#There was stuff that if I was a bigger fan of the series I wouldn’t have needed pointed out to me but yea

[dread-knight]

I get it’s like a major plot point but I never understood like. The logic behind the springlock suits in Fnaf btw…. If you wanted an employee to be able to wear a suit just…. Make a non animatronic mascot costume? Even with limited animatronics in the suit’s external eyes and eyebrows for expression and whatnot! Just… it seems very odd a choice to me to like. Make people wear an animatronic suit especially since it’s known in-universe how dangerous they are. I said it to friends but the defunctland episode for Freddy fazbears pizzeria would go crazy

[portgasdwrld]

📂 Op men + them being jealous

part 1

Featuring: Monster trio (Luffy, Sanji, Zoro)

Warning: fluffy fluff, ended up being the monster trio being subtly jealous lol Ik I was going to make it suggestive but I like it better that way, might change it for the others

Note : After 200 weeks, 1500 minutes and 25 years, I’m finally posting this serie after thousands of drafts 👩🏻‍💻 y’all don’t know how many times I wrote and erased stuff 😭

Luffy

The crew just landed on a new island, it was a huge forest, not a person in sight. You weren’t particularly a big fan of walking around in an unknown deserted place, especially in the New World where you never knew on what or who you could fall.

On the other side, Luffy was absolutely fearless and enjoyed the thrill of exploring the unknown and seeing unusual creatures; Sailing was all about that for him. An adventure wasn’t an adventure if he didn’t feel that rush of adrenaline faced to a strange situation. He had insisted you come with the exploring team while you pleaded to stay behind with Robin and Usopp.

But here you were walking glued to Sanji as your boyfriend lead the way somewhere in this lost territory filled with trees and the noises of wild animals. He was screaming in excitement when he came across weird insects or odd looking vegetables. You sighed heavily as the anxiety was still heavily present in your system.

The cook adjusted his pace to match yours sensing your uneasiness about the situation. He knew you only came for Luffy, so he made sure to help you feel more comfortable in his own way.

Luffy ran forward as he noticed a beautiful blue flower tinted with yellow strokes that looked like gentle waves. He took it and searched for you with his eyes.

-This would look so pretty on your hair!

He exclaimed as he walked over to you and Sanji while waving the flower in his tan hand. You smiled as you thought it was adorable, but Luffy’s eyes quickly glared at your arms wrapped around Sanjis. He didn’t say anything and simply fixed the flower behind your ear, complimenting you with loving eyes and his cute grin.

-You look perfect!

He announced as he put his arm around your neck, naturally removing you from Sanji. A giggle left your lips as you melt into his familiar warmth. His eyes looked down at you with so much love and care, he wouldn’t want nothing to happen to you. Sanji laughed as he noticed Luffy successful attempt to get you away from him.

Your boyfriend closed the distance between his face and yours. With slightly furrowed eyebrows and serious eyes, he wondered if you were fine.

-Yeah, I just feel uneasy about walking here if I’m being truly honest. I’m not a fearless warrior like you, let’s say~

You explained calmly as you stared back into his big brown eyes. His expression softened up and he moved his arm to be able to grab your hand instead.

-Alright, then stay close to me only. I’m the strongest, so I will protect you no matter what! I promise!

-You’re sweet, thank you Luffy.

He gave a squeeze to your hand as you two followed the group through the millions of trees. Luffy smiled to himself, knowing you were relying on him to protect you now~

Zoro

It was all going well, a great night where Zoro was simply enjoying his time drinking with the others. It was all going great until he noticed a man that kept staring at you. You didn’t notice as you were busy goofing around with Usopp, enjoying a fun conversation.

Zoro felt this feeling of frustration grow in him the more he glared at the person shamelessly eyeing you like he clearly couldn’t see you were taken. That’s when it snapped for him: maybe they couldn’t tell? And that angered him even more. How can this person stare at you like a candy while he was sitting just next to you.

The swordsman pulled you closer to him, making sure his arm around your waist is noticeable. He smirked relieved when he saw the man look away with an annoyed huff. He took a sip from his beer as his smile got bigger. Zoro took that opportunity to slip a quick peck on your jawline.

You stared at him weirdly, wondering what have gotten into him.

-Wassup with you?

-I cant kiss you or what?

-Yeah, but you don’t usually do that.

-You always complain

He whined as he rolled his eye, but still he was glad that no one was hungrily looking your way anymore. You were his and he would make the possible to make it known. Even if it needed him to be outside of his comfort zone, he was going to make sure you were safe from lingering unwanted eyes (maybe to also make himself feel better)

You gave him a funny look, confused about his unusual bright expression. You pecked his lips not giving too much thoughts about it, before going back to your conversation with Usopp. You leant your body on your boyfriends that surprisingly responded to it by holding your waist tighter and rubbing his thumb against your tummy.

-You’re really acting strange, but I ain’t complaining

You said under your breath so only he could hear. He chuckled as he drank some more. You looked over your shoulder with a smile.

-Great, because you’re not leaving my side tonight.

Sanji

Hand in hand, you two walked through the village in the middle of all the varieties of shops surrounding y’all. You wanted to buy a necklace so you were hopeful to find something of your taste and Sanji was more than willing to help you.

He had already made his grocery shopping with you yesterday and organized everything late in the evening, so it was his rest day. He wanted to enjoy the sunny weather with his awesome lover on this pretty day.

It all started when the seller was proposing you multiple options at the table and he invited you to come in the store for something more refined for a beautiful person like you. Sanji didn't care, because of course you are beautiful, so it was only natural that other people would notice. He nodded excited to see what other options the man had that could fit you even better.

Sanji cocked an eyebrow when the seller pushed your hair behind your shoulders and got close to your face as he commented about you smelling good. You laughed as you thanked him, mentioning how your boyfriend bought the scent for you as you pointed at the cook. He put a gorgeous silver piece around your neck and handed you a mirror.

-What do we think?

He asked with a content expression, you stared at the mirror with a floating smile as you nodded, approving the jewelry.

-It's so gorgeous! Oh! What about this one?

You asked as your eyes flew to a more elegant necklace. You walked away from Sanji quickly as you engaged in a great conversation with the seller about the jewelries and some specific information, that your lover was honestly unfamiliar with. Sanji felt like you kind of forgot about him and started to wander around the store on his own as he kept an eye on you, still.

"...should I get into jewelries.."

It was those type of thoughts that occupied his mind as he sulked in his corner. Though, Sanji is a gentleman and he loved more than anything to see you happy and passionate, so he put his jealousy aside to let you enjoy your moment. So, he put his ego aside and started to think about which one would look hotter on you-

-Chérie, have you find something you liked?

He asked you as he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you into him. You hummed as you looked at the other man and you both nodded, agreeing on something the cook had no clue about.

-I'm going to take this one, what do you think babe?

Sanji kissed your cheeks and whispered in your ears with a smirk.

-They all look beautiful to me, because you are stunning. I don't think I will be of a great help, my love.

You smiled to yourself, because Sanji likes whatever you wear or not. On his end, he just wanted to leave already and pamper you with kisses & hickeys all over your neck to celebrate your new necklace and maybe to let people know you were his..

[ganondoodle]

I probably still wouldn’t have been a big fan of the game, but I don’t think I would have been NEARLY as upset about TotK if BotW didn’t seem like it was so obviously setting up plot points for a sequel. Like, you’re very clearly MEANT to wonder what malice is, and how Ganon became the Calamity instead of just the Demon King. Fi is awake again, where are they going either that? What’s the deal with the Triforce-shaped symbol on Zelda’s hand? There were a LOT of other things like that, and many of them had to do with overarching lore for the series.

I get it if they want to reboot the series, but “BotW 2” was the single worst game you could have done that with. It could have been an amazing conclusion to the original continuity.

EXACTLY, you, you get it

botw felt like the introduction to a vast world with secrets and hints to things that were planned to become a bigger thing- a big giant game as a big giant set up, and then ... like totk likes to do alot, it lacks a pay off, and that is something it even does within itself, cosntantly, set up and no pay off, or set up and the most boring and uninspired pay off you can really not even call that, from the bigger things like the whole dragon thing being hammered into your head as irreversible and then it IS reversible.. out of nowhere without you having to do fuck all, the whole thing with the ancient hero beign a big mystery with lots of interesting ideas attached and then its some weird ass dog creature that doesnt resemble any other race with, of course, sonau armor, bc there nothing that isnt sonau in that game, even finding the old treasure maps you can find that then lead to amiibo stuff from botw id call that

botw wasnt that great with rewards either but exploring the world and wondering about those, surely intentionally, placed mysterious and intriguing designs and places did alot for making it so interesting to think about, totk fumbles it all and even the new stuff doesnt even come close to that environmental storytelling botw was so great at, sonau ruins? ha they look entirely different than in botw actually, bc those were built by hylians you see, the actual sonau stuff is in prime condition considering the time thats passed and its all the same blank blocky blocks that serve no purpose but to be a place for you to find a thing or exchange some currency- the most you can think about it is ... that the sonau hollowed out the entire underground of hyrule, every inch of the map, ... which is WEIRD and doesnt exactly make them look that good but ... thats all there is

at least with the shiekah it made somewaht more sense and it felt much less .. invasive? and you didnt have anyone from that time to talk to, other than dead monks whos only purpose is to give you their last piece of their own spirit, but in totk ... raurus ghost and mineru too are both just there to talk to but DONT tell you shit but vague hints that were already clear, the sky islands used to be on the ground? oh you dont say, you see them there in the stupid memories! and dont get to know how they got up there and theres nothing that can clue you in to that, its just sonau magic yet again i guess

dont even get me started on the whole malice/miasma thing, it made so much SENSE that there was a source of it, someone that has keep kept in a horrible place just between life and death for thousands of years trying to break free by their hate and anger manifesting to such a degree its literally spilling out and building creppy eyeballs, mouths and ribcage like structures like they are trying to rebuild themsleves outside of their awful prison no one knows about is so damn compelling, but no, actually, the guy trapped there was the msot evilest evar, was sealed bc him evil and no other motive, and the previously mentioned stuff is pretty much utterly unceonnected, and his magic beign miasma with red instead of pink and no creepy body parts was the true version of it, that pink one was its own thing heehooo SHUT UP argh

it doesnt help that really, i dont feel like the sonau were set up either, they were a tiny part in botw, really only serving to make the world seem more ancient and more full of history, having ruins from a past civilization there you know nothing about and cant find out more is so good, its compelling and sad and makes the world feel more real, just shoving them into everything, being the center of attention all of thes udden and not even the architecure fitting feels so ... forced, i really truly believe the og sonau werent meant to be more than that, but in their fear of the game being too similarly looking like botw they took the sonau to replace the shiekah with them- imo the shiekah were the ones set up to be deeper explored in botw, with their whole misstreatment by the royal family in the past, monk miz kyoshia reacting the same way a yiga commander would was deliberate and brings up even more interesting ideas, the comments about where the mysterious energy the ancient shiekah used to power everything being concentrated in certain regions?? thats a big ass set up, the fact that the center of what is signaling everything to reactivate being below hyrule castle? the fact the whole arena thing was BUILT INTO THE CASTLE or it on top of it is so??? cool??? and sso damn intriguing, we are scratching the surface of their history- but then no, actually, the sonau are the cool new shit those other ones just uh ... disappear, also the sonau did everythign the shiekah did but even better wayy before them haha

its like they didnt want to tackle the more complicated stuff with the shiekah, their relationship to the royal family and how the yiga ... have a point and a good reason- so they replaced them with entirely new purely goodest good guys that did the same stuff before them with none of the history attached :))

this is why im so insistent on it not really being a sequel, thers no follow up on anything that was set up, NOTHING, and no, a couple having a kid now or whatever isnt a follow up on an interesting set up, how hard is it to understand that-

.... listen to me rambling, you probably know all that already nhjdfkbnkd

(i know i always bring up the shiekah but ... they were so central in botw, while also not taking up every single corner- unlike some other ones >_____>, with so much interesting stuff to connect and think about, i cared about them so much i felt kicked down the stairs by their treatment in totk)

[klmp11s]

Hi! I’m the guy who did the cater request. I was wondering if you could do Idia with a male reader who looks like the most normal guy ever, but he’s a bigger nerd and weeb than Idia is? That’s all, hope you have a great day!

HAHA while I was writing this I read several articles to accurately write this 🤗(English is not my first language, sorry for any mistakes)

Summary An idea with a reader who, at first glance, doesn’t look at all like who he is Character: Idia Shroud Warning: bigger nerd male!reader, ooc(?), hcs, romantic

Idia Shroud

You met him after you were assigned to Ignyhide (Ortho was definitely involved)

But he couldn’t fully understand why such a normie like you was enrolled in his dorm

Like, have you seen yourself? An absolutely normal, ordinary person like everyone else. Yes, your appearance is pleasant, but then why weren’t you ahead, for example in Pomefiore?

And most likely Ortho influenced his brother and ultimately introduced you to him. Okay, so what next? He's not a fan of talking to other people, you know? Moreover, he thought that you were completely different from him and had completely ordinary tastes, what should he talk to you about if it is necessary?

Once again, after walking around campus with you, Ortho told Idia about you. At one point, the boy looks at Idia’s monitor and says something like: “Oh, you watch this anime too? He told me about this today! He even showed photos of his collection of stuff with characters!”

After that, Orto definitely started talking about you more often and even suggested that his brother also talk to you about something that you both liked.

I think at the moment if Ortho told Idia that you also madly love video games, he could have casually said that he wouldn’t mind playing with you once.

Okay, Ortho FLYED OUT to tell you about this. You're happy, aren't you? He tried so many times to make you friends with his brother and finally he succeeds!

Idia definitely didn't expect that you could beat him several rounds in a row. Okay, are you even human??? He's been playing this game since its release! How do you manage to defeat HIM?

Voice chat? Yes, VOICE CHAT

You are simply saying that you also started playing this game as soon as it came out and you could also win it in other games. Okay, do you want to argue with him?

During one of the games, you just start telling him about a new anime that came out the other day and he doesn’t notice how he’s really listening to what you’re saying. Okay, he could watch it later.

Now from now on you write to him like?? Almost every day?? Except for the time when you are in class.

Voice messages about a new game/movie/manga/anime, etc.? Oh yes, but he's definitely sure that he didn't sign up for this, but for some reason he listens to all your messages

Now you write to each other about something that caught your attention and at some point he wonders how he could think that you are a normie. ARE YOU LITERALLY WORSE THAN HIM??? He is absolutely sure that there were times when you stayed awake longer than him and he woke up from your 99+ messages about some new game that should be played as a couple.

His room is now your room with him, just like your room is now your room with him, you know? He’s really lucky that your room is close to his and the chance of meeting other people is much less, convenient, right?

He is even sure that he knows the plot of films and TV series that he has not even watched. Do you really talk that much? (he talks almost as much as you)

The two of you can just spend time in silence in one of your rooms with him when you suddenly sit down and start telling him about the new manga you read

He is literally at this moment: 🧍 You two sat for 10 hours in silence and now you just start talking about a completely random thing? Okay, he might be interested in this.

WHAT IF YOU ARE A COSPLAYER? Well he's INTERESTED Do you show off your collection of costumes and some of your looks and even invite him to cosplay as an anime couple? He died

You started dating him during one of your play dates. It's literally like, "hm? Yes, I wouldn't mind dating you." "..What?" AND HE LEAVES THE VOICE CHAT? Okay, now he will write to you soon only if you are offline. Better yet, forget it, okay?

On the one hand, he is definitely not happy to see that you have come to his room, but on the other hand, he really needs to discuss this with you. Or maybe it’s still not necessary?

You could have told him at first that you were unhappy, because he left the game at the moment and you had to fight alone against other teams, but now everything is fine. After you tell him that you also have feelings for him, he will definitely not believe you at first.

Do you think this is funny? He will now kick you out of his room and unfriend you in games.

Now you need to prove that you really like him, you know? (Five minutes and he will understand that you are serious)

Seeing you in public a couple of times, he is as surprised as possible, because you are completely different alone with him.

Now he understands why he thought of you as a completely ordinary guy

You 100% play the gacha with him over a video call and YOU ARE LITERALLY ALWAYS LUCKY?? WHY?

Now you play gacha on his account 🤗 after which he goes to brag about how lucky he is to have such a lucky boyfriend

The characters do not belong to me, they belong to their rightful owners, please do not edit, translate, repost my works on other platforms, also without my permission and @

[paintbrushnebula]

I think now that Tangled the Series has been over for the better part of four years now, what makes me sad the most is that there were enough pieces left behind by the film to construct a compelling narrative for a strong continuation of Rapunzel and Eugene's story that wouldn't have required all this "bigger and more epic" stuff that the series made up in order to be interesting. 

And you can have big epic magical stuff, that's fine! I LOVE epic large-scale stories! But there's a difference between expanding your world by further developing its elements and themes, and just scaling up the adventure tenfold to be “bigger and better”—which is what I feel that the series did in the end. 

It’s funny, because I was already a fan of Tangled when I was little. I still remember being 7 years old sitting in that theater with my sister, actually breathless and in shock when Eugene drew his last breath. I had never seen a kids movie where a lead character dies.

(and I know that sounds absurd because there were Disney films before where a lead character dies and comes back XD look I was 7 and my parents weren’t people who knew many pop culture American movies at the time so I didn’t watch much that wasn’t Disney Channel or VHS films that my Grandma owned. To this day I’m still kind of trying to catch up on film culture XD)

Sorry to get off track but what I’m trying to say is, I was there when the series was announced and they revealed that promo art back in 2016, I saw the 30 second promo trailer, I watched “Wind in my Hair” when it was released on Youtube in February 2017 the morning before school and I was hyped for the rest of the day, and I remember watching Before Ever After’s premiere with my sister and was FLOORED that it was good??!! Like actually was gonna have a serialized overarching story and everything! God I’ll never forget Eugene’s verse where he pulls out that ring. I’ll never forget Rapunzel’s face when he gives her his proposal speech (before it went downhill that is), and I’ll always forget the last 25 minutes that take place  after Rapunzel’s hair grows back because its low-key pretty heckin boring! 

What hyped me was the relationship stuff, Rapunzel’s PTSD, the parent drama, everything that those first 30 minutes had that made me THINK we were in for an emotional story about Rapunzel’s life after the tower, I thought we’d get to see in detail how she’s gonna to grapple with her trauma, her new life, her new responsibilities, her new relationships, all that. And some of the series was that, a very small “some.” Not enough by any means for me lol

Because like, wouldn’t that have been a more interesting story to tell than the one we got? Ultimately Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure doesn’t feel like a continuation of Rapunzel’s story, it’s more like a Brand New Adventure that happens star Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert. I know that sounds weird and I might not be making much sense here but, did the story of a girl who stops a plague of darkness and fights a transdimensional demon blueberry ghost girl and has to reconcile with her “step-sister” HAVE to be about Rapunzel? Also like, just. NOTICE how that summation of the story of the series DOESNT involve Eugene in some way. You know. The hecking CO-LEAD of the film this series is based on. 

And like, there was so much story to be told with Rapunzel and Eugene WITHOUT the blueberry Disney Junior-giving ghost girl, the poorly written heavily contrived step-sister conflict, AND the big plague of darkness nonsense. Rapunzel and Eugene are two VERY tragic individuals. DO SOMETHING WITH THEM, IOUHWO4Y2IBBU3FN3FI

I’ll admit that I was more attached to the series than I was to the movie while it was airing, and even for like 2 years after it was over. I was younger and more immature and the big stakes and fresh new characters and magical adventures captivated me more than the focused drama of the movie. But now that I’m older, I realize that I resonate more with Rapunzel in the movie. NOT in any concerning “do you need help?” Kind of ways, just that I find myself thinking the way she thought, since I’m now around the age she was in the movie. The way I think about my future, my self esteem etc. I relate to how she feels inexperienced and fresh in the world despite being a young adult, because she hasn’t done any of those “big things” yet. And you wonder “how am I gonna do those big things? When do they happen? Will I know what to do when they happen?” I get it, Rapunzel, I really do. 

The series is kinda an afterthought to me now I guess. I still appreciate that it exists and I’m so happy it happened. In the beginning, it didn’t feel real when it was happening. Like a dream honestly. And like, Tangled the Series is literally 80% the reason I wanted to write fiction, so I’ll always be grateful for it. 

But holy kriff is the movie so much better heeheeeeeeeeee

[yuikomorii]

The day tumblr stans will stop being chronically online is the day I will finally like this fandom. Goofy aah people think their opinions matter?

Last year everyone adored Ayato on this platform but after a certain ahem cult ahem of people joined, I can sense they’re secretly having beef with Ayato and are sending mean anons to Ayato fans for some jealousy reason.

Granted he is not my personal best boy but he’s DiaLovers’ best boy for a fact and the hype he started getting is pretty much deserved. In a series of games that’s a bit dead, I’m glad he’s able to keep it relevant not only for the DiaLovers fans. Don’t mind delulus saying bad things about him, those only exist on this platform anyway and are just seeking for attention and approval from random strangers.

// Tbh, I’m disappointed but not surprised. Unfair and two-faced people are everywhere and if they truly spend their time in that manner, you can already see how miserable their lives must be.

I believe that the Ayato hate train began with Youngblood and picked up steam this year after the release of the Meow Meow vampire art. Many people made fun of Ayato's appearance and blamed him for FaVoRiTiSm , despite the fact that everyone in Japan adored him there. I don't know why, but the DL Tumblr fandom is completely out of touch with everything DL-related. They have no idea that Rejet simply creates Ayato content as a marketing ploy; in fact, Japanese fans are literally the ones who request it. In 2020, Ayato was stated as fans’ top choice and got invited as a co-star with a national idol at Nino-san, which was broadcasted on the second largest television corporation in Japan. If people hadn’t recommended him so much, he wouldn’t have ended up there… it’s not that hard to understand.

This has the same vibe as those kpop fans who always complain about how their ult group is underrated but don’t even stream their songs, instead they spend their time criticizing bigger groups for what??

I’m not forcing anyone to love Ayato but at least give me good reasons to dislike him. I understand not liking ALL Diaboys but isn’t it hilarious how some people would give you a litany of reasons why they can't stand Ayato, but when you look at their bias, he did the same (or worse) things as (than) Ayato? If you truly dislike those actions, at least pick a side, lol. I honestly don’t hate any Diaboy (though I don’t agree with their behavior all the time) but even if I did, I wouldn’t throw shade at that one character out of the blue only to piss of his stans.

And I swear, it's incredibly annoying how some people would tear Ayato down when asked about their favorite character/ship/route, etc., even though he has absolutely NOTHING to do with the question or he isn’t even the main topic of the question. Saying things like, "Yeah, I like this character because, unlike Ayato (just an example hehe)—" or "No hate towards Ayato but — *proceeds to mischaracterize and hate on him*" are examples of uncalled hate speech. Literally why use HIM most of the time as an example when talking about negative things?? At this point that’s not even a coincidence anymore, but a pattern, which is truly giving fan behavior.

Such people are really the worst. Reminds me of how some fans still think it’s okay commenting stuff like “This is great but I don’t like *inserts thing the OP obviously likes*” or “Not trying to be mean but *starts being mean*”. Respectfully, who even asked for your opinion? Mind your own business and learn basic etiquette.

[mazzystar24]

idk how tim is keeping her around… like its so clear the fandom hates her and wants her gone- just read the comments on the stills. i understand that her contract probably requires her to be in a certain number of episodes, but tim has really fucked with her storyline this season and made her a bigger character than she ever needed to be and i genuinely don’t understand his choice to do so… if it were to somehow play into eddie’s sexuality, there are a myriad of other ways that could be introduced without givinf a transphobe screentime and along with some of tim’s other choices this season really makes me doubt if he knows what he’s doing at times…. i was so excited for him to come back as showrunner because i thought yk maybe they would stop dragging their feet on buddie but every day it feels more and more like baiting and that we’re simultaneously closer yet further away than we’ve ever been and it’s making me not trust time anymore. and with the jlh live making the joke about buddie not happening it’s making it so hard to remain optimistic… like i will forever be a buddie shipper first and foremost, but i also know how network tv shows use shit like this to their advantage when it comes to baiting and pulling in audiences to watch- it’s been done over and over and over and as much as i want to believe tim wouldn’t do that to us, it’s getting harder and harder to trust him every day. i’ve never considered folding in a series i’ve so vehemently loved before but this season has really messed with my head and i don’t know if i can continue putting myself through the torture if there won’t be any payoff.

Hi anon! Totally meant to reply to this before the episode so obviously my answer is a bit different (but not overtly so)

This episode confirmed Marisol is on her way out so small victories of the transphobe getting kicked to the curb

Totally understand where you’re coming from with being disheartened and like obviously look out for yourself first and foremost but if you’re looking for reassurance I think that like

1. Jlh will only have limited knowledge like Devon was saying even her, edy and Ryan were trying to get info from eachother on who’s staying and stuff and also jlh did clarify it’s a joke and also if buddie were going to have some confirmation this season they would be telling all the actors to keep it hush hush and throw people off guessing it

2. It’s true tv networks do like using that stuff to promote shows but also abc very much seems to recognise that fans make or break a show that’s why you see a lot of shows on it like greys or the rookie do tend to keep an eye on fan reactions and respond accordingly and by that logic if the tv network is aware enough of the fact they can promote a show by even hinting at buddie undertones then they know that full canon would do favours for their ratings, and Tim did say one of the main obstacles to bi buck canon was the network back when they were on fox

3. Things are constantly in progress and we still have s8 so there is never cause to be like there is no hope, like if they didn’t want buddie canon on the table they would have said so but they constantly establish that it’s on the table and if the story progresses that way then they’d all be on board

I gotta pulls a Serena and say I gotta go but thanks anon for the ask and hope it’s somehow reassuring

Remember bestie delulu is the solulu🥰❤️🫶🤡🤩✨

(yes I had to make a joke somewhere cos I’m extremely awkward)

[fabuloustrash05]

I saw your rasey post and oohhh I agree with you so much I’m aroace so the whole people pushing platonic dynamics into romantic ones has always made me rlly uncomfortable I’m kinda glad I found someone with the same option!! I especially hate the 2k3 ver of the pairing cause Casey’s 23 in that series….while Raph’s 15 and it’s just ew throw it into a fire please….burn it!! But I think as a whole stuff like r(a)sey kinda plays into a bigger issue of some people not being able to invest in characters relationships unless they involve some form of shipping

I don’t care if people ship r@sey (03 tho I’m calling the cops on u cause that’s a no no) everyone got their opinions and I’ll respect that, HOWEVER I heavily dislike the ship and I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. It’s on my block tagged list for a reason.

Like I’m all for shipping, I’m a shipper at heart, but NOT EVERY SINGLE FRIENDSHIP NEEDS TO TURN ROMANTIC. Raph and Casey friendship is and has always been special to me. So people shipping them just shows that some people just can’t comprehend two people just being friends without making it weird. Raph and Casey friendship is one of the most iconic things in TMNT! So shipping them together just ruins it (for me personally) and it’s really annoying seeing fans be like “oh! In the new show Tales of the TMNT I hope they add Casey so Raph can crush on him!” Umm, how about NO??? We already got one Turtle crushing on April we DO NOT need the Turtles crushing on every single human friend they make in this franchise! 🤦‍♀️ Just give MM Raph his Mona Lisa god dammit

Another TMNT ship that comes to mine regarding this topic is April x Donnie in Rottmnt. Yes, I used to ship them but I realized that doing that and hoping for them to be a couple just ruins the special bond that they have! Platonic rise Apritello is better than romantic rise Apritello. I stand by that. Plus I ship Donnie with Kendra so-

Honestly if I had to ship Casey with ANY of the Turtles, it would be Leo. Raph and Donnie is too predictable, overrated and, well, dumb. Also Mikey is a character who has one too many love interests already. Leo x Casey would be far more interesting to see happen in any future TMNT project.

[questionableratatouille00]

𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓞𝓷 6

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: On her outing with Wanda and during an activity in therapy, Y/n is able to reflect on her time with Natasha. She can remember the good times, the bad times, and everything in between. Is she finally on the true path to recovery?

Warnings (Entire Series): This series deals with mature topics, including, but not limited to: death, mental health issues, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, grief, trauma, general unwellness, illness (both mental and physical), and a most likely inaccurate portrayal of group therapy (though it’s much better than whatever was going on in TFATWS.) Please mind the warnings below.

Warnings: cursing, dead romantic partners, death, thoughts of burying yourself? Eating and food (cupcakes), let me know if I need to tag anything else.

🌻Series Masterlist 🌻

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𝐈 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫

You drove up to her house, parking next to her car in the driveway. You felt your mind drifting as you sat in the car for a moment. Taking a deep breath, you hyped yourself up as you walked up to the front door. You rang the door bell, trying to ignore the very gay thoughts you were having.

It's just a girl's day, Y/n, you told yourself. Calm the fuck down.

She opened the door, grinning widely. She was wearing jeans, with a plaid shirt and what looked like suspenders. Her hair was down, with curls. She looked gorgeous.

"Hi," you breathed.

"Hey. Uh, you wanna take my car? I'm not going to tell you where we're going. It's a surprise!" She smiled, and you felt yourself doing the same.

She linked arms with you, pulling you down the driveway by your elbow. She lead you to the passenger's side of her car, opening the door for you. "Ladies first," she giggled.

You climbed into the passenger seat, buckling your seatbelt as she did the same. She placed her hands—decorated with thin silver rings with dark nail polish—on the steering wheel, starting the car and pulling out of the driveway.

She flipped the radio on. “Ooh! This is a good one.”

A quick glance to the little screen showed that it was Fearless by Taylor Swift playing.

“You’re a swiftie?” You asked, glancing at her.

“Kinda. I like the country stuff, and some of the softer pop stuff.” She explained.

“You’re a swiftie?” You asked her. It was a month into your relationship, and she was driving you home.

“Something like that. I like Reputation, mostly.” Nat explained. “Not a huge fan of slower stuff. Or country.”

“Got it.” You nodded.

“Cool.” You smiled. You chuckled as she sang along to the song, you chiming in every so often.

“Fearless!” You both sang at the same time.

“We’re almost there,” she assured you after a few more Taylor Swift songs.

You’d been driving for about twenty minutes, the road a yellow-orange sand, like a baseball field, but with more random rocks and gravel. The grass on the sides of the road were a bright green, just like the hills out your window, or the trees out her’s. The scenery was beautiful, but you couldn’t help from wondering where exactly she was taking you.

Your brows furrow slightly when you saw the sign. “Westview Sunflower Farm?”

She grinned. “Yes! It’s beautiful. Trust me, you’ll love it.”

“I’m trusting you.” You chuckled, though you had to admit, you didn’t doubt her taste in..what could you even call this? Scenery? Agricultural beauty? Regardless, you were positive that you wouldn’t be disappointed.

She drove past the sign, and wooden boards standing straight up, painted brown with large sunflowers—some seemingly coming from a stem, others just in a vertical line—were stuck in the ground. They were on either side of the road, and you smiled. The people who own this place are good decorators, you thought.

“It’s cool. It’s like a pumpkin patch, but bigger and sunflower themed. There’s picnic tables spread throughout—almost like a maze, but if you’re an adult you’re usually tall enough to see over the flowers. There’s a little stand—well technically it’s a building but who cares—and the owners sell baked goods and other stuff in there. It’s awesome.” She beams fondly.

“You know a lot about this place,” you noted.

“Me and Vis would come often.” She recalled, and she was still seemingly joyful, though you could hear a hint of sadness in her voice.

“That’s awesome.” You said, because you didn’t really know what to say to that.

“Yeah.” She agreed, turning her head to look at you for a moment. She smiled warmly, pure gentleness in her eyes.

“Watch the road,” you warned. She quickly focused back on the road. You realized what you’d said, and you frowned. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

“It’s alright.” She gave you another small smile, as she pulled into the parking lot. Your eyes widened as you surveyed the surrounding area, identifying all of the huge fields of sunflowers. You saw the tiny little food place she was talking about. The building and every sign nearby were all wooden and painted with sunflowers. There were places to take pictures, places to wash your hands, and even a small playground near the closest sunflower field.

“Wow,” you chuckled. She led you to the food stand, and you marveled at all the baked goods inside. So many treats decorated as sunflowers—cookies, cupcakes, cake pops, and more. You each got a cupcake, and you offered to pay.

"No, it's--" She began to protest.

"You drove here. Let me." You cut her off, paying for the sweets.

Letting out a sigh of defeat, she nodded. Once you got outside of the tiny shack, she linked elbows with you, leading you off into the sunflower field.

"Picnic table?" You suggested, but she shook her head, giggling.

"Nope! Even better." She led you to a grassy area, surrounded by sunflowers. It was pretty secluded, farther away from the picnic tables. She gently guided you to the ground, laying down on her back. You matched her pose, as you laid side by side.

Chomping on your cupcakes, you talked about random things. The weather. Halloween coming up. Group therapy.

"I really signed up out of the blue," she murmured. "It was a random decision."

"Do you regret it?" You turned your head to look at her. She turned her head to look at you. You locked eyes, her expression a bit unreadable.

"No," she answered after a moment. "I don't. Do you?"

"No."

"My neighbor..she suggested it one day. It was very..strange, to say the least." She chuckled.

"Yeah? Which neighbor?"

"Agnes, the creepy lady a couple doors down. She always gives me this weird feeling. Like she knows something I don't." Her expression turned dark, before she snapped out of it. "Anyway, how'd you join?"

"My old friend pestered me into taking care of myself, funnily enough." She chuckled at your response.

"My husband and I came here every chance we could when the weather was nice. Those are some of my favorite memories with him. He was smart, and gentle, and kind. We were high school sweethearts, y'know. He was nothing like any boyfriend or girlfriend I'd ever had."

"Gir-girlfriend?" You caught the words.

"Oh--yeah. I'm bisexual. Funny thing, most of the people in our therapy group are LGBTQIA+."

"Really?" You hadn't known this. How had she managed to learn all this?

"Yeah. Thor's pan, Steve's bi, both Sam and Bucky are gay, Clint's bi, so is Tony, Bruce's asexual, and Peter--the intern who works there--he's trans and bi. Maria was telling me about her wife a few meetings ago--I have no idea about Coulson, but y'know. He's at least an ally."

"How do you know all that?" You laugh a little.

"I guess I'm just social?" She smiled.

"So..any dates? Since..y'know?" You wanted to dig a hole and bury yourself as soon as the words left your mouth.

"No." She shook her head. "You?"

"Nope." You admitted.

"Maybe..I'm wrong about this." She began. "But..there's something I want to ask."

"Ask it anyway." You urged her.

"..What if this was a date?" You could hear your heartbeat as she asked.

"Then I think I'd like it." She smiled at this.

"I think I would too." You agreed. She took your hand in hers, before looking back up at the sky.

"I'd like everyone to share one fond memory they have, whether that's with a person they lost, or just a memory that happened in the past." Phil Coulson prompted.

For once, you went first.

"When we moved into our apartment. Nat and I..one time, we went to the beach. And she joined a volleyball game with some random strangers. She was so damn competitive--her team won every round. I bought her ice cream afterward. Mint chocolate chip was her favorite." You chuckled, recalling the day. Nat's black bikini bathing suit, splashing around in the water, the sand between your toes.

Wanda smiled from beside you. Phil Coulson nodded, before the next person began to share.

After the meeting, the group gathered outside the building.

"Do you all wanna meet up at a cafe or something?" Wanda suggested. "How about next Saturday, at the place near Vormir?"

"Vormir's that one weird store with the guy who's always super sunburnt, right?" Sam questioned.

"Yeah," Wanda confirmed.

"I work weekends." Tony stated. Bruce nodded, before explaining that he does too.

"I'll be outta town, but you guys should go." Steve told the group.

Before you knew it, you were roped into a group outing.

A/n: Finally something is happening! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I'm so excited to continue this series!

[quitefair]

so, about Ballister’s origin...

alright so i’m a huge, huge fan of the original nimona graphic novel. and i’m genuinely a fan of the movie too! it did make some significant changes, but overall told the story it wanted to tell, and pretty much summed up the themes of the novel itself! it was an enjoyable ride!

but!!! there was one bit of the story that didn’t quite sit right with me. and it took me a while to realise what that thing was. (i didn’t want to make a post ranting about it without properly processing what it was that made me dislike this, so i let it ruminate)

anyway, after seeing this post, everything fell into place.

instead of ballister being a commoner rising to become a knight...

what if he was born outside the wall instead? 

(major spoilers for the graphic novel and movie below)

so in the original comic, the knights of the institution were all orphans, including ballister and ambrosius. they grew up and trained together, and were both considered among the most skilled and prominent knights of the institution at the time. however, everything changed when they were pitted against each other in a jousting match. the director gave ambrosius a weaponised lance (similar to ballister’s sword in the movie). its weight threw ambrosius off balance and caused him to lose against ballister during the joust. in a fit of jealous rage over losing, he fires the lance at ballister, causing him to lose his right arm and ruining his chances of ever becoming a knight.

all of this is implied to have happened because the director wanted ambrosius to win the joust. perhaps because of the way he looked. white skin, blonde hair, all the ideal societal characteristics of a hero. nate mentions this in a recent article as well talking about the movie.

while ballister... well. he didn’t. and now he also doesn’t have an arm. it was also implied that the director didn’t like that ambrosius and ballister were close, didn’t like that her perfect hero had a weakness, probably thought that ballister was not good enough for her poster child, idk. so yeah, she killed two birds with one stone. (except in this version no queens were harmed lmao)

the way they translated this into the movie was... well. interesting.

so now, gloreth has a bigger role in all of this. which is cool! it ties in so well with nimona being gloreth’s beast, and the entire reason that the city and the institution exists in the first place. this was actually one of my favourite changes to the comics that they made for the movie!!!

but! what i didn’t like was that our boys were no longer orphans. ambrosius is now the descendant of gloreth? which is why he’s the poster boy of the institution? and the one with the weight of familial expectation on him? 

(okay i lied this kinda slaps but it wasn’t explored as much as i’d liked. anyway wouldn’t it have been great if this was a limited series instead of a movie? lmao im going off track.)

but the weirdest part for me, and something i still felt difficult to accept, was that ballister... was a commoner. a commoner that was chosen to join the institution and to become a knight.

and it’s a controversial decision?

youre telling me that in this sci-fantasy world of super monster cops, that the only way people that can become a monster cop, is through nepotism????

and consider this: most of the commercial stuff aimed at kids, teens etc (kwispy dragon for example) sends the message that maybe, just maybe, you, the commonnest of commoner children, could also rise up and be a super monster cop hero?

there’s also the fact that in our current day and age, the story of the underdog gets the most attention and press? wouldn’t the crowds be ecstatic over a kid from nowhere, rising up among the ranks to become one of the most promising potential knights in this institution?

so yeah i dont really understand why the general population have gripes against ballister becoming a knight (it’s shown at the beginning during the whole montage that there’s some people who aren’t vibing with it) douchebag knights maybe yeah. but i don’t see how the general public wouldn’t be anything but supportive, and would turn on him so fast.

unless.... he wasn’t from the city itself.

you only really hear about the wall partly through the film. you’re shown that the city grows and that there’s a wall built around it during the intro cinematic, but nothing is mentioned until quite significantly through the film. which is odd... considering how important it is to the story. gloreth built the wall to keep the monsters out. to keep us in and to keep them out. the propaganda of there only being monsters outside the wall, and only good and respectable citizens live within the city walls.

(how does the wall keep us free? the wall keeps out the enemy. and we build the wall to keep us free, that’s why we build the wall, we build the wall to keep us free.)

which would make a ballister that came in from outside the wall... well.

1. it would make the director’s statement of ‘cracks in the wall’ make more sense. in a literal sense, ballister couldve come into the city from a literal crack in the wall. which also ties into the metaphor of gloreth’s walls/propaganda cracking. and the fact that he’s now rising up to become a knight? corruption from the inside? it makes the director’s motivations hold more weight.

(also having the director be a descendant of gloreth rather than ambrosius would make more narrative sense but that’s a whole other post)

2. now the public would have more reason to not trust this guy. it’s easier to spread propaganda about him once he ‘kills the queen’. a monster infiltrating the ranks. and then he’s allied with a monster shapeshifter nimona?

3. the parallels between ballister and nimona??? would be even more prevalent??? both literal outsiders. hated by everybody for basically no reason other than that they’re different. and the fact that ballister accepts nimona when gloreth didn’t?

4. there’s also the fact that throughout the movie, the concept of the wall protecting the people from the monsters outside is questioned - are there really even monsters outside, when we’ve never seen them for ourselves? what if you guys are lying to us, what if youre WRONG? and ballister becoming a knight might’ve been a step in the right direction towards pushing against those stereotypes, but the director wasn’t having any of it.

so yeah, those are my thoughts. the movie is still insane though i rly love it. but a lad can dream about what could’ve been, yeah?

[huffle-dork]

Glitch into the Hufflverse Chapter 12: Curiousity Killed the Cat

Read Swapboys | Read Crystal’s AUs | Read CKTC | Read The Magnificent Series | Read Glitched Mind

Read SITCV | Read SATCV | GITHV Masterpost

The 5 of them fall into a well decorated dark parlor- shelves of the wall lined with trinkets and crystal balls and big heavy tomes. There’s a sitting area made of plush chairs and ornate tables. It almost looks like the place you get your fortune read. But they aren’t alone.

Before them stands a tan skinned man in a pinkish shirt and vest, black hair slicked back and red eyes. He’s holding an ornate crystal ball scepter in his hand, the end held by what looks like dragon’s claws. He’s dressed like a magician almost.

And next to him… floating and glitching ever so slightly, is a brown haired man in all black. His neck is slit, dripping blood. He has black sclera with green and blue glowing irises. Both him and the red clad man blink at them in confusion. Then, the glitch that shares Alt’s face gives them a wide fanged grin.

“Well- isn’t this i̵n̵t̴e̴r̶e̴s̷t̸i̷n̴g̵?”

The other man makes a face, “…you all are dripping water on my carpet…”

Jackie scrambles to his feet first, looking at the glitching man with narrowed eyes. “…Anti.” It’s not a question. He knows for sure. This guy is the closest Anti to his that he’s seen yet. But—that grin. He’s seen smiles like that before, and he doesn’t like that this guy has one. It sends chills along his skin.

“Anti?” Schneep repeats. The static—the tone of voice—his instincts are immediately screaming danger. As he gets up, he reaches behind his back and grabs his scissors, keeping them hidden. Huh? Wait a second—these two in the room. There’s something strange about their souls. Something he can’t quite place.

JJ looks up in confusion. Where are they? Some sort of parlor? Looks like a magic place if he’s ever seen one. He looks down at himself and gasps as he sees that part of his chest is still glowing blue and translucent. It’s a bit more disturbing to him in human form, so he quickly takes off the bracelet and stuffs it in his pocket, reverting back to full human.

Alt gasps at seeing Anti’s face and glitches back, ripping his bracelet off so he appears back in his clothes, dry. He looks a bit scared at first-seeing that grin.

Bro hurries to his feet and takes off his bracelet- appearing back in his sleeveless super suit. He stands in front of the others and bares his teeth, glaring at the two men.

Anti laughs, grinning wide, “Ah so you all know me! Glad my reputation precedes me~”

“Anti- the hell is happening?” The other man says with a dry expression. “Was this your idea of a prank? Call me in for a discussion only to glitch in your other figments soaking wet and… the hell is wrong with them?”

“Nope, Smokey-“

“I really wish you wouldn’t call me that-“

“Don’t know what the fuck is going on but I wanna find out!” Anti laughs and glitches to be on front of everyone, floating in the air like someone lounging on a bed, hands tucked under his chin. “You aren’t my egos- you’re all… messed up. Different universes I guess? Figures- Jack’s fans are never fucking satisfied are they?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Jackie mutters. “Figments? Egos? Jack’s fans?” He’s confused as all hell, but seeing the others take off their bracelets and get their clothes back, he does the same. Once his hoodie reappears on him he checks the pocket—yep, somehow his staff is still inside. He’s not going to question it. His gaze darts around, counting the exits.

"ohhh you don't know do you~?" Anti grins even bigger, "Oh... that'll make this so much more fun~"

JJ frowns. Messed up? That’s not very kind, is it? Jackie nudges him. He gets the feeling this Anti doesn’t care about kindness.

Anti laughs at JJ and shakes his head, "I'm just saying the truth! You all are all mixed up from how you're supposed to be."

Schneep pulls off his bracelet as well, even appearing back in his sweater… but not his coat- weird. “Who are you, then, if this is Anti?” He asks, turning to the stranger in the room. “Some sort of… magician?” He’s only vaguely guessing based on the power he senses in the man’s soul.

The other man scoffs and then bows to the others, "The name is Phantom, gentleman. Pleasure to meet you all~"

“Phantom…?” Jackie repeats, eyes narrowing. He’s heard that name before. His Jameson once mentioned him as an old friend who lives in America. And he doesn’t trust anyone who his Jameson would refer to that way.

Phantom then straightens and rotates his staff in-between his fingers. "Well Anti... I am quite disappointed our discussion was interrupted but I have a feeling a deal with me is uh- not the thing on your mind now."

Anti grins more and glitches around to look at everyone, invading their space and studying them. He tries to lift up Alt's arm and Alt glitches back with wide eyes. "D-Don't touch me!" Anti's eyes widen and he laughs madly, "Ohhh you're like me~?"

JJ steps in front of Alt, blocking him off from Anti. A blue shield flickers into place. He glances around the room. Time to go, I think!

“Probably for the best!” Schneep agrees. “Door?”

“This way!” Jackie grabs Schneep and heads for the room’s door.

Anti blinks in surprise at Jameson’s magic but then grins wide and laughs, “oh not so fast! You fucks ain’t going nowhere~!” He snaps and a red null sign appears in front of the door in a glitch and sends those going for it flying back. “We need to get to know each other, gentlemen~! I’m so curious about your stories!”

Alt is panicking a bit, staring at Anti with wide eyes. The way this guy is talking is freaking him the fuck out-

"What the fuck?!" Jackie shouts, getting back to his feet quickly. He pulls out the staff, quickly snapping it to its full length. "Let us go you bitch!"

Schneep gets up and walks towards the door, feeling out what's blocked it.

“Anti, please don’t destroy my shop.” Phantom sighs. Behind the two of them seems to be a curtained off area, presumably towards the back of the shop.

Bro tries to stand in front of the others and gets into a fighting stance, eyes glowing blue silver. “Fuck off, bitch! We don’t want to be around a fucker like you!”

JJ's head also snaps to the door. Shit! There has to be some other way out of here! He rushes for the curtained area, gesturing for the others to follow him.

Alt grabs Bro and quickly glitches after JJ. Bro shouts as he's pulled but starts to run with them. Jackie pulls Schneep after the others.

"Hey! That area is off limits!" Phantom shouts.

The area behind the curtain is definitely a backroom area- not nearly as decorated and full of cleaning supplies and a private room of sorts. Tons of doors line the hallway and a fire exit is near the back.

JJ’s head turns on a swivel. There! He points to the fire exit. The group runs towards it.

"Don't just yell at them, demon bitch!" Anti laughs, "Help me out! Don't tell me you're not curious too~”

Phantom is silent for a moment before he sighs and then whips out his cane. Red smoke starts to dart after the boys, filling up the hallway as they run.

As the smoke curls around them, a sultry song-like voice whispers in their ears that they should stay. What are you afraid of, gentleman? Let's stay and chat~ you're jumping to conclusions a bit fast aren't you?

JJ coughs in surprise, trying to cover his mouth with his shirt. But as he hears the voice, he slows a bit. Maybe… maybe they’re wrong? This is a different world. They shouldn’t make assumptions.

Jackie also slows. He glances back towards Anti and Phantom. Is this a mistake? After all, his own Anti acts scary a lot. He shouldn’t judge this one on being a little creepy. And did he really hear Jameson mention Phantom, or is he making that up?

“What the fuck are you all doing?!” Schneep shouts as he feels everyone slow and stop. “The man sending weird smoke everywhere is not someone to listen to!” He can feel that smoke against his skin. It reminds him of that SCLERA place. He pushes Jackie, trying to get him to move again.

Alt and Bro slow and Bro blinks sleepily against the smoke, a red glint appearing in his eyes as he stops. "..m-maybe we're assuming too much..."

Alt grip at his head, trying to blink back the smoke. "..s-something's not right here..."

“Are you all fucking insane?!” Schneep shouts as he hears Alt and Bro say that shit. “Yes something is not right—he’s probably fucking drugging us again!” He surges to the front of the group, grabbing Bro and Alt and trying to pull them towards the exit.

Anti glitches over and floats about the others, giggling. "C'mon gents! Don't be lil bitches- I Just wanna chat~! Like- learn where you're frommm and why you're the way you areee? That wont be so bad, right?"

JJ looks back at Anti, tilting his head, frowning vaguely. He doesn’t like the way he’s saying it, but… maybe he’s right, maybe talking wouldn’t be so bad?

“Don’t call me a bitch,” Jackie mumbles, shaking his head dazedly. Why does he feel so odd?

Phantom walks out to block the others from leaving, watching them curiously.

Schneep glares in Phantom’s direction. He pulls out his scissors. “Get the fuck out of the way or I swear I will cut you out of the way!”

Phantom giggles and pushes the scissors back with his cane. "Is that so? You don't scare me, Henrik... don't know where this surge of courage came from, but I'm sure it's short-lived."

"Nah Nah Phan- they look like ours but they're not at all! I feel it- outside creators’ spheres here. Completely different creators actually-" He flips on his stomach in the air and grins hungrily. "Which makes them even more fascinating. If you don't mind actually Phantom. I think I'll keep them all~ or... maybe just the weird Henrik and- bizzaro me. Coward me-"

"Hey! Lay off of him!" Bro growls, snapping a bit out of the smoke.

"The fuck are you talking about?" Jackie mutters, a sort of dreadful curiosity filling his chest. "Creators? Like—what, God? Is God real in this universe?"

Phantom chuckles, "I am interested in the magic I feel here... maybe I could take the Jameson?" The smoke seems to wrap around JJ, like a gentle tendril caressing him around the shoulders. "Don't that sound fun, Jameson~?"

JJ shivers slightly, waving a hand through the smoke. Anxiety shoots through his heart, briefly shaking him out of this, and he conjures up a faint shield, like brittle ice.

Schneep is starting to panic. He's not sure what's happening but he can tell that this is a bad situation they're caught in. And so, he acts desperately—throwing his scissors right at this Phantom.

Phantom yells and grips at his shoulder as the scissors sink in. He staggers back against the door.

"Alright! That settles it! I like your spunk~!" Anti giggles and goes to grab Schneep by the wrist. "Yer coming with me~"

Glitches start to build up around him and Alt notices this and yells out, "NO!" And glitches over to try to catch them- then the 3 of them disappear in a flurry of glitches.

“ALT!” Bro yells, trying to reach them, but he’s not fast enough. Phantom giggles and Bro glares over at him. Fuck… they took Schneep and his brother!

JJ staggers back, shocked at everything that just happened, staring at the spot where they all disappeared.

Jackie cries out. He lunges for Anti and Schneep as well, but he's too slow. He staggers to a stop. Panic has broken through the soft haze of the smoke and he spins to Phantom, eyes alight. "You—you're working with this Anti, aren't you?" His grip tightens on his staff and he lunges forward, grabbing Phantom by the shirt. "Where did they go? Where did he take them?!"

Phantom holds up his hands and grins, "Oh me? No. We were supposed to have a civil discussion about a possible alliance- but then you all showed up. So... I have no idea where they went or what he wants to do with them. He's far more... chaotic then I am." His expression falls to something more neutral and cold as he cocks his head at Jackie, his eyes glowing red. "So, Jackieboy. I suggest you let me go unless you want me to erase that tiny brain of yours."

Jackie growls, but lets go. He doesn't know if Phantom is telling the truth, but he believes the threat, and isn't too keen on getting his mind fucked again.

We must find them! JJ says. There has to be a way to track them down somehow— Then he suddenly gasps and hits his forehead. I know tracking spells! I could have tracked them down in the previous world! Stupid, stupid! He shakes his head. But my best tracking spells need something of the person's.

Jackie glances back at Phantom. "I mean—Schneep did just throw his scissors at him."

“Oh- so you’re a proper magician are you, Mr. Jackson?” Phantom practically purrs, stalking closer. “If you all are so desperate to find your friends… I can be of assistance.”

"Noooononono, we're not that desperate," Jackie says, standing in front of JJ protectively. "I know your type. We are never gonna be that desperate."

“W-We still have Schneep’s coat dont we?” Bro says quietly.

JJ opens up the bag hanging from his shoulder, looking inside. He nods, pulling out a lump of wet, black fabric and then quickly putting it back. His cape is in there, too, but the coat is more important. He whispers the command under his voice, eyes glowing blue. A whispy trail of blue magic appears.

“Come now Jackie let’s be reasonable…” Phantom coos. The smoke starts to curl around their feet again. “You all are in an unfamiliar place… clearly out of your depths. You need someone who understands what you’re dealing with… and I can be that.”

Bro tries to grab onto Jackie and JJ and pull them back, towards the front parlor again.

JJ’s spell seems to work for a second… but then it glitches and disappears before it can get too far. They might not be in a place that’s detectable.

Jameson's eyes widen. Jackie notices the trail disappear. "That's not good, is it?" he mutters.

No, JJ says. The last time tracking spells didn't work, the person I was looking for was in a strange pocket dimension.

"Well... fuck. I hope that's not the case now." Jackie frowns. He looks back at Phantom, acknowledging his words. "Uh—no. Fuck off, and no." He lets Bro pull him back towards the parlor. JJ does as well. Jackie lowers his voice and whispers to Bro. "I think we should get out fast, he's probably not gonna like our reactions."

Bro nods, gripping a bit harder on JJ.

Phantom’s eyes narrow and he bares his teeth. “Fine. Then, we’ll do this the hard way.” He points his scepter at them and tries to wrap up JJ in his smoke- the red tendril becoming surprisingly solid.

JJ yelps as the smoke twists around him, feeling himself yanked forward. "JJ!" Jackie shouts, grabbing him and trying to pull him back with Bro's help. Bro grabs on too and together they try to fight against the pull of the smoke. And the hold snaps and JJ starts to fall back against his friends.

Phantom’s eyes light up with red and he blasts a big red cloud of smoke- so thick and powerful it separates the others away from each other, blasting Jackie and Bro away.

He then slinks towards JJ, going to grab his arms from behind and yank them down and he sings sweetly in his ear. “Now now Jameson… let’s talk… I’m not your enemy. I want to help you find your potential~! I can make you stronger than you’ve ever been before.” He brings his arm out and moves to touch his palm. JJ feels a surge of energy within him. The smoke sings siren songs in his ears. Phantom has the answers, the way to make him stronger. He just needs to listen…

“JJ!” Bro tries to shout through the smoke, trying to brush it away. Why is it hard to hear stuff now too? It’s like- strange music is filling his ears. “J-Jackie!”

JJ struggles against Phantom's hold--at first. But the longer the song plays, the more he starts to relax. Find his potential...? Make him stronger? Maybe... maybe if he was stronger, he'd be able to protect his friends better. Maybe... if he listened... Phantom really could help? His eyes glaze over a bit as he tilts his head, listening to what Phantom says.

"Jameson!" Jackie shouts, getting to his feet. "Jameson!" He rushes forward—this is just smoke, right?! He can get through it!

The smoke is easy to get through sure, but it keeps trying to force Jackie and Bro back, keeping them away. “Jameson!! D-Don’t listen!!” Bro cries out.

"F-fuck!" Jackie stumbles back. Is this smoke alive?! "Jameson! Jameson!"

“That’s it… good… I can help, Jameson… I can fulfill all your dreams… I can see them. You want to get home to your Marvin, don’t you? Just stick with me and we can get you home…” Phantom sings. A piece of paper unfurls in front of JJ and a feather pen appears next to it. The smoke whispers he should sign.

JJ starts to reach out... then hesitates. This--this doesn't feel right. There are faint alarm bells ringing in his mind, muffled, but there. He... shouldn't do this, should he? He... shouldn't... it's... hard to think through the fog... this fog. He doesn't like it. Yet his hand starts moving again against his will. No—no he doesn't want this! But the song is so sweet. So enticing.

But… there’s something else underneath the siren song. A… a feeling that is familiar but foreign all at once. A spark- something he can grab to help him get free. He’s not going to let himself be controlled anymore, right? This is his way to fight back. This burning hot ball of magic welling inside him- coming to his aid.

Yes--that magic. It's the only way out of this! He closes his eyes and reaches down for it, grabbing hold of that spark of magic and bringing it up to the surface—

A bolt of red magic shoots from his hands, tearing through the paper.

This momentarily wounds Phantom as he cries out in pain and lets Jameson go, falling to his knees. “W-What the hell?!”

The red bolt of magic shoots through the fog, nearly hitting Jackie and Bro and sails through the curtained area, crashing into a window in the front parlor. The smoke clears a bit- making it easier to see the shapes of JJ and Phantom in the smoke.

"Jameson!" Jackie shouts, trying to run forward again, reaching forward.

JJ looks towards the shout. Yes—they have to get out of here! And—and they have to make sure that this Phantom can't follow them. Maybe—maybe he can stop him. He has to stop him. As JJ rushes for Jackie and Bro through the smoke, he spins around and sends out a spray of red magic, sharp like shards of ice.

Phantom doesn’t even have the chance to get up before some of the ice shards shred into his arm and hand, making him crash to the floor.

Bro rushes forward to grab JJ and Jackie then rushes them towards the front parlor again- muttering to himself “gotta run run run run-!”

They burst through the now unblocked front entry and out in the street. And nearly run into two very familiar faces-

A green blue shield gets put in front of them to stop them from colliding. And the boys see a green haired man in a red jumpsuit with blue boots and gloves and a magician in a white cat mask, half his hair green and the rest of his long wavy brown hair pulled up into a ponytail.

“…what the fuck?!” The red clad hero gasps. The magician just stares with wide eyes, dumbfounded.

Jackie starts to shout in surprise, but the sound won't come out. What the—this man—he looks like him, but—this is the first version of him he'd seen who looks like—like a hero. The ground beneath him feels like it's tilting.

Bro gasps slightly at seeing them too- then looks briefly at Jackie.

JJ looks at the two of them with wide eyes. He glances back at the shop they'd come from, then back at these guys. Hi? he signs. Who are you?? He knows who they are. But still.

The hero blinks slowly- caught staring at his double and the magician coughs and then nudges him in the side. The hero straightens up, “oh uh- i'm Jackieboy Man! And this is is uh-“

“Marvin the Magnificent,” The magician smiles shyly. He drops his shield and looks at the lingering smoke coming from Phantom’s parlor. “Guessing you were about to be lured in by that bitch huh?”

JJ laughs drily and shakes his head. No, but he gave it his best shot.

“Y-Yeah we heard this crash on patrol and came to check it out! Course it was fucking Phantom again.” Jackieboy says, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. He then eyes the the others again and points between them. “…who’re you guys? Cuz… you look like… people we know.”

"R-right—of course we do," Jackie says. "Uh—yeah—w-we probably do. Uh. This is gonna sound insane. But—we probably... are you and your friends. But from another universe."

Jackieboy and Marvin’s eyes widen.

“…t-that’s insane.” Jackieboy stammers.

“…not entirely? I mean… I’ve read and heard theories but-“ Marvin tries to argue.

“Theories are different!! Theories are not standing here in front of us also looking like Jack!” Jackieboy screeches, pointing his hands at their direction. “H-How do you know that you’re not just… new egos Jack made that think you’re from another universe?”

“Jack can’t do that right now, Jackie!”

“Shush up! It makes more sense than whatever the hell is happening here!!”

“Uh… I’m very lost-“ Bro says.

"What the fuck do you mean egos?" Jackie asks. "That crazy Anti back there called us the same thing! And what does this have to do with Jack? What kind of weird fucking bullshit goes on with your world's Jack?"

Marvin stiffens a bit. “…A-Anti was here..?”

“Y-Yeah he took our friends away!” Bro says. “Dunno know why but- we need to find them!”

Would it help if we told you our names? JJ asks.

"Right, yeah." Jackie nods. "I'm Jackie. Jackie Parker. And this is Chase Brody and Jameson Jackson."

Bro waves a bit at his name.

Is your Jack okay? JJ asks, concerned.

Marvin and Jackieboy look even more freaked out at hearing their names.

Finally Marvin says, “L-Let’s get out of the open… then we can explain.”

"Explanations would be appreciated," Jackie mutters.

“Hideout?” Jackieboy asks.

Marvin shakes his head, “No we… let’s go to Chase’s office-“ he eyes Bro, “H-He’s gonna wanna see this… plus Anti won’t look there right away… hopefully.”

Let's go quickly, then, JJ says.

Marvin waves his hands in a quick motion and everyone glows green before disappearing in a wave of colored smoke.

=========

Alt and Schneep land on the dirty ground of a dingy room, floor and walls made of metal. TVs and monitors of all different sizes are stacked up in the corners, wires littering the ground in jumbled messes. Some of the TVs buzz with static but most are turned off. One monitor is actually hooked up to a computer- a computer at a desk playing videos of a YouTuber with a really loud yell and Irish accent. A green and black chair sits in front of it and a pair of headphones sits on the desk.

Anti just floats in the air, laughing, “Damn! That was a rush! Ha! Hadn’t had this much excitement in a while~!”

Alt shudders as he looks around the room- god… this reminds him of his old apartment…

Schneep gets to his feet carefully, taking note of all the wires on the ground. He hears static and the video playing—he turns towards the computer and frowns. Are those some of Jack's old videos? Is he a YouTuber in this world, too?

He quickly grabs his cane and starts feeling things out, mapping out the tripping hazards caused by the wires and the placement of the junk in the corners. This Anti probably isn't going to leave them alone for long, he has to get his bearings while he can. "Alt?" he calls. "Are you alright?"

“Y-Yeah I’m fine-“ Alt mutters, glitching to his feet.

Anti watches Schneep in amusement. “Wow Doc- you sure are taking being teleported to a pocket dimension in stride. Figured you’d be shitting your pants, considering you’re blind as a bat.”

Schneep rolls his eyes. "How crude of you," he mutters.

“Hey! leave him alone!” Alt shouts.

Anti grins and glitches to be in front of Alt, “Oh! Pussy me wants to speak up? Never thought I’d see someone with my face who’s such a fucking coward-“

“I-I’m not-“ Alt stammers, narrowing his eyes as they flash green.

“Couldn’t fool me, pipsqueak.”

"Alt, he is trying to get under your skin," Schneep says, grabbing onto Alt's arm. "Do not let him. We have to get out of here." He backs away again, searching for the door to this room. There has to be one. But—as he checks the fourth wall, he doesn't find any sign of one. No indent in the wall or difference of material. His eyes widen slightly. Is there—no door at all? Anti said this was a pocket dimension—it wouldn't need a door, or any entrance, would it? Fuck. Fuck.

Alt yelps a bit as he’s grabbed- letting Schneep lead him around. He seems to realize their problem at the same time. “…shit…”

Anti giggles and goes to sit down on the highest point of his TV pile. “You guys are so naive it’s almost adorable! If you want I could make you a place to run through. Like a couple of trapped rats~ mmmm I’ll save that as an option for if you bore me.”

“W-What do you want with us?” Alt growls.

“Well- didn’t wanna deal with you necessarily, pussy me-“

“My name is Alt!” Alt bites back. Anti repeats what he said in a mocking tone. Then- the lights in room change red and Anti appears in front of Alt and grabs him by the shirt. His eyes are pitch black with white pinpricks of light within. “I don’t get a flying fuck what you are, kid. You are nothing compared to me.”

Schneep shivers slightly. He's really not liking this Anti. He's bringing up bad memories—if he was a bit less smug and a bit more spiteful, he'd be just like the Anti he dealt with in his own world. But he can't show how much he's getting to him.

Alt trembles in Anti’s grip before there’s the sound of a snap and Alt is dropped. Then in a blink it’s like none of that happened. Except for Anti’s smug smirk. “Anyhoo- I wanted to see what managed to crack the doctor so much that he became a glitch. That takes a lot of fuckery~”

Schneep's eyes widen as he feels his stomach drop. "E-excuse me? I'm a what? I—I know that the jumping I do can be called glitching, but—I-I am not a 'glitch'. I am a human!"

Alt looks at Schneep with wide eyes too.

Anti shrugs. “So’s your buddy. Yer both glitches though. Either means you can glitch yourself or you’re a glitch from your world- something that has broken the boundaries that were set in place for you. You broke those, somehow, Schneeple. I wanna know how~”

"I—I-I—" Schneep shakes his head slowly. "Jack told me that there was—was something different with my soul since the—but—I-I don't know what... could have... caused it..." He trails off as a couple pieces fall into place. The Nightmare. The difference had appeared after he'd been rescued from the Nightmare pocket dimension. But—that still didn't explain how. Other souls had been trapped in that realm of fear before, surely if they all became glitches that would have been recorded somewhere. Why would he be different? His grip tightens on Alt's arm.

Anti grins, “I think you’re lying, Henrik. You have some inkling don’t you?” He giggles.

Alt goes to hold onto Schneep’s hand and pulls them back. “L-leave him alone…!”

"I-I—look, it would mean nothing to you," Schneep stammers out. "I don't know if I am right, a-and I don't know how it happened. All I know is that when I woke up, I could do things—though it took me time to figure out how." He squeezes Alt's hand. "Why do you even want to know? Just curiousity?" He narrows his eyes. "I do not believe that is all."

Anti laughs and shakes his head, “Curiosity, sure that’s a factor. But, you got that keen mind that my Schneep has it seems~!” He glitches in front of Schneep and Alt, grinning from ear to ear. Alt tries to push Schneep behind him. “I’ve had this… experiment I’ve tried. Didn’t really pan out that well. But- I’m wondering how’d well it will work if someone was already a glitch.”

Schneep, in turn, tries pushing Alt behind him the moment he hears the world experiment. "What have you done?" he mutters. "What are you planning to do?" He pulls out his scissors again—a new pair, unstained by blood. He has to protect Alt. This Anti seems to be underestimating him, maybe Alt can strike back when he least expects it. But he can't do that if he gets hurt. Besides—Alt has already been through so much. Especially in the last world. He doesn't want him to get hurt further.

Alt shudders and does hide behind Schneep now, feeling like he can’t breathe.

Anti laughs madly, the static behind him on the screens increasing to a fever pitch. “I found a fun new way to make some puppets! Puppets who are just as sane as me~! Know how to have as much fun as me… have as much potential as me. Especially if they’re already breaking rules like you are, Henrik~”

"You do not seem all that sane to me," Schneep mutters, trying to hide his instinctual fear at the sound of the static. "And trust me, I would know. I've met someone just as mad as you are, though in a different way. He was not able to break me. I am not scared of you." He raises his scissors defensively. "Stay away from us."

“There’s only so much sanity you can have in a world like this… connected to the mind of the person who made you. Forbidden to leave- forbidden to change. Static to their whims.” Anti giggles. “So- I make my fun where I can~!” He only gets closer, grabbing the scissors and holding them against his neck wound. “I don’t want you to be scared of me, Schneep~! I want you to join me.”

Schneeps eyes widen slightly. What is he—

He yanks the scissors from Schneep’s grip then tries to slash at his arm.

And then Anti moves, fast, impossibly fast, and Schneep shrieks as the blades of his own weapon slash across his arm. He staggers backwards, other arm extended protectively over Alt as his other one bends, pressed close to his chest. "Y-you really are insane!" he gasps out. "I will never join you!" He backs up, pushing Alt back. "Is there somewhere you can glitch to safety?" he whispers to him.

Alt trembles, knowing he’s not the target but feeling his heart pumping fast in panic. He tries to concentrate and then gasps out to Schneep, “I-I can’t… I can’t glitch out of this room- I-I’m cut off!”

Anti laughs madly and tries to grab Schneep to drag him away. “Your bond is cute and all but let’s get to the main event!”

As soon as Anti grabs onto him, Schneep spins around and whacks him in the side of the head with his cane. "Get your fucking hands off me!"

“Ow! Jesus Christ! what are you, an old man?!” Anti grumbles.

“S-Schneep see if you can get out of here!” Alt calls.

“Oh no you don’t-!” Anti bites as he tries to grab Schneep again.

Schneep's body starts to fizzle with its strange slashing glitches—but Anti moves fast, holding onto him and breaking Schneep's concentration. Schneep yelps and immediately starts to struggle, putting all his effort into the fight, kicking and headbutting wildly.

“Just calm down Henrik… it’s all gonna be okay~” Anti says- ignoring the kicking and dodging his head. But, he does make Anti wince slightly. He grabs the arm that he slashed through and digs his claws in, pushing his glitches into Schneep’s skin through the opening. It feels awful- painful and burning and invading every inch of his body. Usually Anti eases his victims into this with hypnosis but hard to do that with a blind guy. Would his power give him sight back? Hm… he’s so curious to find out.

Schneep screams—he can't help it, it hurts, agony like fire in his bloodstream.

“Henrik!” Alt screams as Schneep does, wanting to run and help but Anti shoots out a hand and sends him flying back before he can. Alt knocks into a couple monitors in an electric heap.

The glitches are swarming across Schneep’s skin, rising up his neck and gathering around his mind. Sinking in and starting to rewrite things. He wants to fight for Anti- he wants to cause pain and destruction and chaos. He’s spent so long being the victim- now he’ll make others suffer the way he has. It’s only fair- it’s what he’s hungry for.

"N-no!" Schneep gasps out. "N-nein, Ich werde nicht—" He shakes his head, trying to fight back the violent impulses. But--isn't it right? Isn't there something fun about hacking and slashing indiscriminately? Doesn't part of him want that? "No!" he shrieks. "Let me—L-let—L-lass mich gehen! Bitte!" His eyes dart around randomly as he struggles, irises going back and forth.

He's been hurt so much, wouldn't it be good to be on the other side for once? Wouldn't it be exciting? Wouldn't it be what he craves? He shakes slightly, trying to remind himself that this isn't right at all—he doesn't want to be—to be—what doesn't he want to be? He can't—remember—The bloodlust is almost overwhelming, the need for destruction and chaos. A strange, mad laugh escapes his throat, but he screams and tries to push it back down. "R-run," he gasps out. "Run, run, r—" Another laugh, the scleras of his eyes turning black and then filling in with static. The white noise—it's in his blood—and it feels good. Like lightning in his veins.

Anti laughs and let’s go of Schneep, letting him fall to the ground. “How you feeling, Hen~?” He grins, kneeling down next to him. “Ready to go a little crazy?”

Schneep twitches on the floor. He laughs again, a strange, unhinged sound that doesn't sound right coming out of his mouth. He pushes himself up, arms trembling slightly. The scleras of his eyes are all static, occasionally fuzzing into his glowing turquoise irises. Black lines and bars fizzle around him. "Y-yes," he breathes. "Y-yes, I want to—I-I want to—" Another laugh. He's not looking directly at Anti, darting eyes still unseeing. But he reaches a hand out and the air sharpens for a moment, like the second before lightning strikes, and the electricity bounces off the surroundings, giving him a perfect awareness of where everything is.

“Woah!” Anti glitches back as the electricity bounces around but then he grins. “Ain’t that handy?”

Alt staggers and pushes himself up and then gasps as he sees Schneep, “H-Hen…?” He whispers in fear, trembling so hard it’s hard to get back to his feet. “W-what did you do to him?!”

Anti just laughs, “I got him on my side! Now he’ll wanna have some fun, right, Schneep? Why don’t you show pussy me just how much you can have?”

“S-Schneep d-don’t-!” Alt voice cracks, “Y-you gotta wake up! You gotta fight this!”

Schneep gets to his feet, staggering a little, giggling. "Of c-course Anti," he says. And suddenly he leaps over to Alt, stopping right in front of him. He grabs onto Alt's upper arms, nails digging into his skin. "C-come on, Alt. L-let's have f-fun together." He grins manically and tries to shove him to the ground.

Alt yells out in surprise and doesn’t even think to glitch away before he’s shoved to the ground. He grits his teeth and glitches back up, staring Schneep down. “I-I don’t want to fight you, Schneep!

"B-but why not? That would be so great!" Schneep laughs. He grabs his scissors again and lunges forward, slashing with the blades open.

Alt yelps as he tries to dodge and gets cut across his cheek. He stumbles back and holds it, glitching in distress. “Because you’re my friend! A-And this isn’t you!”

"I think th-this is more me th-than anything!" Schneep laughs. He leaps forward again, grabbing onto one of Alt's arms. "C-cannot friends fight each other sometimes? I-it's not as f-fun if you do not f-fight back." He grins and slashes again.

Alt struggles as he’s grabbed, “H-Henrik stop!” He just manages to glitch out of the way of the next slash and growls out, “I’m not gonna fight my blind friend! I don’t wanna hurt you!”

“Mmm love the drama here~” Anti giggles, sitting back on top of his TV perch. “You gonna let him look down on you like that, Schneeple?”

"I am worthy of a fight!" Schneep says, the smile fading from his face for the first time. "Y-you said that before—both of you, wh-when you came to my home. Do you not remember? H-here, I can remind you!" He leaps closer, aiming to tackle Alt to the ground.

“No Schneep that’s not what I-!” Alt tries to stammer out before he’s tackled painfully to the floor. He growls and his eyes spark with magic as he bites out. “Fine! Y-You wanna fight so bad? I’ll knock some fucking sense into you!” He tries to grab Schneep’s arm so he can shock him.

Schneep tenses, feeling the energy gather beneath Alt's skin—and then he leaps back again, out of Alt's reach. He laughs. "Yes! Yes! Do it! T-together!" He leaps forward again, driving the point of the scissors down.

Alt quickly tries to glitch up to his feet and tries to hold out a hand to make a shield but Schneep is too fast and stabs into his hand. Alt screams out and glitches away, clutching his hand. He bares his teeth in rage and then twitches his head to the right- causing some of the CRV TVs in Anti’s pile to get caught in his magic and then sail to throw Schneep off balance in a flurry of parts.

Schneep manages—incredibly—to dodge a couple of the screens but then one hits him square in the stomach, knocking the breath out of him and pushing him to the ground. He's stunned for a moment, and then laughs, pushing the TV to the side. "Exzellent!" he shouts. He picks up one of the loose wires from the floor and leaps behind Alt, pulling the wire around his neck from behind.

Alt doesn’t expect Schneep to get back up so quickly after that- so he doesn’t even see the wire coming until it’s around his neck. Then, he panics. Grabbing at the wire as his past flashes before his eyes- those thugs- the rope- the metal bar. The feeling of his neck being sliced open as he glitched for the first time. He chokes and scrambles to try to pull the wire away, eyes blown wide in fear.

Schneep laughs... but that laugher slowly fades. He can't see Alt's face, but he can feel the desperation in his movements. Desperation beyond just the struggle. Wait. No, this... isn't how he expected this to go. His grip on the wire loosens, allowing Alt to breathe. "A-Alt...?" he whispers.

Alt gasps for breath and then shoves his way away as best he can before he falls to his knees, trembling too much to keep upright. He lost his mask to the last world- so now he holds a hand over his neck scar and heaves in fear, hardly able to breathe.

Anti is quiet, watching this with muted interest.

"...Alt?" Schneep says again. He crouches down next to him, concern breaking through the static-filled eyes. "It... a-are you not... Wh-what happened? Is... things... fine?"

For a long beat Alt can’t look at Schneep, he can’t do anything but try his best to breathe. Eventually, He chokes on a quiet sob. “…m-my neck- d-don’t… don’t do that a-again… please-“

"O...okay..." Schneep whispers. "I-I am... s-sorry." He backs away slowly. "This... this i-isn't f-fun anymore. I... n-not like... th-that..."

Anti glitches back down, expression neutral. “…you still care about this one, huh?” He asks Schneep.

Schneep turns towards Anti again and blinks in surprise. "I-I-I... it's not..." For some reason, he feels a bit wary. Why? This is out of nowhere, isn't it? "It... is not... l-like that. I... just..." His eyes instinctively flick back in Alt's direction, though he remains facing Anti.

Alt shudders and tries to scoot away from the both of them, unable to stop his shaking, even as everything in him tells him to stop. Stop and run, stop and fight. But he can’t.

“Nah nah I hear it in your voice. Interesting…” Anti muses. He lashes out and grabs Alt by the neck and the smaller glitch gasps and struggles to pry himself free. “Hm… I can probably use this… but how..?” He grins at Alt, “Should I use you to keep ol’ Schneep in line? Seems like he doesn’t want you getting too hurt.” Alt just rasps out a terrified squeak as he desperately kicks and claws at Anti’s hand.

Schneep cries out. He reaches forward--but for some reason, can't get too close to Anti. "N-no, A-Anti, you d-do not need to hurt him, I—I-I don't understand—This—this isn't f-fun--"

“Relax Schneep. I’ll make this fun again~!” Anti giggles, “I’m just making sure we can all go on our fun adventure together~!” He then brings Alt to his face and growls low, “Without you getting in m̷͉̅y̵̹̍ ̴̲̄ẃ̴͚ä̵͚y.”Alt tries to speak but Anti grabs his hand- the one with the scissor wound and plunges his fingers in there. Alt screams-

The electronics in the room start to fizzle and flicker as Anti laughs and dissolves into static and pixels. Alt falls to his knees, retching as blood falls from one of his eyes and his glitches become darker and more red. He coughs up blackish blood as the sclera on his right eye turns black. He shakily feels the scar on his neck spilt open like it’s a fresh wound. At first Alt is still panicking, not sure what to do or how to act and then-

His panic stops. His breathing evens- the electronics stop flaring. And Alt giggles. He shakily pushes himself up and trips over himself slightly before wiping the blood off his face and smirking. “Heh… now we can have some f̶̔̽ṵ̸̌n̴̫͠.”

Schneep staggers back at first, watching, his newfound joy for chaos warring with his concern for Alt. He half-reaches out, but doesn't move beyond that.

But then Alt gets up again. And—it's Anti, too. He can sense their souls, one on top of the other. He blinks... then grins. "W-we can have some fun?" He laughs, the static in his eyes eating at the edge of his irises. "W-we can go have some fun? Oh yes, yes! C-can we go now? Can we go now, A-Anti?" He laughs again. They're both going to love this, he just knows it!

Alt laughs a bit more and looks down at his hands. He seems a bit unstable, "Oof- gotta get used to being more physical... jesus he really is human, huh?" Then he grins at Schneep and giggles, "Yes, Schneeple~ Let's go find your other friends and have some more fun, hm?" He goes to grab Schneep and with a snap of his fingers- the two of them disappear in a flurry of glitches.

[meimi-haneoka]

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Chapter 66: Comments + JP-ENG translation differences

Dear CCS fans, welcome back to our appointment with insanity after two months of withdrawal 😂😂 How are you? Last time we gathered here to comment chapter 65, I said that was the first chapter of the future volume 14, but lo and behold, it wasn’t true!! 😂 Yep, because a couple of weeks later Kodansha revealed the cover and details of volume 13, and we found out it’ll be bigger than the other volumes: 192 pages instead of 160, giving it room to print chapter 65 in that same volume. Therefore, the one that will open the future volume 14 will be the chapter we will analyze today, chapter 66! Unexpectedly, this chapter made me laugh a lot! More for some personal ideas than anything else, but I wasn’t expecting that 😂 This time around there are some clarifications to be made about a particular scene (I think it is a misunderstanding, OF COURSE, at the expense of Kaito). And some other things to point out. But before doing that, let me put the Gif of the Month here. This is literally what I will think about everytime I will see Yelan, from now on:

The Color page

Mermaid Sakura!! ...Or so the JP text says on the color page 😂 Very pretty as usual, with all those pearls it reminded me a bit of Akiho’s dress….but it doesn’t give me the feeling of the color page opening a last volume of a series. Compare it with the color page that opened volume 12 of the old series….it was a color page that indicated clearly where the story was going and what would be the climax of the series. This one seems quite....generic? Pretty, yes, but not very worthy as the introduction to a last volume. Should we infer that volume 14 won’t be the last one just by this? It’s probably too soon to say, but….seeing the pacing of this chapter, I’m almost tempted to say that it won’t be.

The Red Queen’s Castle

We left our Cat and Alice (I’ll call them that, since calling them with the name of the corresponding characters wouldn’t sound too correct right now, cause it really seems like I was right last time: our Sakura went with someone who’s not Syaoran) flying on the back of the Shade Card (shaped after the Jabberwocky), and they finally reach what will probably be their final destination? The Red Queen’s Castle.

And let me tell you, the art for the castle is really impressive, I absolutely loved it. Featuring those same clocks that appeared in the play, the gear decorations, the roses and the thorns….but most importantly, the black and white duality, that will be a constant throughout the castle. Despite not remembering who she really is, Alice is very observant and makes questions: she notices the castle and surroundings are made of iron and stone, but the part underneath is made of crystal. She asks why, but the Cat makes a pensive face and doesn’t reply. They land, Shade gets dispelled, and here’s the page that probably gave me the most creeps in this chapter… Alice looks at the Cat, quite intimidated, and the stare he gives back…..yeah it probably gave the chills to more than one of you, right? 😅He seems...quite displeased….maybe because of the questions she made? Alice does seem to not trust this Cat completely… The Cat, probably realizing that, fine-tunes his behavior and welcomes officially Alice to the Red Queen’s castle, telling her that she’s waiting for her.

Spartan Methods

Somewhere else, two people we haven’t been seeing since long time open a conversation through a magic portal: it’s our favorite megane magician Eriol and our favorite mother in law Yelan!! 😂 I’d daresay it’s the “club of the excluded” 😂 Let me say that Yelan is gorgeous in this chapter, more than usual!! And so they waste no time: Eriol reveals that the infamous “no-touch” spell, the one that caused a shock to Syaoran everytime he tried to touch Sakura, was casted on the little wolf by none other than his own mother!! Now, please, as a Kaito fan, let me for one moment breathe this moment of freedom, cause this stuff of the no-touch spell has been going on ever since chapter 36, thirty chapters ago, and for the whole duration of it I kept seeing comments like “It was probably Kaito’s doing”, despite Syaoran ascertaining almost immediately that it wasn’t him. 😅Now that we know it was Yelan’s doing, hopefully I’ll stop seeing those comments around 😂 And, of course, hopefully that means that Sakura and Syaoran will be able to touch from now on. But why our Suegra (how the Spanish speaking fandom affectionately calls her!!) had to cast that spell? She explains it herself: she saw in a water divination (note: the ENG translation talks about a “dowsing” – I’m not too familiar with this term but my English speaking friends told me that it’s not entirely expressing the “water divination” connotation, hence why I specified it here. Water divination is, after all, Yelan’s specialty) that in the near future her son would’ve needed to discern a real Sakura from one that wasn’t her. Yelan knew it would’ve been impossible to distinguish with the mere eyesight and such. And here I have to point out something: the ENG translation makes it sound like this event will happen in the near future from now on, but no, she was actually referring to the time when she made the divination - the event in the end arrived, in the form of Syaoran realizing the one he rescued wasn’t Sakura but Mirror. Eriol lowkey calls her out, pointing out that causing a shock when they touched might have been a bit over the top, but Yelan replies: “Sometimes it’s necessary to rely exclusively on your touch sense, rather than your ability to think”. And here Eriol says something that made me laugh so much and probably will for the rest of the month: “And doing all of that without even telling to your own son…. Just as rumored, you’re quite Sparta(n)”. It’s different from what the ENG translation made her say, but it isn’t a mistake, as the use of the word “Sparta” in Japanese can also refer to being “strict”, indeed 😂but now you do understand why I chose that Gif of The Month for this chapter?? Yelan answers that level is actually soft for her (my gosh, this woman is unhinged) (and yes, another little difference with the ENG, which makes it look like *Eriol* was being gentle with her), but Eriol is worried for the situation: a card has been stolen, and it’s actually being used by the magician (Kaito).

After checking just now the Spanish translation, that I always trust with confidence even and especially where my skills are lacking, I can confirm that my initial impression on the scene that I'm about to analyze was correct: we have a translation mistake, and also quite heavy cause in the ENG version it makes it look like they're throwing shade at Kaito (as usual), when actually they're talking about something different. I checked other languages too, and while each one gives their own interpretation, the Spanish one is the one that I trust more because it's the most accurate out there, so I will put here how we intended that scene: ENG: "No matter what magical trickery he used to wrest the Card from its true master...her powers must not be as mature as we reckoned"

JP: "It was a Card that was ripped from its true master with a magic technique (by Syaoran). So I guess he didn't manage to pass all her power to its full capacity (into the card)" Basically. They're not talking about Kaito at all, here. Yelan is explaining that since Mirror was a Card ripped from Sakura by force, she was in a weakened state because not all of Sakura's power was passed into it when Syaoran executed the magic spell. And this weakened power was what probably made possible for Kaito to have the upper hand over Mirror (since we've been told before that the Cards have enough powers to resist being taken away, yes, BUT WHEN THEY'RE WITH SAKURA). Why am I sure this is the right interpretation? Because Kaito never took Mirror away directly from Sakura. It was Syaoran who did. And in fact, in this panel, we can see Sakura and Syaoran together. They're talking about them, not Kaito. And Yelan, as the strict mother she is, is giving responsability for what happened to who casted the magic technique, that is, her son Syaoran. Is it clearer now?

Eriol wonders how it’s possible that Yuna D. Kaito is always one step ahead of them. Yelan is sure he doesn’t have the power to see the future….but while everyone is racking their brains, here comes the other big excluded from the games: Kaho, who suggests that Kaito might be rewinding time repeatedly to fix stuff that didn’t go as he wanted. Yelan, with a worried expression, quickly points out that if he keeps doing that, his life will get definitely shaved off. Another reminder, if we needed any, that what Kaito is doing does have consequences on him. While Eriol and Yelan talk about this, we can see an image of Kaito in his Association attire “shattering away”. It’s a nice reminder that all these people know about Kaito are excerpts from his life at his ex-Association. They don't know anything of the current Kaito. Then, the question that even stones at this point are making themselves: what does he want to obtain? Why going that far? The group, alas, doesn’t know. (And this shatters my idea that maybe Eriol did understand about Akiho’s situation in those reports from the Association). But whatever it is, “it has already started”, as Eriol says. And here I want to point out a little clarification on who Eriol is precisely talking about in the next line: the JP text actually says

JP: “We can’t really do anything from here, just have faith in those two”

As you can see, the ENG mentions “the children”, and this could be mistaken as including a bit of the whole cast of children in Clear Card, but Eriol here is specifically referring to Sakura and Syaoran.

I know, I know it might seem like Eriol is conveniently retiring from the games (😂), but I actually think here he’s got enough trust in the capabilities and good heart of Sakura and Syaoran. I say “good heart” because I still believe Eriol got an inkling of what’s necessary to stop Kaito, as he hinted in the short story n. 4. And let’s not forget that the Clockland where Sakura and Akiho are in right now seems quite impenetrable. So even if he wanted, he wouldn't really be able to get access where they are right now.

BUUUT! Let’s go back to our Clockland indeed, because Alice and the Cat in the meantime reached the Gardens, and……

I Am The Red Queen

Yes, it’s *that* garden, my readers. The garden where Lilie sometimes met Kaito, but most importantly, the garden where Akiho met Kaito the first time. With the same arch of roses, fountain, rose bushes everywhere. I’ve always had the impression that was the garden of the villa where the Squid clan had its headquarters. Someone is sitting in the same spot Lilie, Akiho and Kaito himself used to sit on: it’s the Clear Card Promise, with the appearances of Yukito. Yukito greets Alice with a “good morning” but she rebuts that it’s night right now, so probably “good evening” would be more fitting. Yukito says that in this land the time doesn’t flow just in one direction, “ahead”. Sakura ponders what that means, and if the time speeds up or slows down, or even turns back….who decides for it? Yukito doesn’t answer, but smiles instead, in a very…..Kaito-like way. Alice, as we were saying, is very observant and she notices that the roses in that garden are all white, despite this being the Red Queen’s garden. How come? Weren’t they supposed to be red? And then, she says something peculiar:

JP: “This place….feels very important. To someone. Extremely important”

The Cat looks at her with a seemingly annoyed expression, and urges her to keep going. This, my readers, to me is the proof that behind the Cat that is accompanying our Alice/Sakura….there’s Kaito. Because yes, we already said it in last chapter, with that gazebo appearing out of nowhere, that the dream intertwined with this Clockland was probably Kaito’s. But here? This garden really screams “Kaito’s subconscious”, but even more so the Cat’s reaction to Sakura’s observation. Not answering. Changing subject. Trying to run away from an answer he isn’t ready to give yet. Yep, this Cat definitely behaves like him. The two proceed, but hey! Yukito isn’t done yet! In fact, he tells Alice (with Yue’s eyes, exactly like it happened when he released his kekkai some chapters ago) one last, important advice: “Don’t forget the promise you made”. But Alice’s answer is confused: “To whom?” Now, we probably all remember how the Promise Card was born in the first place; it was due to a promise that Sakura made together with Yukito that she would tell immediately to her brother, should Yukito end up hurt because of the contract he made with the Tsukimine Shrine. But you see….I think in this scene it’s not so important the content of the promise per se. I think the Promise itself is the real important thing, because the impression I have is that this Promise could prompt Sakura to remember about Yukito, and therefore helping her in remembering about her identity too.

Yukito gets covered by a transparent fabric (Lucid Card) and disappears. The Cat, once again, urges Alice to go forward. It almost seems as if the Cat….doesn’t want Alice to get distracted.

Passing through a big hallway (perfectly divided in black and white, like everything else in this castle), Alice poses another one of her questions to the Cat: she asks him if he ever met the Red Queen, and when he answers yes, she fires the next question: “what she’s like?” And how do you think our Cat replied to such a direct question? Yes, exactly, with another set of “…..” 😂 But it’s when Sakura asks “Does she resemble me?” that the Cat seems to be getting nervous...or irritated. Hm. That’s strange. She either touched a sensitive topic or the fact she made that question might have brought her one inch closer to destroy the spell she’s under, and the whole Clockland. The Cat, if he is who I think it is, of course won’t be happy about that.

And when the door to the Queen’s Room opens, it reveals another breathtaking scenery: water (a callback to the water in the color page? That’s why Sakura is a mermaid?), stairs (carefully divided in black and white), a pattern that seems precisely the one of Siege on the background, a rose and two people on the sides of the room: it’s Choice (with Touya’s appearance) and Kindness (with Fujitaka’s appearance.)

And on the background, there’s her.

The Red Queen introduces herself, still covered by that black veil, with a beautiful but sad expression. Akiho seems to have lost her sense of self too.

And waaaaah, this is how chapter 66 leaves us, with a big cliffhanger (as usual!) since reaching the Queen seemed the ultimate goal, and now in the next chapter we’ll probably begin to see what Kaito wants Sakura to do in this Clockland!!

A bit of random additional considerations on this chapter: as I had already stated in my post for chapter 64, when the play started, the characters of the play have all been featured with a different font than usual in the bubbles. They were playing a role, after all. If the character was talking outside the play (like, for example, Syaoran in previous chapter), that character would get a regular font. But the Sakura talking in the environment of the play (included *after* she crossed to the other side) and even the Syaoran who is accompanying her to the Red Queen right now, or the Red Queen herself, they all talk with a particular font. It might seem a little thing, but it’s actually VERY important to discern who’s *playing a role* and who is their genuine self. As I often said, Clear Card needs to be read on all its different levels, to be able to understand it fully in all its nuances.

I thought this might’ve been the first chapter of the very last volume of this sequel, but seeing the pace in which things happened in this chapter, I’m not so sure anymore. We’ll need to see the next one. And now, a quick reminder of the dates for the next chapter, chapter 67:

October 30th, on Bookwalker (digital, ENG) October 31st, on Clamp-fans and Comic-days (digital, JP and other languages) November 2nd, on Nakayoshi (paper and digital, JP)

As usual, I'll await for your questions and theories in my inbox! See you at the end of October!!

[tresenellaart]

The Big Life Update!

Um, hi everyone! Long time no see huh? In fact, it’s been a very, very long time. 5 years ago I nearly dropped off the face of the internet, and while some of you might have caught a glimpse of my work here and there, I've been almost completely offline and I've kept away from all social sites ever since.

Around 2017-2018, I found myself very lost artistically. I hit a hard wall where I wouldn’t know where to go next, what project to embark on. I had many ideas, but all of them seemed to evaporate into nothing the moment I sat down to flesh them out. I felt extremely apathetic creatively, eventually stopped uploading any art, and sank most of my time into gaming or mindlessly watching videos and streams. My partner at the time helped me gather the strength to look for a job, but without any formal education or previous jobs I could refer to, I tried my luck on Fiverr.

My experience on Fiverr was… mostly terrible. Being paid very little for a lot of hard work, and having to deal with some problematic clients and tight deadlines, really took a toll on me. My time there did send me on a path that I wouldn’t have expected though. I was contacted by a game dev to do a character design for a little wizard character. This person was quite pleased with my work, and continued to ask me for art for a second character, then some test animations… And soon I found myself handling all the art and music for the game, in what’s been my job for 5 years. The game is called Enchanted Portals, and it’ll be releasing later this year!

It’s been… a wild ride. The game’s very heavily inspired by Cuphead, with very similar art-style and gameplay. My boss, being an avid fan of the original, was very passionate about creating his own take on the genre, but maybe not surprisingly, the initial reaction to unveiling the first trailer was one of mass rejection and hate towards it. A useless ripoff! An inferior clone! I hope they get sued for this! Instead of the love letter from a fan that it actually is, it was mostly seen as a ploy from some greedy studio to make a quick buck. Didn’t help that the trailer reached a lot more people than we could’ve ever anticipated.

I can’t really call the game mine in any way, as I’ve mostly just been hired to make art and music assets for it, but the wave of hate was still quite overwhelming and soul-crushing for me. Is this all I’m gonna be known for now? Is this hate going to follow me forever? That creative black hole I had found myself in before, grew even bigger. I didn’t want to be public online again. I wanted to disappear. I couldn’t work on anything creative outside of my job anymore. I was burnt out, scared of the world, feeling completely defeated.

I was very fortunate to be contacted by a long time friend from my early DeviantArt days, someone that, despite my lengthy online disappearances, would make an effort to send me a message from time to time to catch up. We started talking very regularly, and she got me interested in a project she was part of, a fandub of the webcomic Rain by Jocelyn Samara D. (that I’m sure a lot of you know already). We toyed with the idea of upgrading the project into a full animated series, a pretty ambitious task since I’d be the only one animating, but my creative spark was immediately reignited. Working on Rain was such a joy, and a rekindling of everything I love about creating art. The project hit some serious bumps along the road, but it’s still going strong now, and while it’s been really slow working on it on top of my job, it’s been the best artistic experience I’ve had in a very long time. If you want to check it out, here’s the Rain: TAS Youtube channel! We just released a new short!

This long time friend has since become my girlfriend, and we’ve embarked on other wonderful projects together. If you want to check out some of our other stuff, we have a wonderful world of gay fae bugs in the making too!

Despite all of these exciting new personal projects I’ve embarked on recently, coming out of my bubble has still been a huge struggle. Posting on my own accounts, drawing new strips for my webcomic, uploading anything that's more personal, still fills me with fear and anxiety. I really want to get out of my comfort zone and start posting again, being more active online, reaching out to new people, sharing my art with others once more. I miss it all dearly. And I know people have been missing my art too, and some have even been seriously worried about my well-being. I sincerely apologize if I made any of you worry too much! ^^;

I hope this post is the first step in a long new creative journey for me. I’ll do my best to leave my shell, and to build myself and my art back up again. There’s so much wonderful stuff I want to do, and to show to the world! Stay tuned!

[5-7-9]

I realize i should probably elaborate on how We Are Robin was inspired by a legitimate movement.

So while researching interviews by We Are Robin’s writer Lee Bermejo, I tried checking for the ones that were straight from his words rather than articles that quoted him. So i almost missed this one article that was worded as though it was not an interview, but CBR quoted from USA Today so it must’ve been. If it weren’t for a DC comics forum that had already read it, i wouldn’t have noticed.

"Just with everything that we've seen happen recently with Ferguson, there's a lot of issues here that I think can be touched on and should be touched on."

"There's that element of this particular moment we're passing right now, and with a book like this you have a chance to comment about certain things and bring them into the Bat-universe in real interesting ways."

As a longtime fan of the Dark Knight and his supporting players, Bermejo admits that he always had a hard time figuring out why Batman would have a teen sidekick and put a kid in danger in the first place - for the writer, that was the beginning of how a series such as We Are Robin could work.

"Maybe there could possibly be many of these kids out there on the streets who have different talents and different capabilities that could be useful to Batman," says Bermejo.

"With ideas and big concepts, teenagers can get really passionate about that stuff and it can be their whole life. That was something interesting to me, that this thing could be bigger than just one guy jumping around in a domino mask."

(Just the first 3/three forum pages, I’m not reading all that 💀) Seems as though Bermejo wanted to make a commentary about Ferguson metaphorically through the Batman mythos. My interpretation of his message: the disenfranchised youth of America that have no one to help them (authority figures like parents and Batman) feel as though they must take justice matters into their own hands. Something Robin originally meant to represent, a child character for other children to project on. Bermejo thought to implement that literally into the story, where Robin is an actual symbol children use. In the case of real life, justice is done by protesting. But in the matters of DC comics, specifically Gotham? Their protesting comes in the form of vigilantism.

In the chapter where the We Are Robin kids try breaking up a random riot that kinda appears out from nowhere?

But when the Robins join in to stop the riot, they were suddenly framed by the Robot Batman cop as the aggressors (being controlled by Jim Gordon as he was temporarily “Batman”). Indiscriminating its force of authority onto the kids as well as the rioters.

This carries into the Riko’s POV chapter. After a WAR member died from a bomb, the television shows Troy’s parents being upset at the We Are Robin movement, claiming it “does more harm than good.”

Troy’s death is probably another comparisons to when 6 Ferguson protesters died. So his death seems to ask the question, is protesting worth it if it gets you killed? Are protesters making the situation of unjust violence worse? Riko answers: “I think… I think he was trying to do what he thought was right.”

If you aren’t aware of the Ferguson unrest, an 18 year old boy (Micheal Brown) was shot by a police officer after being accused of robbery. When nothing came about the police officer in question, many in the black community began protesting for about 400 days for the officer to be reprimanded. The media would often call it riots, with the negative connotations of unnecessary violence. This was apart of the Black Lives Matters movement of anti police brutality.

(here’s one video but i recommend doing your own research because i’m not great at keeping sources)

I’m sure you can see the similarities now. If not… essentially the We Are Robin is an allegory of the Ferguson protests. The vigilante kids are fighting crime, while the Ferguson protesters were the black community fighting injustice.

Robin War actually touches back on this Ferguson inspired media conflict, by having such an interestingly similar story involving a teenaged boy and a robber and a person dying from being shot 🤔

But here’s the twist: a We Are Robin member walks into a convenience store, he intervenes a police officer trying to stop a robbery, then, because this WAR member was a young probably “immature” teenager, accidentally shoots the police officer with his own gun.

Ha. Ha. 😐 Certainly not an insensitive plot to use at all (sarcasm)

(I should remind you all that Robin War was a piece of garbage mostly written by Tom King, and other writers like Tim Seeley and Scott Lobdell. i don't really need to explain everything wrong with these guys right now. Except for the parts Bermajo wrote, those were the best despite the surrounding shitty plot).

There’s also plenty of police imagery. See here an iconic picture of the Ferguson protest as a poster right smack down in the middle of a panel. Just in case you aren’t fully convinced about the Ferguson allegory… 🙃

Smack down in the centre of this panel has a iconic redrawing of a Ferguson protester (Edward Crawford) catching a tear gas canister thrown by the police, and throwing it right back at the riot cops faces 🖕☄️

So yes, We Are Robin was an activist movement.

[dynamite-derek]

Final Fantasy and Accepting the Warts of Age

Note: This is the first of a planned series on the Final Fantasy franchise. I plan on posting these on my own website, vidyathoughts.com but for now I will also crosspost here. I hope you enjoy!

A mixture of reality and fantasy

The origins of Final Fantasy are pretty well known. Hironobu Sakaguchi wanted to make a role playing game but the genre was not a proven commodity in Japan. Then Dragon Quest came out and changed everything. Dragon Quest would go on to become such a phenomenon that according to a Game Informer interview with current series producer Yu Miyake, following the release of Dragon Quest 3, Japanese police requested that Enix not release new Dragon Quest titles on weekdays because too many kids were skipping school in order to buy the game. Even before 3, Dragon Quest proved that the role playing genre could be successful in Japan and Sakaguchi was given the go ahead to start making his own RPG. So a team of seven individuals went on to make the first title in what would go on to be one of the biggest franchises in the world.

The cute version of the FF origin story that gets repeated time and time again is that Square was a company on the verge of financial ruin and the title was named “Final Fantasy” because it was the company’s last shot at success. If Final Fantasy were to be a failure, it would indeed be the final fantasy title Square would ever produce because the company would be out of business. This tale has likely been embellished because, well, it’s cute. Who doesn’t like a Cinderella story? 

“The name ‘Final Fantasy’ was a display of my feeling that if this didn’t sell, I was going to quit the games industry and go back to university. I’d have had to repeat a year, so I wouldn’t have had any friends – it really was a ‘final’ situation,” Sakaguchi said in an interview with MCV UK in 2007. But in an interview with Chris Kohler of Wired from 2009, series composer Nobuo Uematsu stated that: It’s true that Sakaguchi was going to quit, but the bigger reason, the real reason, was that Square was going to go bankrupt and the designers believed that it would be the company’s swan song.

And most recently, you have a keynote speech that Sakaguchi gave in 2015. Casey Baseel of Sora News translated what he had to say about the naming of the franchise like this: ”The team had already decided they wanted something that could be easily abbreviated using the Roman alphabet. They were also set on something that could be condensed into a four-syllable abbreviated version in Japanese, and FF (pronounced ‘efu efu’ in Japanese), fit both criteria. Given the genre the game fell into, making one of those Fs ‘fantasy’ was a no-brainer. But what about the other one? Actually, ‘Final’ wasn’t the team’s first choice – the initial idea was to call the game Fighting Fantasy. However, they had to nix that plan when they discovered there was already a board game called Fighting Fantasy, which was in turn based on a series of British gamebooks.”

Stuff of folktales. Would the fun origin story for Fighting Fantasy be like “Square realized they didn’t have a fighting chance unless this game succeeded. And it was a Fantasy title. So the title Fighting Fantasy was born.” I like to picture the warrior class as some sort of Paul Bunyon character with a chocobo as a blue ox. I think it’s fitting that a fantasy franchise has fantastical and exaggerated origins.

Personal failings

My first experience with the Final Fantasy franchise was with Final Fantasy VI (III in the U.S.) on the Super Nintendo. I was a poor kid who was coping with my lack of access to Final Fantasy VII by playing the next best thing my game rental store had. I tried to get into it but it was difficult because I knew the GREATEST GAME OF ALL TIME FOREVER was out there and I just couldn’t play it because I didn’t have a Playstation. Eventually though, I would get there and become a fan of it all. I loved moogles and I wanted more of them.

So like any person who discovers their new favorite franchise for the first time, I needed to experience every single game that it had to offer in some way. Even as a middle schooler, I was savvy with emulators. How else would I play Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension? So instead of being a responsible member of society and purchasing the easily available Final Fantasy Origins on Playstation 1, I instead downloaded NESticle and a rom of Final Fantasy and…boy was it not for me. I saw the heights the franchise would get to and this just didn’t compare. Where were the fancy summons? The card games? The story?

I feel like this is probably a very common experience when trying to play the old Final Fantasy games. The franchise wasn’t always about delivering a game and a story, it was at one point just a game with a story as scenery dressing. I would go on to play Final Fantasy I on the NES as an adult and was able to see the beauty in it, but I will never forget running into a brick wall the first time I played the game.

Actually playing the game

Final Fantasy I is a different experience from what I was used to. While it is turn based like those Playstation games, it feels like more of an adventure game than the later titles. The player will need to really explore the world they are in in order to find out where to go next. You have the basics of your journey: Everything is fucked and you need to restore the light of the four crystals in order to make things right. The four crystals are representative of the four elements (Earth, Air, Water and Fire) so your adventures will take you to those biomes far and wide across this massive – for the time – world.

The NPCs do give you hints about what to do next, but they don’t hit you over the head with it. There isn’t a line of dialogue that explicitly tells you that you need the rosetta stone from the sunken shrine in order to understand the people of Lufenia, which will then lead you to the tower of mirages, which will eventually get you into a fight with Tiamat. You have to talk to everyone and piece it together. You have to explore.

As you explore, you will be slammed with random encounters. Since you aren’t expected to know where to go on your first playthrough, a lot of your grinding might feel natural. Even still, when you first get to an area, you’re probably not gonna be able to waltz up to the boss and smack them down. In later Final Fantasies, I find that if you just don’t run away from fights, by the time you get to the boss of an area you will probably be well equipped enough to defeat them. This is not the case in Final Fantasy I. Grinding is a big part of the gameplay. The first time I played the original Final Fantasy, I waltzed over to the Chaos Shrine to fight Garland and got my ass handed to me because I didn’t spend enough time beating up goblins.

While a lot of people might look at grinding as cumbersome, I think it’s important to note that it was a big part of the gameplay. You weren’t playing for the story with this game, you were playing for the adventure and part of said adventure was fighting a lot of battles. It was also about keeping track of your inventory and using magic responsibly. Instead of magic points like later entries use, the original Final Fantasy uses magic charges. It’s a system much like you’d see in Dungeons & Dragons where you can only use your spells so many times until you rest to recharge them. Originally, there was no way to recover your magic outside of this. If you wasted all of your Fir3 (Firaga) charges on random enemies, that was it. You couldn’t use it again until you rested. Need it for a boss? Too bad. Go back and try again.

When your main gameplay loop involves fighting a lot of battles, your strength becomes more apparent as you play making progress feel really significant. Let’s say you just got done dealing with Mount Gulug and you head back to the first area of the game, Cornelia. When you get there, you’ll find that those goblins that you had to wail on in order to ensure Garland didn’t knock you down aren’t so bad anymore. Even your White Mage can probably one shot them! This isn’t an experience unique to this particular Final Fantasy, but when a lot of your random battles are won by the skin of your teeth it really does feel quite special here.

The battle system itself, primarily attributed to Akitoshi Kawazu (though I’ve also seen Hiroyuki Ito credited), is truly turn based. You can attack, use magic, use items or run. Barebones, but you can take as long as you want to select what you want your character to do, which might feel strange to series veterans more accustomed to the ATB system. I’ll get more into THAT system in the first game that uses it: Final Fantasy IV. The basics of FF1’s system would carry the first three games of the franchise, though some elements around the battle system get changed in those titles. In the first game, I would say the combat is fairly simplistic and the actual gameplay is more carried by things you do on the periphery like item conservation, but I think they expand things a bit in the next two games. This is a fine baseline.

Changing things up

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the screenshots I am providing for this game come from the Pixel Remaster. In this version of the game, they make things a little easier for the player. Shops sell ethers, you generally don’t need to spend as much time grinding and there is an NPC in Cornelia that specifically exists to tell you where to go. The Pixel Remaster tries to take this ancient title that middle school me rammed his head into fruitlessly and make it accessible to more people. It is nice in the sense that it will allow more people to play the first Final Fantasy, but is that really the same experience?

When I first started the Pixel Remaster, the very first thing I did was walk over to the chaos shrine to fight Garland. My head was going back to my middle school days where I was mercilessly killed by what a lot of people consider a joke boss. I didn’t do any grinding and I stepped in and…I just won. And in like five hits to boot. Not feeling confident before a boss? Just quicksave. Gone was that need to grind, instead it felt like I was playing the game on fast forward. Just like with later Final Fantasy titles, I would go from location to location and if I just didn’t run away, by the time I reached the boss, I would be well equipped enough to win. Sure, some of the crystal guardians (the four fiends) were tough battles that would feature one party member getting killed, but most of the time these fights would be uneventful.

Looking around to see if I was misremembering my experience with Final Fantasy I, I found a reddit post that said the remaster was made for people with jobs or had better things to do. In a sense, I agree, this game does get to the point a lot quicker…but is that really Final Fantasy I?

I think in order to get the true experience with the original Final Fantasy, you need to toss up that emulator – or NES classic, or NES or whatever you have at your disposal – and throw yourself at hordes of enemies. As I said earlier, the original Final Fantasy is not a game you play through for the story. If FF1 had a narrative as engrossing as Chrono Trigger but was locked behind this really hard to approach (in a modern sense) video game, I would say it’s necessary to ‘dumb it down’ so people can experience it. I don’t know if I see it that way with the Pixel Remaster though. Sure, you can beat the game this way and that’s great for people that just want to play every single Final Fantasy game and get on with their lives, but I don’t think you’re getting the authentic experience. The tedium that comes with random battles, the rage you might feel after finishing a dungeon only to die on your way out of it and the grind is every bit as much of what Final Fantasy is as the four crystals are.

Now that’s not to say I think all of the changes are ‘experience ruining.’ I think most people consider video games of yesteryear to be a little obtuse in order to sell strategy guides. That’s a slightly cynical way to look at it, but how the hell else were you supposed to figure out Casltevania 2? Were you supposed to just blindly bomb every single wall in Legend of Zelda in order to find a path through the dungeon or were you supposed to find a copy of Nintendo Power to very helpfully point you in the right direction? So quality of life features that don’t actually alter gameplay, like the hint giving dancer NPC and the remake offering a wide variety of maps, are fine by me. You’d have to pay a premium to see these in a strategy guide in the past, so I don’t think having easy access to that content is game ruining. You can also just ignore it! You can’t ignore not needing to grind though.

I also think this specific remake of the original Final Fantasy does one thing way better than some past remakes. It retains the magic charge system. Your level 8 flare (nuke) spell can only be used so many times and its usage is independent of your other magic spells. This makes it so if you want to have an authentic experience where you have to strategize your magic usage in dungeons, you still can. Having all your magic tied to the same magic points system changes things too drastically and I think most players could not forsake quality of life items to experience something closer to the original.

And visually, while I prefer the charm of the older sprites, I love that this remake does its best to remake those and present them as something new. Here I have compiled the playable character sprites from the original and the Pixel Remaster. In case it isn’t obvious, the order goes NES, Remaster, NES, Remaster. You can tell the new ones are based off of the old ones, even if some of the changes are odd (I miss my fighter having red hair). I compare the way this looks to how the Super Mario All-Stars games look. Yeah, the sprites are redone but they are close enough to the original where it still feels authentic. Now, let’s take a look at the GBA remake sprites.

They just look completely different. There’s no ‘trying to retain the spirit’ of the original, your characters look completely different. Yeah, your thief looks more like a thief but it’s a different guy entirely! The class ups no longer look like ‘grown up’ versions of their original selves, they just look more advanced. Your black wizard no longer looks like Sabin, he looks like Vivi! I think a good remake that is trying to be faithful should try to embody the spirit of the original as much as possible and just changing things this much feels superfluous. So I’m glad Square Enix did something else for the Pixel Remasters. The best option would be to include the original game with all remastered versions of the game but that will likely never happen.

I’m only going to touch briefly on the music. I don’t think Final Fantasy I hits the heights of the later entries, but there are definitely some classics in there. The battle theme is iconic, for instance. I think the original versions of these songs are definitely the way to go. Something about the remixes the Pixel Remaster collection has just sounds too pure. They sound like something off of an RPG maker assembly line. Thankfully the console ports offer an option to stick with the original songs but for Steam players like myself…uh, well, I hope you know how to mod!

My experience through the early Final Fantasy titles for this series will be through the Pixel Remasters just because they are the most convenient ways to play them in 2023. But I have also played each of these games before. Maybe not to completion, but I know what they are supposed to feel like. But for people who just want to play every Final Fantasy game, I encourage you to at least try to play the original version instead of the Pixel Remasters. It just isn’t the same experience. If you’re a returning player though, nothing wrong with trying a different way to experience a classic.

Notable characters

I have wanted to write something like this about Final Fantasy games for quite a long time. I was inspired by articles written by a guy named Pat (Pitchfork) for the website Socks Make People Sexy. These were all done a long time ago though and I wanted to make something similar, but in my own voice and from my own perspective. One of my favorite things he would do in these articles is do a rundown of the cast. So I plan on doing that with my retrospectives as well. Final Fantasy I doesn’t have a ton of plot important characters, but let’s look at what we have. These impressions are based on my most recent playthrough of the game.

My party: The Warriors of Light

You need to pick four characters for your journey through this game and unlike (most) later entries, your characters have no personality. You have to name your crew, pick from the six classes and kind of imagine how their personalities would be.

Chuck the Warrior/Knight. So both my party composition and a couple of their names come directly from an old webcomic called 8-Bit theater. I feel like the most recognizable gag for the Warrior in those comics was ‘sword-chucks’ which is a genius invention that works exactly as it sounds.

In this playthrough, Chuck was an absolute beast. He took 1 damage from most enemies and almost never died. In fact, I think he never did keel over until the final battle with Chaos. He almost single handedly carried me through the entire way. I have never been one for challenge runs because I am a giant baby, but I would wager simply not having a Warrior would make things really hard for most people. Truthfully, I think a party of three Warriors and a Red or White Mage would probably be more effective than my diverse and fun party of rapscallions. Hey though, it’s early, they were still figuring out the job system!

GP or HP? the Thief/Ninja. The second of my 8-bit theater references. This line has stuck with my for the years and I don’t know why. So it felt natural to name my Thief that. Unfortunately the Pixel Remaster decided to rename GP to ‘gil’ as that is the series standard so now my little thief’s name makes less sense. Ah well.

Despite being named a thief, you can’t actually steal anything in the original Final Fantasy. So what differentiates him from the king of DPS the Warrior is his speed. The Thief can dodge a lot of things and as a result, he didn’t really die all that much either. He wasn’t quite as invulnerable as the Warrior – the fight with Marilith/Kary/the fiend of fire was basically a Warrior solo effort at the end – but he was a very effective secondary damage dealer. He received a brief promotion during the battle with chaos to be every bit as important as the Warrior though. I gave him the most powerful weapon in the game, the masamune, and when he was hasted he would sometimes out damage Chuck. Wow!

Rich Evans, the Red Mage/Red Wizard. I am stupid. So when thinking of a name for my Red Mage, the first thing I thought of was another thing with the word red in it: Red Letter Media. And then I was like, well, you’d have to be a real asshole to hate Red Mages. So I chose the one RLM guy I thought you’d have to be an asshole to hate. Rich Evans.

For people unaware, the Red Mage is a jack of all trades. They can cast white and black magic. A healer and a damage dealer! On top of that, they are handy with a sword so they can do just a bit of everything. Unfortunately, I found Rich Evans to not really be good at much of anything. Casting black magic as a red mage is pointless. My Black Mage out-damaged Rich Evans by a lot. The physical damage he would cause was handy during random encounters, but against actual bosses he might as well have been swinging a twig. There Rich Evans was a heal bot and honestly I didn’t think cure or cura healed enough to be horribly useful. If I were to run again, I’d just use a white mage because I think the added hp on each heal would make a big difference. Plus they get holy which is canonically the coolest Final Fantasy spell.

Vivi, the Black Mage/Black Wizard Wow gee whiz I wonder why I named my Black Mage Vivi. In case you didn’t know, this is the Black Mage that appears in Final Fantasy IX and he pretty much just looks like a Black Mage. Unfortunately I forget that the Black Wizard looks like a completely different Final Fantasy character

Ah well. I’ll just pretend Sabin came in to replace Vivi halfway through and he learned black magic or something, I dunno.

In this playthrough, Vivi was pretty much my ‘oh my fucking god I don’t want to sit through this random battle, use Flare or something so we can move on’ character. In boss battles he was my second most valuable damage dealer, but he was also squishy enough that it felt like he would go down before I even knew it. But boy, casting Blizzaga once was great. Usually my strategy with him would be to cast haste on Chuck or Rich Evans and then cause whatever damage I can (In FF1 haste makes it so you hit someone more times on your turn, so it’s a damage buff. It doesn’t make you faster like it would in an ATB game). I like having a magic damage dealer in the party just because you run into those pesky slime-style enemies that take like four damage to sword strikes, but I didn’t run into THAT many of those and when I did Chuck or GP or HP? would usually score a crit and take care of things. I didn’t mention it above but the crit rate had to be upped by like 1000%, I got them all the time.

So basically in my next playthrough it’s KNIGHT KNIGHT KNIGHT and White Wizard. Speaking of White Wizard, I didn’t mention the other two classes: Black Belt/Monk and White Mage. I, uh, didn’t use them but I thought I would mention them. Masters, the evolved form of monk/black belts, are a more useless dps than the Ninja and White Mages/Wizards are healer first characters. There!

Princess Sarah

She is the princess of Cornelia/Corneria. Calling her a major character is a bit of a stretch, but the journey of the Warriors of Light technically starts with her kidnapping at the hands of Garland. Plus, she gets used in a lot of supplementary material later on. She gets a major role in World of Final Fantasy from what I remember. I included this specific screenshot because I have no idea what she’s trying to say here. Is she trying to say she wants to have some alone time with Chuck? Is the screen fixing to fade to black with her going “you’re so norty?”

Bahamut

For funsies I decided to compare Pixel Remaster Bahamut to other forms of Bahamut. On the left is NES Bahamut. Not quite intimidating, I would say Pixel Remaster Bahamut looks like Bahamut Zero in comparison. On the right is a version of Bahamut from the PSP version of Final Fantasy. I haven’t played that specific version but I included it because I just think that style really sucks compared to the more pixelated version.

Bahamut has one role in this game: to give your team a class change. It’s the one thing I would call a sidequest in the original Final Fantasy and it is so important that I almost hesitate to call it a sidequest. Changing your class makes your character exponentially more powerful. For challenge run fanatics, I’m sure using the starter classes is neat and all, but for people like me who cower at such things…you’re going to want to run around with a ninja instead of a thief.

He doesn’t have much of a character outside of this though. He’s just a kindly king of the dragons. I just thought it was neat that the most iconic summon in the franchise got his start in the very first game. A lot of series staples from Final Fantasy don’t originate with the first game, but this bad boy does.

Cid!?

The above screenshot is talking about the creation of the airship. Cute! Of course, this line of dialogue isn’t in the original game because it’s a little too on the nose. The tradition of Cid in numbered games wouldn’t start until 2, but this little throwaway line of dialogue that was added in the GBA remake of Final Fantasy tried to tie it all together. I don’t like this little bit of retroactive continuity but felt it was important to note that it’s in the most easily accessible version of the game. But it’s a lie! Ignore this NPC! Booo!

I didn’t know where to put this but I love the Troll

NES on the left, Pixel Remaster on the right. Look at this guy! You can practically hear him go “AIEEEEEEE YOU’VE RUINED MY LIFE IT’S OVER FOR ME AGGGGGGGGGGH” Plus I love the shadow on his crotch. This is a family game, you can’t just put troll penis everywhere all willy nilly.

The Four Fiends

Some more sprite comparisons for you. I really like the updated versions of these guys, I think they do a good job of capturing the spirit of the original designs. Upper Left: Lich (Earth). Upper Right: Marilith/Kary (Fire). Lower Left: Kraken (Water). Lower Right: Tiamat (Wind)

These guys are your main ‘boss’ enemies, they guard the four crystals. They snuffed the light out of them so to speak. They have no characterization at all, but they are the big bads of the game and even show up for rematches in the final dungeon. In this playthrough, I struggled the most with Marilith. She was unleashing fire attacks that would just obliterate my entire party, save for Chuck. I think he wound up winning the fight with about 40 HP left. I think these enemies are particularly effective in the Pixel Remaster because they represent a spike in difficulty. The game is a total cakewalk until you reach Lich. He has more HP and causes more damage than anything you have faced so far and, to me, represented the first serious threat of death. It’s a little unnerving seeing your number two DPS cause like 30 damage.

The fights you have against them at the end of the game are intense. A lot of end game enemies love using death against you. While you can guard yourself against that, it can still be a little frustrating to be smacked with it if you’re not ready. In the Pixel Remaster, this is lessened by the ability to save before each battle but in the NES version you really need to be on your game to make it out of the final dungeon alive.

Garland/Chaos

The first and final boss of Final Fantasy. It’s like poetry, it rhymes. He was once a loyal knight of Cornelia but became corrupted at some point and kidnapped Princess Sarah. It turns out the four fiends you defeated were Garland’s servants from 2000 years ago and sent him back to the past to heal after your party kicks his ass at the start of the game. When you defeat the four fiends, it opens a portal in the chaos shrine to that period of time so you can finish things. You then fight his true form Chaos. To learn more about Garland and Chaos, make sure to play the hit game “Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.” Are you a bad enough dude to take out Chaos!?

Chaos represents probably the harshest swing of difficulty in the Pixel Remaster. The game doesn’t present much of a challenge until this point. As I said, no game overs. Then you fight Chaos and all of a sudden the game remembers its NES roots. Chaos causes ~300 damage per attack – Vivi had 450-ish HP on my first attempt – and this gets boosted up to around 700 per hit if he casts haste on himself. On top of this, he can randomly cast curaja on himself to completely heal up. It’s frustrating causing thousands of damage only to see that 9,999 in green text. It’s a true endurance fight and definitely worthy of being the final boss of this game.

When I got to him, I believe my party had just hit level 50. This is the original level cap and it took a zillion years to hit it in the NES version, so I assumed I would just stroll up and win like I did with every other battle. Nope! Obliterated. Luckily I took advantage of the quicksave function the remaster added and after I got slaughtered about five times in a row I went back to grind. Finally, I was getting that authentic FF experience I spent a few paragraphs bitching about up there! I decided to give it a go after my characters hit level 57 and…I did better but I was still getting my ass kicked. Eventually though, I prevailed. I used an item to get Saber on Chuck and kept him hasted, I used an item to get blink (helps with evasion though if it did anything who can say) on GP or HP and I just prayed Vivi stayed alive long enough to cast Haste on everyone. I suck and didn’t realize I had temper and that temper could stack so that probably would have helped but hey. I won in the end. And only Vivi died! So I’ll take it.

I was just relieved he didn’t have another form. Hey it’s early, the form changes will come later I assure you.

It started here

With each Final Fantasy, I want to note when certain series traditions start. Sorry if some of these seem really obvious.

Four Fiends, Crystals, Warriors of Light, Jobs, turn based battles, the world map, random encounters and Nobuo Uematsu

This is the game that started it all, so of course it establishes the basics of the franchise. Felt it was important to list Uematsu here because he is the main composer for the franchise. He’s been here since day one!

These all get talked about in some way above, so I won’t dwell on it too much, but these things appear over and over again in the franchise. Jobs, called classes here, get several games in which they are more prevalent so I will save that discussion for a later day. The other elements pop up from time to time too, whether in the mainline series or in spinoffs. Final Fantasy IX, for example, lifts the four fiends and crystals wholesale for its endgame, which makes sense given that FFIX is sort of a ‘series celebration’ game.

Class changes

Hardly a Final Fantasy invention, but still something that I would consider a staple, especially in those job heavy games I mention above. When your character gets a class change, it feels like a significant moment and comes with a giant change in power. They don’t happen in every Final Fantasy title but you always remember when they do happen. Probably the most remembered example of this is Cecil’s transformation into a paladin in Final Fantasy IV.

Airships, boats, etc

Another little graphic comparison for you. On the left is the Pixel Remaster airship and on the right is the NES airship. I actually prefer the NES airship because it reminds me of one of those wacky flying inventions people would make. But this isn’t a bad take on it.

Final Fantasy is a game about exploring the world and one of the best ways to explore the world quickly is a vehicle! The first one you get in FFI is a ship and later you get an airship. This progression is consistent with the rest of the series because you don’t usually just get an airship, you receive various vehicles with various limitations. Sure everybody loves the Highwind in Final Fantasy VII, but you can’t get that without first experiencing the tiny bronco, the buggy and a chocobo.

Colored magic

Not exactly a Final Fantasy original, but this game establishes black magic as the damage dealing kind of magic and white magic as the healing sort of magic. Black magic has a lot more support options in this game than it typically does, so the distinction isn’t quite as stark as it would become. We do not get to experience the joys of blue magic just yet, but it will come whether you want it to or not.

Some beloved enemies

A couple of series staple enemies start here, though their designs aren’t quite familiar. Evil eye (I always call him Ahriman, even though I know that isn’t the species name), Black flans, Minotaurs, Goblins, Ochu, Elementals, Gigas, Giant Worms and probably many others that I can’t think of right now pop up here. No cactuar or tonberry though. You gotta earn those mascot enemies!

Super bosses…kinda

It’s not actually the hardest boss in the game, that’s chaos, but in the Flying Fortress you have the chance to randomly encounter an enemy called Warmech. This guy is stronger than most bosses and basically every random encounter in the game. It only appears on one floor though and you may not even encounter it unless you’re unlucky – so you either prepare for it and hunt it down like you would a typical super boss or you get unlucky and have to either run or die. It doesn’t have the difficulty of a super boss but I think the odd nature in which it is encountered makes it kind of close.

Ultimate weapons…kinda

The Excalibur is the second most powerful weapon in Final Fantasy I, behind the Masamune which can be found in the final dungeon. It is exclusive to the Warrior and you have to find an item called Adamantite in the Flying Fortress (where the Air crystal is) in order to have it made for you. Character specific ultimate weapons would go on to become a major staple of the franchise, so I thought this game having a class specific ultimate weapon was worth noting. The reason I say “kinda” in the header here is because I really feel like the ultimate weapon should be the strongest one.

In conclusion

So is this game worth playing? Yes. Ideally in the original format but if you don’t have the patience for that sort of thing, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to play the Pixel Remaster version of the game. I do think your experience with the game isn’t as authentic and you’re not experiencing the most ‘true’ version of the original Final Fantasy, but it’s at least closer to the real thing than other remakes. I would say start with the NES version and if you find yourself running into a brick wall early on, switch it up. At least you have an idea for how the original feels.

The original Final Fantasy is an old and hard to approach game and it only gets more so with age. But if you want to appreciate what the franchise would go on to become, if you want to understand just how far things have come, you should try.

Thank you very much for bearing with me and reading this far. Just like with the original Final Fantasy, I’ll be learning just what I want to make of these writeups as I do them. As I said up there somewhere, I have wanted to do a writeup of this series for a long time. At least a decade. So even giving me a couple of minutes of your time is appreciated.

Up Next

Final Fantasy 2, a notorious sequel.

[maelihi]

:D (thank you martyrman (evan i think?))

!!trigger warning jic- abusive themes!!

For a brief summary, this is kind of a headcanon that is loosely based off of a combination of my own ‘relationships’. balto and dottie don’t have really ANY connection in any series, but balto is the more aggressive, pushy kind while dottie is the more sweet, yet admittedly angry/hot-tempered one.

takes place in phoenix drop high!

They were introduced by the werewolf teacher (don’t really know his name), and were partnered up since balto is a bigger, stronger man- while dottie is smaller and less physically charged (sorta).

Dottie is a very sweet girl- she’s very openly affectionate and often rewards very simple things she swoons over with kisses on the cheek, or hugs.

Baltos kind of a dick, so having this pretty, affectionate wolf-girl praise him for everything and kiss him- yeah, balty really likey.

In an attempt to show his interest, he began being nicer to her, and he didn’t act aggressive- he would hold doors open for her, open stuff since she was very clumsy- basically trying to be a ‘trophy boyfriend’.

Dottie, being sweet and noticing this- thought balto was cute, so she decided to go out with him and balto was surprisingly nice- he took her out to a place and paid for her food- so she was pretty happy.

they dated for a few months and it was pretty okay- but balto soon started to get very, very jealous and possessive of her.

dottie of course mostly hangs out with men (rylan, daniel, and blaze) and she’s very huggy and she tends to go out a lot with her friends.

balto is not a fan- wanting to keep her for himself since he wants to feel special- to feel like her sweetness was only for him.

he would pull dottie away, act sick or hurt to get her affection, and once even snapped at rylan, since he hugged her when she was sad from losing her father

this caused their first major fight, where balto would raise his hand, and dottie would flinch and get led away by blaze.

this caused balto to get into a rather bloody fight with blaze- and he got suspended.

dottie came to visit him the day after at his home- and balto snapped at her.

he was yelling, she was yelling- and he ended up snarling at her and putting his hands on her.

what he did was he slammed her against the wall and got in her face, screaming at her for talking and venting to rylan and daniel.

this would cause dottie to leave, crying since his attitude had switched.

this goes on, the two getting into many fights- dottie staying in the relationship because balto had a few issues- and she was worried he would hurt himself- and he would threaten her with it so she wouldn’t leave.

around the one year mark, they had another major fight in the hallway- which ended up with dottie screaming profanities and breaking up with him.

considering the guilt tripping tactic wasn’t working- his response was to throw a tantrum

throwing himself on the floor, kicking and screaming- crying for her not to leave him.

she of course did not listen and from there it was a mutual agreement that they did not like eachother

he still misses her, and she tends to miss the old him- but they’re definitely broken up.

a few details are left out, but this is kind of a basic run down!

also no spellcheck- cause i don’t wanna :(