#I'm so fucking bad at ship design and ship combat

[sleeperagentclone]

I'm genuinely enjoying Starfield and it does seem to be the least buggy Bethesda game but I'm also playing it for free on an Xbox that is at least one generation behind, maybe two, so it would take a lot for me to not like this game

[duhragonball]

Neon Genesis Evangelion 08

Oh wow, it's Batman! Wait...

Let's get some details out of the way to start off. This episode is about Misato meeting up with a UN navy fleet to receive a new Evangelion model, Unit 02. I'm not sure why she brought Shinji along, though he does work for NERV, so I guess it tracks. What makes less sense is the way she invited Shinji's pals, Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney. She teasingly refers to this as a "date", which gets them all flustered because they've got it bad for Misato, but Shinji isn't buying it and neither am I.

And... that's basically their whole role in the story. Shinji and Misato have a part to play, of course, but Suzuharu doesn't do much and Big Rigg Mahoney just goes apeshit about getting to videotape all this footage of real live aircraft carriers.

The gang board the carrier Over the Rainbow, which is supposed to be a vintage craft from before the Second Impact. The captain is in charge of the fleet, and he's under orders to bring Eva 02 to Japan, but he won't turn over the unit to Misato until they reach land. The sea is his jurisdiction, and he's got a bug up his ass about these newfangled giant robots and their teenage pilots.

This is one of the not-so-subtle themes of this show, where it's ostensibly another sentai action-adventure story with giant robots, except those shows usually handwave the part where it doesn't make much sense. A kid in a unitard might look cool piloting a giant robot, but how is that a better weapon than an aircraft carrier, which actually works in real life? And NGE offers a lot of technobabble to rationalize this, usually involving that "AT Field" that all the monsters have, but it never shakes the question entirely. That's because this show is all about questioning this premise. The Eva Units work just well enough to justify their existence, but they're still presented as highly dubious to a lot of people. So no matter how many times NERV saves the day, it still looks shady as hell to send inexperienced child soldiers into battle with experimental weapons.

But the captain, like Shinji's pals, really don't do much in this story. The real draw here is the introduction of Asuka Langely Sohryu, the second of the three Eva pilots. If I'm following this correctly, she's been in Germany this whole time training and working with the people who put the new Unit 02 together. A gust of wind blows her skirt up, and she slaps Suzuharu for looking.

She calls the slap an "admission fee", so Suzuharu pulls down his pants to show her his entire wang? The fuck? Asuka slaps him again, but I'm pretty sure that's not how this incident is supposed to end. Like, this is a navy ship. I feel like they'd stick you in the brig for something like this.

Also, there's this dude named Kaji, I think. I'm not looking it up because I'll catch another spoiler. He doesn't seem to matter anyway. He seems to be Asuka's mentor, at least up to this point, and he had some sort of past relationship with Misato, which she isn't interested in rekindling. Mostly he just makes things awkward.

As for Asuka, she seems to establish a one-sided rivarly with Shinji. She tells him he doesn't look like much, but she seems concerned to hear how well he syncs with Unit 01 with so little training. So she shows him Unit 02 and tells him how this is the culmination of the Evangelion research. Rei's Unit 00 was the prototype, and Shinji's 01 was the test model, but her 02 is the finished model, actually designed for combat.

But while Asuka's showing off, the fleet comes under attack, and everyone quickly decides it must be another Angel. Misato wonders if it specifically came here to intercept Unit 02. And maybe she's onto something, but maybe not...

She tries to use her NERV authority to take charge of the situation, but the captain won't have it, and he orders his fleet to fire on the Angel. This is useless, as we've already seen in every other Angel attack so far. Hell, the Evas have struggled to beat these things.

However, Asuka has taken matters into her own hands. She's decided to launch Unit 02 herself and defeat the Angel without waiting for Misato's orders.

What I don't understand is why she insists on having Shinji join her. She even makes him wear her spare plugsuit, which he finds embarassing because it makes him look like a girl. Wait... these things are padded?

I just assumed these suits were basically skintight outfits. There's a whole thing where you put them on and then press a button and they sort of shrink onto your body. Except Shinji's got boobs now, where he didn't have 'em before. And his hips looked kind of different too. The implication here is that the plugsuits are designed to make you look more shapely than you actually are.

And that would explain why Asuka and Rei look a lot older in their suits than they do in their civilian clothes. The suits are padded to make them look less like eighth graders. And that probably goes for Shinji as well, but we haven't seen much of him in his plugsuit.

I'm not sure what this means. Maybe they were just going for a gag in this one episode, where Shinji is embarassed to wear a girl's uniform. But I feel like this runs deeper. For some reason, NERV requires fourteen-year-olds to pilot these things, but someone at NERV must have decided that it would make things easier for them if the pilots didn't look fourteen. I mean, there's only so much you can do with padded suits, but if you can "age up" these kids to make them look sixteen, it's a little less upsetting to send them off to war, right?

That's really fucked up. What makes it even more fucked up is that it's not just NERV's costume department trying to massage public relations. No, it's all the sexualized imagery we see of these characters in the real world. Asuka and Rei are staples of the sexy cosplay scene. The sexy fanart scene. The sexy collectable figurine scene. Whatever. Because you can kind of pass them off as looking like adult women, at least while they're wearing the plugsuits. Except it's just padding, and cartoon padding at that. NERV's propaganda is so insidious that it bled over into the real world.

Then again, I'm probably giving this too much credit.

Anyway, Unit 02 doesn't work properly at first because it's interfacing with both pilots, and it's been set for German, but Shinji thinks in Japanese. Asuka's all annoyed with him for interfering with her plan, except it was her dumb idea to bring him along. So she switches to Japanese and they're ready to go.

So she gets it operational, and Misato's thrilled since the captain won't recognize her authority, so this just simplifies matters. The only problem is that Unit 02 only has a minute of battery life, so Asuka has to jump from one ship to another to get to the one with the power cable she needs for power.

Wait, scratch that. The problem is that even after plugging in the power cable, the Eva still doesn't have all of its weapons, and the Angel drags it underwater, where the weapons it does have are ineffective. So Asuka's plan turned out to be half-baked. Luckily, Misato comes up with a way to salvage the situation.

Okay, so the Angel has the Eva in its jaws, and the Eva is tethered to the ship by its power cable. You would think that the Angel could just snap the cable, or drag the ship underwater. I mean, it's pretty big. But instead it seems like some sort of stalemate. So Misato suggests scuttling two of the ships damaged in the battle, and moving them towards the Angel. As it attacks, Unit 02 will pry open its mouth, and then the two ships will open fire on its core, which is located down its throat. This will destroy it.

I don't understand how this is supposed to work. The Angels are impervious to conventional weapons, so why are they suddenly useful now? And if Unit 02 can free itself, why doesn't it just get back on the boat where its weapons will be effective?

Well, it works at any rate, although the only reason Unit 02 escapes is because Asuka and Shinji handle the controls together, and their concerted thoughts prove to be more effective than either of them operating the Eva separately. Why would that make the Eva stronger? I could understand if the movements it had to do were complex, requiring more precise control, but all they need to do is push the jaws apart, which seems like a pretty straightforward command.

You might be wondering what Kaji was doing during all of this. Well, he buggered off in the middle of the battle, saying he had to make a delivery.

And after all the fighting is over, we find out he was bringing this box to Gendo Ikari at NERV headquarters. Apparently the UN fleet was carrying this as well, and Kaji's job was to get it to Ikari.

It's... an embryo or something. Kaji calls it the "keystone of the Human Instrumentality Project", and Ikari agrees, but he calls it "Adam". I don't know what any of this means, but this case reminds me of Nuclear Man's origin in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, so I'm all for that.

Back home, Shinji's pals reflect on the adventure and Suzuharu is relieved he doesn't have to see Asuka again, but then she shows up as their new classmate and he's all shocked. Dude, what did you think would happen?

And yeah, I think that covers it.

Judging from the next episode preview, NERV seems to be aiming to build on the success of Shinji and Asuka working together, so we'll see where that leads. Did they just forget about Rei, though? Isn't there an episode where they all go out for tacos? I'm pretty sure that's a real episode.

[the-enby-bird]

Introducing the last bit of evidence in his crew's thesis that no cybertronian scientist is fully sane, it's Chaser!

He's one of the transformers ocs I've been rotating around, he works on the same crew of fools and fuckers as all the others (so far only Nyx has a drawn concept art but there's like 20 ocs in this stupid fucking ship) & he's the chief engineer and also chief of biting people when they fuck with his works in progress

More random infodumping & design notes beneath the cut!!

BACKSTORY/LORE:

His altmode is inspired by a fox; and he originates from Kaon, where he spent the first half of his life making custom weapons for gladiators, stopped from using his talents for anything that pays better by functionism and altmode-based discrimination. His true passion always lay in building ships, and he spent all his spare time designing blueprints for various cruisers, shuttles and combat vehicles. Come the start of the war, despite his interests aligning with those of the decepticons, he remained neutral, and eventually fled Kaon when things started getting really bad. In his attempts to find safety, he met Ghost and Nyx, a pair of mechs with overly soft sparks and a crumbling charity medical ship in desperate need of replacement. He offered to build them a new ship, if in return they'd get his ass off planet, and they agreed without hesitation, even offering him a place among their crew. Logically, were Chaser not so desperate, he would have questioned where precisely Ghost got the shanix to buy him the supplies for a whole new ship, but he had priorities: getting away from the war, where his talents were less likely to be used for mass destruction.

A while later, with the help of Ghost's crew and a couple freelance construction mechs, he finally got to achieve his dream of building his own ship, and ditching planet: with the added bonus of a fuck ton of friends and an incredibly pretty radio mech to flirt with.

He spent the rest of the war on that ship, aiding neutral folks (both cybertronian and organic) with repairs to fucked up stations and ships; as well as helping the medical crew of the Unity not die when dealing with decepticon patients. Also helping his captain annoy the shit out of their conjux.

He's conjuxed to another oc, Blaze, and spiritually amicas with the ship's CMO, Null. He also helps parent Blaze's cassettes, who are basically teenagers at this point but the chaos that Starseeker brings with him 24/7 requires at *least* 3 mechs for damage control.

So yeah! That's my semi-feral engineer oc :33 I promise I'm very normal actually

Also btw no oc of mine escapes the Horrors he does in fact have a mountain of angst attached to him it just isn't discussed here, I'll discuss it when I finally design Null (lies it's actually discussed in the design notes there's just also More angst in his future after he recovers from the past angst)

DESIGN NOTES:

Okay so idk what kind of autism possessed me to make me include this much symbolism in his design but:

his layered plating is intended to resemble the plates on an armadillo, indicating his tendency to hide from his problems. The same idea is the reason for his alt mode being a fox - it is an allusion to The Fox And The Hound (the book, not the fable) conveying how Chaser tends to run from his problems, instead of facing them head on.

Unrelated, his alt mode also ties in with his weapon of choice - a sniper rifle, which is similar to a fox's precise, calculated method of hunting. His choice of weapon shows his preference to keep enemies and struggles far away, and is often left fumbling when forced to confront his problems.

All this is to say, he is afraid of closeness: in Kaon, attachment could be deadly, and yet he still feels intense regret for running away, feeling like his cowardice left his few acquaintances to die. His entire life is tied to running, and cowardice, leading to more running as he tries to avoid the guilt that fleeing brings. He is fleeing his past (the hound!!!!), fleeing his fear, fleeing the mech he used to be, for he cannot accept that his anxiety is normal. His brave, chaotic, and powerful exterior is quickly offset by looking just a little closer, and seeing how he is not a predator, merely terrified prey.

How lucky that his conjux is a therapist.

Also the song I always think of when talking about him is The Paradox, so here have this: https://open.spotify.com/track/3dDh14gFFO8BhszSwhLNo3?si=AE-vSckVSvWK5M2HqQpR3g

[eyedelater]

i have written a post to encompass every thought i have had about the golden kamuy character ogata hyakunosuke. i couldn't help writing it, and here it is. it includes analysis, interpretation, confusion, thoughts about shipping, and spoilers all the way to the end of the manga.

the post is incredibly long because i wanted it all in one place... i'm sure that much of this has been said by other people, but i haven't read anything anyone else has said. this is purely between me and canon. i have now read golden kamuy through twice and watched the anime once. i missed a lot on the first read, and i probably missed some things on the second read too.

i can't help but love the character ogata hyakunosuke. i know a lot of it is the character design: sneaky eyes with built-in eyeliner, greasy all-back hairstyle with a powerful ahoge (and don't try to tell me an ahoge is not what it is), little beard that somehow skirts past my strong dislike for nasty little beards. he's so crafty… he's sorta weak in close combat… he's completely wrong about things such as killing one's parents and the nature of guilt… he's confident right up until he isn't…

normally if a character captures my interest like this, i want to ship them with another character so i can be satisfied by looking at amusing fanart of them outside of canon. but there honestly isn't anyone i want to pair him with… the fact of his eventual death notwithstanding. (i don't ship dead characters. too sad.) he's great as a cruel and calculating loner who thinks he knows what he wants but doesn't. i don't feel a need to see fun and exciting shipping antics with this character in particular. i will to look at some fanart to see what i can get out of it, but i'm really satisfied by just what happens in canon. and yet i still feel like i have to make sense of these feelings, so i'm writing a post that nobody asked for (just like all my other posts).

i'm annoyed with myself because as i was first reading golden kamuy, it took a long, long time to dawn on me that there MUST be people who think of ogata hyakunosuke as their favorite silly little cinnamon roll and make obnoxiously cute posts about what he would do in domestic situations and stuff. as we learned more about him, i became certain that some people must feel that way, Despite Everything. and i was so very annoyed by the thought of it that i decided to make it a point to dislike ogata… to buck the trend. to avoid biting the fandom bait. BUT IT DIDN'T WORK………… he grew on me… ugh. i still really, really don't want to see fluffy fics with him or anything like that though. god. i have less patience than ever for fandom content that cutesifies every character. especially fucked up weird horrible men like him <3

it's an incredibly audacious move to create a merciless sniper character who killed three (3) members of his closest family (and who knows how many soldiers) and then also give him explicitly catlike characteristics and behaviors, all the while knowing that everyone loves cats!!! (slams table.) fuck off! noda-sensei had to have been trying to induce brain-melting levels of cognitive dissonance in the minds of horny readers who desperately want catboy hyakunosuke to be their poor little meow meow but also want to cancel him for being a bad dude. i'm not immune

i like ogata in kind of the same way i like crocodile one piece. they're weird and smug and fun to watch. and of course, they're similar in some ways. the greasy all-back hair with pieces falling down, and the facial stitches, and the excessive confidence, and their voice actors being perfect. and, you know, the being villains who are eventually defeated. crocodile lets out his slow laugh whenever he feels things are going his way, and ogata just does a little shit-eating grin, and they're both perfect. key difference: ogata gets naked

i have been made aware that a non-zero amount of people ship ogata with asirpa, and those people might benefit from being run over by a car. asirpa is excluded from shipping of any sort, no exceptions, because she is 13 years old and 95% of the other characters are (bizarre, horrible) adult men. the fact that she has a one-sided crush on sugimoto for some amount of time is perfectly natural and reasonable given the circumstances (i believe that anyone would fall in love with sugimoto if they were in her place). the relationship between sugimoto and asirpa is that of a wonderful, wholesome, and strong found family.

back to ogata. i liked that during his first appearance, he gets his arm broken, gets beaned on the back of the head with his own gun, falls into a ravine, hits his face on a cliff, and bounces off the cliff into the icy river. that was so early in the story that his character design wasn't even nailed down yet, and that scene can be easy to forget, but it should be remembered. i like when ogata gets shot in the chest and the shoulder. i like when we get just a little snapshot of ogata knocked out cold at the stenka. i like the flashback of masked ogata getting his face bloodied by teen koito and then having to pretend like it never happened even though he's pissed. i like when ogata gets the snot beat out of him by usami. this is not a toga-himiko-like aesthetic preference for a man's bloody and beat-up body. rather, i love how he has strong (and justified) confidence in his one skill (sniping) and therefore seems confident overall but keeps getting busted up anyway because he's weak in close combat. it's a good dissonance.

i love seeing ogata smugly perched on things… it's like, "ah, there he is…!"

i love ogata feeling guilty about only the worst murder he committed and none of the others… he was testing his limits, and he found them. it didn't stop him from killing again, but he never got over it either.

i love ogata being the only one who chose not to hold hands and jump at the beach scene… doesn't want to make a fool of himself… but he made a funny face when he got beaned in the back of the head, didn't he. i like the ogata who gets made a fool out of.

after the ordeal with anehata shiton, ogata said that all men feel regretful and disgusted after they shoot their load. probably that's all he's ever felt, doing it with prostitutes and such, if at all. makes a little note in my notebook

ogata does terribly cruel things, and he must recognize to some degree that people will see his actions as cruel, but he doesn't do it for the sake of being cruel. he is heartless, but only when he feels he has a reason. everything is analyzed based purely on how it will affect him, and he acts that way consistently throughout the entire story. he can mime kindness if he has to, but clumsily. he cultivates a trusting relationship with asirpa purely because he understands that nopperabou is her father. he goes along with what sugimoto wants purely for convenience and because he understands how strong/dangerous sugimoto is. he shoots wilk, despite knowing that he is asirpa's father and that she will be very upset, purely because he wants to limit the spread of whatever information wilk has about the gold. he shoots sugimoto, his ally for months, not to be cruel, not as revenge for almost killing him that one time, but to eliminate a potential complication to his plan. the only one he really needs in his party is asirpa, and all asirpa is to him is the key to the gold, and all the gold is to him is a path to climb the ranks to prove that his father was worthless. his behavior is unpredictable on first read, but when rereading, it's incredibly consistent. his lack of guilt is entirely premised on what he can justify to himself, and he's great at justifying anything in his own mind. but there is a limit, and yuusaku was that limit; what haunts him most about yuusaku's death is that this time, he can't justify it. he didn't have a good reason. that causes a crack in the foundation of his entire personality, and when he gets acute aconite poisoning from asirpa's arrow, the anxiety it brings is what causes that crack to spread and his entire ego to collapse.

can someone count how many panels feature ogata's face and then also count how many of those panels show him smoothing back his greasy hair and give me some kind of ratio? i think it's high. i think the ratio is high. though i didn't notice until a couple hundred chapters in. but on reread it's like yeah, every other ogata panel, he's got his hand on his head. i do like when an author commits to a tic. no one else in the story has such an obvious repeating tic, i think. he even gets a nade nade (pet pet) sound effect when he's smoothing his hair repeatedly out of nervousness (after he shot the reindeer by accident).

have i mentioned i hate nasty little beards but ogata's slides right in under the gate? that's another cognitive dissonance for me, and it's tough. hard to get over this one.

"daily affirmations i Can be normal about that man"

~quote from deleted post by a tumblr user who maybe doesn't want credit bc they deleted their post

he dishes out smug grins when things are going his way, but he dishes out WRY grins when things AREN'T going his way! hoargh! (throwing up hands)

it's worth noting, to defend my honor, that ogata is not the only one who grew on me. everyone grew on me. another important one is tsukishima, who i admit i wasn't paying very much attention to until they started heading toward karafuto (during the first reading) and then i was like, that was the guy in the coal mine... right? oh, he's been there The Whole Time. and his design didn't change very much. he grew on me a lot. first you think snake nose, but then you think bunny nose. (someone on pixiv said gorilla nose? i don't like that…) his little beard doesn't strike me as nasty either (why not?? i don't know.) of course, koito was the boy of the hour as soon as he first appeared, and i paid a normal amount of attention to him. (the only part of his design that changed is that his eyebrows got stronger and his parted hair got fixed. actually his part seems to fluctuate between messy and neat.) i really like the dynamic of koito being a needy younger pain-in-the-ass to tsukishima while outranking him and being taller than him. in japanese, tsukishima always addresses him with polite speech, and koito rarely even addresses tsukishima with an honorific. tsukikoi seems to be a good and semi-wholesome ship… you know, semi-wholesome. listen, they end up together forever at the end, so it's fine. you guys can make obnoxiously cute posts about what they would do in domestic situations if you want. so anyway, it's not just ogata who got my attention. but it is ogata who this post is about, so let's end this paragraph and leave room for more notes.

Noda-sensei will use any and every opportunity to show you the silhouette of a dick and balls swinging around during an action scene where people happen to be naked. However, he doesn't do that with Ogata. The reason is that he wants you to remember that Ogata is a serious bad guy character and doesn't want you laughing at his dick and balls. For the same reason, he also precludes Ogata from partaking in the horny otter sumo wrestling. In this essay, I will-- ok just kidding, they showed his dick and balls when he kicked koito in the face. and then they showed that exact panel again a few chapters later. with his dick and balls again.

i bet the hyaku in hyakunosuke is obviously referring to getting a 100% hit rate. (hyaku means 100, same kanji and everything. -nosuke is a common ending for a boy's name.) or to put it in sogeking terms, 100 shots, 100 hits, lu lu la la lu

it's interesting that out of the 4 people we see tsurumi gratuitously manipulate into loyalty, ogata is the only one where it doesn't stick very well. to be fair, tsurumi played his game with ogata a bit differently than with the others. he helped ogata kill his father and promised to help him rise through the ranks, but ogata didn't understand at first that tsurumi had an ulterior motive that would make hanazawa's death a win-win for him. it was usami who brought up mantetsu and made ogata understand he was being manipulated. but even knowing that, he thought tsurumi might uphold the other part of his end of the deal by helping ogata get into the army academy, so he was willing to play along. of course, tsurumi's time was split between everyone he was trying to manipulate (as well as pursuing his main goals), so everything couldn't happen at once. another problem was that each of them wanted to be daddy's only special little boy, and ogata was no exception, so he got impatient upon seeing him pay attention to the others and thought tsurumi wasn't working to help him fast enough. it was only when ogata decided that tsurumi wasn't holding up his end of the deal that he decided to betray him by working for central (in the hopes that central could uphold a similar deal instead). i think i'm getting that right. compared to what tsurumi did for tsukishima, he didn't do that much for ogata. but tsukishima was his masterpiece of manipulation-- look how much he got out of him. in the end, tsurumi wanted to cultivate soldiers who are dogs among sheep, but of course, ogata is a cat in that metaphor…

i didn't read the manga well enough the first time and was thinking that ogata's failure to advance in the ranks was because he just wasn't really good at anything but sniping, and sniping wasn't properly appreciated by the higher-ups. while those two things are basically true, i now understand that he couldn't get promoted because he didn't attend the necessary school and was ineligible for any promotion above his current rank, regardless of his skills. and that's why his roundabout desire to climb in the ranks was hinged on his going back to school, which he couldn't do without the help of either tsurumi or central. so complicated…

people ship ogata and sugimoto, and i'm really torn about that. they do look kinda good together, but first and foremost, sugimoto deserves better (and he deserves a character who doesn't die at the end). i also think that the dynamic between those two is not that fun or interesting-- yeah, they almost kill each other and then save each other, etc., and that's fun, but i mean all the other interactions. i think there's not that much potential between them. plus ogata shoots him in the head. maybe that part should have come first and foremost. he does shoot the man in the head. that being said, of course, there's not a lot of great options for sugimoto to begin with, so i understand when people want to put him with ogata-- they need someone for sugimoto to be horny with, and they need someone for ogata to be horny with. like, who else do we have for sugimoto? shiraishi? you could argue for it… tanigaki? but what he has with inkarmat is pretty good, and i hate to sully canon romances by shipping against them. kiroranke? dies. anyone in the army? they're living in different worlds at the end of the story… just not a lot of great options for sugimoto, who deserves the best. also, if ogata and sugimoto had anything between them, ogata's death would make sugimoto sad, and i wouldn't like that.

shiraishi/ogata might be funny though. i like that scene when shiraishi is like "boy am i hungry!" to the man with a gun who likes to hunt and ogata doesn't say anything or look at him. (other good options for shiraishi include kiroranke [who dies] and boutarou [who dies]. that's 3 for 3 dead. unfortunate.)

i saw some ogata fanart. some artists like to give him Sneaky Squints and Crafty Grin all the time. he is sneaky, and he has distinctive eyes, but i think canon makes it clear that Sneaky Squints and Crafty Grin is a very rare special occasion thing, and a huge majority of the time he only has Glassy Eyes and nothing at all going on with the mouth. and that is the righteous truth. in a manga, facial expressions are a very important part of characterization, especially for characters who are always around but not always involved, so i prefer fanart where people try to emulate (and exaggerate) the faces a character makes in canon instead of assigning their preferred faces to a given character. (an unrelated example of this assigning of preferences would be taking two complex characters and turning one into Stoic Seme and the other into Weepy Uke. it is shocking how thoroughly and audaciously people will squish characters into those two molds. what a waste of time.) i get that i'm probably in the top 1% of sticklerism when it comes to wanting characters to adhere strictly to canon in certain ways, but it's because i strongly feel that canon ogata who is making a neutral Ogata Face 95% of the time and a rare Other Face 5% of the time is true and beautiful. to sully that by tailoring his character to your preferences is your prerogative, but to hate that is also my prerogative. not that i would ever leave negative comments or anything along those lines, ever. because that's stupid and a waste of time. the most time i will waste in that way is the time it takes to write what i've been writing here.

ogata dakimakura is permitted but it has to be ogata laid up on a stretcher, wrapped up, splinted arm, with his face all puffy after getting dumped in the river by sugimoto. or it has to be ogata standing up wearing his uniform complete with little cape and his gun on his back and looking through his binoculars into the distance. or it has to be a watchtower spanning the length of the pillow and ogata is perched in it, looking through his binoculars into the distance.

i hate the relationship between ogata and usami. usami is the ultimate slimy little dog (derogatory). nasty little freak usami. ogata is wrong about almost everything, but he was right about usami being the cheapest piece on tsurumi's gameboard. nasty little wannabe sexual predator usami. that scene where ogata's like "i'm normal, right?" and usami is affirming all the things he's wrong about, it's like, the man is fucked up enough already! i can't believe i'm saying this, but you're a corrupting influence on him! i don't like how usami calls ogata "hyakunosuke" like they're friends… tsurumi calls him that because he's manipulating him and a cool dad calls his special little boy by his given name, but usami fucking hates him, and yet he calls him that anyway. something gross about it. usami's death was perfect. nasty little death. and i liked how ogata kept quiet due to bullet in mouth while usami was going on and on saying whatever he wanted while he beat the shit out of him, and then usami left after getting shot, and ogata felt compelled to say his one-liner to himself. fuckin nerd

i like the ogata who is seriously, seriously wondering if he's being haunted by his brother's ghost.

i think my one main beef with everyday heroes scans, who did an overall great job scanlating, is that they should have kept honorifics. keeping honorifics is a tough choice to make for a translator because it can be confusing for an english reader, especially when you come across one that's out of the standard few. but i was very surprised to find upon watching the anime that sugimoto calls asirpa "asirpa-san"; i had no way of knowing that in the manga! even though she's so much younger than him, even when their relationship becomes very close, even when yelling out her name in moments of desperation, he keeps the honorific. it might just be out of habit, but i think it indicates how much he respects her. it might be small, but something is lost by omitting the -san. honorifics and the ways people address each other are very important in japanese, and because this story takes place chiefly in japan, chiefly among japanese (and japanese-speaking) characters, i think keeping honorifics would have been perfectly appropriate in this circumstance. i also think it would have clarified some things for the readers rather than confusing them. (for contrast, it would make perfect sense to omit honorifics in a story that doesn't take place in japan but just happens to be written in japanese… though some meaning would still be lost.) (side note: EH scans does in fact keep some honorifics: the ainu word "nispa.") and sometimes, omitting the honorific in a context where it is important can make the translated wording MORE awkward. the example i'm thinking of is when ogata is recovering in the hospital and the scanlation shows him muttering, "yuusaku… sir…" now i'm 98% sure that ogata called yuusaku "yuusaku-dono," even though younger siblings typically get no honorifics, because yuusaku outranked him (and also maybe to show distance between them), and that's what he's muttering in that scene. i think it's less weird to call your younger half-sibling "-dono" in japanese than it would be to call your younger half-sibling "sir" in english. it's an in-between level of respect (and distance) that doesn't exist in english. so it became weirder in english, and leaving the honorific would have preserved that meaning. well, i do respect that EH scans made their decision about honorifics in the very beginning and then stuck with it to the very end. i guess it would have been worse if they selectively added in SOME honorifics when they thought it was important. but my opinion is that they should have made the decision to keep honorifics from the beginning.

in chapter 283, ogata falls asleep on the train and dreams of his mother singing a traditional song to him about how the way there is easy, but the way back is scary. i think the symbolism is clearly that it was easy for him to kill his mother and his brother, but it's not easy (or possible) to take it back. it's a one-way path that he chose. it's another subconscious manifestation of his feelings of guilt.

now here is something i've been puzzling over but which everyone but me has probably already made sense of. i think this is the only part of the manga that has stuck with me BECAUSE i am confused by it. chapter 199, page 6. kidnapped koito otonoshin, whose father just told him over the phone that he cannot be saved, is saying something heartbreaking in reply, and one of his captors is rubbing his back as if to comfort him. what else could that be but a comforting hand? am i mistaken? and it's got to be important because it takes up THREE panels! now, if you're like me and you've decided that tsukikoi is the OTP of golden kamuy, your first thought was to want tsukishima to be the one under the white hat, and ogata is the one watching disapprovingly because he's a jerk. but otonoshin smacks and bloodies the face of man in the white hat with the back of his head, and the wounds we later see (and basically everything else) make it clear that the white hat was ogata. (then of course they put those hats on russian-looking corpses that they obtained… somehow. kidnapped off the street?) (side note: when they take the white hat and mask off one of the corpses, otonoshin should have been suspicious right away, because that guy's nose wasn't bloodied or anything. but i'll let his lack of perception slide given the circumstances. unless he remembers it in a later chapter and i'm the one who forgot.) anyway, so it was clearly ogata who rubbed otonoshin's back, which seems really weird and out of character. i was thinking that it must have been that tsurumi gave them orders along the lines of not completely breaking the kid's will and making sure he isn't too physically or emotionally hurt (or else he and his father wouldn't be usable in the future). this would gel with the fact that tsurumi seems slightly surprised/perturbed when commander koito says he's going to tell otonoshin to die for his country (because of course that's not what tsurumi wants or had planned for). so maybe ogata interpreted those orders, thought otonoshin was giving up on life, and decided that he should make sure the kid's will wasn't completely broken by providing a little comfort. and then the glare from the black hat is tsukishima with a sentiment like, "you're giving the game away, you dumb piece of shit! captors wouldn't do that! ESPECIALLY IF THEY DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE!" but another possibility occurs to me. we heard from ogata when he was pointing his gun at huci that he doesn't want to just kill someone's grandma if he can help it. he's a cold-blooded killer when he thinks he has a reason, but maybe he does have the thinnest sentimental streak when it comes to people he does not perceive as a threat. so maybe that thin streak is showing here? kidnapping some weak kid might have been the dirtiest work tsurumi had ever put him up to at that point. (did he kill his father before or after this? but was that even dirty work to him, when he felt he had a good reason?) maybe he honestly felt emotionally reluctant to traumatize a defenseless 16-year-old like that, so he reached out to comfort him without thinking. i wonder what is the fandom consensus about that page, yet i feel reluctant to look it up… but whichever scenario it is, tsukishima's glare has to be him thinking, "man, you suck at dirty work." (and afterward, ogata glares at otonoshin because he's angry and humiliated that he underestimated how much of a threat a bound 16-year-old posed to him.)

EDIT: regarding the above paragraph, i think i've realized the correct interpretation. it's not that the situation of kidnapping a kid has activated ogata's thin sentimental streak. it's the specific circumstances of the lines that were just said: commander koito saying he could not save otonoshin, and otonoshin apologizing to his father and asking him to pretend he had never been born. that combination of circumstances was maybe the only thing that could flip ogata's empathy switch enough to make him reach out a comforting hand. he probably feels with great certainty that if he himself had ever been kidnapped and held for ransom, his own father would have told him to die for his country as well, and he might even have said a similar line in response. the pain otonoshin felt in that moment was so clear to ogata that he couldn't help but comfort him... it's a key emotional character development moment for ogata... with his face covered... but of course he misinterpreted otonoshin's resilience and that's how he got his nose bashed.

i cried a lot when i first read ogata's death chapter, and i cried a lot the second time too. i think noda-sensei might be a genius… one thing that didn't register on first reading was that ogata must have enjoyed the time he spent traveling with asirpa and the others in a way, even if he didn't exactly realize it. asirpa reminded him of yuusaku, not just in her innocence, but in the way she trusted him and ate with him and joked with him and treated him as if he were "normal" (when he believes he isn't normal). ogata was yearning for familial love his whole life; he just fixated on getting it only from his father, which wasn't going to happen, and ignored what he got from his mother and his brother. yuusaku was the only one who loved him, but he got some of that warm familial feeling from asirpa and the others as well, even though he usually acted cold. (i think he said "hinna" primarily to manipulate asirpa... but maybe after saying it, he felt happy.) and now, not only did he have to deal with his mistake of killing yuusaku, but here he was trying to kill asirpa too! not only that, but he was corrupting her into killing HIM, and he thought he wanted that, but he didn't! he couldn't even accept his old guilt, and now he was foolishly inflicting new guilt, as if by compulsion! it's so painful! as he breaks down, we see him realizing his mistake in real time, how his goal of proving his father worthless was itself worthless all along, how he didn't actually need to kill any of his family, how he was following the wrong path based on his delusions and misunderstandings his whole life, and it hurts him so much… and he tries to deny it, but he's having it explained to him by himself, and he can only trust himself… whenever he felt conflicted about anything, he would just find some way stamp out the opposing view and believe in himself, but now, both sides were him, so he couldn't do that, and as a result, he was defeated. the chapter was very emotionally powerful… he died a coward's death because, never having confronted his guilt before, he couldn't imagine being able to live with it… and vasily found his body by the railroad tracks and painted his fursona.

you could ship ogata with vasily but the fact remains that they spend vasily's entire span of appearance in the manga in a fight to the death and then one of them dies. also he shot vasily in the mouth. you can't shoot a mouth with your gun and then try to kiss it later. that's inappropriate

the last time ogata shoots sugimoto, he doesn't aim for the head. it's as though he learned his lesson. but it still didn't work, did it?

i saw the ogata nendoroid and took damage from it. hate it. i don't want any more chibis...

it seems that some things are changed in the volume releases of golden kamuy. i have only read the scanlated magazine releases. i wonder if i can be content to decide that this is the end of my ogata post when i don't know if any important ogata details were changed in the volumes. i would also like to read and compare the official translation. one thing i want to see in the volume releases is if noda-sensei ever goes back and adds teeth to the white voids of characters' mouths. it is incredibly clear to me that noda-sensei truly, viscerally hates drawing teeth. that's fair, but i do prefer even the vaguest semblance of teeth to a white void of a mouth. when he does draw teeth, they usually look perfectly passable. anyway, my next project will be deciding how to get my hands on the official translated volumes and then rereading again.

i think that might be all i have to say about ogata hyakunosuke right now.

[kinghijinx22]

So I played Halo 5 for the first time after having played every prior game a while ago- My thoughts part 1

And boy does this story suck real bad. I spent a while writing this, getting out all my thoughts, why it annoyed me so much. Halo 5 does do a few cool things which I mention here, but it's a really annoying and actually offensive experience in how it handles it's subject matter, especially regarding Cortana. Anyway yeah, these are my full thoughts on playing through the Campaign of Halo 5.

Ok so, I guess before I really get into my Halo 5 thoughts and how I didn't like the story, I will talk about the few things that I did like about it. The return of my best friend who I love dearly the Arbiter, who had not been in the story since Halo 3 so I appreciated seeing him again and that he still has a strong bond with the Master Chief. So, Locke goes to him and his people for help against The Guardians and Cortana and tracking down Master Chief, which you have to help him first with fighting a new Covenant because even if you defeat a fascist regime there will always be more deranged people who thought it was a good idea. But when you talk to Arbiter, he's just like "why are you hunting the best of your tribe?" and then when you leave to go after Chief after deciding that your going to help him, Arbiter is just like "give him my greetings" and I'm just like HNNNNNGH. Listen, Halo is one of the most sexless franchises I've ever engaged with but if I shipped anybody, it would be Arbiter and Chief. WARRIOR HUSBANDS! Love between a human and a Sanghelli. But this leads to my first complaint, because Halo 5 has the AUDACITY to bring back the Arbiter, and then Chief comes back with Locke in the end and only gets to see the Arbiter FOR A FUCKING SECOND BEFORE THE GAME JUST ENDS FUCK! After how much of a bond they formed across Halo 3, and showing that Arbiter still thinks about Chief. Bro, why you gotta tease me like this? But anyway, so another thing about this game and still talking about the Sanghelios part of the game which is the Arbiter's homeworld, those levels are the best part of the game and Swords of Sanghelios is actually a great level that has a flow that is similar to the Bungie Halo games. Just some great combat encounters that makes good use of the various Covenant enemies, good variety including some vehicle combat where you get the Mantis which is a big robot, and all in a cool area where we finally get to see the Sanghelli homeworld.

Another cool thing was in the earlier level where you play as Chief leading his Spartan team, Blue Team, in stopping the Covenant from taking some technology left on a UNSC ship they took over. And in that level, is the only time in any Halo game up until this point that they have actually shown the Hunters, or the Mgalekgolo, as a bunch of worms outside of their armor, because if you didn't know the Hunters are a bunch of worms that form together and wear a suit of armor with a fuel rod canon and a shield. You see them form together and put the armor on and it's a cool scene and one of the best enemy introductions in the series. But this leads to another complaint, this time gameplay related. So the overall feel and flow of Halo 5 does not feel good compared the Bungie Halo games. The Bungie games, between the level design, the enemy variety, the weapons and vehicles, something about it just feels right and was perfected on the first try with Halo 1 and only expanded upon throughout the Bungie game. This, with Halo 5, feels like a a bunch of shit just being randomly dumped onto a big open map. The level design doesn't feel considered I guess, disconnected, and the flow feels funky. Also all of the weapons lack the punch they had in the older games for some reason. The only new thing that I like is this ground pound ability where you can kind of zip to the ground and punch down on whatever your landing on, yeah that's a cool move. And also Sword of Sanghelios actually being a good level.

One more gameplay complaint that also kind of interweaves with the story because the Warden is a lame character as well, but Halo 5's idea of a boss fight is to have you fight this big robot guy with a sword named Warden, except you fight him 5 times and he is every boss fight in the game and on the 4th and 5th fights, you fight 2 and 3 Wardens because he splits himself across multiple bodies. Now Halo has nerve had a good history with boss fight dating back to Halo 2 but they also didn't make you fight the same dumb boss 5 times. And about the Warden being a lame character, he's pretty much just some loser manchild who watches manosphere youtube videos to make himself delusional ideas about being better then everyone else, because he's a massive simp for Cortana who feels entitled to her affection and just wont leave her the fuck alone when she wants nothing to do with. She's just talking to Chief and I think actually trying to help him get to her and Warden guy is constantly made about it and the whole situation is pretty awkward but his patheticness is honestly hilarious.

[wispforever]

if you’re still doing the ship meme, i’m really curious abt ur opinion on madatobi (& the fanon perception of tobirama in general if ydm)

I'm not even putting the template on here bc it would just be like no i hate it gross bad, and I don't wanna make anyone feel bad about what they ship. whatever fictional characters you wanna slap together, you do it idc

that said, here are my personal thoughts feelings and opinions about madara and tobirama being together.

first of all, at the very minimum, I prefer ships that have chemistry in canon. i like the couples best that share things on screen and have a profound connection. The only thing Madara and Tobirama share in naruto is a mutual want to murder each other. which can be hilarious, so like honestly, shippers go off I guess.

however, I'd never go for this ship personally because I am very attached to Madara as someone who is oppressed, discriminated against, and overall very unfairly treated for pretty much the entirety of his existence. Tobirama is the main player in their generation who perpetuates every single thing that makes Madara's life hell. He pushes hashirama to make choices for the village that marginalize the uchiha clan because he's a prejudiced fearmonger. He doesn't believe peace is possible with the uchiha, develops a convenient explanation as to why all of them will inevitably become the joker (the curse of hatred associated with the sharingan), he uses madara's body to research the sharingan. As soon as hashirama is dead, he forces the uchiha on the outskirts of the village and places them under surveillance. If everything he does in the flashbacks isn't enough to see what kind of guy he is, we can look instead at his legacy- danzo and hiruzen, who both are still perpetuating discrimination against the uchiha clan in naruto's present day. This is the main reason I'll never ship them. I'm all too familiar with the issues madara faces while he's alive to see him with tobirama.

aside from that, and moving on to my thoughts on tobirama in general, I find him insufferable as a character. if I met someone like him in real life, I would hate them quickly. I will say this, he's interesting psychologically. I like to pick him apart and look at how his trauma and the way he was brought up leads him into being such a fucking prick. He has a terrible fear of the uchiha. all of his jutsu were devised specifically to combat the sharingan. he is analytical, observant, good at what he does, and all to placate a fear that becomes so severe and irrational, it endures even after the senju and the uchiha stop warring.

anyway, my best guess at why the fandom loves him so much? he has a cool design. he's presented as a hero. you can overlook the underlying motifs if you're not paying attention or you've never been discriminated against. he's hashirama's brother. they project onto him. could be a lot of things. no hate to the tobirama lovers. everyone is allowed to find themselves in their own characters. they just see something that I don't, and that's what makes fandoms so unique and interesting, isn't it.

[hypershocked]

i think i got a few. im p sure these are mostly agreed on but i dont have any thats really that unpopular.

love free shipping, kraken, duck, (proceeds to name everybot that changed their design to fit the meta) but if the robots arent gonna improve or atleast be entertaining enough after they changed their design, its time for them to go. bots that aren't doing the best after many seasons like tombstone and the such are atleast entertaining to watch (might be biased here but shhh) but these bots mentions and others like them will only be entertaining now if theyre getting beaten up so its time for them to be replaced by those who might have potential and who might be atleast a bit more entertaining.

another one, bite force doesn't need to come back he'd get destroyed in the current meta anyway im sorry folks someone had to say it.

for the most part, robots that do well in lower weight classes won't translate when their 250 pound robots. the smaller robots are meant for other smaller robots so making a much much bigger version of that robot won't be perfect (except for RIPperoni our favorite drag race winner fr)

"riptide was screwed by the edit" this "riptide did nothing wrong" that there was so much evidence to believe there was so much more nasty stuff they did that didnt make the cut. Ethan was saying in the post fight interview that he would've won if he was there discrediting the shit Felix had to do last minute in the finale. like atleast (to my knowledge) Felix seems tolerable and actually pretty good at driving the robot. also idk if this one is true but acc to someone reddit they called the hypershock team some "pink haired freaks" IF THIS IS TRUE THEY CAN FUCK ALL THE OFF and i will be showing up at their door 🤩. (also st*n kurtz literally sells stuff claiming to be the cure for autism ik this is unrelated to robot combat but THEY ARENT GOOD PEOPLE)

yeah thats all. YIPPPppiee!!!!

- Yeahh i'd have to agree with Kraken, Free Shipping, and Duck. I think destructathon is a perfect place for bots like them. Although tbh i'd love to see some room in the field for new fan-favorite, not amazing bots. Terrortops might fit into that niche, but they might be able to pull off some nice wins as well! - I honestly don't have much of an opinion on bite force since I didn't really get into BB until WCVI, but it'd be really interesting to see it come back and just get its ass kicked. Would also be fun if it returned and was even better, but I don't see it ever happening. I'm just as happy to have my bbg Endgame in the mix. - it's very hit or miss with smaller weight class bots being scaled up. it's honestly fun to see them try, and it's probably a good way to test some new bot designs, but they're definitely not all gonna be winners. I wonder if we'll see starchild back or if they're done. At least it worked with HUGE and Lynx o7 - There's not a total black or white side to the whole Riptide thing but it's basically "yeah they're assholes, which the edit made even worse somehow" imo. I feel so bad for Felix tbh. Maybe I shouldn't be sympathetic to anyone on their team but just from what I saw he seems like a cool dude and they were totally dismissive of him? He did an amazing job as a first time Riptide driver and they should've been more supportive :[ - ALSO YEAH. i heard about that comment but oml I didn't realize it came from that team. I was trying to be sympathetic to them but fuck em fuck em fuck em if anyone's coming for team hypershock i WILL throw hands

[gardensystemtv]

Did someone ask for another "Merrill watches star wars tumblethread" because I'm about to watch the Bounty Hunter arc, of 201, 202 and 203. with 217 as a little treat. You can find the last one: here

So the episode is called "Holocron Heist" it's part of a bounty hunter arc according to the watchlist I got, why is it starting with a battle on Felucia, and the Jedi needing to escape on gunships? how is this related to the heist?

I missed a lot of Plo koon content by skipping Malevolence, so I'm glad he's in this, he seems really cool design wise.

"Where's Ahsoka" "Following your teachings" "Is she winning?" he is so proud of her.

How is "not having to go to the battlefield" such a punishment?

I like Jocasta Nu, she seems nice, and like she brews good tea.

Cad bane "this task is impossible" Palpatine: "So you're not good enough?" "No, just pay me bitch."

Oooh is that alien a shape-shifter just like Zam Wessel, nice to see another one of those.

So she uses a hologram projector to fake the clothes, and can take on the shape of the target, clever.

I do like this heist premise, the tension between this cat and mouse game

"I'm the librarian now." life goals achieved

is Bane going to blow of Todo as a distraction? EVIL!

OOh okay, so now Bane will go after this Bolla Ropal, and his goal is finding those force sensitive children? not entire clear on the plan long term ,but good tension, nice plot. 202: Cargo of doom.

oh he managed to find Ropla during the intro narration, so... bit of a let down tbh.

Right, so they can't just tear through the Seperatist fleet, because one of them has the Jedi Master.

"You can't be serious." "I am Admiral, thank you for your opinion." Translation: fuck you

love how Admiral Yularen is just so done with all of this.

I get that the clone suits are pressurized, I get that the walkers are pressurized... but why are Anakin and Ahsoka just standing there with only a helmet?

AHSOKA IS JUST IN HER CROPTOP?!?! (okay, later scenes show it is a full outfit, just looks very similar in colour to her usual outfits when zoomed out enough. and probably pressurized... but is Anakin's?)

Honestly, this isn't that bad if space isn't like... a vacuum, just doesn't have oxygen. If it still has some level of air pressure, it explains the sounds in space. the drifting of space ships, and the way people can survive in space with just a helmet/breathing apparatus.

also. if they need a jedi to access the holocron, and Bane can make deals with some seperatists... why not ask Dooku? Granted, that may be the plan if the current one doesn't work out, but this seems like a weird risk to take.

I LOVE seeing some zero gravity combat!

Why did Ahsoka have to get herself captured, darling, you need to think things through better.

Okay, I get how Anakin had a plan to overwhelm bane and rescue Ahsoka... but why not do that BEFORE giving him the holocron.

Ah and now Ahsoka is giving Anakin the same lecture he gave her, symbolism, it's like poetry.

So that's clearly Bane who stole a Trooper's armour, right? how did he fit the breathing tubes inside.

next up, 203: Children of the force

Oh, it directly picks up after the last one? No timeskip, interesting choice?

WAIT he doesn't need the breathing tubes? he can manage without? Also his head is bigger than the helmet, makes it look really funny when his helmet gets knocked off.

wait, does Palpatine have a genuine ideological issue with the Jedi, or is he just power hungry, I always had the sense he just wanted to grab power and the Jedi were in the way.

THAT'S THE SAME SQUEKY TOY AS FROM THE RYLOTH EPISODES!

I'm fairly certain the way they want to use mind tricks would be considered an inhumane and extrajudicial process in any democratic society.

"could potentially destroy his mind." just no concern

it's just torture, but for the good guys instead.

Palpatine is really rude to Ahsoka, he is not being a very good PAL(patine)

More like Douchepatine

can anyone confirm for me: is Windu X Kenobi like... a ship? they have chemistry

Ahsoka is getting really valuable work experience as a babysitter, between this episode and the clone wars movie.

And now: 217 Bounty Hunters

We are bounting some hunters

The ejection seats being a protective bubble isntead of a parachute is a nice sci-fi touch. love those little fantasy moments in this show.

those little glass, mushroom houses, fantastic!

I love the design of those local villagers, they are friend shaped.

"We can't help them, because we need our military duties" Obi wan, sometimes you are an ass.

Oh is that Hondo? Think I skipped his Season 1 episodes, nice to see him finally!

"we don't even have weapons" *Twirls around a stick* Anaking, that is not how weapons work.

I also really love the design of these bounty hunters, they are so unique looking!

Hondo's warcry that it isn't profitable anymore, before running away is hillarious

wait did the leliana looking alien sniper die? nooooo!

But yeah, interesting episodes, was fun to watch... why do we have the urge to do more Star Wars games now?

[ladymelisande]

it's so exhausting every time an anti insert themselves in darklina posts they have question why we ship them and if you humor them they'll just end up dropping the Gen!a bomb.

It's like they forget the entire story takes place in a wartime. Sure, gifting Gen!a isn't morally right. But to have a child keep an eye and spy on the queen is smart.

Plus, how exactly was he supposed to know the king was a pervert? I'm not saying we should forget what he did. But for the love of God, he's the villain? He's a general? He's priority as the general people not every single individual

Honestly, Gen/ya is not even a character anymore, she is a shock value tool. She exists so we can remember that she was a victim and that it was the Darkling's fault. Her design might be cool but to this day she remains a very boring, two-dimensional concept of a character. I literally can't give a shit about her because, from a reading perspective, what is interesting about her? She is only there to be pretty or tragic, to be Alina's bestie or to be a victim, that's it, that's her entire function in the story.

Antis are over emotional and idiotic and they fall exactly for LB's shock value trap, G/enya, the masacre in the Little Palace, all of that are fucking shock value tools that she uses because she knows the audience will be too busy reacting to think if they make sense at all.

I actually liked her before the Darkling reveal, because even when we knew what the King did, she seemed to be steadfast and fighting for her cause. After that she is just a victim, that's it, oh and a mouthpiece too. What journey does she have? Poisoning the king? The bastard is still alive in ROW and she blames the Darkling instead of him, so... Okay? Whatever? I don't care? You stayed in the palace because you wanted justice and yet you're not going to take it at full term? Pffff.

Gifting Gen/ya to the Queen as a servant is not illegal Imao, the girl for all we know is what, a peasant? By historical context, working directly with the monarchs is the biggest job someone can dream of. A peasant girl in a well written story would kill for the opportunity because the salary would allow her to feed her family. People should be jealous of Gen/ya being the Queen's Tailor, and as his mentor that is the best thing the Darkling could do for her if she is not exactly someone that can be used for combat. Whoever the King was aside. Why do people think that noble family threw their kids at monarchs to gain position at court?

... But of course, G/enya is not that, she is not a character in a coherent story, she is a shock value tool in a story that has less historical context than Bridgerton.

(And don't get me started with the fucking ridiculous infighting inside the Second Army and how the other Grisha act all Mean Girls against G/enya. By that point I am nearly willing to call her a Sympathy Sue. Another evidence of how Bardugo doesn't know how armies work).

Also, yeah, the Darkling had no way to know, but that doesn't matter, does it? LB has decided that he is guiltier than the actual rapist, because fuck logic, I guess. Which is hilarious because if she wanted to do a point about powerful men so much. Why not just use the King? What is gonna change if she doesn't blame the Darkling and instead blames the actual rapist? The point still stands because the King is a powerful man.

... Oh yeah, people wouldn't hate the Darkling and use Ge/nya as a reason like the tool she is. My bad.

I can forget about this, out of spite, because Bardugo and the antis rub it on my face and I just... Don't care anymore. It's obvious that is just shock value, I just don't care. I am not gonna defend the Darkling's actions from the Evil Deeds Jar™ because they are just stupid shock value, the end.

[milfbailorgana]

I posted it 

The urge to nest had been bothering Han for almost a week now. He knew, in the back of his head, that the urge meant he was in preheat, but he really wasn’t going to let himself hide in the Falcon for a week, pretending like he didn’t have things to do.

But the urge was overwhelming now. Han could feel it gnawing at the pit of his stomach, along with the beginnings of his heat; the feeling was a restless anxiety and restless urge to do something.

Huffing and getting up from where he was meant to be relaxing in the captain’s chair after fixing some faulty wiring in the Falcon’s cooling system, he walked down the corridor and pulled up the cover to one of the smuggling compartments with a grunt. It was empty, not having seen much use since he joined the rebellion. A little dusty but otherwise clean. Hidden. Safe.

Han dropped his pillow and blanket into the hole. If this is where Han’s hindbrain wanted him to spend his heat, who was Han to deny it. He’d come a long way from Corellia and Qi’ra and their singular bunk where anyone could walk in on her helping him through his heat, but it seemed his mind still hadn’t adjusted to the fact he was safe here. Well, as safe as one could be, in the rebellion.

Chewie was somewhere else on the base, which meant Han could raid his room. He wasn’t sure if it was unusual for an omega to want the scents of many different people around them, even non-humans, but his nests always felt the best when he could smell his family all around him. He grabbed Chewie’s blanket and pillow, standing for a minute to debate taking the fitted sheet but deciding against it. It was too much of a hassle and he had two new scents to add to his nest this heat, he would be fine without it.

He pressed his face into the pillow to take a deep inhale of Chewie’s scent, reveling in the familiar smell. Chewie smelled like motor oil and fur and something else that was distinctly Wookiee. It was what home had smelled like for the last ten years. Sighing, Han dropped Chewie’s things into the compartment and contemplated when he had last taken his birth control. It wasn’t yesterday, and certainly not the day before, but if he took two today, he’d be fine, right? It almost made Han long for his days in the imperial navy, where he was kept on heat suppressants, but he shuddered remembering how bad the heat afterward had been. Without Qi’ra he’d had to go to Lando, cramping and feeling slick drip down his thighs, hoping the man wouldn’t take advantage of him.

Grabbing Lando’s things was easy. He had never cleaned out his closet after Han took his ship and even though those clothes were almost ten years old by now, Lando liked to leave Han a shirt or cape whenever they spent time together. Whether Lando knew he brought them into his nest during heats or just left them around to mark his territory was unimportant; Han was grateful. Not that he’d ever tell Lando that. He grabbed the lilac cape that had been hung up in the closet a few months ago and pressed it to his nose, breathing in the scent of linen and something smoky that always followed Lando around before tossing it into the smuggling compartment.

Now, getting Luke and Leia’s scents in his nest would be more tricky. Neither of them stayed on the Falcon, and Han didn’t exactly know where they were staying, let alone their room codes. Plus, walking around the rebellion base smelling like he did was not Han’s idea of a good time.

His scent suppressants had gone missing over a tenday ago. Well— missing was relative. Chewie could probably find them if Han bothered to ask him to look, but his pride and the assurances he’d made to his hairy friend that ‘yes, I am going off my scent suppressors willingly, I think being drug free would be good for my system’ with his fingers crossed behind his back meant that wasn’t possible. Curse past him and his procrastination problem.

Comming Luke wouldn’t be a problem. Han was sure the beta would lend him a jacket or blanket or something if it would help Han through his heat, but the princess was a different story. She’d started giving him looks ever since he’d come off his scent suppressants and she had finally noticed he was an omega. If Han really thought about it, the looks might be about the fact he was in preheat and ignoring it, but it could just as easily be that as her thinking him less capable than another alpha or beta. Han wasn't very inclined to believe that someone who called Chewie a walking carpet on first introduction wasn’t probably a bigot in another way.

He rumbled in frustration— a noise he’d picked up from Chewie— stomping back to his room. He pulled out the stack of blankets Chewie had gotten him when they had first gotten the Falcon, just in case Han wanted to nest like a good omega should, rather than shacking up with a rando he’d picked up at a bar. If Han was honest with himself, he’d always preferred the heats he had on the Falcon. The familiar setting calmed something inside of him and Lando— the only alpha Han had ever let fuck him on the Falcon— was, admittedly, a good alpha. Too bad he was playing by the rules now. Not to mention, the last time they’d talked was... not pretty.

Han threw the blankets into the smuggling compartment and lowered himself inside after them. The compartment wasn’t exactly tall— the walls only came up to his armpits when he stood— but whatever his hindbrain wanted, Han was going to have to provide. Setting up a nest was never something Han had been particularly good at. His nests never looked pretty or elegant or clean, but he made them work. Arranging the blankets and pillows around the compartment in whatever order would appease his omega brain, Han contemplated what lay ahead. Usually in this situation, Han would be flying to a seedy bar on a seedy planet to for a seedy alpha to fuck him. Unfortunately, a snowstorm had come in the night before and was forecast to last at least a week and there was no way anyone was granting Han clearance to take off.

And the alternative: fucking someone on base. He’d considered it, of course he had, but it was completely off the table. Han had a policy: there was no way in hell he was going to fuck anyone he might have to talk with again later. It just led to knothead alphas feeling entitled to his body and Han wasn’t doing that again.

So here he was. Sitting in one of the Falcon’s smuggling compartments, getting ready to ride his heat out with nothing but toys. It certainly wasn’t any omega’s favorite way to spend a heat but it wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before. With the way he never tracked his heats and Chewie doing his best to make sure Han didn’t sleep with any shady people, Han had weathered multiple heats with just a knotting dildo and his fingers.

Flopping down once his nest was as complete as it was going to get for now, he pressed his face into the closest blanket. It was one of his designated nesting blankets so he couldn’t smell anything but Han assumed it probably smelled like him. He’d been told during a heat once that he smelled like delicate jogan fruits and honey, and since Han wasn’t exactly going to ask someone what he smelled like— nor had he ever actually smelled a jogan fruit— he supposed that was the best he was going to get.

Han climbed out of his nest and traipsed into his bedroom, where his compad and birth control were.

The birth control was easy. Han took three from the bottle and dry swallowed them. That should make up for his missed days, right?

The compad was harder. How was he supposed to write this message to Luke? ‘Hi, I’m horny and needy and I just need your jacket so I can sit next to it and feel safe whilst I get myself off’? It was stupid.

Han flopped on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He’d never had to do anything like this before. He’s never had a group of people he could almost call a pack. As much as being in the rebellion made him nervous (one of Jabba’s goons could pop up any time to take back what the Hutt was owed) the people here were some of the best Han had ever met. It wasn’t exactly a high bar, as a street rat turned imperial soldier turned smuggler, but the kindness he had been shown in his few months in the rebellion was nice, even if Han didn’t think it was deserved most of the time.

Han could feel the beginnings of heat gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Soon he would be slick and open and wanting. He didn’t have time to put this off.

He groaned and opened the device, finding Luke’s contact

H.Solo: hey kid

H.Solo: you know that jacket I lent you for the ceremony?

H.Solo: the yellow one?

H.Solo: I need it back for something

H.Solo: pretty urgently

It was seconds before he got a reply from Luke

L.Skywalker: of course!

L.Skywalker: I'm glad you messaged me now, I’m about to start combat practice with my squadron

L.Skywalker: Leia should be free, I’ll ask her to bring it to you

Kriff.

H.Solo: Kid

H.Solo: You don’t need to do that

H.Solo: I’ve got it under control, actually

But it seemed Luke had already started his training.

He really didn’t need that temptation around. Leia, who smelled like leather and something earthy that was unidentifiable to Han. He wasn’t sure there was any scent better than it. In his weaker moments Han could admit to wanting to press his face into her neck and drown in her smell, and this was certainly one of his weaker moments.

But as much as he wanted her, Han couldn’t let himself. Whenever he let an alpha with any power over him into one of his heats it always ended up with he and Chewie being blackmailed and Han having to do things he didn’t want to. Han would stick to fucking strangers he picked in bars, thank you very much, even if it dissapointed Chewie.

Han whined in the back of his throat and got up to pace. There was no way he could let Leia see him in this state.

Taking deep breaths to calm himself down— Leia didn’t need to be smelling a distressed omega along with one going into heat— Han left his room and walked back to the smuggling compartments, tugging the metal cover back over his nest.

Moving to the ‘fresher, Han took a moment to stare at himself in the mirror. His face was flushed and his hair was messy. He looked exactly how he felt: hot and out of control. It was a look Han wore a lot whilst working on the Falcon, though, so Han hoped he wouldn’t look too bad.

There was no way to disguise his scent, but Han hoped if he looked out together enough, Leia would assume he had a plan for his heat beyond fucking himself on a toy.

Alphas love to butt their heads in where they don’t belong, especially if they think it’s good for an omega, and the princess was definitely one of those righteous types.

Han froze from where he was trying to tidy up his hair when he heard the entrance ramp to the Falcon being lowered. Kriff. Either Chewie was back or Luke had given Leia the code for his ship. Either way Han wasn’t particularly enthused.

Straightening his shirt to make himself look as presentable as possible, he walked to the ramp, clearing his throat loudly. “Entering someone’s ship without knocking is rude, you know? I could’ve been naked”

[felassan]

How are you personally liking the singleplayer game so far? I'm just spending my trial time on multiplayer.

I’m liking it a lot! I’ve really enjoyed my time in the trial so far, and can’t wait for launch so I can restart and really get into it. For reference, all of my time (about 8 hours so far) has been spent in singleplayer (or in CC, or hopping in and out of the game or menus in order to test things like settings), to the first planet after the prologue, up to a point which I guess is not far from the story lock. It’s a good game, maybe even a great game, and a lot of fun. full response under a cut to trim dash clutter and for length. spoiler-free.

Considering the fact that I have a weird, apparently-shit and derpy graphics card, I was expecting performance/graphics to be pretty bad, but for whatever reason the game runs fairly smoothly/well even on my PC on medium settings, I don’t have issues with crashes, freezing, stuttering, lag spikes, etc, not even on the first post-prologue planet. load times are reasonable. Even with my lame card and on medium settings with some effects turned off (like chromatic aberration), the environments and set-pieces look decent to good, which is a nice surprise. I’m going to upgrade my graphics card tho because 1) it’s long overdue and 2) I want an experience playing this game where it’s “pretty”, not just “decent”. I think doing that would improve my frame-rate and get rid of some of the scratchy/fuzzyness in some places that I’ve noticed, like around character models. that issue is definitely on my weird lame graphics card though, not on BW.

Gameplay is good from what I noticed. I’m excited to go exploring. sidequests so far felt less sidequesty/better thought out/less tacked on than DA:I’s. the jump-jet is a rad addition, I love the new dimension to the world and exploring the new verticality adds and improved mobility is always a plus. I like the extra lore/flavor details you can get from using the scanner. Combat is fun and solid, better than the OT, tho I’m still getting used to it. combat feels fluid, and for once in a game of this kind I’m properly looking forward to trying out different skills/builds rather than repeating the same playstyle over and over. the Nomad handles well and better than the Mako (I use a controller for my PC and can’t speak to how it handles for kbm). Disclaimer/caveat: I don’t play these games for the gameplay, and I played the trial on a low difficulty to blast through combat in order to see the stuff I wanted to see in my limited time. I also don’t really pay much attention to mechanics in games. so I’m not the best judge, because I’d play games with poor gameplay and suffer through that if it was to access a BioWare world with the choices, characters, depth, etc. I will say that nothing about combat gameplay in ME:A has irritated or frustrated me, which is something - DA:O’s for instance frustrated me for being so slow, ME1′s for being clunky (Shepard handled like I was pushing her around as she sat in a shopping trolley), DA2′s repeating he-man/power rangers spawning waves of mooks were annoying. for reference, combat gameplay in ME3 and DA:I was never an issue for me.

The voice-acting is strong. the aesthetic of the game is very Mass Effect. and it feels like Mass Effect too, even though we’re in a whole new galaxy - specifically a return to the atmospheric feel of ME1 (I don’t know how to articulate this, sorry. but I feel like I’m in the universe and back in ME1 when the galaxy was huge and there was so much to see, that retro scifi way). The story so far has been good - good opening, smartly-integrated tutorial that didn’t feel like a tutorial but like the prologue it is, compelling, interesting, emotional moments that got me, plot-hooks that have me wanting to keep going and find out more. the writing is mostly good, with a few odd/shoddy lines here and there. The squad characters are AMAZING. I love the squad and the ship. There’s lots of dialogue, banter and ambient dialogue from NPCs around the Nexus and Hyperion, and on the tempest and when exploring. I’ve only been playing for eight hours but already Liam and Cora feel more three dimensional and more interesting than Kaidan and Ash did in ME1 (I’m saying this as someone who quite likes Kaidan and Ash). I haven’t personally noticed Liam falling prey to the same issues Jacob did that people have been concerned about, which is good. Peebee feels differentiated from Liara (I wasn’t worried about that, but saw the sentiment around). I haven’t spent enough time with her to be able to tell if she feels differentiated from Sera (but I’m not really worried about that either anyway). Vetra is the best thing that has ever blessed the earth. there are little nods, callbacks and easter egg references to the OT that are pleasantly unexpected or even emotional in terms of content. I like the music, its a good mix of new exciting future stuff and callbacks to the music of the OT. plenty smiles and some laughs (good laughs, at jokes) had. quality cinematics, good cinematic design. I can’t WAIT to progress the story further and spend more time with these characters.

my main piece of negative feedback is the CC. it’s very limited, I think it’s quite poor really. but I’ve harped enough about that already so won’t repeat myself. full thoughts on CC here if you’re interested and haven’t seen it. my second main issue is more moderate in nature - I find the animations (specifically facial animations/emoting of human characters, including SisRyder, including talking) really quite off/jarring. your mileage may vary on this one, it’s not an issue for some people, it’s a relative thing I think how much it gets to you. for me it looks wrong/robotic/fake. secondary to but related to the animation issue is the dead/glassy-eyed look of human characters. I think they need to overhaul the CC, improve facial animations where possible (pls fix exploding mouths), and fix the eye textures (several artists by now have posted detailed breakdowns of what’s wrong with the eyes and why they visually look ‘dead’). I don’t actually have an issue at all with other animation glitches like tbone pose, weird walking, weird running up hills, etc. hasn’t happened much for me at all and doesn’t bother me when it does.

then I have some minor issues: no quicksave; no pausing during cutscenes; no saving during priority missions; in dialogue would prefer the choice of 4 tone responses to pop up more often than they do; differentiating instinctively between dialogue tone icons for me isn’t that good, maybe I just need more time at it though; the menu design doesn’t feel very intuitive but maybe I just need to get used to it? but there are menus upon menus within menus and I feel like the UI could be better; 2 ambient dialogue conversations triggering at the same time as I walk past like on the Nexus for example (have to move around hubs slowly so I don’t miss things and when one starts I stand still because moving too far ends it); it needs to be easier to quit menus (like hotkey m to enter and exit map, not m to enter and esc esc esc to exit [if you’re wondering I’ve been switching to kbm for menus. its great that the switch is seamless]); I do miss being able to directly order squadmates to use their skills in battle; I think Suvi and Gil should have been given custom models like Liam and Cora, at the moment it feels like a repeat of the issue we had with Traynor and Cortez, which isn’t great; I do feel a little railroaded having Ryder’s background depend on their gender, I don’t want to have to give a fuck about Prothean science digs. but these issues are definitely of the minor variety.

I think right now I’d give it a 7.5 or maybe eight out of ten, improving CC and fixing the facial animations/eyes would drive it up to nine for me I think. and this is on a normal common-sense-person scale, not a pro reviewer scale (where 80% is actually like a shit score). 

tl;dr loving it. 1 major issue, 1 moderate issue, numerous minor issues. absolutely loving it despite those and would definitely recommend and enthuse about it.