#again any dai plot inconsistencies are because i dont care.

[eastgaysian]

STEWY: ken! i'm glad you're alive, but i'm sure you'll understand if i don't shake your hand.

KENDALL: oh—the anchor. it's, uh, not contagious, don't worry.

STEWY: 'the anchor.' ooh, scary. to me it looks a lot like you've got a smaller version of the breach tearing apart your hand, but the maker works in mysterious ways. is that how you talk to andraste? can you stick your ear through into the fade?

KENDALL: look, stewy. i need you. i've sent word to my family, but you know my dad. he's not going to throw me a bone until i've, you know, killed the hart myself. i'm going to close the breach, but the inquisition needs friends, supplies, an army. you can help me get all three.

STEWY: right. and why should i do that?

KENDALL: uh, to help save the world?

STEWY: of course. it's just when you're talking to an orlesian marquis who had all his cousins assassinated to get the title, they do love the idea of the world getting saved. everybody does. they just want someone else to do it in a way that doesn't endanger any of their precious gold.

KENDALL: right. but you can convince them to pitch in a little. i don't need a lot from any one person. i need a little from everybody. we're all fucked if the breach doesn't get closed.

STEWY: and you can close the breach?

KENDALL: if you help me, yes.

STEWY: if i'm going to start calling in favors to get you an army, ken, i need to know there's a plan.

KENDALL: it's—i have—i'm working on it. i have what i need to make a plan. my advisors are the best in the fucking business, the templars—

STEWY: the drugged-up choir boys? what are they going to do, wave their swords and chant at the hole in the sky?

[squiddy-god]

secrete menu

Hi hi hi! As stated in the pinned post this is squiddy, I used to be @/Squid-god-supreme However tumbler nuked my account for no reason and I haven't heard anny response on getting it back. Because of that I will be re-uploading Almost all of my over 200+ fics. If you remember a fic I wrote that I haven't posted you can give a request with a description of it and I'll try to find it and post it. Many of these fics are old so keep that in mind, if there is inconsistency with the CW tell me and I'll fix it

CW : pretty sure this is gn reader, no pronouns mention but afab genitalia described, oral (male receiving), dilucs single lunch voice line has me in a chokehold, praise if you squint a little. Smut with no plot in sight.

It was a rare day for angelshare, the tavern having been closed early for the day. It was rare that such a thing happened but it seemed that today was one of those days. While master diluc had closed the tavern for the rest of the day you had been off on yet another adventure, another set of problems that needed to be taken care of for the adventurers guild; they weren't that hard really, only hilliechurls and the ocatinal ruin guard. Dilucs day on the other hand had been rather stressful, waking up late had already soured his mood- but the bar had seemed even louder today, and the drunk customers even more annoying, so deciding it was a mistake to work the bar today he closed it down early. 

Looking down at the glass he was cleaning he sighed, he longed to see you and your smile, yet he knew that you wouldn't be dont with commission for quite some time. 

Greeting the guards at the front gates to mondstat you made your way to the familiar tavern, the smell of signature dandelion wine growing stronger as you got closer. When you entered you sat down with a content sigh you didn't notice the lack of people or how silent the usual boystorous bar was. Diluc didn't care that he had just closed the bar, you were always welcomed to stop by for any reason, but he wouldn't admit that this was because of his fondness for you. He smiled at you, a gloved hand resting atop your head as his shoulders seemed to lose their tenshin. “Rough day diluc?” you asked, (e/c) eyes gazing up to meet his crimson ones. Diluc let out a little sigh, hand falling from your head to the bar table. “yes but it's better now.” his voice was quiet, almost a whisper as he spoke. “now that you're here” you looked to the side as you felt your cheeks heat up. 

Diluc stood up straight, his bright hair tied up higher than normal and his strong arms exposed by his rolled up black sleeves- He wasn't wearing his usual coat yet still had on the gloves he always seemed to be wearing, the red palms seeming faded from use. “Angelshare is closed but,,,” his voice trailed off, a gloved hand lifting your face s your eyes met his as he came closer to you. “Would you like to try the secret menu?” he said, hot breath sending shivers down your spine. You nodded your head and your lips were engulfed by his. Dilucs kisses were always fiery, bottled up passion and longing seeping into every instant your lips locked, his kisses were deep and left you breathless by the time he pulled away. You painted, breath shaky from the kiss- in an instant diluc had led you behind the bar, your hands tangled in his as he kissed you again, your back against the surface of the bar while his tongue ran over your bottom lip. Playfully you dined him, smiling slightly and keeping your mouth closed. 

He let out a grunt before pressing further against you, his tongue making its way into your mouth to explore. He stepped back taking in the sight of your puffy lips and hazy eyes, it was an intoxicating sight, and one that he wished to indulge in. He leered over you, his husky voice sending shivers down your spine. “Well?” he whispered,hands trailing down your body “what do you want him?”

You slid off the bar and onto your knees in front of him, a prominent tent already in his pants. Your hands reached for the waistband as they nimbly undid the button that confined him. The fabric dragged down his hips, his cock springing free, tip already leaking with precum. Delicately you traced it, smearing the precm over his slit befor giving kitten licks to the base and along his shaft. Deep breathy moans left his mouth as his hands rested against your head. Lips wrapped around his cock as you slid your tongue along the underside of his dick, teasing the veins while his moans fuled you on. 

His chest heaved, scarlet eyes looking down at you as you took him deeper, hands working what wouldn't fit in your mouth. You looked heavenly, choking on his cock while you tried to take him deeper. It intoxicated him, the small tears forming in your eyes and the drool that leaked past your lips, it made him feel dirty but it wasn't often that he got to indulge himself like this. 

Your gurgled sounds sent him over, his grip tightening as his hips snapped forward, his length forcing its way down your throat. Gagging as your eyes get glassy, your hands finging purchase on his thighs for some hope of stability from his sloppy thrust. 

“You take my cock so we- ah” he panted as his thumbs wiped away a tear from your eyes. “So pretty with my dick in your mouth” a breathy moan left his lungs and his hips sputtered. 

The gargled noises you made when he hit the back of your throat sent him over, a salty liquid spilling down the back of your throat as you choked a bit- trying to swallow as much as you could. 

He pulled away, breath still uneven and ragged. You wiped the drool and cum from the corner of your mouth as diluc helped you up off the wooden floor. He held your face in his hands and pecked your lips before resting his head against yours. 

“Maybe i should offer you the secret menu more often, darling”

[roughentumble]

just watched the monster (2016), directed and written by bryan bertino, and it was such a waste of fucking time. all the things people mock about A24 films misused and cranked up to the point of parody, melted together with the illogical shitty writing and directing one can expect from the creator of the complete disaster that is "the strangers". an idiot plot full of holes and inconsistencies just to get us from point A to point B because actually writing is really hard, so why bother trying. the monster doesnt act like a logical Thing that Exists, it acts like a plot motivator, constantly walking away from food and prey that's easily accessible because it would be ~~soooo much spooookier ooooo~~ to wait and jump back out again later. (hint: it isnt actually scarier, because the film has no idea how to craft tension on any level).

you cant even claim that the monster acted strangely because it was acting as a metaphor or something else one might predict from an A24 horror film, because it just isnt. it isnt acting as a metaphor for anything, it's just a thing that's out there and acts like the anamatronic in a dark ride, jumping out and going BOO! at scripted points to scare the protagonists, or sometimes lurking behind them pointlessly since they never turn around to see it, just like the pointless lurking in the strangers. it WANTED to be a metaphor, oh sure, it's plain as day that it WANTED to be a metaphor for ~~the monster that is parental abuse and alcoholism ooo~~, but the writing simply isnt good enough to actually Make a metaphor. bertino has no idea how to do it. so it's actions have no logical or metaphorical motivation, making it just a jumpscare puppet.

i dont really give a shit about the trials and tribulations of the abusive mom who never shouldve had custody of her child, and i dont really care when she cries or gets hurt because who the fuck feels anything for a person who smacks their child in the face to get more beer, or screams at her "fuck you, i hate you," because she wanted to be dropped off at her school play? boo hoo, your kid doesnt want you drunk in the crowd while she's trying to perform. good job convincing her you care by driving away and screaming "i hate you, fuck you, get your own fucking ride to the play," like the mature adult you are. you sure showed that 12 year old!

the only satisfaction in the plot was in her worthless, meaningless death because her character wasnt even smart enough to come up with a plan the 12 year old figured out in minutes. the entire movie was her kid being smarter than her, and her disregarding it and putting her child in danger.

the monster design was boring and uninspired, though it had potential i think, and i admire the use of practical effects and costumes. the makeup work for the monster was good, and the team behind it should be commended. also the child actress managed to hold her own despite a script that required a /lot/ of crying and emotions, so good on her. it's too bad ella ballentine's performance is buried under a trashheap of a script

[miraculouscontent]

Season 4 asks:

Anonymous said:

While I do not personally ship Luka with Marinette, I dont think people have any reason to hate him. He is a good character who has been patient with Marinette and cares for her. People getting mad because he wants to know what is bothering his crush because he can see it is causing her pain and getting upset when he is pushed away? How many times does that happen in real life? We just don't get turned into super villains over it. Leave the blue boy alone. He is still just a teenager after all.

I honestly relate to that issue; I’ve gotten closer to people and have expected/hoped that they might open up more. Obviously people are entitled to their own privacy but it does hurt and can make you feel like you’re not trusted, especially when the secret is clearly a weight on them, which can make you wonder if it’s your fault or if you did something.

Anonymous said:

SO I read that post of Marinette should use her Miraculous for personal reasons and I agree! I feel like that's why the writers bought Su Han back, just to give an excuse to why sHe cAn'T uSe tHe mIrAcULoUs. See, this is why I find myself drifting away from the fandom.

Honestly, even if Su-Han hadn’t been around, Tikki still would’ve been like, “mARINEEEEETTE,” since it’s mostly Tikki who lectures her about it.

Which is incredibly inconsistent, like--what qualifies as “personal reason”? I didn’t hear Tikki complain when Marinette transformed back in “Timebreaker” so that she could get to the event and also get back in time to give Nadja the cake.

asexual-individual said:

Marinette hiding the Miracle Box in a fake dollhouse is a lost opportunity for some easy character development for the Kwamis. Since Marinette lets the Kwamis out of the box, have the dollhouse be real with a room for each Kwami that they can then personalise. (ML already shows clear influence from Shugo Chara, so why not also have the dollhouse home for the small magical creatures?)

Honestly, I’d expected Marinette to hide it under her floorboards or something, or maybe up where her bed is where no one else goes.

I agree that a dollhouse would’ve been cute though.

Anonymous said:

Imagine. The writers using akumatized Luka's truth power to reveal Lila. Marinette is forced to apologize for "keeping Lila's lies a secret". Lukanette gets only half the screen time for the episode. The whole Lila plot is solved in 4 minutes and never brought up again. I'm honestly convinced something like this could happen and it terrifies me.

ALL OF MY HATRED.

Anonymous said:

Wait, Hawk Moth is using the Peacock Miraculous WITH the Butterfly one? Hmmm...on the one hand, cool! On the other hand, where does the name "Shadow Moth" come from?! It has nothing to do with either Miraculous, much less both at the same time. But more importantly, if the Peacock Miraculous is fixed, why can't Nathalie use it to become Mayura?! It's not like it'll kill her. Because as usual, they feel the need to take away the power from every girl. First the heroines, now the villainesses too.

Where does it come from?

Him being edgy.

Also, I agree with you on Nathalie but also, she’d already been Hawk Moth’s lackey, serving to either make him more powerful or have her sentimonsters be an addition to his akuma-of-the-day sometimes but usually collapse sick afterwards. Now she’s bedridden presumably.

Anonymous said:

Marinette tells someone that they have talent. That someone tries to do something big and public with their talent. Someone gets akumatized. Ladybug tells them something heartfelt and Marinette later apologizes for telling the person they have talent. Marinette’s friends scoff at her for her giving such terrible advice. Everything is Marinette’s fault. Marinette ALWAYS needs to learn a lesson.

UGGGGGGGGGH

Anonymous said:

Is it bad that I feel the only way Adrien would get any development and agency and Marinette get a well-deserved break is if Chat Noir was a villain? He’d be forced to have agency and honestly, fighting Chat seems easier than having him as a partner, considering how many times he’s brainwashed.

All I’m hearing is, “Marinette gets new partners in return,” and... yes.

Anonymous said:

You think they named the new bee hero Zoe because of Zoe?

Probably no, but it’s fun to imagine that they did.

[gyokuto]

Omg like when yashahime was first announced i couldn't even get excited about it because it explicitly said it would be about sesshomaru's hanyo daughters (which is extremely ooc by the way, he wasn't even enoughly developed in the og) and i instantly knew they would make rin the mother bc it's a popular ship (which is absolutely disgusting) and Sess is my favorite character in the manga. I also did not have any positive expectations for it bc it was also not written by Rumiko and it's anime only.

When it aired back in october, I tried giving it a chance - i did read some kagura theories and thought they were plausible but the girls being hanyo always threw me off. After ep 8, everything did not make any sense to me - badly written, full of holes, inconsistent, bad characterization, boring villains, so I dropped. I kept up with it online, but the environment started giving me anxiety bc I did not wish to see Sess with Rin ever bc I'm a csa survivor and i was scared it would trigger bad memories. Then ep 15 aired and I felt like vomiting esp sunrise deliberately made Rin have kids at 14 and she still acts like she is 8. So i decided to watch the ep to at least see how it got done and it was so weird bc everything felt very off ? Like sesshomaru and everyone else did not feel like themselves if that makes sense - it was so odd. And everyone is off model with this new artstyle too . When i finished the ep, I couldn't associate og with yashahime bc everything felt different. Like if u watch the first 6 episodes of inuyasha and then go to yashahime it's like two completely different series, it's as if yashahime is simply borrowing the og's appearances but not their cores. So after thinking hard about it, about Sesshomaru specifically as a character, after analysing him all over again, I realized that he wouldn't ever do any of these things and i finally got over it. I dont think it's fair to judge these characters so harshly bc this was made by real people... I understand and respect if ppl hate him after ep 15 and can't see his relationship with Rin the same as before, but to me personally, their dynamic is intact. I love him as a character deeply. I also found comfort in knowing that Rumiko's been apathetic towards inuyasha for so long, she does not care about it anymore and that's why she's unbothered by what's going on. I no longer have any respect for her though and i will not support her anymore bc she's ruined inuyasha for a lot of people with her irresponsible act of approving this.

So i hope u can forget about this one day <3 it's sumisawa's fanfic with a budget and nothing more

thanks so much for taking the time to send me this message <3

i’m sorry that as a csa survivor you’ve had to witness all this shit going down. the ways in which some people downplay or invalidate the genuine sadness and discomfort that this sequel sparks among fans who are csa surviors in particular is absolutely disgusting.

when it was announced, i was super excited because anything inuyasha related gets me excited, and i was stupid and naive in thinking they would never do something like this

i always knew there were people that the pairing was popular amongst, but from my understanding, the most popular characters have always been kagome, inuyasha, kikyo, and sesshoumaru. i usually had to go out of my way to find fanart of anyone else since the series has been over for so long, so i was like...why would they even focus on some ooc romance between a demon who despised humans for 99% of this life (including his own half-human brother) and the pre-pubescent child he adopted...i was like no way...?

it’s literally so ooc for sesshoumaru to fall in love that the only valid candidate in sunrise’s eyes was the only character who was important to him, had a uterus, and was still alive which is so disgusting

i was honestly expecting some kind of fun plot twist, and i was interpreting the rin scenes as red herrings which could be explained by the fact that, as his first daughter, of course she would have high importance in his life

which is another thing that rubs me the wrong way about the whole ship (y’know, besides the child abuse); it’s like they’re saying if the child isn’t biologically his it’s not *actually* his daughter...which is such a GROSS mentality

but yeah, you’re absolutely right that the “sequel” is an ooc train wreck. you can even tell that the first ep. of yashahime was better than the rest because it came from something RT wrote. i’m sad over the wasted potential of these characters because moroha deserved better and towa, whether intentional or not, felt very queer coded, and that meant a lot to me

i also like your point about the characters not being judged too harshly because they have no real agency. it was real people that created them and decided these things for them. for this reason, i think it’s 100% valid to ignore yashahime and continue to find comfort in the original versions of the characters. sesshoumaru wasn’t the only one that was ruined; everyone who didn’t go against the relationship is ooc too

anyway, i understand that some people may not be able to separate the two, and if they’re triggered or uncomfortable, i also 100% understand having to let them go.

i hope i can go back to inuyasha and feel fondness and nostalgia one day too :)

it’s difficult for me to enjoy things once i lose respect for the creator in some way, but i’m trying to rationalize her involvement in my head

[lunawings]

King of Prism SSS episode 11 commentary (Shin...)

Thankfully at least the Crunchyroll subs weren’t so bad this time. I mean, there was the usual weirdness, but no major mistranslations that effect the plot like that time. So.... great!!

(After last week my standards are so low....)

But anyway. A reminder that the commentary you guys are getting on these episodes now is coming from the place where I am after having two months to digest things. After seeing this in the theater I didn’t really want to talk about anything to anyone. HOW COULD I COMMENT ABOUT ANYTHING REMOTELY CASUAL WHEN SHIN IS SUFFERING. Was my thought. But... eventually............

I should have pointed this out last week, but did you catch that they added Dorachi to the OP?

So yeah, there are a lot of little moments in this episode that it took me weeks to even begin to think about (what with everything else that happens) and this is one of them. Joji leaves Jin so quickly once he’s not cheating at prism shows anymore. Haha I know this is just a gag scene probably but really! When you think about it in the context of that line Joji had last week that was like “He’s changed....” it made me realize that maybe Joji really does love the “do anything to win” Jin.

And since Jin isn’t interested in that right now, here we have Joji kissing Sanada. 

Jin doesn’t care about winning anymore. All Jin cares about is Louis.

The relationship between Jin and Louis is something I have a lot of questions about. Why is this a part of the plot? For what purpose? 

My only guess is it’s here to show that Jin can still love? Because he seems to really, truly love Louis. (Could you imagine him cradling one of the Shuffle boys after they failed a jump....) 

And this is all despite the fact that Louis also reminds him of his worst enemies, Hiro and Hijiri................. 

All of my past comments about how Shin changed things for everyone and how much everyone loves and believes in him have all been leading up to this moment. 

Even after what just happened, they all run to him without any sort of hesitation. They aren’t afraid of him. They all still love him. Edel Rose.  

For people watching this on TV, the titles of the episodes are all spoiled in advance. 

But for us watching in the theater, we didn’t know.

When I saw Part 4 the first time, I chose a bad seat in the theater on purpose. Front row, far right. Because I just wanted to be alone, and there was guaranteed to be nobody sitting next to me unless the theater sold out. The theater sold out. And there I was in the right corner craning my neck up at an angle to this GIANT screen immediately right before me. Watching this happen. Small and helpless. Terrible chills washed all over my body and I think it was the most horrified feeling I have ever gotten while watching fictional media. I will never forget it......

When I first watched this, I got the feeling that Shine had been floating in a void for a long time. (Maybe even the 1,000 years they always talk about.) But recently I realized, maybe it was just the amount of time Shin’s Mom was pregnant for? Since Shine wasn’t sealed that long ago (recent enough that Yamada-san knew him) it could be possible that he was sealed the instant Shin was conceived....?  

One of my biggest questions about Shin for the longest time was whether he was actually..... born or not. Since the date 2/29/2001 does not exist. But he was. And I am glad about that. 

This is the first time we learn Shin’s name is written 新.

Also Shin, when will you accept your megane destiny. 

(I guess he did in the last episode lol. But really, does he wear contacts...?)

So this is our Young of Prism reference. 

Shin did meet Louis on a night at his grandmother’s house when he woke up and saw sparkling light. But Louis didn’t exist yet at that time. It was Rinne. 

FUTURE 4TH PLACE (technically should have been 3rd) IN PRISM KING CUP 

....ahh Shin................ I love you......................

His childhood was just so normal.......... 

(Shine must have been so bored...........)

This answered another one of my long-time questions about Shin. Where was he going? Why would he be out biking at night in casual clothes (not school uniform or sports uniform) in the middle of the night far from home? 

At one point I was so concerned about this (and his birth date not being real) that I wondered if he didn’t even exist before he was biking along the river. But he did. Shin had a normal, happy, real childhood. Ahhh........ 

Christmas live! I already talked about this in my post about Leo’s episode, but yes it’s both an analog for the real life Music Ready Sparking concert, and a big part of the main story on Prism Rush: https://prism-rush.tumblr.com/mainstory

I’m so glad it was confirmed to be canon. (Well, it was already briefly mentioned in Pride the Hero. But still.)

THIS WAS MY QUESTION 

Well, we finally got the answer in the last episode: Because the prism gods found out and changed Louis’ mission. 

But you can kind of understand why Shine was..... pretty pissed off at Rinne/Louis when he finally resurrected in the last episode...................................... to say the least........

So this was weird. Shine said “Rinne” before Louis said his line from Pride the Hero “we’re the same now”, but the subs make it look like it’s the same line....?

This is honestly the only thing in this episode which I think is flat out wrong though. There is some other weird/inconsistent wording of course but I mean seriously FUCK IT. THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT NOW.

Crunchyroll A++++++++++++++++++++++ job this time.  

I didn’t realize it at the time, but..... 

Subconsciously, in the back of my mind somewhere....  at that very moment when Ace says CHOU YABEEE..... he became my favorite member of the Shuffle. 

Just like..... Look at them. They’re all so happy. They didn’t look like this when they were with Joji. The best part about this episode finally airing on TV is that I can finally watch the new Shuffle’s performance on its own (without having to be forced to also watch.... the suffering....). 

I can’t wait for this full song to come out. Even though we only hear it for like 10 seconds it’s actually gotten stuck in my head before. 

And I don’t know if it was intentional, but I think having Ace perform in this episode is very ironic and incredibly significant. Because here we have Ace at his highest point while Shin is at his lowest point. 

Ace doesn’t know about Edel Rose and why they needed to win this. He’s on the top of the world. This is his moment. He’s finally getting to perform. The Shuffle is finally free from Joji. For the Schwarz Rose boys.... Ace is the hero. 

Since I am already on a roll talking about them, I guess I’ll bring up something I forgot to mention in my episode 5 commentary. When Part 2 premiered in theaters, nobody knew what Ace’s color was. People were actually using red, which would make no sense because Kokoro is red. You can’t have two members of the same group with the same color. But gradually people realized, due to the light blue A on his shirt and the light blue wrist band he has in some official art, that Ace is actually light blue. And here it was confirmed.

The interesting thing about this is, up until very recently Tsurugi was light blue. Only since his art for SSS he suddenly became pink. 

So when we first saw that SSS concept art.... was it hinting all along at this very performance? That Ace would become the new center?

I don’t know. 

What do you think?

What?

No I’m not stalling. 

Why would I be stalling? 

Well okay.... I guess.... the next scene we have to talk about is......

..................

................................

Where do I even begin.........................

So, a little while after this was shown in theaters I made a vague post containing my raw emotions about a particular prism show in Part 4:  https://lunawings.tumblr.com/post/184802787153/okay-i-am-ready-to-talk-a-little-bit-about-king-of

So if you read it at the time, I’m sure now you know I was talking about this. 

If you were scared or uneasy about it while watching it on your computer screen, imagine what it was like in the theaters. This performance effected me to the point where I had nightmares for about a week. And I’m not making a joke either. They weren’t the kind of nightmares I could describe, it was just like.... seeing bits and pieces of this show over and over again. I’d wake up panicked and have to watch something on YouTube, anything else, to try and get my mind off of it so I could sleep. 

And like I said in my original post, the thing is, I just cannot get over how good this prism show was....... at accomplishing exactly what it was supposed to do. Which I’m assuming is, to make you feel VERY VERY UNEASY. It is just...... I can’t even..... I......................

And of course. The worst thing. The worst thing was coming to terms with the fact that I.... liked..... it..... ?

Because if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t be thinking about it so much. 

If I didn’t like it, it wouldn’t have been stuck in my head FOR 24 TERRIFYING HOURS after seeing Part 4. 

NO

MAKE IT STOP

GET OUT OF ME

SHINE 

GET OUT OF MY HEAD 

I DIDN’T EVEN FULLY NOTICE HIS SPOKEN LINES UNTIL THEY WERE SUBBED OH MY FUCKING GOD 

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

It’s just it.....

This is so frighteningly real. 

It actually worked. 

I actually felt like Shine had some kind of power over me which lingered for days and days........... 

I guess..... I can understand why Rinne loved him........................

........................

He meant like consecutive jumps. 

Shin(e) is not doing a chain of consecutive jumps like Taiga, Yukinojo, etc. did. Instead he split himself and is doing a whole bunch of jumps at the same time. 

DONT

So, I gotta take a moment to make this clear. Since, to my horror, people were actually referring to him as Shin in this scene in the livestream chat. 

THIS IS NOT SHIN. THIS IS SHINE. 

He used Shin’s body and Shin’s voice. But this was not Shin’s prism show. 

Shin does not perform in this episode. 

SHIN WAS ROBBED

OF HIS PRISM SHOW

BY SHINE 

So, people who don’t actually follow me and/or just stumbled upon these posts may not know this. But Shin is (and basically always has been) my favorite. 

After Part 4 premiered in theaters, I had multiple friends in Japan send me messages to check if I was OK. It was even the immediate reaction of a girl I just met in the theater after I casually mentioned that Shin was my favorite. Like practically grabbing my shoulders ARE YOU OK. 

So. 

Am I OK?

No, but..... yes. 

By that I mean, I am not bitter that Shin does not get a new solo in SSS. In fact, I can recognize the irony, since up until this point Shin was the only Edel Rose boy to perform a proper show. And now he’s the only one who didn’t perform a new solo in SSS. So it’s even. Technically. 

So that is not what upsets me about this episode. What DOES upset me is how this emotionally effects Shin the character, who now thinks this was all was his fault when it wasn’t.....................

I personally have known for a long time that something like this would happen, and have basically been emotionally preparing myself since the Pride the Hero era. No, scratch that, even since the first movie era when I suddenly noticed the dark moon mark on the back of his neck in Over the Sunshine (which took me months). I just had a bad feeling. Something told me that loving this character would someday bring me pain. 

So if I truly loved him, I knew would have to be strong.

If you take the good, you have to take the bad.   

King of Prism SSS premiered in theaters in Japan after Taiga’s episode aired on TV, and right before Kakeru’s. In that gap, I came back a changed person. 

During the week of Kakeru’s episode I was just trying to feel normal again (while all y’all be sending me anon messages about whether we should pave over Africa or not FFS guys......). But from the next week onward was when I began to recover and was starting to want answers. You may have noticed, that was when I suddenly started talking about scores all the time.

Yes, part of it was trying to understand Taiga’s score and hoping it wasn’t lower for mathematical reasons since it later gets cut in half. But the truth is. The actual truth is. All that time I was trying to understand.... this. 

This zero right here has been weighing on me for a long, long time. Every time I brought up scores, it was always there. Looming at the back of my mind. 

For example, when I wrote “ I guess no matter what someone has to be last………………………….. ” in my episode 8 commentary, I wasn’t talking about Yu. 

So. Let’s discuss this. How can someone perform, as actually get up on stage, but end up with 0 karats? Clearly the audience did have a reaction to Shin(e)’s show..... 

But Kakeru said there wasn’t a system error. So it’s not that. 

According to June, if I understood correctly, it was judged based on Shine himself. There was no heart in his show. 

This lead me to question if this could explain some of the other character’s shows. How much does your own heart matter?

(According to this, it’s everything.)

No, I do not know why they still released a periodical update for a discontinued program. I guess there was a miscommunication in the prism IT department. 

(But I suppose it’s possible other Shines still exist in other worlds....? But I really don’t want to touch that right now.)

So, in case you didn’t fully understand the gravity of this, with the way the score is now it is mathematically impossible for Edel Rose to win.

Even if they get a perfect score with their unit show. 

Edel Rose has lost.

It’s over. 

So this was the moment when I forgave my idiot son Taiga.

Even after Shin got a zero, he still blames himself. 

And this may be a terrible way of thinking, but... I’m kinda glad they included this debacle with Taiga. Because it made it so this situation is not entirely Shin’s fault. (Technically it’s not his fault at all. It was Shine. But they don’t know that.) 

They treat it like everyone’s fault.... oh Edel Rose..... 

Also, my favorite moment in this episode and it has nothing to do with Shin. 

Kakeru offers Taiga his support.... 

And Taiga actually takes it. 

Also, I may be wrong but, I think this is the first time we have seen Kakeru cry. And not just in the main series, I mean like in ANY King of Prism media. 

I find it interesting that he doesn’t mention Kouji here. He goes right to Hiro. 

Despite their “rivalry”, he felt Hiro was counting on him.

I can’t believe y’all actually pointed this out in the livestream but it’s so true now that I think about it. There may be intentional symbolism with Hijiri’s hair here. 

There are a lot of scenes where Hijiri is trying to pull his hair back. But in this scene he pushes it FORWARD. 

He’s finally realized what really matters, and why he’s done all this in the first place. 

Oh Shin. Baby. It wasn’t your fault............................

And that’s basically it. For now. We’ll talk about their gay unit outfits next time. 

So to answer perhaps your most burning question: Yes, next week is the last episode. 

Next week is the finale of King of Prism SSS. Yes. For real. 

EDIT: OH MAN. Junta Terashima just confirmed in a Tweet that this is the outfit Leo originally made for Shin’s show. Ahhhhh.......

[cerulean8looded]

25!!!!!!!!

okay that one i literally made bc i look like john, love just dance, and want to be loved but here we fuckin go

25. John being a just dance twitch streamer and all the boys being gay for it i mean youtubers au

so im thinking that all of them make WILDLY different content. lets start with the beta kids.

so john has a gaming channel, clearly, and he decides he wants to lose some weight in a fun way that also helps his channel, so he starts the just dance thing. other than that, he mostly plays things like minecraft, five nights at freddys, all your basic bitch stuff, along with a fair few horror games. he really likes minecraft and sims 4 though.

rose has a witchcraft channel. she practices witchcraft and makes videos about spells and sigils and crystals and all the other cool stuff that goes along with that. i dont know much about witchy stuff anymore, its been a while since i was into that stuff, so id have to do a bunch of research for her.

dave has two channels: irony channel and music channel. the ironic one is where he posts anything to do with sbahj, and just generally fucks about, does weird trends and stuff. he never shows his face on his music channel, never shares his name, and it’s all remixes, so no one hears his voice either.

jade has the most chaotic but pure channel. she does anything she feels like doing, from kids show reviews to “Look at this cool pumpkin i grew” to “heres my favourite gun”. she has no theme, and never plans to change this.

Trolls

aradia is similar to jade in chaotic energy, but she tends to stick to stuff like creepy antiques she finds, weird animal bones from the fields she just wanders about in and that kind of odd stuff. she also talks about dark conspiracy theories a bit.

tavros mostly focuses on animals; animal care, animal facts, how to spot animal illnesses, how to deal with hostile but injured animals in the wild, what to do if you see an animal you think might have rabies, all that kinda shit. theres always at least one animal in every video, whether its a ferret in his lap, a cat walking over him, a snake around his neck, a guinea pig on his shoulder, and so on.

sollux does a gaming and tech help channel. he plays any game that people claim is difficult and tends to beat them so fast people think he’s hacking. he slaves over every fnaf game to try to beat the custom night first. as for tech help, hes basically that guy who runs the channel on how to fix discontinued apple products.

i lost my fucking karkat paragraph, im furious. basic recap of what i lost: he does general content like dan howell and phil lester kinda, with a couple staple series, such as his rant series, where his followers give him a topic and he rants about it for about twenty minutes (after editing). he also does livestream versions which can sometimes last for several hours per rant.

nepeta does cosplay videos with whoever she can rope into helping her (usually terezi, vriska, equius, or feferi) plus a lot of fandom videos in general. she usually comes off really lighthearted in her videos, but she also makes a lot of important comments about fandom culture and shipping wars etc. on her second channel she does vlogs, which exposes her absolute gremlin side. these vlogs often feature things such as her climbing up a tree, getting stuck, and screaming until equius saves her.

kanaya does makeup and fashion advice videos, mostly with a vampire theme to them. occasionally she’ll do cosplay makeup too. her favourite videos to do are when her subscribers send in pictures of themselves and their closets, along with some general information on what they wont wear and all that, and she gives them advice on how to spruce up their look a little and declutter their clothes, etc. she likes feeling like shes making a difference to people.

terezi focuses on true crime mostly; cold cases, current cases, sometimes she runs through the process of solved cases. she prefers to do unsolved stuff, since it gives her the ability to talk about her own theories on it, and she does often get it right, but for particularly interesting cases she will do a video anyway. she also does a little bit on mental health and the reasons behind crimes and shit.

vriska is another kinda general youtuber. she does whatever the hell she wants, plus anything anyone says she cant do. she also lets some of nepetas fandom stuff leak into her content. no one really knows how she got so many subscribers. she also has the most merch out of all of them.

equius makes videos on whatever happens to be his current hyperfixation at that moment. hes the most inconsistent. one week hes picking apart the homosexual subtext in certain scenes of jaws, the next hes teaching you how to put together a microwave. he does a lot of lgbtq+ videos too; his most popular video is of him and nepeta and some others at pride and most peoples favourite part is nepeta racing around a small clearing with equius on her back while vriska cackles behind the camera

no one is really sure what gamzee actually does. his videos are all filmed on a phone camera and are never edited. he doesnt have an intro or an outro. sometimes it seems like he forgot to start filming until halfway through whatever he was talking about, but he never repeats the bits the camera missed. theres no theme, no clear goal, no one knows whats happening and theyre pretty sure hes high in every video. one time he posted a video that was over 48 hours of the phone just pointing at a wall, which appeared to be covered in blood just out of sight of the screen (as in you could see the edge of it but not the actual blood) and there appeared to be a hand sitting at the corner of the screen. everyone was fucking terrified for a while, but the next video posted to his account was karkat explaining that hed had a bit of a mental break and thrown a jar of jar at the wall (the “blood”) and that the hand was just a doll. hed taken out his phone to film a vent video, but promptly forgot about it, dropped it, and went to do something else. he finally remembered over two days later, posted it without thinking and called karkat. a few weeks later he started posting again like the whole thing never happened.

eridan’s content mostly focuses on harry potter and magic (which he definitely doesnt believe in because that would be ridiculous), but he makes a lot of environmental PSA videos about littering and pollution and stuff. in his fandom videos he comes across as just really excitable and doesnt seem like he cares about much else, but he really shows off his intelligence in PSA type videos. he also posts a lot of videos of him just talking about whatevers going on in his life, usually whenever he gets a new crush. his most popular video is the one he made right after seeing johns just dance streams for the first time, because he looked like he was about to cry or scream the whole time.

and feferi! her content mostly focuses on social and political issues. she talks out against “canceled”/purity culture a lot and tends to end up involved in discourse for it. shes that person in the middle of the argument whos literally only stating facts and saying that we shouldnt jump to unnecessary conclusions, but somehow ends up being accused of being jack the ripper or some shit for it. she isnt afraid to share her honest opinions and makes sure to remain as polite and level-headed as is humanly possible when responding to others.

i was gonna do the alpha kids and dancestors too and like share some plot and that kinda stuff but this is long as fuck, so we’re gonna stop here for now! feel free to request again for even more info dumping. also i just wanna say that i planned none of that gamzee stuff i had no idea what i was doing when i started that

[daisymondays]

For the title meme ✨✨✨ 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14

Aahahaha !!! Wow thanks Nonnie !!! I’ll try not to babble too much because otherwise this’ll get super long and possibly annoy every one on my time line but thankyou

1. Favorite fic title, and why?

It’s got to be my current one Karma’s A Fake Orgasm and Its my favourite because 1. I find it hilarious 2. The series is now called Revenge Is Best Served Horny because I once again find myself hilarious, and 3. really the whole naming process of the fic was just really funny. I couldn’t think of a name so we were throwing around so stupid names and then when I tried to think of a serious one nothing could top Fake Orgasm so here we are. Stucky, Banter and my mates, this title is a product of everything I love

2. Least favorite fic title, and why?

Urm I dont know if I have a least favourite title as such as ones I don’t care about as much, which is a few of my shorter fics or just the ones I’m not as attatched to

3. Song names or lyrics as a title in any fic?  

Yesss, If We Were Honest was inspired by Honest by The Chainsmokers as the song was playing when I was plotting out the fic and heard these lyrics:

X

And I’m not gonna tell you that I’m over it‘Cause I think about it every night I’m not sober, andI know I keep these feelings to myselfLike I don’t need nobody elseBut you’re not the only one on my mindIf I’m being honestYou said I should be honestSo I’m being honest

and they just fit the story I was trying to tell sooo much and so yes, if Im being honest became If We Were Honest

4. Fics with literary references as a title?

Waheyy same answer as above really, If We Were Honest is a blend of Honest by the Chainsmokers and a book called If We Were Villians that I read just before I wrote this fic and really enjoyed, and so yes, the title is quite clearly a smushing together of the two things (i would rec this book if you enjoy dramatics and a Secret History)

5. Have you let someone else (a beta, a friend) name a fic for you?

Yesss, I cannot count the amount of times I’ve appeared in @aibidil‘s DMs like HELP ME WITH THIS TITLE so I’m 99% sure she’s basically named at least one of my fics for me

6. A fic that had a very different working title as a WIP?

Yeeeppp, Highly (in)Compatible had the working title of Fuck Fate which while fitting of the plot didn’t quite work for a title so I managed to come up with something better

7. Do you use all lowercase letters in any fic titles? Uppercase?

I use Uppercase, i tend to captialise them correctly rather than aesthetically cause im boring like that

8. How did you choose the title of your very first fic?

Once again I’m ignoring my old old fics that have either been deleted from the internet or I pretend don’t exist, which means we’re starting with Lost Children which I actually named pretty easily, like the plot of that fic just came to me at once and the title came with it. Its set straight after the war and during that summer and its called Lost Children because thats what its about, its Harry, Hermione, Ron, Draco, Pansy, Ginny etc etc. trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do with their lives and who they’re supposed to be now the war is over, and realising that maybe its okay not to know everything

9. Do you think your method of naming fic has changed over time?

Yes I used to cry at the computer screen and now I scream. Urm no not really, i just kinda have a few ideas and discuss them with people and play around with words until i’m happy – which i think I’ve always done

10. Can you share the title of a WIP?

The current working title of the Bucky POV part of the Revenge is Best Served Horny is Playing The Long Game which has a dick pun in if you squint – i want something more obviously related to the other two espeically as Bucky is the king of sexual puns in this series so he deserves it – but i also kinda think this title is fitting so idk

11. Do you name your chapters?

No!! i wish i did!! i wanted to for Karma’s A Fake Orgasm but I couldnt think of anything witty so im pretty boring with chapters 

12. Do you find yourself generally naming a fic early or late in the process?

It really depends, like I have some names that I’ve pulled out of my arse while uploading to AO3 and some that have been there since I started the fic. I am nothing if not consistently inconsistent 

13. Have you ever changed the title of a fic after publishing?

Nope, im far too stubborn for that, no takesies backsies on shit titles !!! nah, i just dont hate any of them enough to do that

14. Give us a fic rec for one of your favorite fic titles from another author!

Not Easily Conquered from the Stucky Thirteen Letters series, if there ever comes a day I stop reccing this series presume I’m dead. Like literally. Or an imposter!!!! Anyway, this series is the way I finally managed to drag @synonym-for-life into Stucky (mawhaha) and its just beautiful, honestly some of the most fantastic writing and story telling I’ve read ever and I wish fanfic was more widely accepted purely so I could rec this series to more people. Its angsty and heart breaking, but hopeful too and just truly looks at love and the different things it does to people. No character is perfect and no one is pure evil, every one has their actions and you can understand them, you may not agree with what they did and it make break your heart but you can understand it. Its just a real look at humanity, the good and ugly, and on that note i’m off to read it again !!

I’d give the link but i’ve answered all the questions now !! thankyou Nonnie, this was super fun

[aro-aizawa]

okay so kind of vent post but update post too bc im kind of stressing and dealing with my stress in the only way i know how: ignoring it. so first off if i’ve promised you anything and haven’t spoken about it then i’m super sorry and either im working on it or im being way too perfectionist with it and it’s actively fighting me no matter what i do. so yeah. it’ll happen.....eventually im sorry. 

second thing i want to talk about is bhaf. i’ve kind of? hit a brick wall? in writing it? like i have the entirety of usj planned, mostly all neatly organised with shiny bullet points and little sentences that i want to include. but...its just not working with me? 

(also cut bc wow this went on longer than i expected oops - also to the peeps who don’t follow me because of my writing then uhh dont worry abt this i guess lmao)

its kind of feels like convincing a toddler to settle down in bed to read them a bedtime story except the toddler got hopped up on sugar earlier in the day and literally won’t sit still even for a second. so im running about the room frantically trying to catch them and put them in bed so i can read them their story and i can go to sleep. 

i mean its sorta like that but not at all. what im saying is its being unimaginably difficult. 

its been almost three weeks since i last added to chapter 14 and its killing me with stress. because lowkey i have a fear that if i stop updating for long periods of time that i’m going to lose most all my readers. aaaand that kind of stresses me because i don’t want to mess anything up with bhaf. its the first time i’ve had more than five people following the story so yeah i’ve kind of been working hard at it. 

and when i hit a wall like this it makes me angry. because i’ve hit enough walls with projects to know that this is what makes me stop working on a project for months or rather years in my old habits (though honestly my old update schedule was one 1.5k word chapter every six months so). 

one way that i usually try to get around that road block is that i work on new projects. i take an idea i have and run with it like it’s my main project. i throw myself into it and one day when i’m planning out stuff or writing for that new project, i’ll suddenly get hit with an idea for my main and jump ships again to get back to that project. and that was the plan! i was actually going to start up a new project called ad victoriam! which im super excited about!!

but the one thing that’s kind of stopping me with this plan is the fear that i mentioned before. i don’t want to lose any interest. and i dunno, it feels like the only one that truly cares for this fic is me? even if i do get a lot of comments per chapter (like theres 20 on chapter 13 that i havent replied to yet holy--) i dunno. maybe im just way too self-deprecating to really acknowledge that others care about this fic. 

so im kind of in a bind. im so stressed by not updating bhaf, but ive hit a complete road block creatively. the only way to get past that road block is to do other creative stuff away from the road block. but the stress of keeping reader happy its sorta weighing on me and crushing any inspiration i have for another project.

um. i dont....have anything else to say. im not sure what im going to do now, but i think its safe to say that bhaf might be getting a little hiatus? at least until i can find a way to ease up all this stress. i have one other way in mind, but im still not 100% sold on yet i guess. but if i do that’d still mean the hiatus is there but i’d still be working on bhaf but not in any meaningful way? 

okay i’ll stop being vague but im basically considering rewriting the earlier chapters. nothing big, like adding in scenes or anything, but i dunno just improving the general quality and tweaking a few things i missed, smoothing out inconsistencies of any kind. its sorta meaningless but its an old habit that i used to do when i hit a brick wall with any of my projects sometimes. i’d go back and rewrite the entirety sometimes adding in a few thousand words and generally coming out of it the better since i would be rewriting stuff that was a couple years old at that point. 

but im still being hesitant to actually do that because the old projects im thinking of were all under 20k words, unpublished with maybe nine or ten chapters. all of them rushed and mostly just the barebone scraps of stories barely filled with any emotional depth or character. all of them essentially copy and pastes of each other with mild changes depending on the plot.

whereas if you compare the two? well for starters bhaf is in third person and isn’t following an oc. secondly, bhaf is published whereas my old projects were not. thirdly, i only started writing bhaf just over six months ago so even though my writing style as improved due to writing as much as i have, it hasn’t really improved enough for me to justify rewriting all 58k words of it.

so......yeah. honestly if this post makes any sense to any of you then your head is a lot less jumbled than mine is. im unintelligent and when im stressed i cant explain good. 

tdlr: reached a creative block with bhaf, so its going on hiatus for until i can get past it. not sure if im going to rewrite it or work on another project.

((ALSO FUCKING SIDE NOTE: im also incredibly pissed at myself for it hitting now when the last chapter i posted had a fucking cliffhanger, the one thing that i hate with all my being when its not resolved as soon as possible. im half tempted to post this chapter at 3k words just so that i could get rid of the hiatus at cliffhanger. im so sorry guys.))

[hermannsgayhands]

does hermanns cane have like...some kind of sentimental significance because i realized its just the solid wood kind without anything on the handle and those are Not comfortable for regular/longterm use. my first cane had a wooden handle and my hand got so sore even just going out a couple times a day (so probably not even as much as he would be using it in any given day bc its not like hes working from one single desk in the lab, theres a lot of standing and walking) and he rly seems like the kinda guy to care about functionality

(i know Realistically it was probably just that the costume department probably doesnt have a lot of cane users to be able to know this from personal experience But Obviously Im Going To Fixate On This and if ppl r gonna piece together explanations for massive plot inconsistencies i can let myself have this lol)

i Also know the kinda-sorta-canon-but-its-not-really-canon-canon reason for him using a cane is bc he was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a kaiju attack and it fucked up his hip but uh. my city now so I Propose:

needing a mobility aid when youre not old enough for it to be expected (so basically anywhere younger than Really Old) gets a lot of...attention...and its not usually positive, even if its not overtly negative its usually kind of just. weird and uncomfortable. people dont really know what to do with it and it gets awkward

and hermann was so much younger than everyone he would be spending most of his time around starting at such a young age, he was already set apart, he wasnt on equal social footing with his peers however much he was their equal (and then some, a lot of the time) intellectually and academically. even when people were nice and friendly and welcoming, there was always going to be that imbalance, because hes just a kid, hes just a teenager, hes just

and he tries not to Cave, because thats what he tells himself it is, rather than not wanting to be seen as even more different than he already is, because he thinks thats vanity, and he isnt vain. its something he can power through until he cant, and hes in labs staring at the clock with twenty minutes to go counting down the seconds until he can sit down and do something about his legs screaming at him to stop and taking all of his focus away from what hes trying to do, and twenty minutes turns into thirty, and forty, and eventually he starts dreading sitting down just because it means hes going to have to stand up again, but he can push through it, he keeps telling himself he can, until the room goes silent at the shattering of a beaker hitting the floor, and he realizes its coming from him

he usually works on assignments in the waiting room before physical therapy, but he cant put any pressure on his legs that time, even the thinnest binder he has too heavy to write on

and the physical therapist gives him a cane.

it looks like he came out of a hospital with it; at first he likes that, because its no-nonsense and simple, until everyone thinks it is from a hospital, and he has to explain no, its not, i didnt hurt myself, this isnt an injury, i know, im not actually too young for this to happen, thats not how this works—

arent you a little young for that was something he was used to hearing, but all the other times, he had been able to prove them wrong and impress. even after rattling off his conditions—he shouldnt have to, its not their business, he just wants to be able to walk, but they dont stop asking, they dont stop looking—theres nothing impressive about that, no satisfaction in proving them wrong.

he has one professor who uses a cane; shes old and withered like a tree that looks like it could break in the wind but thats been there for decades without falling, smoothly going from standing to sitting without enough of a break to it for anyone to take much notice, but hermann does, now

she gets tense, her breathing a little heavier, and she directs a wheely desk chair to where she needs it to be before smoothly sitting down without a break in her sentence. hes seen old faculty pictures of her, old enough that she wasnt yet, the same heavy wooden cane in her hand in each one even when her hair was still brown.

she knows what shes doing.

she makes eye contact with him on his way in the first day he uses the plain gray cane, just for a second, a second longer than she normally did, and she doesnt say anything that she wouldnt normally, the first person whose tone didnt change even a little when she called on him.

the staring and the questioning makes his chest twist a little less for the rest of the day.

his shoulder is killing him, though, his back below his shoulderblade a constant twinge that gets worse throughout the day the longer he stands, worse on lab days when he cant sit down much.

hes trying to reach that one spot with his fingers when the professor makes eye contact again.

she waves him over at the end with a question about a paper he had turned in a couple days before, but the question was such a simple clarification that hes sure it has to be something else—

“thats too tall for you,” she says, gesturing with her cane towards his. “stand up.”

he does.

“no, relax your shoulders, like you normally stand.”

he does.

she holds her hand flat with the side at his hip and scoots her chair forward, looking between the cane and hermann with slightly raised eyebrows, and he nods.

she clicks the little button on the side, twisting the two pieces until it lowers to the next notch.

“see how that feels,” she says, “itll wreck your back if its too high up.”

his back doesnt hurt after that, from an adjustment of just an inch and one look at him rubbing at his shoulder, not even asking why he uses it in the first place.

she knows what shes doing.

its more than that, hermann realizes, the more he watches and the more he picks up on from personal experience. she can command a room with it, walking with such purpose, even limping, her chin high and the rubber tip hitting the ground at the exact right moment for the exact right emphasis.

hes reluctant to use the word inspiring after the way hes heard it used about him, people like him, just doing what they need to do, but he holds his head higher, and eventually hes not just pretending that the twisting feeling in his chest from the feeling of eyes on the back of his head isnt there anymore, at least most of the time.

it feels like a wall thats been put up, but it feels safe, and he decides he would rather push someone away by not putting up with that sick-sweet way people started talking to him once he started using the cane than let them pretend they were being kind.

he was already plenty used to being coddled and talked down to and patronized for assumptions made based on his appearance; he knows it when he hears it, and hes hearing it loud and clear. if he couldnt prove them wrong and impress, he could at least keep that sick-sweet tone from sticking to his skin the way it used to, always leaving him feeling like he needed a shower.

it still doesnt stop all the questions.

its the end of the year when hes started looking at canes online.

he cant find any that he likes, partly because he feels like he shouldnt like it; its a piece of equipment, something to get around, and he had never put much thought into what his shoes looked like, so it doesnt feel like he should be so stuck on what his cane would look like.

his mind is made up for him when he comes in for his last lecture with the professor like an old tree, and she has a different cane.

he recognizes the brand from the google searches; its fiberglass, light and strong and expensive, matches the pale blue of her glasses, and he finds himself almost disappointed not to see the wooden one, attached to it even though it wasnt his own.

she waves him over at the end with a question about a paper.

all of his papers had already been plugged into his grades.

he doesnt know why his heart is thudding against his ribs when she pulls out something long and wrapped in newspaper from under her desk.

she had it shaved down to the right height, she tells him—its old, it wasnt made to be adjustable, and she says it like an apology, but hermanns eyes are stinging as he pulls apart the newspaper, a new rubber tip attached to the bottom, the handle still worn down in a couple places, and the cane that looks like it came from a hospital stays in the back of his closet after that.

[gaarfielf]

my list of lupin movies ive watched for the sake of keeping track and making sure i dont rewatch some

Castle of Cagliostro (10)

favourite Lupin movie of all time. Fantastic art, cast, plot, everything.

Blood Seal: Eternal Mermaid (8.5)

Really good animation and really interesting plot. Another ‘Lupin has to babysit’ movie but it was treated in such a way that set it apart from other ones. He gives her a lot of good advice and overall I really enjoyed this one even if it’s kind of underrated.

Burning Memory - Tokyo Crisis (8.5)

Surprisingly good like I wasn’t expecting a 90′s Lupin movie to come for me like this but the animation is really solid and the movie itself was really funny. I also liked that Maria and Zenigata weren’t a thing like that cleared my pores.

The Bloodspray of Ishikawa Goemon (8)

The animation is fucking stellar but there were odd gaps in the movie that were really inactive. I liked the two subplots going on though like they were both interesting.

Bye Bye Lady Liberty (8)

The classic convoluted subplots worked well here tbh and the Goemon romance stuff was gunshot noise gunshot noise cash register noise. The animation had this weird glow to it but it was (almost) the 90s lol

Hemingway Papers (8)

They really got me with Goemon and Jigen going against each other and Lupin being in a relationship with someone aside from Fujiko (a relationship that was genuinely romantic) was actually pretty well done. That whole bit at the end with the karaoke machine? Amazing

Return the Treasure (7)

Another one that was really close to being perfect. The only loose ends was that the “treasure” wasn’t really explained very well (but i mean, the lead up to it was very good) and i could’ve done with more scenes with the whole gang (it seemed like there was a lot of times where it was lupin jigen and fujiko or lupin goemon and fujiko, but not enough of all of them together)

From Siberia With Love (7) 

The usual amount of humour and action from a Lupin III film and the art is pretty standard. Goemon got a few nice quotes in and Fujiko talked to a woman. Could’ve done without Rasputin but thats just me.

Elusiveness of the Fog (7)

Lupin offering Goemon to the princess was kinda funny and I actually really liked OG Mamo (not the short freak) being revitilized bc his episode in the original series was really entertaining. The history of where they were was a little wonky but I’ll give it to them this time.

Pilot Film (7)

That shit was wild i liked how jigen was introduced as the gunman and then beat the shit out of 3 police officers with his bare hands. also goemon i guess dedicates his life to killing lupin so thats fun, like he’s on zenigata’s side i guess. could’ve done with fujiko making an expression at any given time but yknow what? it was funny and it was only 12 minutes long

Another Page (7)

Surprisingly not that bad. To summarize the film as a whole I’d say: it could have been worse. The plot made sense which is more than i can say about most lupin movies and they stuck to two subplots that were both interesting and meshed pretty good by the end. And the two lady characters that got introduced didn’t betray anybody AND didn’t die.

Farewell to Nostradamus (6.5)

The animation was pretty good and I liked the whole ‘we gotta protect this kid’ thing but I always mix up this one and Bye Bye Liberty Crisis like this movie is it’s less interesting twin. Both of them have kids they need to protect but Bye Bye Liberty Crisis was just better. I feel like this one had a really good ending but aside from that the movie wasn’t that memorable for me.

Fuma Conspiracy (6.5)

i liked Goemon being in a relationship bc it was really sweet, i just wish there wouldve been a better balance of romance to plot. Also terrible voice actors but that just affected my enjoyment not really the plot or anything relevant.

Sweet Lost Night (6)

I like time shenanigans and my only two critiques are the inconsistent art quality and they seemed really hesitant to embrace time skipping. Like “he’s limited to twice before he becomes brain dead” was a little bit of a small window. If anything they missed out on a good opportunity for a classic lupin montage of him time skipping way too often. Maybe if they changed it to “you skip time every 12 hours, to every 6 hours, to every 3 hours, etc” until he stops existing?? like that seems more in line with a lupin plot not to mention a little more suspenseful.

Dead or Alive (6)

The new art style is kind of neat and didn’t really affect the personality of the characters like I thought it would. The plot itself was complicated and hard to follow but I mean, it wasn’t awful. Nothing I really hated and nothing I loved.

Jigen Daisuke’s Gravestone (6)

Handsome Jigen was cool but tcm i’m begging you to drink your Respect Women Juice. Also Goemon wasn’t in this one what the fuck was up with that. Lupin looked like a crispy toenail in the new art style but again the animation is gucci so I can’t really complain on that front.

Napoleon's Dictionary (6)

Reminded me a lot of Mamo except with more respect in women. Just kidding Fujiko was kind of a crapshoot in the end and the ending was more or less just. cut off?? like they crashed into the ocean after lupin ruined zenigatas marriage and the credits started rolling. it was weird bc it had a lot going but i guess they ran out of time for a proper ending?

Mystery of Mamo (6)

Respect Women Juice needed and also why was Goemon purple. The pros to this movie was the overall aesthetic being really attractive BUT the plot was sketchy and didn’t make a lot of sense. The only remarkable scene I remember is Jigen shooting the can by Lupin’s feet like I wish that emotion would’ve carried through the film and not ended there.

Red vs Green (5)

Really good animation, no fucking idea what happened in this film.

Walther P-38: Island of Assassins (5)

They missed an opportunity to be a little more psychological and the lady of the week dying was meh but I will say the plot stayed on course like they didnt try to do too much at once like they tend to do. I wish they would’ve delved more into lupin’s past with the doctor because that seemed kind of random but the more lethal, edgy plot was handled decently. I’ll probably forget this one in a week tbh.

Dragon of Doom (5)

I like learning more about Goemon but his girlfriend was really distracting and uneccessary. Like, if you want to introduce Goemon’s childhood friend sure its whatever but she only showed up to either threaten lupin or flirt with Goemon. And it was very obvious she was going to betray him so all her build up was pointless. I will say though, the plot was pretty cool which was surprising.

Voyage to Danger (4)

tcm I’m begging you to let Jigen talk to a woman and not have it be like ‘this is Jigens girlfriend now’. Sometimes women be talking and they aren’t thirsting for a man triple their age. It just be like that sometimes. Thats literally all I remember about this film.

First Contact (4)

I remember being excited for this like ‘oh wow their first ever meeting’ and i s2g this film was boring. And also a giant plothole. With no real redeeming qualities. I don’t even remember the animation being that good.

Columbus Files (4)

This film was at least funny bad but my hand to god I’d never watch it again. This is the first time I’ve ever watched a movie and had to watch the dub bc the sub was boring me to death. It was just... so bad... Especially when you’ve seen Wings of Death like this ain’t the Fujiko I know please leave.

Seven Days Rhapsody (3)

The comedy in this one was so weirdly incorporated and featured another really good ‘here’s Jigen’s dead girlfriend’ that i just could not care less about and then finished off with this what like 13 year old girl asking to be Lupin’s girlfriend? fuck outta here. The ONLY good part was Goemon slapping Lupin across the face.

Alcatraz Connection (2.5)

Really, really boring. The content wasn’t necessarily bad but they had 4 subplots going on that were equally uninteresting and some scenes went on for so so so long. It deadass took me 5 hours to watch this movie bc i kept pausing to do literally anything else. The art was unpleasant and by the time they got the treasure i didn’t really care anymore. Not to mention the plot was way too complicated and tin-foil hat for my liking.

Missed by a Dollar (2.5)

Made very little sense and in general was really annoying. Between Goemon being a born again Christian and the plot briefly derailing so Lupin could establish an oil company it was like can we pick something to focus on? By the end of the movie I was like wait when did they get the broach? What does the broach do again? And then he gives it to someone random and its like??

Gold of Babylon (2)

This one if the definition of being cursed and Pink Jacket deserved so much better than this nonsense. Like Lupin III isn’t known for its coherence, sure, but this movie had absolutely no structure. Upon finishing the film I was trying to remember anything that just happened and my brain refused. It kept the good cartoonish animation but god at what cost.

Angel Tactics (2)

TCM PLEASE DRINK YOUR RESPECT WOMEN JUICE. The art was just. Stunningly bad. Bad to the degree where about a minute thirty in I already regretted starting it. Not to mention the classic “we don’t actually wanna draw this part so we’re gonna jam cgi in here”. Also the most awkward use of “hey heres 3 women hey heres 3 men lets shove them together”.

Harimao’s Treasure (2)

nazis and transphobia which was extremely unfortunate considering the opening was actually one of the stronger ones I’ve seen from Lupin but immediately after the villain was introduced the quality of the film dropped about 90% and i wanted to die for the entire last half of the film. if they had changed the villain it would’ve solved 90 of their problems.

Twilight Gemini (2)

this was one of the only films in the entire lupin series where i was rooting for lupin to fucking perish. not only was goemon only in this film for 26 seconds, jigen was there for about 30 seconds and im not entirely sure if fujiko was there at all. not to be that guy but when they make lupin to be the most intolerable piece of shit in the world for this movie, don’t give him all the screen time. having to stare at this asshole for an hour and a half was exhausting.

Princess of the Breeze (2)

How a movie where Jigen has to carry a baby around in one of those funny baby-carriers turned out this fucking goddawful I have no explanation for. This movie was like an AU where all these other characters no one cares about happen to exist in the same universe as lupin. and when lupin does show up, i want him dead. Just horrifically boring and lazy art mixed with bad cgi. The only upside is that it isn’t Return of the Magician.

Return of the Magician (1)

I’m giving it a 1 on the principle that this wasn’t even a movie. It was a little less than an hour long and my god i’ve never seen a film so full of pad-time that if i can be so bold, there was more pad time than plot. What little plot they had made absolutely no sense and the art used cgi in the most bizarre and ugly ways. i’m pretty sure the credits played twice at the end. if there was a world record for lowest budget in a film, Return of the Magician would win hands down.

[missjackil]

Sam, Dean & Sera Gamble

It’s been my feeling since I watched Seasons 6 and 7 that they were different than all other seasons. I didn’t hate them, but I didn’t necessarilly like them either. They were Sera Gamble’s era, and though Im sure it’s hard to stay true to Kripke’s vision, and yet add your own vision to it, I don’t think she did a very good job. I was speaking with a friend recently, who told me it’s a common opinion that Gamble was a Sam girl, the last show runner to “take care” of Sam’s character, and the last one to understand the brothers’ relationship. I nearly spit my coffee on my laptop! Now, this isnt to wank on my friend, I wont name her, but she’ll know who she is if she reads this. She’s a sweety and I respect her, so friend.... this isnt against you :)  Now me, personally, I do tend to see things completely opposite of how most of the fandom sees it, I dont know why that is, but I do. This time is no different, because Im going to go outside the box and explain why I think Gamble was a Dean girl, and maybe even secretly hated Sam. I dont know why she got fired, if any of you do, please enlighten me, because it would seem to me that she got fired for favoring Dean too much and nearly destroying Sam’s character, and Im going to explain why. 

To start, she wasn’t the head hancho yet in S4, but she was the one who insisted that Sam sleep with Ruby and Dean sleep with Anna. Now I understand how intriguing it was to think of one brother sleeps with a demon while the other sleeps with an angel, but if you read these conditions in a fan fic, youd scream “Dean girl!” and complain about the Sam hate in the fact that Sam slept not only with a demon, but with a dead meat suit, while Dean’s angel conveniently had her own body and not someone elses vessle.   Anyone who wasnt a Sam fan before hand, certainly didnt become one after that. Now I know it was hard to redeem Sam after the events of S4, and I wont blame Gamble for that completely, but the end of S5 brought back the brave, sweet, selfless Sam we know and love. The one who only wants to do the right thing, has unlimited love and faith in Dean, is willing to take responsibility of his actions, will give up his life to save the world, and the love for his brother is strong enough to overpower the Devil himself.<sniff> but Gamble got the show for season 6 and what happened? The very first thing, is reward Sam’s courageous act of S5 with coming back soulless. And for a while. at least 5 episodes, all that meant was Sam was Sam minus his good qualities. His compassion, kindness, and love for Dean. Sure, Soulless Sam was sexy and funnier than normal Sam, but for the most part, he was just cold. Again, if you werent a Sam fan up till now, you werent becoming one during this arc. The arc itself, though it seemed to be about Sam, was really about Dean and his reaction to Soulless Sam. What it did to him, how Sam let a vamp turn him, how Dean hated being in the same room with him and very little about how it affected Sam other than for him to say he doesnt care about anything, even about Dean, which made us all hurt for Dean, not Sam.  One of the biggest traits in the WInchester bromance, is that Sam and Dean will go over and above the call of duty for each other, and are self destructively co dependent, and yet the only time in s6 and 7 that Gamble showed this was when Dean went to get Sam’s soul back and died to talk to Death. We see Dean laying his life down for Sam, because he loves him so much, meanwhile.Sam is trying to kill Bobby. Still not winning Sam fans here. Also Sam was trying to kill Bobby to make it impossible to get his soul back, because he was afraid of what would happen to him, which is inconsistant with being soulless, because Soulless Sam (and other soulless people) had no fear, so to me it looks like a plot device  to keep Sam unlikable, it had even been stated by Bobby, that Dean was his favorite, not something a “Sam girl” would put in the mouth of the man Sam loves as a father, is it? Then Sam gets his soul back and with all the talk about how much damage it could do, one would think Sam would be the focus of s6b but he wasnt really, not even in the episode that he got his soul back. We did get an awesome bro hug then, and Im thankful, but the episode turned quickly to a filler/monster hunt, that pushed Sam to the side while Dean went to get that dragon killing sword and do a little physical comedy.  After that, we got a couple hell visions, but no real bromance or happiness that Dean had Sam back, it was just business as usual. We had a lot of comedy though with French Mistake, Fronteir Land, The Heart Will Go On, and Mommy Dearest. Keep in mind we have Dean looking all sexy in his cowboy outfit, and Sam just dresses like Sam with a cowboy hat. Clear signs of a Dean girl Season 6 wraps up with 3 episodes, The Man who Would Be King, that is very Cas heavy even though he’s a side character. He doesnt share this story with Sam or Dean, they just support it. Let it Bleed, which is Dean heavy, Sam isnt in much of it, and Cas is in even less. It’s primarily all Dean, Lisa and Ben, and then The Man Who Knew Too Much, which is actually one of my favorites, Its Sam heavy-ish, even though his hell wall just collapsed, and a fantastic story is unfolding, but he has to share the episode with Cas’s story independent of his own. and of course, Dean has things going on with Bobby. This is not a sign of a Sam girl.

 In the real SPN world, Dean would have stood down with the threat that Sam wouldnt be fixed if he didnt. As we saw him easily give up Anna for Sam, and how he let Lucifer/Sam beat the crap out of him just to keep Sam above ground and give him time to take over. Dean didnt even have a plan to that could help Cas’s problem, but he was willing to let Sam suffer and maybe die, just to stop Cas’s plan that he had no idea if it would fail or not? That’s definitely not “understanding the brothers’ relationship”  Now we move on to S7. The first 2 episodes are pretty heavy for Sam. It looks like he might get a good solid storyline this season. But what does a Sam girl think will help the already painful flood of Hell memories? I know, lets highly imply that Sam was raped by Lucifer!!! YEAH!! This goes great in a show that only gets a pg14 raiting, that emphisizes in love and family. it really NEEDS to have a lead hero raped by the devil for 180 years! How about we also add insult to injury and make Lucifer charming and humorous so the audience will like him! Not like Alistaire that the audience couldnt wait to kill.  I had hoped for the return of the Winchester bromance when Hello Cruel World had some wonderful moments of it. Dean waking Sam for breakfast, and tending to his hand wound, and listening to him about the hallucinations. The scene in the warehouse where Dean showed Sam to press on his wound to keep focus on whats real was one of the best bromantic moments of the series, and then Dean panicking with Sam unconscious in the ambulance. But it was sadly short lived. The next episode is mainly taking place weeks later, Sams issues are touched on for a minute, but he goes out on a hunt by himself, which pisses off Dean who still has a broken leg and cant drive.

 And then Leviathans, and DIck Roman and Samgirl Gamble for some reason thinks it would be such a riot for Sam who has been hallucinating Lucifer and the cage, to get roofied, married, and tied up naked by a stalker fan!! WTF????? And then Bobby dies, and then Sam gets kidnapped by Vetalla for 3 days while Dean was sleeping, and while Sam is bleeding out, Dean is trying to be friends with an annoying teenage girl. and then Dean gets to travel back in time and look smokin hot while he hangs out with Elliot Ness, then Dean fathers a monster daughter, and Sam kills her, and LETS CHASE SAM AROUND WITH CLOWNS!!! Oh wait, is he still having hellucinations? Hmmm I forget, and this is about the time I think Gamble had gotten fired because I have no idea what she was thinking to this point.  Sam’s hallucinations had been put on the back burner so much that I wonder if her intentions were to keep him in that state for a long time. To maybe throw into the mix every now and then, that Sam isnt stable. so he might not be strong enough to handle this thing, or he might not be in his right mind, so Dean will REALLY be the main hero and the most credible of the 2. Because Dean even used Sam’s mental state as a reason why he lied to him about Amy, and Sam just accepted it.  Repoman brought Sam’s hallucinations back to the surface, and i think Carver may have taken over by then because Sam was frantic to find his kidnapped brother, much more than Dean was to find his a few episodes before. Carver had to have been back by The Born Again Identity because Cas came back. I wont say I like the way Sam’s mental health was handled, it was just over by Cas taking on the pain, but at least it got attention and SOME form of closure.  Now Carver isnt without some pretty epic sins, but he definitely wasnt afraid of bromance, and the Winchester co-dependency. I wonder if Gamble gets such support simply because she is a female and women tend to want to support women in business full of men, and I understand that, but Ill still call out the woman if she does a crap job, which I really think she did in this case. She did a better job at taking care of Dean than Sam, and she did nothing to help their relationship. 

[feckyeslife]

we now return to a dramatic critique of “Four” picking up where we left off. Having just finished The Initiate, I needed to take a long break before coming back to this... writing.

(side note, I somehow skipped the Son and had to go back to read that about 10 pages into the Traitor)

THE SON

- Four waxes a bit poetic about how he’s not Abnegation anymore and it kind of amuses me because he’s not really Dauntless, either. 

- Max comes in to ask/encourage Four into picking Leader. The smoothness of the process makes me feel a lot better about my own Leadership training fic scenes, though the fact that it takes over a year gives me pause because it’s implied in the next section that Eric had given Four orders on how to lead training in that interrum year. So... either trainee-Eric was given some power or he finished it quicker than a year. Or continuity doesn’t matter in this collection of short stories -.- Also he TAKES the role? Whaaaat.

Putting the rest under a cut to save all y’all’s dashboards. But there’s more. So much more.

- Zeke volunteers Four to be on a double date with him and it was the perfect moment to question if Four might have possibly been not-straight, but alas. 

- Alright I know I was a bit tipsy by the end of the last read-through but how have these people already forgotten / not realized that Four came from Abnegation? It feels awkward and forced in this moment bc this is literally like... not even a week after Initiation. Not enough time to have legitimately forgotten to consider that maybe he was an Abnie. 

- The banter about hand-holding is lame and awkward. No 16 year old boys banter about hand-holding, I’m SORRY. 

- Also Shauna’s interest in Zeke is just *yawn* like I don’t care that she’s jealous of this double date.

- Someone was in Four’s apartment and broke a drinking glass. I facepalm and wonder why a single apartment would have its own kitted out kitchen when they have a MESS HALL

- Four’s internal thoughts about Dauntless wisdom of living life without fear are actually very nice. This is the side of him as a protag that would have been interesting because it’s less self-righteous as the rest of his actions and comments in the other books.

(for those just joining us, VRoth stated that originally the series was about Four as a protag and honestly it makes way more sense. And would have allowed Tris to be a very solid side character and *gasp* even a failed love interest to show that the world isn’t always perfect and you don’t always actually work with the girl you ~have love at first sight~ with)

- The training program includes tests to see how quickly they learn and Four - and the narrative - once again one-dimensionally claims that this is an Erudite quality and therefore odd. How freaking hard is it to acknowledge that intelligence is something that the military Leadership would need? Very hard, apparently.

- Max passes out info sheets for them to fill out and it’s like My First Fascism spelled out. Very dystopian and, again, a better cue for the reader than how very straightforward the tension was with Tris’ initiation. A little heavy handed but not terribly so. 

- OKAY HERE AGAIN with the inconsistencies. Earlier I made the comment about him hiding his heritage and it was flavored with OH NO THEY CAN”T KNOW I’M ABNEGATION. Here during the double date, there’s a moment where Four is asked how he met Zeke and if he was a transfer. Four thinks that he doesn’t want people to think he’s uptight and also doesn’t want to cue in about his parentage. But the feeling is so different from earlier. Naturally this means that he just straight up lies and claims to be DB. /sigh

- Nicole is conventionally attractive and as flat as a pancake, character wise. She gets pissed that Four is being a shitty date - he is - but has to walk about because he doesn’t call her pretty. 

VROTH THIS IS NOT HOW TEENAGERS TALK. I’M SORRY BUT WHAT THE FUCK. 

“Personality is much more important that-”

“Than my unsatisfactory looks?”

- Shauna once again is upset that Zeke’s mackin’ on a girl that isn’t her. I’m yawning and bored that this is as dramatic as VRoth thinks the background relationships can get.

- I might actually vomit the next time we’re introduced to a side character whose entire description is just LOOK HOW COLORFUL THEIR HAIR IS AND ALSO SO MANY PIERCINGS!!!!! Sidenote, this was actually Lauren being re-introduced. 

- please please please dont make me read through VRoth trying to describe code. i’ll do anything. no? I have to? fine.

A) Lauren explains shit too fast, for too long, and doesn’t give people paper to even make notes. that’s not teaching that’s torture

B) Eric’s a smug jackwad about already knowing it all and I love him for it even though it’s a dick move. Remember, the last time he and Four interacted was when Four beat the shit out of him after he conceded.

C) Why the fuck would Dauntless be writing their own code to do stuff? I get that you might need to tinker with settings or whatnot, but are we honestly jumping to a world where the program to call up a security feed is something that you have to hand write or piece together to get working?

D) the punctuation that VRoth has Four paying attention to are periods (fine) quotation marks (alright) and backslashes (nope). Not a semicolon? REALLY? What language is she assuming they’re using? 65% of all my code errors ever were misplaced semi-colons or improperly nested loops.

E) apparently the only errors they’re looking for are like Baby’s First Code issues because there’s not a mention of BASIC shit like loops, defining variables, or even having to decipher the logic of any of the programs which is, you know, how you do code review. 

- Ah the intruder has to do with his mother. Alright then. But why the fuck did they knock a drinking glass down? Unless they’re two unrelated break ins. 

- Cameras are everywhere in the world yeah yeah but what about when Edward gets stabbed? Ah yes, getting Peter caught then would have broken the plot so clearly they weren’t in the initiate dorms.

- So here’s where there’s basically confirmation that Eric’s been an Erudite pawn all along. I don’t have to like it, so I won’t. 

- Four waxes on about acknowledging that he’s his father’s son and once again it’s slightly grounding as a character and further drives the knife into my metaphorical back that he’s such an ass in Insurgent.

- Evelyn is totally Jewish in heritage. Curly haired, hooked nose. Mmm. Part of me wants to extrapolate about the outright Christian nature of Abnegation versus the other persecuted people - the Factionless - but I’ll hold off because I’m too tired to do it well.

- Evelyn pulls the same crap about the city changing and people needing to pick a side. It’s classic dystopian YA lit and makes sense if only because we’ve all already read Insurgent and seen the city make those choices. But two years before that all boiled over, its a bit... meh. The dialogue once again is very heavy on crap like “Jeanine Matthews frequents Dauntless headquarters” and other crap that people don’t actually say unless they’re writing something down or making a speech. 

- SINCE WHEN ARE TATTOOS ABOUT DAUNTLESS SUPREMACY? Where is this jump in LOGIC? Ugh ugh ugh the whole Divergents-are-better-than-everyone-bc-we-know-how-to-be-multifacited narrative is horrible and lame. Suddenly there’s active call-outs that people are faction traitors and concerns that even situated Dauntless feel like they need to prove themselves. Where is any of this? It’s all tell and no show beyond the special people like Amar and Four and Tris who have already been made special by the narrative paying attention to them. If we saw someone like Lauren concerning about being “dauntless enough” I would take it with less complaint, but instead it comes off as just WE GOTTA RAMP UP THE TENSION.

- There’s talk again about “if we believe that Dauntless truly is the superior faction” then blah blah blah, Eric’s ideas for training (which on their own make sense to me). Four gets on about the actual idea of choosing values over supremacy like a normal human being. There’s also this assumption that people getting kicked out wouldn’t kind of deserve it - again, it’s a military so freaking AL should not be in it, I’m not sorry. Four makes the assumption that the “small, smart, brave” wouldn’t be able to succeed which really shows that either people aren’t being trained to use their skills - christina did fine as a small, smart, brave girl in fights - or we just needed the casual reminder that Tris and people like Tris are the special ones who manage to survive and shouldn’t have. If I were Four, I would counter Eric’s arguments against the bs supremacy ideas and also support giving proper training and evaluation so that “qualified” doesn’t only mean big and beefy. But, hey, that argument’s tough to make. His arguments hinge on the whole idealism crap and doesn’t touch real goals beyond “take out the knife throwing” which of course isn’t going to impress. 

- Max has Eric leave and actually is a bit... mature in the conversation with Four? He doesn’t talk down to him and it’s rather jarring compared to the earlier conversation. Four still thinks Max just wants someone to control which doesn’t mesh with this conversation or even really with the earliest one of the section. He seemed to genuinely think that Four had solid qualities but dealing with others in power clearly isn’t one of them. Or really, dealing with Eric. 

- Eric gloats, fully in the evil villain role. I’m unimpressed. He works best as Four’s antagonist, though, rather than Tris & Co’s. Another reminder that the direction of the story has always been on Four and his struggles, not Tris’.

- We get acknowledgement that of COURSE Four’s going to be a good teacher because he taught Shauna that one time (because he’s a boy and she’s a girl nevermind the fact that she’s grown up here)

- The section ends with him leaving a message for Evelyn that one day he’ll support her but not yet. After he just had this section rambling about how he chooses the middle path to be himself and find moments of rebellion against the people trying to control him INCLUDING Evelyn. Doesn’t seem very rebellious to yield to the woman who doesn’t care about you as a person, just as a weapon or a tool.

THE TRAITOR

- .”Beatrice. That name is so wrong for her.” I’m like 80% sure that this is the only time i’m gonna agree with him. But also, I feel like i remember him calling her Beatrice in Insurgent sooooo

- Tris was fragile-looking when she first entered Dauntless. Not a great descriptor but not the worst.

- Two years later and he’s still broody mc brooderson. His supervisor in the Control Room reminds him it’s alright to have fun and he literally grumbles under his breath. 

- He get’s Max’s password from the security feed because Max is bad at typing. I almost want to sin that just because even if you suck at typing, you can usually do your password (esp one that’s just numbers) entirely by instinct. But maybe - just maybe - Dauntless rotates passwords and Max just sucks. Either way, meh. 

- Lauren’s part of the technical staff. An interesting (re)discovery [I had read this before realizing I skipped the other part]. She helps him to get a program to mirror Max’s computer under the pretext of a prank on Zeke. I’m a bit befuddled simply because... How would Four ever prank Zeke with a mirroring program? Like, they just watch security feeds and maybe write reports? I also feel like it reflects even more poorly on Dauntless that they’re cool with pranks like that. But, then again, Dauntless is a bunch of morons according to VRoth’s POV so, I guess I can’t be too surprised. 

- The conversation /chewing out by Gus is SO stilted and awkward. We already got the info dump about taking feeds out of rotation but here we get literally the same explanation as Four’s defense. A good edit would have eliminated the awkwardness. Also, Four getting called out for being shitty at his job amuses me because from Tris’s POV in the other books, he can do no wrong. 

- Four gets Edward and Will mixed up in his head. These are his kids for the past x weeks and he doesn’t know who the “blonde erudite” is? Sideyeing so hard.

- Max and Four duke it out verbally over the stabbing as Four insists that it’s Eric’s fault bc the kids are so wound up. And Max gets some niiice jabs in about how Four could have a better leg to stand on if a) he stopped insulting every superior officer in his path and b) didn’t back down on the leadership role. Also a jab that, hey, you know who’s 100% at fault? The person who STABBED EDWARD!

- Ugghhh Tris is Dauntless but the faction “isn’t really Dauntless anymore.” Dude you’ve been here 2 years. You refuse to work with the current system to help it to teach the real values. Like here, where you refuse to call Tris out for insubordination - or at least WARN her that she’s getting away with it - and earlier complained about how you got bitched out for stopping last year’s fights. Figure out how to teach real lessons Mr. “Great Teacher” while following the letter of the writing. 

- He also pulls the “i’m hard on Tris because she can take it” line and I’m unamused. He had the time here to actually say what he wanted to say or at least a version of it that isn’t tempered by being a dick like he claimed ten seconds ago he wasn’t with her because he “respects her.” The amount of flip-flopping could fill a beach.

- he touches her back and it addles his mind. Either his balls are that blue or VRoth is laying on the one-sided attraction a bit thick. 

- I don’t remember this scene being this long in Divergent, but at least Tris is getting credit for being perceptive about things. Even if that perception is just to put Four on a pedestal of “so much better than Eric/Dauntless.” There’s also more detail about how training had ACTUALLY changed to previously include padding and not bare-knuckle boxing. Six years ago. I’m 200 pages into this short story and this is the FIRST empirical evidence that Dauntless had changed before Four got there beyond early Fear Landscaping.

- Tris calls Eric jealous and Four spends a hot second considering that Eric might actually have motives and emotions beyond cocky. It’s the best I’ll get and I’ll take it.

- Two years into Dauntless as Four “tries a Dauntless expression” to tell Tris that she doesn’t look like she’s been crying. Two years. What a friggen outsider. Again, makes sense with the previous storyline but not really in the actual story because, gee, if he’s such a good Dauntless why is he an outsider? (well because Dauntless - even the non-Erics or Maxes - is horrible, don’t’cha know UGH)

- He discovers the plans for the attack on Abnegation and claims how this makes sense because of how much Max and Jeanine hate the Abnegation. Far as we’ve seen, Max doesn’t give a single shit about Abnegation, but hey, it wouldn’t do to have a villain who didn’t hate where the protag came from. 

- Please lets note how even in these scenes, Tris has displayed no actual return affection towards Four’s tiny attempts at connecting with her. It’s all about Four.

- He goes to mommy dearest about the danger of Max and Jeanine’s plans. It’s regrettably the only logical thing to do. And mommy doesn’t care. The only interesting thing about this is that this is the only scene that doesn’t present the attack on Abnegation as an attack on the poor innocent Christians. They’re shown as liars and backstabbers, supporting Marcus rather than good hearted folks helping the Divergent. It explains Four’s desire to back his mother in Insurgent rather than the rest of the city. 

- We hit one moment of Tris actually responding to Four’s kindness which I feel like I need to emphasize is the only time that he’s actually said nice shit without being a tool before or after it. Weird how girls don’t like that.

- Earlier Four couldn’t remember who the Blone Erudite transfer was but he can tell from the shape of a hooded figure that Al’s the third attacker. Mmmkay.

- UGH he hates the fights but he doesn’t resent how Tris beat Molly into a pulp and beyond because she’s got tits and Eric doesn’t. It’s as simple as that. Sorry, not sorry.

- Four’s internal dialogue: I need to find someone I can trust. This girl is cute and she also beats people into a pulp when she’s upset but this will never happen again and any further rage from her will result in me telling her to stop and be a better person but this is what connects us right now so it’s okay. 

- Four makes a pathetic attempt to consider reporting the assault to Eric who uses it to rightly call out Four’s inability to control his kids. Then Eric goes over the villain line again and says it’s a way to tell who the strong and the weak are. Yawn.

- Holy balls, Shauna and Zeke get brought in to be Four’s muscle and scare Peter. I get why we never saw this through Tris’ POV but you THINK it could have maybe been mentioned? Also we get a tiny glimpse into Dauntless culture as they threaten to ruin Peter’s reputation forever, etc etc. Not that any of this really matters because all Dauntless are dumb, remember? Only the special main characters matter. 

- Zeke also makes a vague insinuation about Al falling into the chasm and I’m suddenly a bit astounded as the next scene is, well, Al’s body being dragged up. Four realizes he’s been a shitty instructor and a choir of angels sing “of course, you idiot”

- There’s the scene of Tris and Four after Al’s death where he attempts again to give her half answers and sideways comments that only serve to frustrate her and me. And the stupid line about pushing her until she breaks because he thinks how it doesn’t mean he wants to hurt her but it’s so CLEARLY not his actual goal in literally any of their interactions, even from his POV! Where does this line come from? His imagination?

- We flip-flop again, this time about how most of Abnegation IS actually good don’tchaknow

- There’s the re-do of the fear landscape where we go back to other-book canon where jumping off the side is all well and good because you don’t need to have a perfectly logical reaction to the landscape. Mmm. Tris is also like 80 times better than him, still. Just sayin’

- I’m again reminded of how quickly they go from one sided to barely flirting in the fear sim to touching casually and him kissing her forehead. All those subtle intimacies are just way too sudden. Ugh.

- His decision to go to Marcus is driven by the desire to protect her and I’m once again a bit nauseated by the idea that Tris has to be protected by someone. It makes sense for his character and as much as I’m nitpicking this story, it’s a better, clearer story arc than Tris’. I love Tris to death, but the story of the trilogy is not hers. It’s her dealing with the fall of Abnegation and then tumbling into Four’s family drama. Everything works WAY better from his POV (with tweaking and with her breaking up with him because I say yet again HE IS SUCH A DICK IN INSURGENT)

anywho i’m skipping the last three “bonus scenes” because I need to take a break and also not kill myself.

[dirtyhancls]

ask meme: do all of the them Ψ(｀▽´)Ψ

What’s the last book you read? What did you think of it?

hmmm I reread like half of Graceling, and it’s as good as ever and I’m still bitter that Kristen Cashore hasn’t written anything since the series. it’s YA but also Monster novel TM and so thought provoking

What’s the worst book you’ve ever read, and why?

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry (tbh i read this in 6th grade and HATED it with a Burning Passion but I also don’t remember like 90% of it. just kno that i hated it)

A book you found overhyped, and why

A Hero At The End of the World. I agree with most of the review about it-- it’s very evident the author comes from a fanfic background bc writing fic is very different from novels and there’s some things that don’t translate (character development? relationship development?) if you read the book with the knowledge that its essentially drarry fanfic it makes sense, as its own novel there’s a lot rushed

Ereaders versus physical books is such a false dichotomy. Instead, tell me what other formats (phone apps, tumblr fiction, twitter haikus) you read in

IBOOKS !!!!!!!! ibooks saved my life bc now i can find most books online and then download them and read them it’s amazing

Which genre(s) don’t you read? Why not?

romance jfc i just dont go there sorry (mostly bc of the covers)

If you read in more than one language, is there a difference between the experience of reading in your native language(s) and reading in other languages?

nope cannot read chinese rip

If you’re not a native English speaker, how much do you read in your native language versus how much you read in English? How do you feel about that? // If you’re a native English speaker, go find a book in your second/third/etc language, or in translation, to add to your to-read list

can i count latin as a third language lmao?? screw it i’m doing it one day i’ll read the entirety of the aenied in latin

The book you read when you’re stuck in bed sick

HMMM my go to book is probably The Amulet of Samarkand? or maybe Six of Crows 

Fiction or non-fiction or both? In what ratio? Where do you draw the line between the two?

pretty much 100% fiction but i;m aiming to change that (And the Bnad Played On is next on my list)

The book(s) you bought because the cover was pretty, and whether it was worth it

:/ i dont usually buy books but i guess you can count A Conjuring of Light? Bc the cover was super pretty and my aesthetic, although i would’ve bought it regardless just bc it was the final book in the series

The worst book hangover you’ve ever had

HOO BOY Ptolemy’s Gate or Code Name Verity

Do you have to finish one book before you start the next one, or do you read multiple books at the same time?

finish but mostly bc i read so fast that if i finish a book it’s usually in a day or two

The fictional character you want to believe you resemble and the fictional character you actually resemble

i want to believe i resemble Sirius Black but i probably actually resemble Remus Lupin 

The book that, in hindsight, really should have clued you in to the fact that you’re _________ (queer/in love/doomed to be an academic/etc)

Artemis Fowl/The Bartimaeus Trilogy that I’m not as clever as i fancied i was

The book that you reread over and over again and get new things from every time

G O D probably The Bartimaeus Trilogy 

The book that you don’t dare reread for fear it won’t be the same any more

Hnnnnnnnnng i’m a huge believer in rereads so but lowkey Percy jackson bc now that i’m older i've realized a lot of its flaws 

Preferred bookshelf organisation scheme

by my favorites

Do you theme your monthly/yearly/etc reading (eg Year of Reading Women)?

Nope bc i’m super inconsistent with reading nowadays and i’m super picky about tstarting new books

That book with a twist that felt like a blow to the chest. Tell me about it. (But warn for spoilers if necessary!)

CODE NAME VERITY once we got to Maddie’s POV i sobbed my way through it culminating in me having to put the book down at that one BANG BANG moment bc i couldnt see through my tears and also my heart had died inside my chest, AND THEN ALSO when they read her notes/confession and my mind was blown by how clever everything was. 

The coolest bookshop you’ve ever been to

i can’t remember the name I think it’s the one world cafe but it’s a cafe/bookshop/bar and super cool, but also there’s a barnes and noble with a fishtank built in an old powerplant thats hella cool 

The book you gave up on, and the reasons why

The Wrath and the Dawn, sorry too boring and generic and also like, annoyingly straight

The book you finished even though you hated it, and the reasons why

Heart of Darkness bc i had to for school

The book you expected to hate, didn’t, and then got angry about not hating

Grapes of Wrath tbh

The book that you got into because of the movie/TV series/etc, and the relative merits of each version

HOWLS MOVING CASTLE

i luv the movie ofc, it’s gorgoeus in all ways and delightful but not gonna lie the story telling is not very good and it sorta makes no sense until u read the book. don’t like the witch of the waste plot and howl becomes much too mysterious wizard for my tastes

SOPHIE AND HOWL ARE THE DELIGHT OF THIS BOOK, their characters are what makes it tbh, Book Howl is the best howl bc he’s ridiculous and hilarious and a coward and i luv it. sophie is less of a mouse (even tho she still thinks she is ahaha) and the part where she’s so pissed off she turns water into weedkiller is my fav. it’s also just a complete subversion fo fantasy which i think miyazaki sorta doesn’t get

The only book care question that actually means anything: do you write in your books? If so, in pen or in pencil?

NOPE I WANT MY BOOKS IN PRISTINE CONDITION

Do you read reviews of books? Before or after you read the books themselves? Why? Why not?

usually only read reviews of 1. books that havent come out yet and 2. books after i’ve read them to see what other people say. also occasionally 3. i read reviews to make fun of them 

The book you’re embarrassed to admit you’ve read

tbh tbh tbh captive prince just to see what it was like for myself and god jfc

The one where the fanfic was better than the original (and the relevant AO3 links, pls)

like, any number of klance fic tbh or HP fic but here’s some like, absolute amazing ones

As Red as Hearts and Autumn- Mauraders Era fic that breaks my heart everytime, particularly fond of this Sirius

call me, beep me most people kno this, but a staple of klance and very well done

it’s quite bizarre, and will remain this way- more klance but also this made my heart hurt

we must unite inside her walls or we'll crumble from within more respectful of HP women than JK Rowling ever was or will be, i love this so much

Catfished- never thought this would be a thing but draco is turned into a glass fish and harry realizes things

thread our way through a string of stars tbh one of the best klance fics i’ve ever read and probably ever will read

Your vacation reading habits

agressive rereads

The book you read the blurb of, constructed a version of in your mind, and were promptly disappointed by once you finally got around to actually reading it

A Hero At the End of the World :/

Bonus question: rec me something!

READ CODE NAME VERITY FOR THE LOVE OF UR LIFE

[somniiari]

Days is my favorite Kingdom Hearts game but I haven’t played it in a while and I don’t think I ever watched the movie version all the way through! So I watched it and liveblogged it.

I basically have the Saix’s monologue in the beginning memorized

Axel has said “got it memorized” at least 6 times within the first 10 minutes of this movie

Hayner, Pence and Olette run past these literal cult members without even looking

7! 7 times Axel please!!

Quinton Flynn’s delivery seems pretty weird and flat now, which is weird cause I know he can do really well. maybe it was intentional, cause Axel hasn’t started developing a heart yet?

I forgot that my pronunciation of Xion is technically wrong

Footsteps in The Castle That Never Was sound so strange. like they’re walking on metal suction cups.

Axel: Wait did you want me dead? Saix: ... *walks away*

Ah yes Xion’s creepy hood thing that I thought was a glitch until later in the game

What was Organization XIII doing in the 10 years before a Keyblade weilder was available to them?? I’m sure they had plenty of scheming and experiments and mischief but 10 years worth?

THEY LEFT OUT THE BEST PART

THEY DIDNT ANIMATE IT

“ROXAS THAT’S A STICK” I NEEDED IT

“As long as we keep each other in our thoughts, we’ll never be apart!” yall forget each other

8 times

Axel is so bitter about/to Saix oh my god tone down your salt man

The Chamber of Repose and the Chamber of Waking. I don’t remember which is which but one houses Aqua’s armor and the other is Ven’s body, right? So one’s in TCTNW and the other is in Castle Oblivion.

It just clarified, Chamber of Waking is Ven, and in Oblivion

Can Saix and Axel’s objectives  really be a secret from Xemnas? Saix is norted after all, and even though he has most of a free will at the moment, he’s still possessed.

IT STARTED PLAYING THE OLYMPIUS COLISEUM MUSIC AND I HAD BAD FLASHBACKS

“[the memories of my past] have never done me any good” because they instilled loyalty to a norted jerk?

“i can deal with 7 days maybe” well just break my heart roxas why dontcha

Axel spends his rare days off sleeping #relatable 

9 times

“try not to bungle everything-” WHAT KIND OF WORD IS BUNGLE

ARE YOU GONNA ASK THEM NOT TO RUSTLE ANYONE’S JIMMIES TOO AXEL?

“you’ve changed” i can vividly remember Axel saying “i’m not the one who changed, you did” in response to that, but its not in the movie. maybe it was actually a journal entry?

“why are you dressed like one of us?” Xion, honey, your uniform is the most well known form of protection against dark corruption of the heart

Of course Organization XIII has no way of knowing that, bc they were deliberately lied to

This is the scene that made me hate Riku. Watching it again after i’ve fallen in love with him is quite the trip

“You’re the real sham!” “Fair enough” Riku bby no your self-hatred is showing

*Xion screams* BBY NO

“’Special?’ Isn’t that another way of saying I’m a mistake?” XION BBY NO but also #same

“According to Axel, girls are complicated and there are buttons to avoid pressing” ah yes, i forgot this part. don’t worry Roxas, she’s just upset because she’s a girl and girls are weird, she’s not having an existential crisis or anything! 

“Roxas ate alone after missions.” where’s Axel though??

the love conversation may have been a great thing to animate but that’s fine square, just tell us about it

And so Axel’s lies begin. He was just trying to give Roxas hope, I can’t wait to remember how this all got twisted and horrible.

Did we fight the Zipslasher in this time skip? I think we did. I hated the Zipslasher gdi

Axel bridal carrying Xion is what got me started shipping AkuXi. Don’t ship it anymore though, really. Maybe in AUs when they’re closer to the same age

Saix: “Did it break again?” Me: XION’S NOT AN IT

Roxas: “Xion’s not an it!” oh yeah thanks Rox

“does the past mean nothing to you” Saix you’re the one being an ass

10 times

omg please tell me he does it 13 or 14 times

Almost all the books in the Organization library look the same; plain white binding. y’know, cause aesthetic.

Flying in Neverland would have been a nice animation too but whatever

This is why you dont hang out in high places kids!

the scene with Axel and Xion in Castle Oblivion is one of my favorites

Story time: Axel’s explanation of the sunset helped me pass an earth science quiz, cause i was out sick when we learned about light but i was playing days while in bed

THE MINDSCREW DREAM

i still have no idea what it means!! or even who was having it!

Neither Xion nor Roxas knew Zexion that well, and that seemed like Riku’s memories, not Sora’s! so WHY

aw i was too angry as a child to realize that Riku was looking for a way to save them

what has Saix done that make you think he has any mercy Roxas

Xion, Axel probably wasn’t gonna fight you if you hadnt attacked him, the first chakram was a warning not to stab Roxas

“i’ll bring her somewhere safe” thats all you had to say Axel

So Xemnas did call him Sora. Way back when I thought he may have said Ventus.

now you screwed up Axel

DiZ is the worst

"i know you’re not just a puppet.” ;~;

11 times

“I saw a boy today who looked just like Roxas” i thought she meant Sora but Xigbar was spying so was it Ven? I mean it should be Sora but....

Also, Xigbar spying!

“nor become the person we see” not everyone sees Xion as anything though, not even at this point. What do you see, Xemnas?

just kidding i’m pretty sure its Ven

why wouldnt you want two Sora capable people?

like tbh if you spent your time balancing Xion and Roxas’s powers instead of pitting them against each other they would have both stayed in the Organization at least a little while longer

the older i get the more i relate to Xion, bc i too am afraid that i will wreck everything

“do you hate me for taking your friend away from you?” “nah. i guess i’m just sad.” ;~;

now i see why people ship RikuXi

i can dig it now that i love them both, still a little weird to me though, i gotta warm up to it

Riku is projecting, i never realized

“you have to do what’s best for everybody” cause so does he, even at the expense of his own life

and he doesn’t want to have to tell Xion that, but he does, and maybe he can do it to someday

that illusion would have been a nice thing to animate, especially since i forgot it happened holy crap

leave it to Axel to do his best to save the day

Give me Lea sadly turning in the WINNER stick in KH3

or even better, give me Lea cheerfully turning in the WINNER stick with Roxas, Xion and Isa at the end of KH3

Xion said it this time but i’m gonna count it, 12

im super mad about the fixation on memories making everything okay in the end because EVERYONE FORGETS AND I HURT

I KNOW ITS ON PURPOSE BUT PLEASE

what is Diz’s purpose, just to order these kids around? he’s a huge jerk, why do you listen to him

he’s telling you to murder people

i mean they need to die i guess but wouldn’t both of you feel better if you came to that conclusion yourselves instead of this asshole telling you you gotta

though they are both kids and i guess there’s a comfort in an adult getting a final say

still DiZ is bad news and i don’t like him mistreating all the young’ins

Axel’s dancing between the truth, trying to be gentle and trying not to care too much resulted in literally the worst explanation ever no wonder Roxas got pissed

Why was Riku just chilling outside Beast’s Castle and how did Xion end up in just the right place to portal in front of him

i don’t REMEMBER XALDIN’S VOICE BEING THAT ODD

also #rude Xemnas, Xion is a she!

good to know most of the Organization thought of her has a person though. or a Nobody at least. an equal.

Were there more than 2 Replicas? oooooh that could be a good plot twist

Xemnas was insistent on calling her an “it” but uses “she” again when giving Axel the task of getting her back, a dialogue inconsistency or a deliberate manipulation?

There’s an implication that Demyx and Xion talked a lot thats adorable

At least now we know why they were insistent on having 13 people even before they had 13 Nobodies

Axel walks away from conversations almost as much as Vax’ildan

Roxas: “Could it be that you knew for a long time, and never told me anything?” Axel: I walk away

I still don’t get why Riku transforms without the blindfold, and how “his eyes couldn’t lie” is a valid explanation

Riku was projecting, he thinks he has to die

13 maybe? Roxas said it, but also accusing Axel of not memorizing it

Axel told Xion the truth and she left. Axel kept the truth from Roxas and he left.

That sucks.

~cause i’m leaaaaaavin, never to come back again~

“you’re Kairi as Sora remembers her” come on you can’t tell her she became her own person before she dies?

Namine is being kind in general though

I ship it

“i know. i’m ready” ;~;

they’re solving the problem themselves and DiZ walks in pissed that they’re doing what he asked. Almost like a real parent!

MY FAV SCENE IN THE WHOLE GAME

THE VOICE ACTING

THE BODY LANGUAGE

YOU CAN HEAR MY HEART BEING RIPPED OUT

you can also almost hear Axel’s abandonment issues developing even further!

this day is just titled “Tears”. Accurate

I just realized Xion was trying to get Axel to kill her first

but he couldn’t do it

she got Roxas to do it instead

Memories of Xion going static and fading are the WORST

Roxas did break Riku’s arm or something

yes hello i look eerily like your boss now

I wonder if Axel/Lea ever looks back on his conversations with Roxas and notices a hole. An awkward silence where he and Roxas are just listening to nothing. Laughter after a beat of quiet. Looking at something that isn’t there.

literally why is everyone just okay with DiZ he’s a total jerk

in II DiZ acts like he figures out that Ansem is actually Riku. Here he doesn’t question that Riku is 2 heads taller and his voice is 2 octaves deeper.

The rooms in KH are so nice

Well there it is. the end.

WAIT

“Got it memorized” and close variations were said a total of 13 times in this movie

11 by Axel, once by Xion, and once by Roxas, as a denial.

I’m so mad

[mobianstrip]

sonic forces me to analyze the game

this is by no means a full, in depth review of sonic forces. however, since im working on a Forces au i think its only fitting to talk about my personal gripes with the game. just to be clear, i dont hate sonic forces by any means! there are some really neat concepts about it that i enjoy, which ill include my thoughts on as well! though with that said, theres a lot about it that could have been dealt with better. this post is gonna be a bit long and messy, sorry!

now i cant speak for what the gameplay controls itself are like since i havent actually played it with my own hands, so my primary focus will be the story and general format of the game. everything under the cut!

ill start by saying that in hindsight, i think the general premise of the game is actually really neat (had the war framing of the plot not been so overly glorified and bland. more on that below). eggman taking over most of the world is very reminiscent to the initial circumstance of mobius in the early archie sonic publication. it seems especially reflective of the comic in the fact that sonic forces takes place on a planet setting more akin to that of Mobius than that of Sonic’s World/Earth, the difference being the lack of human beings aside from Eggman. while this does somewhat bother me for the fact that it paints an inconsistency with the setting, im also all for the planet being strictly Mobians + Eggman again tbh. the concept of sonic being on earth populated by humans, complete with a mock version of the united states, never really settled well with me. it always felt like just a means to make sonic more relatable, which is true, but not done because it made anything more interesting. a problem that then arises is that the origins of shadow and silver/blaze would be radically different or at least would need some retcon alterations to make sense...but thats a topic for another day

overall, looking past the inconsistency with the setting and its implications, i enjoy how the premise of the game feels like going back to the basics. but even the premise still has its problems...which is never a good sign, and this point practically sealed forces’s fate of inconsistency: the theme of war and how it frames the story is so, so poorly written

starting with whats presented at the beginning of the game, sonic is captured by eggman as a prisoner. if the writing had just left it at that, fine. however, the exposition goes on to say that sonic has been there for six months being tortured...and that tails has completely lost it. again id be fine with this - the theme of war is a darker one so these two events would make sense in this circumstance. however, that tension is just totally lost in a matter of a few episodes. you rescue sonic who is just as cheery and jokey as ever, somehow able to fight a boss despite being supposedly locked away and tortured for six months

of course i understand that its not like they could give sonic ptsd and make him look tortured and weak and so on - but why even mention the torture thing at all? the same problem is apparent with the first cutscene with tails. tails is hardly given enough time to seem like he has "lost it". i will say though that tails WAS given a bit more of an emotional response to work with than sonic overall. particularly when tails is about to be attacked by chaos, and he ducks his head in fear and calls for sonic to help him even though sonic isnt there - i actually enjoyed this small segment bc it does reflect some of what was said about how he reacted to sonics capture (aside from also being across the planet...for seemingly no reason except bc he "lost it" and to get him away from the main group so that classic sonic can appear)

frankly speaking from these two points alone, the games tone just feels kind of confused. its obvious the writers wanted some parts of the darker theme of war...and its also obvious that going all out wasnt gonna be an option bc of the nature of sonic as a character and franchise being about more lighthearted, easier to relate to stories about sonics heroism. which im fine with that being the case; sonic is a hero and more importantly a mascot that profits off of kids being able to relate and look up to. my issue is simply that the premise of this game makes consistent writing kind of doomed from the start if the writers are trying to appeal to both the kids AND older fans. they cant go to the lengths necessary to adequately build the narrative. cant go too dark, cant go too lighthearted, and not finding a balance between to two gives you a confused and bland story 

on that note,  i personally find the theme of war to be...uncomfortably glorified and unchecked (adding to the tone confusion and blandness). sonic forces is named so because...yknow. armed forces. armies. the whole point of the game is that theres a war going on and youre on the good guy side. i mean its not as if youre fighting against other living creatures, just infinite and eggmans robots, but still. i think what put me off the most is the first comic with the soldier cat. after they save the day, the last lines are "I'll do better. I'll be better. I'll become a real soldier and a real hero." now slap that as the tagline to a united states army corps commercial and suddenly its really...sour tasting

war is just one of those subjects that i think needs to be handled with a bit more care. i mean think about it: the primary gimmick of forces is that you get to make your own character, to be the sonic version of yourself in this world. the plot of the game is that theres a war, and your character joins the resistance to defeat eggman. this game is pretty blatantly glorifying the idea that joining in on a war can make you a REAL soldier, a REAL hero. to some kids, that might sound pretty cool. but theres no nuance to it whatsoever, nothing thought provoking on the subject. no one steps back to be like ‘its good to do good things but wars are tough and not fun, and being a hero isnt everything’. none-a that

now do i think a sonic game could get it into a childs head that they should join the army for real? no, not necessarily. i think its possible, but i think that would also be due to a larger issue of military glorification present in modern culture in general (especially in america). mostly i just find the implications at play with glorifying the theme of war in conjunction to the avatar gimmick to be in poor taste and also entirely avoidable because...

i dont think the war and army framing even had to be a thing. not only is it just so sloppily done in general, with that fact that the supposed soldier forces on the Resistance side are literally never seen on screen except for some dialogue boxes in one episode and the rest of the time only being mentioned through other characters, but i seriously think never saying the words “war” or “army” and not including literal soldiers would have worked just as well and even been the better route. they could have just been like yeah heres eggman taking over the world, heres the resistance fighters that have come together to stop him, they are opposing forces and you play as your avatar to stop eggman - and just leave it at that. it wouldve made the glorification of war less obvious and the handling of the topics at hand appear less confused, appealing to a more lighthearted tone rather than weighing it down with frankly out of place hints to a darker subject of war

finally i wanna talk about the story as it relates to how its told through the game. the plot itself is fairly standard - eggman starts war, captures sonic, takes over planet. you rescue sonic, and together you fight eggman and infinite and ultimately defeat them. thats all good and well even if its cheesy sometimes. the REAL problem is how its executed. a lot of the exposition is given not through cutscenes, but through spoken dialogue with text box subtitles over the episode select screen. and it just feels so...stiff. it doesnt feel like world building, it just feels like being forcefed information with no substance behind it

i get that fully rendered cutscenes throughout can be expensive and time consuming, but shoot id take in-game rendered cut scenes at least. (like in sa, sa2, shadow 2005...) anything that could have provided the world building with a bit more ground to stand on would have been great. sure, there are levels to traverse which look cool...but they dont provide any sense of scale, they dont tell us what the area is like, and more importantly, you never see the other characters who are supposedly on the battlefield "alongside" you in a couple episodes. the storyline from the exposition along sounds like it could be an epic journey - but the way its told with the given game mechanics (i.e.: stage-based gameplay with no open worlds to explore) leaves a lot to be desired

i feel like the stuff explained in the comics should have just been cutscenes or exposition or something to pad out the game a bit. the comics are so short anyways so why just put it in the game? maybe not the first comic about the rando soldier saving the day or w/e...but the comic with silver and knuckles fighting chaos? the comic about infinites origins? all of that could have easily been included. at LEAST the comic with shadow was part of the DLC...but even thats just so gimmicky. they provide important background to the main plot of this game so i really dont understand why it was sidelined to comics and not just included from the beginning

the tension that the exposition already fails to build up is brought down even worse when coupled with the confusing timing of the stage complete screens, where you get your completion rank and see what new character creation items you unlocked. listen, i know immediate gratification for completing the level is important and all...but i swear, having these screens between the end of a boss fight and the cutscene showing what happens to them after being defeated seriously impairs the flow of the game. maybe having it there allows for the cutscene to load up in the background to improve efficiency, but personally id prefer seeing a loading screen as the break between a boss fight and the following cutscene after it and THEN the stage complete screen to finish the sequence off. the boss fight end cutscenes arent that long anyways for the most part, so its just nonsensical to have the stage complete screen interrupt the action when theres only a two minute scene left to it

i cant stand how streamlined forces is to the point of the main plot. what happened to games that actually take the time to explain stuff, show us extra bits to the story and how they connect? and even when forces' does explain SOME stuff, its through audio/text only dialogue. nothing visually interesting, just...dialogue. and then its off to the next level. forces' feels very bare bones honestly. the story is supposed to feel big and epic but it just wasnt given enough to bring that feeling into fruition. this is probably the only thing that saves forces’ from the war glorification issue because the game simply fails so miserably at telling a compelling story due to poor writing and poor formatting that the war stuff gets lost in the mix - and thats just sad

all of this brings me to my conclusion. fuck i wish sonic forces was a better written and executed game, because i do think it could have been so cool. i really like infinite as a villain, in both his design and personality. yeah hes kind of a whiny, edgy bitch - but he had potential. and its really gonna suck if this game killed off all that potential in one fell swoop

(then again, thats why we have fan content and aus :3)