new family, to find happiness... and then it yanks that away from us in the absolutely worst way. Sumi and Taka had a lot of promise. Their backstories, as slaves for an ancient, powerful Japanese vampire, that was very cool. Their quest to find a mentor, someone to teach them the skills they needed to help liberate their home from the hold these vampires have over them, that is a noble goal. And Alucard sees that in them. He sees their potential to do good. I think he honestly sees a little bit of Trevor and Sypha in them, in the way they want to help, to fight against evil, to better the world. And I think they also... give him someone to cling to. Just someone at all to speak with, to share his day with, to be around? He is so lonely, so hurt, grieving and empty and wishing he wasn’t. They offered him a small glimpse of what happiness could look like. And he took it with both hands. He wanted them there and he wanted to help them and God, even when they have him at their mercy and are trying to kill him, he never condemns them. He still sees the good inside of them. And I wonder if he ignores the brokenness inside of them, too, because it’s a mirror to his own? Either way, the whole story arc was absolutely heartbreaking and it kills me to see Alucard so absolutely crushed by the events of his life. He does not deserve this. And I... really need Trevor and Sypha to come back for him. I think he really needs them, now more than ever. The characters are really who I wanted to talk about, y’know? Yes, I love all the plot setup happening; the Cult of Dracula was unsettling and terrifying; Saint Germain and the Infinite Corridor were honestly spectacular? How did they pull that off so convincingly?; Carmilla, Striga, Morana and Lenore were strangely entertaining for me, even though I very much despised the way Carmilla and Lenore in particular treated Hector. They were a weirdly amusing, kickass lady squad and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of them. (Which I most certainly will); Isaac and his growing horde coming for Styria is bound to be amazing!; I’m assuming that Trevor and Sypha will continue learning more about the Cult as the next season goes and will (hopefully!) get Alucard back with them at some point! (God, he needs his friends so much. >_<) I just... There was so much packed into this season and I overall enjoyed it very much. Special shoutout to the absolutely amazing artwork because holy shit! Some of those still were breathtaking! And while some of the fight scenes I thought were a tad... worse than in previous seasons, some of them were real standouts, too! So yeah, I had a lot of thoughts about this! And I really needed to share them! Looking forward to what comes next! ~Veil P.S. Y’all don’t even know how desperately I want “The Pirate of the Roads” to be Grant Danasty. XD (Will he ever show up? Fingers crossed!)

[persona-dee]

Third Person Point of View, A HiruMamo Fanfic

Hiruma Youichi was the incarnation of the devil, while Anezaki Mamori was the embodiment of the angel. Due to their differences, people believed the two of them wouldn't even want to get ten meters near each other.

The Deimon Devil Bats team believed it too once upon a time. However, seeing the two's interactions over time made them not so sure anymore. They started pondering: were they actually dating?

Part 1: Yukimitsu Manabu’s point of view

Note: This fic takes place around early fall, after they came home from the Death March, but before the fall tournament began.

---------------------------------------------------

There were many ways to describe Hiruma Youichi, but a listener wasn't one of them. He was a terrifying high school boy who had an extensive information network and a tad too much love for firearms and blackmailing. Precisely because of that, people tended to think that the intimidating boy never listened.

Imagine Yukimitsu's surprise when he witnessed that the said boy was actually willing to listen to a request. And he complied with it without much resistance, to boot.

It happened when most of Deimon Devil Bats' team members had gone home on one evening in early fall. He was carrying practice equipment back to the club room when he noticed that there were occupants inside.

"I know that you know that Honjou is Monta-kun's idol. Think about how he will feel if he sees these articles."

Yukimitsu stopped himself from grabbing the club room's door. It was Mamori's voice. What was she talking about? What articles?

Whoever it was Mamori was talking to stayed quiet. Who was it? Maybe it would be better if he stayed there and not come barging in when they were in the middle of a conversation. It would be rude and awkward to interrupt them, anyway.

"Hiruma-kun."

So, she was talking to Hiruma? She is brave, Yukimitsu thought. Well, he had known that she was. She had to since becoming their club's manager meant she had to see and talk to Hiruma on a daily basis. Not everyone could do it. But he didn't know she was brave enough to try persuading their captain about something like protecting a team member’s feelings. As far as he knew, the captain didn’t really give a damn about things like people’s feelings. People called him the incarnation of the devil for a reason, after all.

Yukimitsu had to admit he was rather curious about Hiruma's reaction. Came to think of it, the captain actually listened to people sometimes, but to follow what people told him is another story altogether. Up until this point, he had never seen Hiruma following anyone's request, especially if the said request didn't make their chance of winning increase in particular.

"I'm just asking you to remove every article about Honjou Taka from Monthly American Football magazine. I know you read it and bring it to the club room every month. It's not that hard, is it? There aren't many articles about him, anyway."

Yukimitsu could hear the pop of bubble gum. Hiruma must be contemplating the pros and cons of her suggestion in his mind. Still, there was no response from him. It seemed her persuasion didn't work. Even their manager couldn't convince him to do something, huh?

He didn't like prying into people's lives, but ever since the team went to America for their training camp, he couldn't help but notice that the two of them were a lot closer than people thought they were. He even started assuming that they were more than just a captain and manager since they understood each other so well. She could handle Hiruma nicely, too. If there was someone who could soften their captain, he assumed it would be her. However, now he thought maybe he was wrong, after all.

"I think seeing these articles would only bring his morale down. You don't want that, do you? Since victory is your number one priority."

"I get your point, fucking manager, so shut up already."

From behind the door, Yukimitsu could hear Hiruma's response. Even though he sounded irritated, there was no actual bite in his words. The next moment, he could practically hear Mamori's smile as she asked, "So you're going to do it?"

"Yeah," he sounded nonchalant, but Yukimitsu knew the captain meant it.

"Thank you, Hiruma-kun."

This time, Hiruma didn't reply.

That was... relatively easy. He had thought it would be a lot harder to convince Hiruma Youichi to do something. Was it because Mamori was the one who did it?

He could hear some shuffling from inside and he decided it would probably be okay if he came in now since their conversation had ended.

Mamori greeted him with a smile and a "good work for today!" when he entered the club room. She offered him a water bottle which he accepted with a mumble of thanks. After that, she grabbed a broom and started cleaning up the club room. On the other side of the room, Hiruma was sitting with his legs propped up on the table, a laptop on his lap. They didn't look like they just had a conversation.

Yukimitsu was heading off to his locker when Hiruma said, "Fucking baldy, don't tell anyone about what you heard just now."

He turned his head, but Hiruma had already focused back on his laptop. He didn't know which one Hiruma wanted him to keep secret. Was it the fact that he would cut articles off of a monthly sports magazine for one of his team members or the fact that he complied so easily with Mamori's request?

Both were really sweet of him, though. He never knew their demonic captain had this side as well. He wondered if Mamori knew about it since they seemed to know each other so well. If she did... well, he wondered if they were indeed dating.

--------------------------------

I got the idea from chapter 277. In that chapter, Mamori told Kurita about the cut off articles. She said that she asked Hiruma to do it so Monta wouldn’t see it. I think it’s one of their sweet “moments” even tho it’s so implicit you have to squint to see it :’)

[pharmercytechnician]

It’s a Good Day to get Laid.... to Rest

Okay so this is something I started a while back and I just kinda got stuck writing it and forgot about it. So I figured I’d go ahead and just say fuck it and post what I got 👀💀

Anyways, it’s based off of a post about mortician sasuke who’s too nervous to tell the cute new blond that he’s a mortician. But I can’t find the original post :(

Sasuke sighed quietly to himself as he sipped on his beer, the second of the night.

The bar was already bustling when he’d arrived and he’d taken a seat at the farthest stool from the door and hunkered down.

He was supposed to be meeting his chronically late best friend Suigetsu, but it had been 20 minutes since the agreed upon meeting time and Sasuke was sure he’d been stood up.

He checked his phone for the 5th time, waiting for the incoming text from Suigetsu saying he’d be either late or that he wasn’t coming at all, which was most likely the case. Suigetsu liked to not show to things, leaving Sasuke to fend for himself.

Sasuke heard the telltale sound of the door to the bar opening and he turned to see who it was.

In stepped a man who stole Sasuke’s breath away, and his heart for that matter.

Sasuke gaped at the gorgeous blonde.

He had on a sleeveless orange shirt and a pair of tight fitting black jeans that left little to the imagination.

The absolute god of a man glanced around the room before finally making his way over to the bar, towards Sasuke.

Sasuke tried to look interested in his phone so that he wouldn't be caught staring.

“Excuse me. Mind if I sit here?” A smooth voice interrupted Sasuke’s thoughts, tearing his eyes away from his blank phone screen, he looked up and found himself face to face with the blond.

God he even sounds heavenly.

Sasuke swallowed hard and tried to get his words to work right.

“Yes. Wait no I mean no I don’t mind” Sasuke rambled, feeling the heat rise to his face. The blond only laughed in response before dropping onto the stool next to him. The bartender, a young man with long blond hair tied up into a high ponytail, hurried over to where the hot blond had sat down.

“Is there anything I can get you love?” He asked sweetly. Sasuke could barely hide his eye roll at the bartenders obvious flirting.

“Uh. I’ll take a michelob thank you” The blond ordered with a grin. The bartender nodded and left to go retrieve the blonds beer.

“So what brings a cutey like you here?” The bartender asked, reappearing with a beer in hand.

He popped the cap on it and held it out. The blond took it and took a long sip before setting it down.

“Well. I’m supposed to be meeting a friend here tonight, although it looks like they’re running late” the blond replied, glancing down at the watch he wore on his hand. Sasuke had to resist snorting when he saw it was basically a childrens watch with a giant frog on the face of it.

The bartender nodded before attempting to say something else, but he was cut off as someone down the bar waved him over.

Sasuke stared down at his beer, watching the way the condensation rolled down the side of the glass bottle.

He wished he had the courage to say something to the man next to him, but alas, he had the courage of a potato skin so he remained quiet.

However, that didn’t stop him from admiring the blond out the corner of his eye.

He was physically fit and his blond hair shone even brighter in the dim bar lights, if that was even possible, but the most curious thing about the man were the whisker esque scars on his face.

Sasuke’s phone vibrated in his hand and he looked down at it. Suigetsu flashed across the screen..

Sasuke sighed to himself as he clicked ‘accept’ on the incoming call. He raised it to his ear, ready to hear tonight's excuse. .

“You’d better have a good excuse for standing me up tonight” Sasuke said into the phone with a huff.

His response was a round of boisterous laughter. Then,

“Listen Sasuke. There was this really cute girl who came in tonight and I just HAD TO ask her out.” Suigetsu said excitedly. Sasuke snorted and rolled his eyes.

“I'm kind of offended that you’re standing me up for a cute girl” Suigetsu snorted in response.

“Come on Sasuke. Don’t be like that. I’ll make it up to you. I swear it!” Suigetsu replied. Sasuke took another sip of his beer and set it down with an audible clank.

“Whatever Suigetsu,” Sasuke replied, then on second thought added, “don’t have too much fun tonight. Remember you have work in the morning.”

“Right back at you Uchiha! Gotta go bye!” The line went dead. Sasuke rolled his eyes again, something he did frequently with Suigetsu, and dropped his phone onto the bar. He glared at his phone before snatching up his bottle and chugging the rest of his beer, slamming the bottle down onto the bar top.

As if Sasuke had to worry about having ‘too much fun’ he was fucking Sasuke Uchiha for god’s sake. According to Suigetsu and Karin, he was ‘allergic’ to fun.

“Abandoned by your friends too huh?” A smooth voice said and Sasuke turned to see the blond was speaking to him. Sasuke actually had to blink a few times to make sure he was actually talking to him.

“Uh, Yeah. Asshole chose a date over me” Sasuke responded, still half in shock that the blond was speaking to him. Of all people. The blonde laughed and swirled his beer around in his bottle.

“Cheers to that. Sakura was supposed to meet me here after work but then the ‘cute pharmacist’ asked her out. So she was all like ‘Sorry Naruto. But she’s cuter’ bleck. Women” Whiskers muttered as his lips hovered right above the lip of his bottle. He shot Sasuke a wry smile before finishing his beer in one go. He waved the bartender over.

“What can I get you Love?” the bartender asked, leaning onto the counter. Whiskers gestured to both his and Sasuke’s beers, “Another beer for the both of us.” the bartender nodded and started to walk away, “Wait! And two shots of Tito’s Vodka please” he called after him.

“Care to share a shot with me to celebrate this fine day were both of us handsome young men have been stood up by cruel friends?” The blonde asked Sasuke dramatically, placing a hand over his heart when he said cruel. Sasuke resisted the urge to laugh. ‘

“Sure. why not” He replied, face warming as he thought about how the blonde had mentioned they were both handsome.

Normally, he wouldn’t let anyone in a bar buy him a drink and if they did it would be drank by either Suigetsu or Karin, but there was something about the blonde with the whiskers that just had him feeling… daring.

“Hallelujah.” whiskers muttered with a grin. The bartender reappeared shortly after, two beers and two shot glasses in hand. He set both of the beers and the empty shot glasses down before pouring them almost to the brim with vodka. Whiskers grinned and swiped up both shot glasses before holding one of them out to Sasuke.

Sasuke took it carefully and then they clanked them together. “To new friends” he said, still grinning.

They both downed their shots.

Now, Sasuke had never been a big fan of hard liquor, he’d drank his fair share during his highschool, and even some middle school days, but no matter how much he drank, he just couldn’t get the hang of taking shots.

So, he choked as the vodka went down. Whiskers clapped him on the back, “Atta boy!” he exclaimed, patting Sasuke’s back as he choked on the still burning liquid.

Once Sasuke had managed to sit up straight again, the blonde had moved his hand away from his back and was holding it out, as if to shake Sasuke’s hand.

“Names Naruto Uzumaki. Nice to meet you” He said. Sasuke reached out and shook his hand.

Sasuke had to take a sip of his beer before he was actually able to speak, “Sasuke Uchiha. Uh. you too” He responded then quickly began to blush. You too?? What kinda?

However, Naruto didn’t even seem fazed by Sasuke’s awkward fuck up, he just grinned back and launched himself into a story about how one of his friends had done so many fireball shots that he turned green anytime he smelt cinnamon.

****

4 hours, 4 beers and 3 more shots of vodka and Sasuke was feeling loose. He found himself giggling at all of Naruto’s bad jokes and puns, and there were definitely a lot of them. During the time they spent together at the bar, laughing and exchanging stories, Naruto did most of the talking but that was fine by Sasuke. He’d come to learn a lot about the blonde.

For example, Naruto’s favorite color was orange, no surprise there, He’s never met his biological parents and his godfather had taken him in when he was 13 and died when he was 16, he was 24, same age as Sasuke, and he graduated from Konoha High, and in return Sasuke had told Naruto that, his favorite color was blue, he lived with his parents all the way up until he was 13 when they both died in a car accident and then it had just been him and his elder brother, and he’d attended Konoha in elementary school but then he’d had to transfer to Ota-Taka for middle school and so on.

As they continued talking, Sasuke found himself giving away more and more info without a second thought, or a care. There was just something about Naruto that made Sasuke feel like he could trust him, plus it helped that Naruto was just so easy to talk to, which that within itself was almost unheard of for Sasuke.

But despite the alcohol loosening his tongue, there was one question in particular, that gave Sasuke pause.

“What do you do for a living?” Naruto asked innocently, unaware of how Sasuke’s hands had started to sweat. Sasuke chewed on the inside of his cheek. He can’t just come out and say he’s a mortician?? Thats most certainly a turn off, isn't it?

Flashbacks of his previous confessions about his job to past flings flashed through Sasuke’s head. All of them ending in something along the lines of ‘Ewwww, that’s so creepy! Who would want to do that?’ then most of the time, they’d leave, if not right that second then within a week, with some kind of cheap excuse. The ‘it's not you, its me’ bullshit, but Sasuke knew they were all just too polite to say, ‘because you work with dead people and its creepy.’

It took Sasuke a few moments to realize he hadn’t answered Naruto’s question and he swallowed hard, wracking his brain for a suitable answer that didn’t involve him telling this very very hot stranger, that he worked with dead people all day.

“Walmart” Sasuke blurted out, causing Naruto’s eyes to widen. For a split second, Sasuke worried he’d said something wrong but then Naruto burst out into laughter.

“Phew, that's a relief, you looked so scared that for a second there I thought you were about to tell me you did something really weird like…. Uhhhhh” Naruto seemed to be fighting for something to say

Sasuke prayed Naruto wasn't about to say something about morticians because that has happened before.

but finally his eyes lit up and he concluded with, “weird like you work as a porn star or something”

Sasuke choked on his beer, eyes going wide.

“That… that would be what you consider weird?!” Sasuke wheezed out, bringing around another round of laughter from the boisterous blonde.

“Well yeah! Porn stars are usually a little weird! Like what if you were into ...” Naruto glanced around before leaning in really close. “Feet” he whispered into Sasuke’s ear, causing Sasuke’s breath to hitch. Sasuke fought back a laugh.

“Well damn you caught me. Guess I'll have to go solicit feet pics from someone else” he replied. Now it was Naruto’s turn to choke and for a second, Sasuke was worried he’d said the wrong thing like always but then Naruto was laughing, which meant everything was a-okay.

“You’re something else, Sasuke Uchiha.” Naruto mumbled into his beer before taking another sip

[medea10]

My Review of Fushigi Yugi

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.7

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time in trial 6, Tsumugi was very clearly just cosplaying Junko despite no-one properly figuring this out for ages, Danganronpa trivia was really not necessary to prove everyone’s memories are fake, Tsumugi kept insisting that Shuichi called this trial because of her backstory when really it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with Kaito, Maki was very distressed to learn even more how she was just being controlled and manipulated like always, Tsumugi was a literal fucking shapeshifter, everyone was more upset than they should have been over Hope’s Peak being fictional for something they’d only known about for two days, but at least that meant that the outside world was…

Well… about that.

Monokuma:  “Puhuhu… Forget about the world. It wants nothing to do with you.”

Oh boy. It sure doesn’t, even though it should. Here we fucking go.

…Does anyone have any idea what “kumafarre”, the word plastered all over the trial background from this point on, is meant to mean? Because that’s always stumped me. It has to mean something for them to have put it there. Kuma is bear, obviously, but “farre” can’t be Japanese, so… ???

“first!”

Pfft, of course that’d be the first message to show up. But it also proves that everyone in the audience can see their messages showing up here, so they should know that the characters can see what they’re saying.

“Bring on the spoilers!”

How does this even make sense? You can’t have spoilers for a reality show that’s happening live. The only possible spoiler is who the blackened is during a trial, but we’re way past that now.

“Kyoko is my waifu.”

“Sakura is my muscle waifu.”

“Chiaki #1 waifu”

Ugghh waifu culture. And also, I told you everyone was a bunch of genwunners in this audience! No-one mentions anything like this for any character outside of DR1 or 2. And yeah, obviously seasons past 3 don’t exist in the out-universe, but the out-universe writers could totally have just thrown in some random names we’ve never heard and expect us to assume that they’re talking about unknown characters from other seasons. Fifty other goddamn seasons they could be choosing from! But nope, it’s all gotta be mostly season one with some two, that’s all that counts.

“My husbando Shuichi!!!”

And of course Shuichi gets that shitty treatment too, even though he’s a real goddamn person who never asked to be famous and nobody is entitled to anything from him.

“Wow, Himiko is still alive…”

Seriously, that’s the first thing someone wants to say when their messages are getting displayed in a place where Himiko can see it? Lovely.

“Viewers get to participate now!”

“I feel like I’m participating, too!”

At least these couple of people are currently being fairly reasonable – they’re just excited to be a part of it in some way!

…The first two characters Tsumugi cosplays after this moment are Kyoko and then Sakura, and then Chiaki pretty soon after that. She’s pandering to those people whose messages she saw, isn’t she.

“Sakura”:  “Of course, those you see here are only a fraction of our total viewers.”

I. Should. Sincerely. Hope. So. Because that’s the only thing that makes this even remotely believable – the idea that the majority of the fanbase are somewhat more decent human beings than this (you know, aside from the watching real people kill each other thing) and we’re just seeing the vocal asshole minority right now.

…That’s really not what the narrative is going to be going for with this, though. If they actually wanted us to think that this audience we see is just the asshole minority and everyone else is more decent, this topic should get addressed in more than just this one throwaway line, and it is not. So probably the only actual reason this line is here is to establish that the number of viewers is way higher than suggested by just these commenters, and not that the attitude of the rest of them is significantly different.

“I believe in Keebs.”

This is a little early hint to the Keebo deal, since a lot of the audience should be thinking about him the most.

“You can do it, Shuichi!”

I like this person! This person is the most decent and realistic person we’ve heard from so far! Yeah, cheer on Shuichi just like I’ve been doing throughout this commentary! They care about him and want him to succeed! It is of course more twisted in this person’s case because he’s not actually fictional, and becomes even more so now that Shuichi can actually hear them and any pretense that he’s just fictional can’t be maintained, but at least this is otherwise a realistic and relatable response to this.

Shuichi:  “W-Wait, why would a peaceful world need a killing game like th—”

“Taka”:  “It’s *because* the world is so peaceful that this killing game is necessary!”

“Celeste”:  “It is so very peaceful… And so, it is so very boring.”

“Kyoko”:  “With so much peace, people have become bored. They need stimulation…”

That’s… kinda bullshit. First Shuichi’s assumption that only a world full of strife could possibly create a reason for a killing game, but then also the idea that peace would make people bored. Humans don’t start wars for entertainment, you know. World peace should be the least boring thing for humanity, because without having to spend so much effort on survival and equality, everyone would have more energy left to make all kinds of technology and art, including entertainment which should not have to involve killing real people to be entertaining!

To be fair, Tsumugi is probably exaggerating somewhat, given that she’s part of Team Danganronpa and is trying to sell the idea that her product is so necessary for the world. But it would seem that we are in a world where one way or another it’s become socially accepted to watch real people kill each other for entertainment… which doesn’t seem like a peaceful utopia at all, really.

“Chiaki”:  “Every person in the outside world watching this is a huge Danganronpa fan.”

We get a demonstrative image of people all over the world apparently excitedly watching Danganronpa, most of whom are vague and faceless. If it were just them then it could be possible to imagine that Tsumugi is lying and this is just a hypothetical image of what she’s talking about rather than the truth. But… Makoto’s also there. The kid that we, the out-universe audience, very definitely saw at the beginning of the chapter in a context that had no connection to Tsumugi and no reason to be a lie. Which gives this image a lot of credibility.

(And if this is the truth, again, it really doesn’t look like it’s a shady hidden thing only accessed on the darkest corners of the internet.)

I will say one thing in this world’s favour. I’m not remotely trying to defend the part where they watch real people kill each other, but Danganronpa really must be hugely popular among absolutely everyone for this to have somehow ended up not extremely illegal. Which means, given the fact that the audience are basically telling themselves it’s fiction and treating it as such, this is also a world in which it’s socially accepted, not just in niche geek subcultures but in mainstream culture, to get really excited by and invested in fiction. If you took all the awful murderiness out of it and made sure it was all actual fiction, man I’d love to live in that kind of world. As it is, in our world, only children are really socially expected to get super-excited about fictional stories all the time, like it’s something people are meant to grow out of as adults. Among adults, only very few extremely mainstream fictions get even close to that kind of widely-accepted level of importance in people’s lives. Which is disappointing to me.

“Chiaki”:  “This killing game is for everyone… So it’s everyone’s killing school semester.”

That’s the Japanese subtitle of this game, which actually turns out to be very meaningful! The general sense of it she’s talking about here would have applied to every season up until now, but there’s also the more specific sense that this season in particular has audience participation, which is apparently the first time it’s happened, making it even more “everyone’s” than before.

And the localisers just decided to nope on that subtitle and change it to the meaningless “Killing Harmony”, which is honestly a shame. Maybe the Japanese subtitle is a bit too long and too much of a mouthful for western standards, but they could have at least changed it to something which kept that relevance.

“Killing Harmony! I just got it! LOL”

Haha, no, that doooeees not work in the localisation.

“I’ve waited three years for this.”

“I thought the franchise was done.”

Huh, this is some juicy info. It’s taken three years since season 52, long enough that some people thought there wasn’t going to be another one? (And a lot of the rest of the chatter at this point is people applauding, perhaps being happy that they got another season.) That… suggests that Danganronpa might have been already on its last legs even before what happens in this trial comes and puts the lid on it all, which maybe makes things a little more believable. That’d also potentially explain why this is the first time they tried the Keebo gimmick, if they were trying to keep things fresh after worrying people would be getting bored of the same old thing.

Also, even if it’s usually less than three years between games, you’ve still got to imagine it’d be at least one year or so, which means it’s been over half a century since the Danganronpa franchise began. A lot of people who worked on it while it was still pure fiction wouldn’t even be alive anymore at this point.

Plus, geez, how long did they keep Rantaro in limbo between games? Was he allowed to live a relatively normal life for the time being while knowing that if they ever did get around to a season 53, he’d be forced into it, meaning he lived dreading that day and desperately hoping it’d never come? Ouch, poor Rantaro. Or possibly they do in fact have real cold sleep technology in this universe and they just stuffed him in one of those for three years.

“Shuichi, look this way! <3”

That’s… rather entitled but also kind of believable as something someone might do, since it seems like a lot of the audience have forgotten that these characters don’t just exist to perform for them.

“Get to the punishment already!”

Aaaand here’s someone who’s barely a believable person. Do the audience really just watch this to see people be horribly executed, rather than for all the character drama that happens in between those parts?

The opening theme music for this game starts playing… and apparently this is being played in-universe, based on the fact that Maki reacts to it.

Maki:  “What is this…?”

“Fuyuhiko”:  “Can’t you tell? It’s the title of the current Danganronpa you guys are doing.”

God, that has to be incredibly disturbing and wrong, being told that you’re hearing the theme music for you and your friends’ suffering and death… and it’s just this chill jazz tune, of all things. This probably hammered home more than anything else the awful sense that all of their struggles have just been entertainment.

“Chihiro”:  “Danganronpa’s gone on so long because the whole world enjoys and supports it.”

No mention of the fact that apparently some people thought there wouldn’t even be a season 53? Of course not, Tsumugi wouldn’t want to admit that the franchise might be on its last legs.

“Makoto”:  “What season do you think we’re on? You should be able to tell from the logo.”

So she claims. But you know what I thought when I first heard her say this? Since I already figured it was probably season 53 from Junko the 53rd, I thought the clue in the logo was the negative space between the V and the 3.

It’s actually kinda shaped like a 5 if you look at it that way! But nope, that’d make way more sense that what it’s actually supposed to be.

(I bet Shuichi figured it out from the Junko hint and not the logo, too.)

“V is the Roman numeral for 5.”

*deep breath*

That is not how Roman numerals work!!! In Arabic numerals, “5” can mean five, or fifty, or five hundred, etc, depending on its position within the number. But Roman numerals do not work like that! “V” only ever means five, and its position in the number does not change that. V3 cannot possibly mean fifty-three. It’s combining two number systems that work completely differently and do not make any sense being combined, but if one were to try and make a number out of it, it’d simply mean “five-three”, separately. Or maybe you’d add them together, so it’d mean eight.

In Roman numerals, fifty is denoted with an “L”. To actually get fifty-three in any vaguely sensible way by combining Roman and Arabic numerals, it’d be L3. Or, heck, why don’t we write the whole thing in Roman numerals? Then it’s LIII. Which just so happens to look and sound very similar to the English word “lie”. If the Japanese writers of this game wanted to do a clever little number/letter trick, why didn’t they go for that? It would have been great! Or they could call it L3 but make the negative space between the L and the 3 look kind of like an I somehow, so that “LI3” almost looks like “lie” as well. Missed freaking opportunity there, guys. Instead it’s just very apparent that nobody in Spike Chunsoft (or Team Danganronpa, for that matter) has any idea how Roman numerals work.

“Danganronpa 25 was the best.”

Shout-outs to this person. They’re the only person we ever see here who mentions any series other than 1, 2 or the one they’re currently watching. Props to them for knowing what their favourite season is and sticking to their guns in a sea of people who disregard every new season that comes along as soon as it’s not current any more in favour of obsessing over the first ones like they’re the only ones that matter. Season 25 probably was genuinely one of the best ones if it has a dedicated fan like this. You go, random person. I feel you.

“This is my first Danganronpa.”

Huh, so despite how much Tsumugi is trying to make us think everyone is obsessed with it, there have to still be at least a few people who don’t get what all the hype is about, if this person only just decided to check it out for this season.

(Clearly there hasn’t been a large enough proportion of these uninterested people who are upset about the whole killing-real-people thing to be able to put a stop to it before now, though. Even if it’s not their thing, if the rest of the world’s okay with it then it must be fine, right???)

“I love Shuichi <3”

Yes, thanks, we’re getting that impression. This is probably the same person from before, who still feels the need to mention this while everyone else is talking about this being season 53.

Monokuma:  “The seasons just kept coming, and with it came more killing games… Until it transcended games and anime to become this, the Ultimate Real Fiction…”

They gloss over this quite quickly, but it is important to note that yes, the earlier seasons really were just fiction in this universe like they were in ours. They’re not trying to retcon that the Hope’s Peak killing games were actually only happening for entertainment thanks to Flashback Lights and fabricated backstory. DR1 and 2 were completely fictional in this universe, which means that nothing happening here matters to or compromises that storyline at all.

After all, it does make sense that Danganronpa would need to have worldwide popularity already before society collectively decided that doing this with real people (but definitely not really real people, right) would be totally okay. It’s unclear exactly when the transition to “real fiction” happened, although Shuichi and Maki’s comments on the files in his lab kind of made me assume that there were more real ones than fictional ones. So… I was just shouting out season 25, but that one probably involved real people being killed, too.

“Leon”:  “What, did the letter in there throw you off? Well, I guess that happens. But isn’t it just rad how it looks like a letter, but it’s really a number!?”

I am way too amused at how they made it be specifically Leon, mister 11037 himself, who mentions this point. Nice one, guys. Nice.

“Sonia”:  “Since this is the 53rd season, one would expect to see a multitude of characters…”

Tsumugi:  “But you only have memories from the first two, so you wouldn’t recognize any others.”

They shouldn’t even recognise the ones from season two, like I’ve been saying! But she’s been cosplaying them anyway. So it’s probably a lot less about keeping them recognisable for the students here and more just about pandering to those genwunners and twoers outside.

(Obviously there’s a very good out-universe reason for this, but, you know.)

Tsumugi:  “So yes, I’m the mastermind! But the *real* mastermind forcing you to do this is… the people of the outside world!”

Way to deflect your responsibility, Tsumugi! Yes, everyone outside is also partially responsible by demanding this and giving it an audience, but you’re still the one who made it all happen and got everyone killed!

The audience starts chattering about how they’re the mastermind, but it’s in a way that sounds happy about it, like they’re just excited to be part of the story. They don’t seem to register the fact that, hey, maybe being literally actually responsible for the suffering and death of the characters they’ve been watching and caring about isn’t actually a good thing.

“Mmm… Shuichi’s nose <3”

Meanwhile Shuichi’s “fan” here still has a one-track mind and is getting increasingly creepy. I refuse to believe that this is the same person who was cheering Shuichi on earlier, since that person actually cared about him and didn’t only shallowly see him as eye-candy.

“put Maki back on kthx”

Also apparently Maki has “fans” too. But hers probably aren’t the good kind either.

“Mikan”:  “The ones managing this killing game aren’t psychos like the Remnants of Despair…”

“Ibuki”:  “They’re literal managers! Literally!”

Just because they’re managers, that doesn’t stop them from being shitty, evil people on par with the Remnants of Despair in terms of awfulness. They are quite evidently both.

Tsumugi:  “So I want to hear your best guess. What company is running this show?”

…

Shuichi:  “…Team Danganronpa?”

I love how Shuichi’s tone of voice makes it clear that he’s just pulling this name out of thin air. How is he supposed to know? Conveniently, Team Danganronpa were apparently just really uncreative when it came to naming themselves. (I guess this is realistic enough, though – our world does have The Pokémon Company, which makes Pokémon.)

We – and therefore presumably the students and the in-universe audience – get shown the opening movie that was right at the beginning when you start a new file, the one that summarised seasons 1, 2 and 3 and then implied this one would be a continuation of it. Which still doesn’t actually make any in-universe sense, since all the evidence other than this clearly points towards Hope’s Peak having not being part of this game’s backstory until Tsumugi improvised it in chapter 5. Maybe this was a promo video Team Danganronpa then hastily slapped together after that point to try and act like they totally had this planned all along?

The only difference from before (because it would have been a huuuuge spoiler to see this last time) is that we also see the supposed logos of every Danganronpa season up to 53. 4 through 10 are clearly the out-universe writers having a field day referencing other works of fiction, but then 11 through 52 are all exactly the same logo with only the number being different. Yeah, that’s not how it actually was, is it. The out-universe writers just didn’t want to take the time to make that many unique logos for a split-second each of screentime. (And, fair enough.)

We then get shown a collage of what appears to be basically all of the illustrations in this game. Which you’d think shouldn’t actually exist in-universe, because the audience’s camera is supposed to be Keebo’s eyes, and he wasn’t there for half of this stuff! So this strongly suggests that despite what Tsumugi’s going to claim about that later, the audience could also watch the game through the Nanokumas’ footage instead and potentially saw all the same scenes that we saw that way.

…Makoto is on there, though. He definitely should not be. The out-universe writers didn’t catch that, I guess.

Shuichi:  “Shut up… Shut up!”

Yeeeaaah, I don’t blame Shuichi for this. Tsumugi and Monokuma and the audience have been blabbering on for quite a while now, barely letting him and his friends get a word in edgeways while treating them like objects for their amusement. That has to be awful.

And even aside from Shuichi’s feelings about it, the way the audience has been suddenly babbling excitedly about Danganronpa in general to the point of almost completely ignoring the characters who are in this actual story they’re supposed to be invested in is pretty shallow of them. That’s already a sign of how unrealistically awful an audience they’re going to keep showing themselves to be.

Shuichi:  “No matter how many false memories we’ve been implanted with, *we* aren’t fictional!”

This line is here as a setup for the big reveal, of course, but even so… he’s right. Just because literally all of their memories from before this killing game are fake, it doesn’t change that they’ve been real people from the moment they got all of those memories.

Shuichi:  (Who… are we…?) “We… are real! We’re living, breathing human beings!”

“Nekomaru”:  “No! You’re just like MEEEEEE!!!”

I made Shuichi answer this incorrectly at first because I really feel like he would want to assert this… and he’s still not wrong! They are very definitely living and breathing right now, nobody can deny that!

“Makoto”:  “You’re just fictional characters created solely for this killing game.”

“Teruteru”:  “Nothin’ we can do about it, I’m afraid. Danganronpa’s that kinda property.”

I’m sure it’s much less some intellectual property dispute and more the idea that everyone might have slightly more issue with actual real people from the outside world being killed in this. It’s totally fine if they were created solely for the killing game, though, because then they’re not real and only exist to die here, right?

And honestly… that does make all the deaths in this game come across as just slightly less awful and tragic, in that context. Not because they aren’t still extremely real people who very much did not deserve to suffer and die, but, since they were created to die, anyone managing to survive and escape despite that feels like even more of a victory than in the previous games. It’s less Monokuma killing a bunch of people who were never meant to die, and more Shuichi managing to save at least a small handful of people who were never meant to live.

“Gundham”:  “Your immaterial existence is a fabrication, independent of your actual flesh and blood.”

To translate the Gundham-ese: their “souls” were created separately from their bodies. Kind of like how they were discussing when going into the Virtual World how odd it is that the two can be separated like that.

Tsumugi:  “Yep, you’re all fictional.”

“Ibuki”:  “You guys out there beyond the fourth wall already knew that, right!?”

I like how this works as simultaneously talking to the people beyond both fourth walls at once, while not actually breaking the real one. (Though the people beyond the in-universe fourth wall are only telling themselves these guys are fictional and aren’t actually right.)

Tsumugi:  “You all didn’t look like this when you first came to the Ultimate Academy… Those were your true selves. Now you’re all just fictional characters. That’s the truth.”

Shuichi:  (That’s the truth? Then… our real identities…)

Don’t get caught up in her manipulation, Shuichi! You are not any less “real” just because different people used to inhabit your bodies!

Tsumugi goes on to talk about when they first arrived at the school as their pregame selves before they got their outfits and memories. And again, we saw this. It is quite ridiculous to assume we saw an entire lengthy section in the prologue which just straight-up didn’t happen. The game has lied to us, but only with very small lies of omission (re: Kaede’s inner monologue). If the game was willing to lie to us about entire sections we played through, we couldn’t trust anything. We couldn’t even trust if this trial we’re playing is really happening right now, or if anything we saw really happened, which would render this entire story meaningless.

“Byakuya”:  “But boring, everyday characters have no right to be in Danganronpa…”

Honestly, why, though? Sure, the talents are supposed to be a Danganronpa thing, but you could totally do a killing game with ordinary people. It might make for an interesting change, especially after 53 seasons.

“Peko”:  “Which means your Ultimate talents are all just fiction.”

They may have come from fake memories, but they have those talents now. Nobody can deny that Shuichi’s been a pretty great detective.

Maki:  “Our talents as well…?”

Maki Roll, you never killed anyone, and you’ll never have to! This is great news for you!

…I bet if Kaito were still here, he’d immediately turn to her with a big grin and tell her that. Encouraging and being happy for the sidekick with a bright side to this would be way more important than however he might be feeling about this revelation in respect to his own talent.

Maki doesn’t react here with anything other than shock and disbelief, though, so I don’t know if this quite sinks in for her yet. It’s probably very hard for her to accept that she suddenly doesn’t deserve to feel guilty about anything. After all, this won’t diminish the effect Maki’s memories have on her and that she’s going to have to live with feeling like she’s killed countless people for the rest of her life. But knowing that nobody real actually died because of her has got to help a lot. I’m sure that’ll sink in eventually, once she’s had more time to think about it without the trial getting in the way.

“Chiaki”:  “I mean, they suited you to a certain extent, but mostly in a placebo effect sorta way. Kinda like a form of autosuggestion… You know, like if you do it, it’ll all work out.”

We’ve seen Flashback Lights do plenty of things that aren’t just straight-up remembering stuff: brainwashing everyone to be filled with meaningless “hope” and a sense of the completely wrong meanings of the words “hope” and “despair” in chapter 5? Brainwashing Shuichi into suddenly being a creepy pervert for that optional scene in chapter 3? Kaito’s phobia of ghosts leading him to feel anxious and nauseous upon simply thinking about a certain irrational stimulus? So, given that, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine they can do this kind of thing too. Heck, most of the talents in this game are things that only require knowledge, and perhaps a certain kind of personality, something Flashback Lights can very evidently do. Some also require muscle memory, which is a bit more of a stretch, but it’s still memory.

The hardest one to buy for me is probably Angie’s talent. There’s some muscle memory and some knowledge involved, but a lot of what makes someone good at art is more intangible and hard to define and might be difficult to encapsulate in a Flashback Light. However, Angie was unique in that she explicitly did not remember creating her art, because Atua was supposedly possessing her, and she had to be alone for that to happen. That’s how she made the waxworks. So it’s possible that what was actually happening was some kind of hypnotic trigger making her pass out when she thinks she’s about to create something, and then the gamemakers put pre-created waxworks in her lab. Remember how Angie made four waxworks without having intended to? Almost as if the gamemakers weren’t sure who she’d choose for the ritual and just made all four in advance. …And, okay, admittedly it’s very unclear how anyone could have got inside the school to put the waxworks there, which is the same question as how a hypothetical clone-with-a-Flashback-Light would have got in for the resurrection thing if that was going to be possible. But there’s something there. (Can you tell I hadn’t thought of this idea until after the commentary for chapter 3 had gone up and so I’m awkwardly fitting it in here instead.)

And ultimately, if the characters being “fictional” is the point of this story the out-universe writers decided to tell, then that always had to include fictional talents as well, since Danganronpa insists on having all its characters be Ultimates. So Flashback Lights have to be able to do this, even if it’s a little bit of a stretch to believe, because it’s just necessary for the premise to work.

It’s a lot like how we had to buy that the Exisal randomly had a voice changer that could perfectly mimic any student’s voice, simply because that was vital for the fifth trial’s premise and that story wouldn’t work if it didn’t. We can’t just use the fact that it was somewhat unrealistic of the Exisal to have a voice changer as any kind of evidence to propose that it actually didn’t.

Another example: I once saw a blind LP of the first Danganronpa game where it got to the memory wipe reveal and Junko handwaved how memory-wipe technology worked. And the LPer was all “Um, no, how is memory wiping even possible? I think it’s pretty important to establish this, actually!”, like he was using the fact that he didn’t understand how to question whether it had even happened at all. But that was missing the point; explaining the technology really wasn’t all that important. The existence of memory-wiping technology was just a necessary part of that story that had to be accepted, because if memory wipes weren’t possible then that story couldn’t have happened. This story is the same, except with Flashback Lights and the multitude of things that they need to be able to do to make this story work. At least in this case, Flashback Lights and some of the things they can do are well-established already, which is better setup than the memory-wipe technology had in DR1.

Tsumugi:  “Can you really say you’re not fictional now?”

Yes! Yes, they can and should say that!

“Hajime”:  “Even if your body is real, your identities, personalities, talents and past are all fiction.”

Past, sure. Identities… maybe? At least if we’re just talking about legal identity? But their talents are quite evidently still talents now, as I’ve just been saying, and their personalities are also something they’re expressing right here and now. Even if they were deliberately crafted and created to be that way, it doesn’t mean those personalities aren’t now real. You can only call a personality “fake” if that person is knowingly putting on a façade and pretending to be someone they’re not. So the only fictional personality we ever saw was Kokichi’s supposed love for this killing game. …Oh, and Tsumugi’s, of course.

Also, hi, Hajime. It’s fitting that she’d choose him for this. If we’re supposed to believe that Izuru got shoved full of every single talent imaginable by them doing weird brain stuff to him, it’s perfectly reasonable to also believe Flashback Lights could do something similar on a lesser scale. And Izuru’s entire existence was created from that process, but that didn’t make him any less “real” of a person than Hajime was. If anything, it made him more real at that point, because he’d overwritten Hajime completely (at least until the simulation). It’s honestly a very similar thing. Maybe Hajime’s story partially inspired the idea for this game.

Shuichi:  “…”

Unfortunately… this seems to be working on Shuichi.

…You want to know what Tsumugi ought to think of as the real reason she killed Kaito? Not to have his death inspire Shuichi to become even stronger. That would still be happening anyway if Kaito were still by his side encouraging him; all that was needed for that final push was for Kaito to admit that Shuichi’s even more of a hero than him and tell him that. The real reason for his death should have been because Kaito would completely annihilate what Tsumugi is trying to do here.

Because the only thing that matters is what you want to believe! Tsumugi is trying to argue that their pasts being fabricated means that they don’t count as “real” people, but who even cares about that? They believe they’re real, and have always believed that, and still want to believe that, so why should anything else matter? Someone like Kaito who puts such value in belief and has such strong, unbreakable convictions about being true to himself wouldn’t be listening to any of this crap. He’d be shaken to learn his memories are all fake and that his grandparents and fellow astronaut trainees don’t exist, sure, but it wouldn’t even scratch his belief in who he is. He’s Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars! Who cares if he’s only this way because someone else wanted him to be, it’s still who he wants to be, so it’s who he’s going to keep being, dammit! And, of course, upon seeing that his sidekicks are having trouble with this idea and are starting to doubt if they’re really real, he’d give them just the pep talk they’d need to keep believing in themselves and their own existences.

Kaito is exactly the kind of person who would be able to blow this whole trial out of the water, and nerfing him enough to prevent him from doing that required nothing less than him not being alive any more.

(Meanwhile, if Kokichi were still alive at this point, he’d be his usual infuriating self. “Oh, you guys are only just figuring this out now?”)

Also, if Kaito were still alive in this trial and ultimately ended up surviving and escaping while having learned that his memories are fake and he was never actually an astronaut trainee… you know that would not stop him from striding up to JAXA’s front door and being all “Let me take the astronaut exam, sure you already know I’m too young but you’ve also seen I’ve got exactly what it takes”.

---

[Next post]

[gdwessel]

Sengoku Lord in Nagoya - 4/20/2019; Nagata, Kojima, Hikuleo at War of the Worlds

The first megashow of this cycle has taken place, Sengoku Lord in Nagoya. You can see it now on NJPWWorld. Results:

Sengoku Lord in Nagoya - 4/20/2019, Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium (NJPWWorld)

Shota Umino & Ren Narita d. Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura (Narita > Uemura, Bridging Front Suplex, 7:37)

Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku [SZKG] d. Satoshi Kojima, Yuji Nagata, Tomoaki Honma, Toa Henare & Jushin Thunder Liger (Taichi > Henare, Seiteijujiryo, 12:15)

Togi Makabe, Toru Yano [CHAOS] & Dragon Lee [CMLL] d. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa  & Taiji Ishimori [Bullet Club] (Yano > Loa, Schoolboy, 8:13)

Mikey Nicholls [CHAOS] d. Chase Owens [Bullet Club] (Mikeybomb, 8:56)

Hirooki Goto [CHAOS] & Ryusuke Taguchi d. Jay White & Hikuleo [Bullet Club] (Goto > Hikuleo, GTR, 10:57)

Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, SANADA, BUSHI & Shingo Takagi [Los Ingobernables] d. Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI, SHO & YOH [CHAOS] (Naito > YOSHI-HASHI, Destino, 16:31) 

IWGP US Heavyweight Championship: Juice Robinson [Lifeblood] © d. Bad Luck Fale [Bullet Club] (Pulp Friction, 17:25) - Robinson succeeds his 3rd defense

IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Kota Ibushi © d. Zack Sabre Jr. [SZKG] (Kamigoye, 28:58) - Ibushi succeeds his 1st defense

Ibushi gets his v1 defense as a NJPW contracted wrestler, and is immediately challenged by... Tetsuya Naito. Which means at this stage, Naito challenging for the IWGP Heavyweight belt at Dominion is all but a pipe dream. They really are never going to put that belt back on him, are they?

Ishii & EVIL brawled post-match. GOD beat up MVP with a belt. Suzuki and Liger had a post-match moment as well. There are four more “megashows” in this cycle, so not a lot was going to happen here. The only other singles match beside the title matches featured Mikey Nicholls and Chase Owens, so no, they weren’t putting a lot into this particular show.

Ring of Honor, for their part, has announced the ROH debuts of both Yuji Nagata and Satoshi Kojima on the upcoming edition of the War of the Worlds tour, following the end of Wrestling Dontaku. The third of the Brothers Tonga, Hikuleo, has been announced as making his ROH debut as well. Hirooki Goto, EVIL and SANADA are announced thus far too. No matches have been set for this tour, naturally, but I’ll report when those get set. It figures I can’t make the Villa Park Chicago date (which is a TV taping, btw, so prepare for four hours of nothing matches) and they announce two wrestlers I’ve never seen live.  

There are also stories circulating that Enzo & Cass or whatever their ROH names were are already out the door. Glad they decided to ruin Sabre v. Tanahashi for the MSG crowd with that nonsense. Fuck you, Sinclair, fuck you.

The tour resumes Monday, with the first of three nights at Tokyo Korakuen Hall. All of them will be on NJPWWorld. Monday’s will feature a title match, as Makabe/Yano/Taguchi defend the NEVER Openweight Comedy 6-Man Tag Team titles against the Brothers Tonga. 

- 4/22/2019, Tokyo Korakuen Hall (NJPWWorld)

Satoshi Kojima, Yuji Nagata & Tomoaki Honma v. Ren Narita, Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura

Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask IV & Shota Umino v. Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado [SZKG]

Kota Ibushi, YOSHI-HASHI [CHAOS] & Toa Henare v. Zack Sabre Jr., Taichi & TAKA Michinoku [SZKG]

Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Rocky Romero, SHO & YOH [CHAOS] v. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, SANADA, BUSHI & Shingo Takagi [Los Ingobernables]

Juice Robinson [Lifeblood] & Mikey Nicholls [CHAOS] v. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens [Bullet Club]

NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship: Togi Makabe, Toru Yano [CHAOS] & Ryusuke Taguchi © v. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa & Hikuleo [Bullet Club]

Hirooki Goto [CHAOS] & Dragon Lee [CMLL] v. Jay White & Taiji Ishimori [Bullet Club]

[kumo-headcanons]

Ok so Idk if this is going over board but since Darui and C are a ship, do you think that when they were younger, they mightve been able to have a thing or wanted to but couldn't for what reason? And as adults they shoved it into the back of their heads?

Why would that be going over board? Are you referring to the remark I made about shipping asks taking more effort than others? Because there's really no need to worry about that, if that's what you mean. The only reason that came up at all was because that ask had been sitting in my inbox for nearly a week already and I hadn’t had the time to sit down and properly concentrate. I like working on questions, it’s just that some take more time to answer than others.

Hm... Yes, but also no? I actually tend to think of it as happening the other way around with the thought of a romantic relationship never even occurring to them until the events of Shippuuden, possibly even as late as after the war. Here's how I see their relationship developing:

C, Darui, Mabui and Samui's ninja registration numbers lie within the range of CL5517 and CL5596 (funnily enough, C's is actually the lowest out of the four of them despite his being the youngest, while Darui's registration number is the highest). For comparison, Omoi and Karui's registration numbers are CL6305 and CL6306 respectively, which is why I assume C, Darui, Mabui and Samui graduated from the academy at roughly the same time, meaning Darui and C most likely graduated early since they are a good three years younger than Mabui and Samui.

A while ago, I actually posted a headcanon about what Darui and C's relationship might have been like during their academy years and totally intended to follow up on that with more posts about their teenage years and early twenties but never got around to it because there were some details I hadn't (still haven't) worked out yet but that's a story for another day.

Anyway, what I've noticed is that, while they're A's bodyguards, they have a distinct (and probably unconscious) habit of gravitating towards each other, regardless of A's position, which is probably the most inconsequential detail ever but also kinda sweet?

What I'm getting at is, I don't think Darui and C ever made the conscious decision to get to hang out, get to know each other, become friends and so on and so forth; it just kind of happened and by the time they realised where things were headed their lives were already entangled to the point where it just naturally seemed like the next logical step to take.

For no reason in particular, I think C and Darui, actually didn't see all that much of each other for a couple of years after graduating. The higher ups of Kumo might have been busy spreading rumours about Darui's skills and sending him on missions left and right because ever village wants to flaunt its geniuses as much as secrecy allows and Darui is the closest Kumo had to its own Hatake Kakashi, while C, after deciding to go into the medical field, was kept busy by hospital duty but for some reason they still ended up running into each other every couple of months, always slipping back into that same easy, effortless companionship. Like, C might spot Darui taking a nap somewhere between missions, flop down next to him and spend the next two hours going over his anatomy notes while Darui grunts his acknowledgment and goes back to sleep until work catches up with them and they see nothing of each other for a couple of weeks or months again until that early morning on that one faithful day where they run into each other on the way to the Raikage's office, chat for a bit, say their goodbyes because they'd be late for work otherwise, and then spend the next five minutes awkwardly walking next to each other because they're both headed for the Raikage's office.

Starting at the time they entered the academy their relationship might have gone from something like "You're the least annoying. I'll gonna sit next to you" to "So you're gonna graduate early too, huh?" to "Didn't expect to run into you again so soon, last I heard you were on a mission in Water Country. Wanna catch up?" to "Wait. When did you get promoted?" to "Wanna grab a bite to eat once the shift's over?" to "Mind if I crash here tonight? Mission got me beat and I really don't feel like walking home." to "I got you a toothbrush, you know, since you're staying over so much." to "I heard your lease was running out. Wanna move in together? Might save us both some money." to "Karui, Omoi, not that we don't appreciate it but... the cards, the flowers, a gift basket? Isn't that a bit much for an appartment?" which is about the point where I think their relationship is at when they're first introduced in Shippuuden.

They're used to each other's company and, more importantly, they're comfortable in it and then canon happens makes their lives a whole lot more complicated. Specifically ep. 202/3 comes along and makes Darui's life a whole lot more complicated.

I kinda think the fight against Team Taka was a bit of a "Holy shit! Close call! I actually thought I might lose you" kind of wake up point to Darui. When comparing Darui's attitude at the beginning of the fight to his attitude at the point after Suigetsu attempts to attack C and later when C is caught in Sasuke's genjutsu the shift in the way he fights is remarkable – for that same reason, it's also great fun to compare this fight with his fight against Ginkaku and Kinkaku; it's like looking at two completely different characters.

Darui is not taking things seriously at first, or at least he's feeling calm and casual enough to keep snarking back and fourth with C despite being in the middle fight. But there's this tiny moment:

Jūgo's talking about C specifically and depending on context, the Japanese line can either be translated as "take him down" or "kill him" and I love that the camera switches to Darui's reaction first, before showing C's. Darui literally just told him that there was no need for him to stay in the fight and that he and A would handle the situation, while C basically paints a giant target on himself by remaining stationary as he's looking for Karin and I think this is the moment Darui realises the responsibility he's taking on and the amount of trust he's (unwittingly) asked of C and I'll be damned if the "The change in his personality"-line isn't more Darui trying to appear casual rather than him actually making light of the situation. By the time Suigetsu attempts to go after C, Darui is dead serious.

Which is why when C actually does go down after Sasuke's genjutsu effects, something snaps and logic gets thrown out the window. C falls over and Darui is distracted to the point of taking his eyes off of Suigetsu for several seconds, long enough for Suigetsu to initiate a jumping attack and actually push Darui on the defensive while he's still off balance. Which you can't really fault him for since a huge explosion just went off and the next thing he sees is C keeling over for some unknown reason.

Conversely, this was his reaction right after Atsui got sealed within Benihisago:

It's not that he isn't serious during the fight with Ginkaku and Kinkaku, or doesn't care; it's just on a completely different level. Anyway at this point at the fight against Team Taka is where things get really fun. The KinGin siblings make a huge deal about words being tools with which to trick people and here Darui does just that. In an effort to quickly finish off Suigetsu, he makes use of the fact that Suigetsu is already somewhat distracted out of concern for Sasuke and gets him to actually look away and in the direction of A and Sasuke with one short quip about how Sasuke's done for (which is not Darui's usual style, he snarks a lot and might even get carried away with a small speech just before or after a fight, but with opponents he's really blunt. Quite the opposite, against Ginkaku and Kinkaku he's almost excessively polite.) Anyway, so he intends to finish the fight quickly and he does..

And I love using those screen caps at every chance I get because of the cold, cold fury on Darui's face and the fact that this is an expression you rarely get to see on him. Seriously, that's Darui going after Ginkaku and Kinkaku:

Against the KinGin siblings, that's war; but the thing against Suigetsu? That's personal.

And I love how, rather than joining up with A, he jumps straight to C, plasters himself to his side in the most impractical way possible, casually talks shit about Sasuke as if he hadn't just pinned a guy to a wall with his sword, and doesn't even consider letting go until prompted because Raikage's orders.

Also, holy fuck, Darui, that's your boss you're glaring at. xD

Anyway, what I meant to say is, getting C back on his feet is all well and good, but right now Karin is still around (theoretically capable of attacking them) and Darui has successfully prevented himself and C from forming handseals or taking any kind of quick measure to defend themselves. And they remain in that position for several minutes, all the while the fighting continues without them but, you know, priorities. By the way, notice how by the time Darui let's go, C's chakra control is able to control his chakra well enough to perform Mystical Palm, despite Darui having to hold him up until seconds prior? I'm not say they were both stalling because that feels like a bit of a stretch but I'm heavily implying it nonetheless.

Well, point I was trying to make before I got carried away is, the fight against Team Taka is a bit of a turning point for the two of them (Darui maybe more so than C). Maybe it was actually one of the closest calls they'd had in a while and Darui is confronted with the thought of "Shit. That could've ended badly." and "For a moment there I really thought you might've died." and this is where one realisation in particular sets in. He can do well on his own. But he can do so much better with C by his side.

And that's the realisation that eventually leads to this line:

And I've talked about this line before. At length. Darui's fine shinobi, fully capable of taking over the role of the Raikage's right-hand man; and he knows that. But he's not above admitting to himself or the Raikage that he's just that much better when working together with C. Not even necessarily in a romantic context yet, but definitely as a partner of equal standing.

Hell, in ep. 363 during the Allied Shinobi Jutsu, it's not just future Raikage Darui who's leading the charge of the Kumonin. Again, C's right there by his side.

And you know how there's this theme of some Kage having a second in command to share the duties with? Chronologically, you have Hashirama and Tobirama, Hiruzen and Danzo, (I'd even go so far as to include) Tsunade and Shizune, A and Darui, Kakashi and Gai, and Naruto and Shikamaru. And I don't know how much of that actually was a conscious decision on the writers' part, but C is framed in a way that makes him the character most likely to take over the position of Darui's second in command.

Now what would be the last push necessary to push their relationship into the realms of romance? I'm afraid this is gonna be the most anti-climactic answer ever.

I blame the Infinite Tsukuyomi.

Give them knowledge of a reality that's so very, very much like their own except for that teeny-tiny difference. Give them a taste of else they could have in addition to the bond they already have and have them notice that, while unexpected, it feels right. Remind them that, while it's all well and good to be willing to give your life for someone, it's better to share it with them.

It might leave them reeling for a while but once they're back in Kumo things will work themselves out sooner or later because of that pesky habit they have of always kind of gravitating towards each other.

[crystalelemental]

Gen 7 was unique for me, in that I was actually present and invested in a lot of the early reveals.  The unfortunate situation is that, during reveals, they showed the right things to get me excited, only for a lot of final forms and unknown things to miss their mark.   Alolan variants also wound up being too few and not sufficiently interesting to justify its inclusion, with Z-moves also being introduced but doing nothing to change competitive value of most things and just pushing power creep forward.  The real selling point of this generation was the story of SuMo (which was obliterated by USUM), and the inclusion of Ultra Beasts, the coolest concept the series has ever had.

TOP 15: 15) Comfey - Comfey was a Pokemon I just kinda liked at first.  But with its ability Triage, I attempted to run one in a tournament one time, and my god can this little shit put in work.  Leech Seed + priority Draining Kiss is hysterical, with Calm Mind boosting its damage, and either priority Synthesis or Aromatherapy being great final move support.  Comfey has a lot of sick tricks it can pull, which is great when combined with its cute look and beautiful shiny form.

14) Mareanie - Remember when no one knew what the hell Mareanie was? When it was accidentally revealed on the side of the Pokemon TCG box, and everyone was like "Oh man, what could that be?"  Those were fun times.   Even better was how cute this thing was.  Those times, during the leaks of Gen 7, were excellent, because we had all these cute options that I just knew I needed to get.  Unfortunately, Toxapex loses a lot of cuteness upon evolution, but it could've been a lot worse.  As we'll see soon.

13) Pikipek - Meet the bird that was going to be my favorite in the series. Pikipek was another Pokemon I was sure would make my final team.  I love woodpeckers, and having one in the game was divine.  Giving it Skill Link was even better, and announcing it would know Bullet Seed somehow improved it even more.  It was setting up for something incredible!  Too bad that, like many things this generation, it didn't live up to the potential.

12) Morelull - I adored Morelull.  It's such a cute mushroom creature.   Maybe it's just my bias, but if it was going to evolve, I had expected it to be a mushroom princess-type plant.  Something beautiful and elegant and lovely, befitting the glowing mushroom fairy child.   And...well...needless to say, it was not that.

11) Mimikyu - Does anyone not like Mimikyu?  I'm actually asking, because it seems like this is the fan favorite this gen.  Mimikyu is either precious or terrifying, and both are great.  It's either sad and lonely because it wants people to love it like they love Pikachu (or Raichu, in my case), or it loathes Pikachu with all of its being and wants to destroy it.  Either is fine.  Ghost/Fairy is a great typing, and it has perhaps the most unique ability in the game, operating as a free Substitute that doesn't prevent status.  This allows for some great setup, and allows it to be surprisingly good in competitive play as well. Which...surprised me, for sure.

10) Oricorio-Sensu - Oricorio is a neat Pokemon.  We've had other things in the past do a similar thing, most notably Castform and Rotom, but Oricorio still manages to stand out to me.  Sensu form in particular is my favorite, being a Ghost/Flying type with a really elegant design.   It's a beautiful bird, and a great Pokemon visually, but unfortunately lacks necessary coverage and stats to be competitive.

9) Stakataka - You know what's awesome?  Ultra Beasts.  They are the coolest thing to come out of this series in ages.  Stakataka, as a newer one, is basically just a sentient brick wall, where each brick is an individual life form, all operating together to be bigger than their opponents.  While I am disappointed that there is not a pre-evolution that is a single brick called a Taka, I suppose this is fine.   Rock/Steel is a notoriously terrible typing, but somehow, against all odds, its stats are set just right, and it has access to Trick Room and Gyro Ball, in order to blast through almost anything in the game.  As if that weren't enough, its shiny form is a solid gold brick wall.   Incredible.

8) Ribombee line - Cutiely is another of those defining Pokemon that got me invested.  Thankfully, unlike several others, its evolution was just as adorable. Ribombee is such a precious Pokemon, with its little scarf and pollen gathering nature.  I just adore how cute and wonderful this line is.

7) Tsareena line - Talk about disappointment.  I adore Tsareena.  The whole evolutionary line.  But when it was revealed, and when we got a look at its ability that shuts down priority, I thought we'd finally done it.  This was the moment that Tsareena would save Grass types.   Fast, strong, able to shut down priority, it could be amazing!  And then we see what it does...and its bulky offense. Grass...cannot do bulky offense.  We've tried this.  A lot.  It doesn't work.  Power Whip is too inaccurate while Trop Kick is too weak.  High Jump Kick is damaging, but runs a lot of risks with imperfect accuracy, and is useless in Doubles.  Even Play Rough is inaccurate.  All this, on top of a middling 72 base speed, which is just too fast to even use with Trick Room...and it all becomes a massive disappointment from the competitive side, which is the ONLY reason she doesn't rank higher.  Her design is excellent, the concept of a queen of fruits is interesting, I just really wish they'd let her be a bit more powerful.

6) Tapu Lele - Had you asked in the week before the game came out what my favorite Pokemon was, Tapu Lele would've been the answer without question. It's adorable, Psychic/Fairy typing is great, and the description of it made it sound like it had tremendous healing potential that it shared with others in a fickle manner that could cause excess harm, with its battle role being implied to be a mix of healing and status play.  And then it was revealed what it did.  And it's hyper-offense through and through.  I still love it!  But the concept of a Pokemon that worked through massive healing potential and status play to wear down an opponent would've been a lot more interesting than something whose stats mirror Gardevoir's but a bit higher, but had a god-tier ability.  It's ultimately complicit in Terrain Wars, which is the new Weather Wars from Gen 5, which I don't think many people are happy with, but I still love it just the same, even if its description was an absolute lie.

5) Pheromosa - More UBs!   Pheromosa is a pretty bug creature that will kick the shit out of you.   It's stupid fast, even outpacing Mega Alakazam, and has incredible offensive presence on both sides of the spectrum as well.  It does lack for defense, so priority can be a problem, but that's a small price to pay for having such excellent coverage options and such a great spread of stats.  Plus, again, it's very pretty, and has a nice shiny that even put on pants.

4) Lurantis - Lurantis is one of those Pokemon that I feel sets the entire feeling for a generation.   The instant I saw it, I knew I would train one, no matter what. It's such a beautiful Pokemon, and I love it dearly.  But, again, it kind of defines the competitive focus of this generation as well.  It's slow as hell and bulky offense.  Look, Gen 7, I get it.  More than power creep, speed creep has been running rampant in your game.  Megas across the two sets of games last gen went from base 100 to base 110 because 100 just wasn't cutting it anymore, and new megas needed to be ahead of the curve (even if you fucked over Gardevoir to give Gallade better tools, again making the male version the better one you shits).  But bulky offense is dead.  You killed it yourself.  Damage outputs are too damn high, boosting moves are so extreme that one boost is enough for several Pokemon to just sweep outright, and because of how EVs work you are required to pick a role.  Bulky Offense for something whose best stat value is 105 is terrible, and it's never going to work.  Maybe with Trick Room.  Maybe.  But even then we run into the problem where it's a Grass type, and is therefore awful in competitive by default.  It's a shining example of what needs to be addressed in competitive, because outside of grass being shafted and the stat spread being awful given the state of things, it has incredible tools that should help it to function.

3) Primarina line - What an excellent starter Pokemon.  Popplio can look a little doofy, but it's still cute.  And each evolution only ramps up the beauty.  Brionne is precious, and Primarina is one of the most fabulous Pokemon I've ever seen. Water/Fairy is always an excellent typing, and it's surprisingly straight-forward as a raw special attacker.  It also has an emphasis as a singer, which I always appreciate.  If it weren't for my favoritism for foxes, Primarina would easily be my favorite starter in the series.

2) Celesteela - More UBs!  This time, it's the 30ft rocket child, Celesteela! Celesteela is one that I loved based on design, but wasn't quite as high-ranked initially.  What propelled it upward was battle performance.  It is such a wall, and unlike some UBs, has a moveset that actually feels distinctly alien.  Leech Seed?  Giga Drain and Flamethrower?  On a Steel/Flying type?  It's the weirdest thing, and by extension, the coolest thing.  Celesteela is amazing, and I wish other UBs followed its lead and showed off some bizarre and alien moves.

1) Nihilego - The ultimate being.  Nihilego is, without question, my favorite Pokemon right now.  As an Ultra Beast, it's already doing great on concept alone.  It's an alien jellyfish monster that's parasitic in nature, attaching to other living beings for sustenance, but being toxic to most things to which it attaches. It has no clear-cut consciousness, being more reactive than anything, though apparently acts much like a young girl, for whatever that means.  It's an adorable Pokemon, too, and carries the incredibly unique Rock/Poison typing, technically being the first-ever Poison legend, if you count UBs are legends.  It's an unbelievably cool, creepy, and adorable Pokemon, and I love everything about it. I just wish it had gotten a signature move or something that made it seem more alien.  All its moves are standard, despite it having an atypical typing and bizarre stat spread.  Maybe some day they'll introduce new, unique moves for each UB, but somehow I doubt it.  Pokemon Company is really bad at changing things that need to be changed retroactively.

BOTTOM 10: 10) Incineroar - Starting out, it's the final stage evolution almost no one wanted, Incineroar.  While not inherently bad, and at least avoiding the Fire/Fighting curse, Incineroar's main problem is as a final stage to Litten.  Litten is cute and wonderful.  Litten is also a cat.  A species that, for some reason, is consistently awful in battle in this series.  Incineroar should've been an exception.  Should have.  Instead, it's a wrestler in a cat suit, losing the charm of a cute cat, and somehow is still not all that good competitively.  Intimidate will help it, but it's lacking in the ability to really impress with anything it does.  Combined with the rampant disappointment over a cute starter becoming a weird, tough heel wrestler, I think it definitely earns a spot here.

9) Toucannon - However what's more upsetting to me is what happened to my dear Pikipek!  Toucannon is fine on its own.  You want a toucan?  Great, go for it.  But don't make my precious woodpecker child your angry toucan that's slow as hell and has no benefit from Skill Link.  Pikipek should have been a final form that perfected the Cinccino strategy.  Instead, we get...whatever Toucannon is doing.  It's one of the greatest disappointments of this generation, and considering the complaints I had in the top 15, that's saying a lot.  However, I won't place it any lower, simply because Toucannon, on its own merits, is cool.  I like its signature move, even if it's bad.   The design is perfectly fine.  But it being attached to Pikipek as the final form is devastating, and earns it this spot, in the same way as Incineroar.

8) Togedemaru - My usual complaint about regional rodents.  Togedemaru is more battle-worthy, but that almost frustrates me more because it's just not that interesting.  It's also associated with Sophocles, which means it loses any charm it could've had by being not related to him at all.

7) Crabominable line - My long-standing bias against Fighting types.   Ice/Fighting is a unique typing, but it does little to impress me on this one.  It's slow and lumbering and kind of unimpressive in design.  I guess it's supposed to be like the abominable snowman, but...why is it a crab?  I dunno, I'm probably being petty, but I don't like it.

6) Bruxish - Imagine being a person whose favorite type is Psychic type.   Imagine seeing all these really cute Pokemon being revealed, and building up your team, and just waiting for the Psychic type that will blow your mind.  Now imagine the first psychic type they reveal is Bruxish.  This weirdly colored fish with odd lips and and teeth.  I immediately decided to use the next revealed Psychic if I could, because this wasn't getting on the team.

5) Oranguru - Oops, and here's the next.  It's a monkey!  You love those, right Steve?  Oh wait, I hate them.  Oranguru does nothing for me, but frustrated me more than Bruxish because somehow, after the first Psychic wasn't interesting, the second was somehow worse.  It should not have been like this.

4) Passimian - But what do I dislike more than inelegant Psychic types? Fighting types.  Passimian is a sport-themed monkey that is also a fighting type. Honestly, we should be stunned it's not #1, but if there's anything I dislike more than something completely opposed to what I like, it's something that changes what I enjoy into something I hate.

3) Ultra-Necrozma - In the same way Lando-T counts as its own thing because of differences between forms, Ultra Necrozma counts as its own separate entity that is terrible.  I debated Zeraora, because I already don't like it, but that seemed unfair (and also would not rank this high).  I debated putting this above a few things at least, but I feel like it deserves this spot.  Because it sucks. Psychic/Dragon legend.   You all wanted to complain about Solgaleo/Lunala being Psychic-type, and I agreed because yeah, that is a common legend typing and variety is nice, but how did this thing get away with both Psychic and Dragon but no one else is complaining?  That's literally the two most common legend typings at the same time!  It's because it's Dragon and you all love Dragons, isn't it?  Hypocrites.  The ability is really only good in specific situations, requiring super-effective coverage to truly shine, which means there's probably plenty that can wall it based on coverage gaps or 4 move slot syndrome.  It's also one point of speed away from matching things like Mewtwo, meaning it's going to be easily outpaced by certain threats and annihilated.  Its signature Z-move also does absolutely nothing interesting beyond high damage, reminding us all how worthless that mechanic was in the grand scheme.  Oh but, don't worry, in the game it'll be way higher than your average party level by this point in the game, get +1 to all stats, and have stupid good coverage options that allows it to OHKO everything you have all the time, unless you abuse Rotom Powers, so if you don't like that mechanic, too bad, get used to them, fucker.  And this isn't even truly tearing into the design.  From a weird alien monster, to a cool form where its armor has fused with the box legends to control them, and finally...glowy dragon. Riveting.  And to cap it off, its role in USUM is fairly meaningless, and it takes away focus from the far more interesting situations with Lillie's family, and instead brings all attention to "LOOK AT THIS COOL DRAGON!" that is not really that cool at all.  Without the focus on the characters that made SuMo work, you can basically say that USUM being bad was largely this thing's fault, because it's the kind of monster that's all flash and no substance.

2) Bewear line - UGH.  Okay, red pandas are adorable.  So the Pokemon based on an adorable thing should be adorable, right?  It is not.  It is horrific, and it's based on a "mascot" that wears a suit.  It's dead stare, obscene strength where it's noted to be able to snap people in half from hugs, and generally unsettling nature and just...awful.  I really don't like it.  Stufful is at least a little cuter, but the weird tag sticking out of its butt is a constant reminder that this is a creature which should not be.  But wait!  This is only #2!  What could possibly be worse than something that is a crime against nature?

1) Shiinotic - The complete and utter ruination of a Pokemon I could not have been more excited for.  Morelull is such a cute and precious creature, and it evolved into this horrific nightmare alien baby in a literal diaper.  Why would you take such an adorable and lovely creature, and turn it into this?  I have never felt such visceral hatred for a final form of an evolutionary line in all my life.  Morelull should've been beautiful.  And if we hadn't shifted to mega evolutions and Z-moves and all this, maybe I could've hoped one day for a Gen 4 scenario that offered different evolution paths or further evolution.   At least then it could've been a Golbat situation, or a Glalie.  But instead, this is it, probably forever. Morelull will only ever be this freak-ass alien baby in a literal diaper, and will never realize the beautiful potential it had.  Tragic.

[yuzuria]

5,6,11,24,26,27!

I’ll do gintam and dr for the rest and bnha if applicable ^^

5. has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

for gintam, not really ruined if I wasn’t into it before but I used to entertain 0kikagu as a friendship thing but then the fandom just have to be nasty that make everything they touch STRAIGHT and everything that happens between a dude and a girl, even that moment where the dude *proposed* to take the girl TO THE JAIL had everyone screaming at the top of their lungs it’s canon who will eventually fuck thanks to that exchange also what the fuck is kamusoyo why the hell does it exist 

For dr it’s koma egi I have an irrational hatred towards that ship, even though there’s nothing much between them in the canon, the fandom stuff had found its way to land to my eyes and permanently scarred it. I hate it from the bottom of my heart and if only I could I would say I’d avoid people who even the slightest ship them but heck, even my fav komahina content creators ship them occasionally with komahina + n*egi and I just want to be blind for good. I hate it so much. I’d go in particular what I saw I hate about it but only if somebody asks since this is getting long.Also hinanam and kamunam bc I’m sick of dr ship discourse slash drama

6. has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

Wow this is hard I can’t think of something on top of my head. I guess I hated taka zura a bit when I was a takamu fuckr bc it’s just obligatory for me to hate on ships that has either halves of my otp now I can’t almost stand the latter lol. Gin tae too for the same reason lol when I was a hijiginn fuckr 

For dr it’s sai ouma I guess? I low-key hated them bc the comparison with komahina is so annoying, either how it’s the komahina of drv3 or how SUPERIOR it is compared to the latter because hey you can always get away with komahina and komaeda hate so these ppl always run their mouths wild. It’s so annoying I hated them out of spite but upon playing the game, I understand where the ship came from, they have cute fan content I’m not actively fond of it but ouma is cute so I’ll let him have that average dick

11. is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? why?

I honestly feel like sacchan is not that popular or it’s because of the amount of hate she gets overshadows the love ones. Both her and tae tbh. For a generally unpopular chara I’m very fond of soyoFor dr ruruka!! She's almost universally hated bc she's so flawed, manipulative, and unapologetic terrible who dared to hurt everyone's fav Seiko boohoo (I love Seiko btw) but that's why I love her lmao

24. would you recommend xxx to a friend? why or why not?

I recommended gintam to almost all my friends before and only one of them watched it. BITCH. But rn I would happily recommend it to ppl who likes comedy bc comedy gintam >>> serious gintam and for light-hearted stuff. Also well serious arcs tend to get tiring as it goes on bc it’s repetitive but if they are into quick action arcs (initially) that isn’t too overcomplicating and want to be moved by generic mc speech then yeah it’s for them.On the other hand I only recommended dr to one person lmao. Game wise I recommend it for gameplay value but if they’re looking for a story that is investing (dr is investing but also frustrating because almost all doesn’t make sense and you yourself have to fill in the blanks) that had actual coherent value skip this. I mean it’s not that dr has it, it has interesting premise but if that’s what you’re mainly looking for…eh I like bnha a lot so it’s part of the latest starting kit to watch for me. Esp my friends (mostly irl) likes shounen I would def rec to them.

26. most shippable character?

I’m just gonna say charas that have the most appeal for me being shipped bc well usually protags get the cake of being the most shippable. Tae for gintam. Kirigiri and kaede (they both have a harem of girls don’t @ me) and oddly enough, komaeda tho only platonically and I lied. I also consider Hinata to be included. For bnha I’m curious with Mina ships tbh.

27. least shippable character?

Hijikata, why do u hate the other charas to ship with him. For dr, tsumiki ;; I want her to have a gf but at the same time girl you need help first. Bakugo for bnha, I can’t see him w anyone other than kirishima ;w;

[wrestlingisfake]

G1 Climax B Block finals preview

This show airs Saturday, August 12 at 5:30am Eastern, don’cha dare miss it!

Kazuchika Okada (13 pts) vs. Kenny Omega (12 pts) - Everyone but these two is mathematically eliminated from winning B block, so whichever of them ends up with the most points goes to the finals on 8/13.  Okada is the IWGP heavyweight champion and Omega is the US champion, but neither title is on the line.

If Omega wins, he beats Okada 14-13.  If Okada wins, Okada wins the block 15-12.  If the match goes to the 30-minute time limit, neither man wins the match but Okada wins the block 14-13.  If it’s a double count-out, Okada wins 13-12.  So Omega has to beat Okada, and he has to do it inside of half an hour.  Keep in mind, these two have never even had a one-on-one match that went less than 46 minutes.

This is the third in a series that began at Wrestle Kingdom 11, with a main event so good that Dave Meltzer gave it six stars.  The rematch at Dominion 6.11 went to a 60-minute draw and arguably topped the first one.  Dave gave the second match 6¼, which tells me a) he knows these two have broken his ratings system and b) he’s expecting them to put on an even better match any day now.  If Omega can finally win this time, the series will be 1-1-1, and the stage will be set for a tiebreaking fourth encounter at Wrestle Kingdom 12.

Both guys have been killing it throughout the G1, racking up wins while delivering performances that make it feel like they could lose at any moment.  It’s tough to pick favorites, but I think Okada vs. Suzuki was a war that set the stage for this by taking Okada to the limit.  Okada is a machine, but there’s a clear subtext to his matches where it’s wearing him down, like Batman in “Knightfall.”  He needs to keep the pace in this match slow and let the clock work for him, but Kenny’s smart enough to counter that with faster offense than in the past.

It feels inevitable that Omega has to finally get his big win--when the title’s not at stake, ironically--but I’ve thought that twice before.  It’s tempting to think this is the part of “Knightfall” where Bane finally just annihilates Batman, but it may just be the part earlier on where Batman is tired as hell but fucks up the Joker anyway.

EVIL (10 pts) vs. Satoshi Kojima (2 pts) - Evil has had a breakout run in this year’s tournament, highlighted by a win over Okada that puts him in line for a title shot someday.  Kojima is playing the role of “aging legend who can barely hang with the top wrestlers in the world anymore,” and I wouldn’t be surprised if he announces next year that the 2018 tournament will be his last.  There are clearly big things in store for Evil and I don’t think a pity job for Kojima is one of them, so look for Evil to finish in third place.

Minoru Suzuki (9 pts) vs. Toru Yano (6 pts) - Suzuki’s NEVER title is not on the line.  I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.  Yano’s role in the tournament is always to spice things up with bullshit comedy matches, and in that sense I think he’s outdone himself this year.  In a month of four-star matches, you need the occasional one-star affair where Yano just ties Juice Robinson’s hair to the guardrail or where Yano seems genuinely afraid that Tama Tonga is an actual ghost.  But his toughest test will be Suzuki, the ultimate ancient badass that nobody wants to mess with.  But Suzuki isn’t unstoppable like the Undertaker--he does jobs here and there that somehow never erode his credibility.  So there’s a slim chance for Yano to pull off some shenanigans.  I’m not picking him to win, but it could happen!

SANADA (8 pts) vs. Tama Tonga (6 pts) - Tonga got a lot of publicity from doing a shoot-y promo right before the G1, acting like they need to clear out the old guys and push non-Japanese (such as himself) harder.  I figured that would look kind of weak if he didn’t do really well in the tournament--well, he didn’t do well and it looks hella weak.  I mean, Sanada’s not doing that much better but he hasn’t been out there raising expectations, y’know?  Anyway, these two are fast as hell and agile as shit so this should be interesting.  I’m thinking Sanada wins.

Michael Elgin (8 pts) vs. Juice Robinson (6 pts) - Elgin is great and all, but he’s mostly been “just there” for this year.  He didn’t get many wins but at least he scored victories over Omega and Suzuki to set up two possible title shots.  Juice, on the other hand, has the story of this being his debut in the G1, and although 6 points isn’t great it’s better than I was expecting from him.  It means a whole lot more for Robinson to have a win over Omega than it does for Elgin, and I think people are going to be more into Juice’s journey.  Of course, the other dimension of Juice’s story arc has been selling his knee for four weeks, so that puts a tempting target in front of a very painful-looking opponent.  Elgin will probably win, but I bet Juice gets a little moment with the crowd afterwards.

Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi & David Finlay - Naito and Tana went to war the night before this show, and now there’s nothing left to do but this throwaway six-man tag match.  If you’re Naito you’d want to take it easy in advance of tomorrow night, but if you’re Tanahashi you’ve got nothing to lose making him work for it.  It’d be pretty stupid to have Naito lose right now, so count on LIJ to get the job done.

Cody Rhodes & Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson & Bad Luck Fale & Hangman Page vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe & Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi & Katsuya Kitamura - More or less the same ten-man tag as the 8/11 show, except with Chase Owens swapped out for Fale and Michael Elgin swapped out for Kitamura, the world’s hunkiest jobber.  Not sure which side gets the better of that proposition.  Kitamura is destined for big things but for now he’s a Young Lion, and they put over the established stars.  So I figure Bullet Club wins.

Yuji Nagata & Togi Makabe vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. & Takashi Iizuka - I heard Iizuka was sidelined with an injury, but I guess he’s back now.  Interestingly, Iizuka betrayed the non-aligned New Japan babyfaces (including Nagata) to join GBH (the old faction Makabe still proudly represents), and then betrayed them to join Suzuki-gun.  So that’s neat.  Hopefully Nagata will get a win, but I could also see them saving that for the 8/13 show.

Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens - It’s three big wheels in CHAOS who were in the G1 versus three back-end guys from Bullet Club who couldn’t even get in the tournament.  So I’d have the Chaos guys win.

KUSHIDA & Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask & Hirai Kawato vs. Taichi & TAKA Michinoku & El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru - Kushida is the IWGP junior heavyweight champion and the ROH TV champion, and hasn’t been around throughout the G1 tour, so it’ll be nice to have him back.  Taichi and company are basically the Suzuki-gun B-team, so expect a lot of brawling outside the ring that amounts to no particular advantage.  If anybody’s going to lose the fall here it’s bound to be Kawato, so I guess the heels win.