rodmanfox

[reestallized]

Late night doodles of the girlie

[gaslightgirlsummer]

At this point with lestappen (in whatever context) can it even still be considered a soft launch? It feels like almost everyone in their bubble has brought it up at least once by now lol.

you are so right anon because at this point it feels less like a soft launch and more like a damn rocket launch. as always, we can only make an educated guess about what's going on, and i have a lot of them, so strap in

first of all, to me it's one of the three:

at some point of the season, most likely somewhere around singapore (where we got the infamous reel of charles and max walking together, implying charles is on max's pre-race checklist, and lestappen alert) or right after qatar (the padel match) something happened between charles and max privately that made them - maybe not closer, because there's no proof they weren't like this already in private - but more comfortable showing that closeness in public

ferrari and rb pr teams greenlit more interactions and content about the two of them because they saw the engagement lestappen are getting. the timing, however, would be very strange - middle of the second half of the season, charles not really in contention with max, the first of the interactions posted literally being them walking together. which leads us to point 3:

charles is either in talks or has already signed a pre-agreement with red bull. lestappen gate 2023 tag has it all

we can't deny that something CLEARLY shifted, just as we got our first official confirmation of max and charles hanging out outside the paddock. and i want to underline "official" here, because max has mentioned before that he and charles "see each other in restaurants and cafes around monaco" and we never got a confirmation if he meant they accidentally run into each other or they meet up intentionally. with the padel date, i'm a bit more inclined to believe the latter.

"but why did we never gate any pictures then?"

first of all, probably because paparazzi are actually not allowed in monaco. it is illegal there, hence a lot of celebs enjoy its privacy. second of all i don't think most citizens of monaco would care about seeing these two having dinner together, as monaco is small and its population even smaller (36k citizens, not all of them living there full time). most of them wouldn't be moved by this. and seeing a famous athlete having dinner with another famous athletes feels less special when a large chunk of the population is famous athletes. the third option is fans and tourists visiting monaco, but i don't think these two would be hanging out at tourist spot restaurants.

when we got our first official confirmation of these two hanging out it came out from them, not a random picture, but these two intentionally showing everyone that yes, they hung out together, and no, they are not acting like it's a big deal. charles also answered a question about padel with max in his ferrari q&a, which informed people who don't keep up with charles' instagram that he did, in fact, see max in private.

there's no solid conclusion here, only ramblings, but what i can say to sum it up is: charles and max are clearly intentionally and openly showing that they are friends now. and we can only imagine and theorise what comes next, and enjoy every minute of it

[fancy-feast-official]

instead of doing anything normal (like taking ibuprofen for my headache) i just spent the past four hours of my life writing an essay on why manfred von karma is abusive. kind of proud of it ngl.

also i tagged all quotes from the original post i'm talking about to their actual [user].tumblr.com site which has really bright colors fyi. i'll link the tumblr.com/[user] site at the end of the essay if bright colors don't work for you. also if ppl start sending me hate i'm just gonna block them.

In a Tumblr post by Wendy/Jessie Rose Rocket (referred to from here on as Wendy) on their interpretation of Manfred von Karma (MvK) in the Ace Attorney series, they argue that there is little canon evidence that MvK could have ever abused his children.[1] This however, is not the case, as there are various examples which they cite themselves that include traits of emotional abuse, including a hyper-controlling nature, manipulation, and invalidation of the victim’s feelings.

Before I get into the various examples given in the original post which indicate emotional abuse, I will say that I am not going to attack the more personal aspects of this argument, nor do I wish to attack any people who believe that MvK is not an abuser. I only want to look at the facts of his characterization and dissect the argument itself. Ignoring or overwriting the signs of emotional abuse in fictional characters can pose some threat to real people – if they’ll excuse emotional manipulation in fiction, they may be willing to excuse when they themselves are emotionally manipulated. I also think that it is misleading for Wendy to state that they are alright with abuse victims writing MvK as an abuser, before spending several hundred words explaining why they don’t think that MvK is an abuser, and that Ace Attorney fans are wrong in interpreting him that way.

Also, I will mention that both my own essay and the original post are triggered somewhat by the Filter Bubble Effect,[2] where content filtering and selection leads to a person only seeing one opinion or viewpoint. Wendy mentions that, while they see differing viewpoints on MvK on Tumblr, Twitter, and AO3, they do not see interpretations of him as abusive on other sites. I personally disagree with this statement as entirely factual, as before this post was made I had never seen interpretations of MvK as anything other than abusive. There is likely a split between these two interpretations, and I’m not willing to hazard a guess as to percentages in each camp.

With all that said, Wendy also mentions that both Miles Edgeworth (Edgeworth) and Franziska von Karma (Franziska) are “incredibly queer & nd coded.”[3] This is somewhat untrue. Both Edgeworth and Franziska are written as stuffy, calculating, and believing themselves to be entirely logical. While these are considered traits of neurodivergency, it is stated within the canon of the games that these traits have been trained in them by MvK. There’s an argument to be made on nurture versus nature (especially in the case of Edgeworth), but for the purposes of my argument I am going to say that this is more due to their upbringings than anything else.

While Edgeworth is somewhat queer-coded, it is only really present as a joke (Implications that Edgeworth isn’t aware that women find him attractive[4]), or because of his relationship with Phoenix Wright.[5] Franziska is not queer coded, though she is written as somewhat masculine compared to other female characters. This characterization is more a result of her being a female version of MvK and Edgeworth, and less to do with any alleged queerness.

The first piece of evidence which Wendy gives, under the context that it is “the one single piece of evidence that team fanfred brings to the table,”[6] are three lines from  Ace Attorney Investigations, both in the fourth case. The first is a conversation between Franziska and  MvK,

Franziska: Papa! You’ll come and watch my courtroom debut next, won’t you?

Manfred: Hmm… I’ll consider it.[7]

This conversation is rather innocuous, though it shows that MvK can be dismissive of his children at times. The more damning line is the second one which Wendy includes, where MvK says to Edgeworth, “A worthless person like you has no right to claim such a thing as perfection!”[8] This is one of many examples of MvK expecting nothing but perfection from both of his children. An expectation of perfection leads to Franziska and Edgeworth doubting themselves, and feeling worthless.[9] MvK places high importance on perfection, leading to his care for his children being conditional, reliant on their ability to be perfect.[10] Among other things, instilling self-doubt and worthlessness, and making acceptance or care conditional are signs that someone is being emotionally abusive.[11]

MvK is shown in various media to have a constant need for perfection and control of everything around him. in Ace Attorney Investigations, he manipulates aspects of cases so that he is guaranteed to win,[12] something he also does in “Turnabout Goodbyes.” It is completely reasonable that, when his own protégé does not display this inhuman perfection, he would be upset and lash out, as he does in the above example. Wendy notes that the word used in the original exchange, 半人前, does not translate to “worthless,” but instead to “an amateur / someone without experience.”[13] This, of course, is much more accurate to the context of their situation, but stating that the translation must have been made in bad faith is besides the point. There is no reason that MvK should be putting such high expectations for perfection on someone who, in real life, would not even have finished college yet. While it does not hold much weight as evidence for my own argument, it holds very little weight for their argument as well. However, it is important to cover this exchange, as they believe it is the only evidence a so-called “Fanfred” might be able to find indicating an abusive characterization.

Wendy continues on by listing the many ways in the anime that MvK is shown to be a good father. While they can be seen as evidence that he is not abusive, abusers can be nice to their victims, for a myriad of reasons. This can be done for any number of reasons, including: Bolstering the abusers image to the victim or outsiders, or to convince themselves they are a good person; As a manipulation tactic; And because the abuser is in the recovery phase of the abuse cycle.[14] I am going to focus on the former of these two reasons, as they are more likely in the von Karma situation. 

The most striking of the initial examples from the anime is Edgeworth’s statement that “he considers [MvK] the only person who was there for him after his father died.”[15] While this can seem like a positive thing, it is important to note that MvK very clearly isolated Edgeworth from his friends by moving him out of his house, away from his friends (who are not provided with any information as to why he’s gone). Social isolation is a tactic of abuse, used to tether a victim to their abuser so that they are more reliant on them.[16] The next examples of MvK complying with Franziska’s demands in an effort to make Edgeworth smile after he first moves in with them could be an example of him wanting to cheer Edgeworth up after the death of his father (who, I will remind you, was killed by MvK). However, this could have underlying motives, where MvK wants Edgeworth to open up to him, so that he might have more control over him. By killing Gregory Edgeworth, and raising his son to be as ruthless as himself, MvK takes care of the “curse” that he believes the Edgeworths to be.[17]

In the anime, MvK reacts rather calmly to Edgeworth’s first ever defeat during “Turnabout Samurai.” Wendy states that he seems “perplexed,” but is not in any way “cruel and unusual” what he says during that conversation.[18] Taken out of the context of MvK’s behavior, this is plausible. However, over the 15 years that he raised Edgeworth, he emphasized perfection over all else. Edgeworth’s reaction to losing is so negative because of MvK’s influences on his ideas of self-worth. In the conversation, MvK also advises Edgeworth to not have feelings, invalidating any feelings that Edgeworth might have about the cases he works on, feelings which can be necessary in determining the truth.

I agree with Wendy that MvK is, as they put it “a despicable fucking human being.”[19] In “Turnabout Goodbyes” alone, he:

Commits aggravated assault, including assault against a minor

Steals and tampers with evidence

Engages in conspiracy to commit murder, and is shown to have committed murder himself

Frames two people for murders that he was involved in

Due to his propensity for physical violence, it is no stretch to assume that he is physically violent with his own family members.[20] Even if he is not physically abusive, it has been shown time and time again that he emotionally abuses his children, and even despite that they look up to him. It is not uncommon for an abuse victim to love or care for their abuser. This can lead to blaming oneself for the abuse, and normalizing the abuse that is happening.[21] The reactions that Wendy wants to see in fics are plausible reactions for abusive victims to have when their abuser dies. It is possible for someone to understand they are being abused and yet still love the person doing the abusing.

Now, the lead poisoning business. Yes, it is possible for someone to get lead posioning from a bullet wound.[22] This is a plausible excuse for MvK’s behavior in later years, however, his tendency towards manipulation and hyper-control are present in “The Inherited Turnabout,” before he’s shot.[23] While lead poisoning does cause irritability, it also causes memory difficulties,[24] something that would hinder MvK’s ability to write his detailed plan for payback which he sends to Yanni Yogi.[25] This removes any plausible deniability for MvK in the murder of Robert Hammond – he very clearly knew what he was doing, and knew the consequences, which is why he tried to frame Edgeworth and Yogi. In a real court of law, he would be competent to stand trial for his crimes.

In conclusion, while he is not explicitly shown to physically abuse his children, Manfred von Karma canonically emotionally abuses his children, forcing them to adhere to his strict sense of perfection and morality. When both Franziska and Edgeworth fail to live up to his impossible standards, they doubt their own abilities and self-worth. Excusing this behavior in any person could lead to people not realizing that they’re being abused, and therefore having more difficulty getting out of abusive situations. It’s alright to like MvK as a character, but deliberately overlooking his abusive tendencies is to overlook a major part of his character, and his relationship with Edgeworth and Franziska.

"I'm Going to Change Your Mind About Manfred Von Karma"

[pythonscrypt]

i honestly don't think i've ever heard an mcc team as openly and frequently just say "i love you guys" out loud as i did lime (pete, jimmy, kara, cpk) this event. i was rly excited for this team because they were all equally excited to team with each other, and that pre-established team chemistry really paid off for them.

for starters kara had such fucking INCREDIBLE comms and callouts in games like parkour tag and grid runners. even when she died in sky battle or battle box, she used that to her team's advantage by giving callouts about positioning. kara was definitely the glue who held them together in gr, especially in the final room. when lime saw they were 3rd place with a very small margin towards the end of the event, she immediately ordered a pee and hydration break for everyone to clear their heads. she is genuinely such a fun, lovely person and was such a joy to watch in mcc, i honestly adore her SO much.

kara's talked about how much she wants to be a runner in sands of time over the past few months while playing vault hunters, and that's what she was this time! she usually sandkeeps but this time jimmy offered to step up and take that role. and he did a fantastic job at that, he gave really clear callouts on the time remaining and let pete know about the extra dungeons where you can exchange sand for coins at the end. and he did a really great job in battle box too, cleaning up a bunch of kills and getting top 15. there were lots of fun little moments like him christening himself the sand father™️ and bantering with pete about how frequently they've teamed. jimmy had a few moments during the event where he put himself down and apologized to his team for not doing well, but they were all really quick to reassure him and tell him he had nothing to worry about, because he was doing incredible.

cpk is mr All Things MCC himself. he's someone who really studies the event and it showed the most clearly in battle box, where he was an extremely strong and consistent in-game leader, giving clear directions but also willing to change up their strategy round to round, and leading lime to 2nd place overall in that game. his dynamics with the rest of the team were just so fun too, i really loved when he, pete and kara were just hanging out in vc and talking while playing on mcci a while before the event. also his costume this time was a green-screen morph suit that he cut eye and mouth holes into so there's that (both pete and kara were very concerned for him when they first saw it).

pete was the one who kept saying the most often how much he loved this team, before, during and after the event. in terms of the games he absolutely murdered it (literally) in sky battle and battle box - he came 2nd in sky battle and was like 50 coins off from 1st place! and as always he killed it in the movement games especially rocket spleef rush. he came 2nd individual overall, just behind jojo! i genuinely really love all the little interactions they have after an event is over where they both congratulate each other on doing really well.

all in all, this was such an exceedingly fun and entertaining pov all the way through. if you watch any vods from mcc 29, i really recommend watching lime - they had so many incredible moments that i haven't even mentioned here, and just had peak vibes all throughout. as much as i wish they had been able to make dodgebolt, i'm still very proud of how they did and very happy i chose them as my first pov of mcc season 3.

[a-tale-of-legends]

@lesleygender ( I hope you don't mind the tag! Sorry if so!)

I felt this deserves a whole post cause this piques my interest. I am very very unfamiliar with the pokemon go stuff, only grabbing what I can from the Bulbapedia.....which isn't a lot. Given how my au, they aren't super important characters, I don't really think about them much but it's been super interesting learning not only about the GO leaders, but the Rocket Go Leaders as well! So this has been very insightful!

Now onto the tags itself: Cliff being incredibly loyal to Team Rocket because they potentially picked him up and "helped" him after an event that lead to his own support system being ripped from him(Which may or may not have been orchestrated by Team Rocket themselves)? Interesting. Very interesting, indeed. Regardless of what happens in my au, this just pleases the writer in me who wants to know more. Especially if this is to contrast or compliment the Go Leaders. Like, if Cliff lost everything, would that mean Blanche has everything ( as in growing up in a wealthy family that is still alive and well). But the difference is that Cliff grew up more intune with his emotions, being around a supportive network, and Blanche did not? This is very much hc, I don't know if the Go leaders have any canon backstory. But still!!! Very interesting!!!!

The Sierra bit you mentioned- the one about sierra being a child of divorce or unhappy families- is also rlly cool cause unless Spark has a canonical backstory that I don't know about, the contrast fits well into my au backstory of him ( a street rat who got taken in by an old but caring daycare couple, ultimately gaining him a loving family).

And lastly, lmao, the last bit of your tags is hilarious. Get therapy, not the mafia guys!!!

All in all, I'm more interested to know about these guys :).

[niigo-but-criminals]

Intro post (ooc)

Run by @whatliesbehind-whatliesahead

putting this on all my rp blogs: this account will probably not be very active unless i get asks!! i am just one little girl with so many sideblogs!!! and i've got school and i'm also like, constantly tired!!! so sorry for the inactiveness :((

okay uhh lore time!!

so basically in this au niigo is a silly group of criminals (they kinda remind me of team rocket a little bit) and that's kinda it

Ena's text is orange and their tag is #Painter's canvas Ena uses they/he/she and looks pretty much like how they look in the header image besides them having more orange-y eyes

Kanade's text is blue and their tag is #Piano's melodies They use they/them and don't look like their card in the header at ALL because there's no card for how they look in my head. They usually wear a light blue sweater and like.. A pair of shorts. Nothing too elaborate. Their hair is also shorter (maybe around below shoulder length?)

Mafuyu's text is purple and their tag is #Puppet's mask Mafuyu uses she/they and looks like their card in the header with the addition of the mask from the trained version of the my true feelings card when they're outdoors and doing crime

Mizuki's text is pink and their tag is #Phantom's jewels Mizuki uses they/she and looks exactly like their card in the header. I actually have nothing else to say about them because their card in the header is exactly what they look like..

also they wear casual clothes at home/when not doing crime (kinda obvious)

Everyone's got aliases like in the game. Kanade is Piano, Mafuyu is Puppet, Ena is Painter, and Mizuki is Phantom. No i dont know why they all start with p.

forgot to mention but everyone's aged up. how old? uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh like 20 or something i haven't thought it out

Asks will be tagged with #Asks (woah shocking/s) Responses with all four of them will be tagged #Great at crime!

I don't mind ships buuttttt i'll probably only do them when prompted (might do a little mizuan/polyniigo though)

ooc is #Bad at crime

that's it!! this took me so long to type out augh

[shellys-apprentice]

I posted 15,312 times in 2022

55 posts created (0%)

15,257 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@assassinationtipsforladies

@elytrians

@professorsparklepants

@fenixfoxtrot510

@mint-stone

I tagged 243 of my posts in 2022

#madeleine's mic - 22 posts

#anon - 21 posts

#pla spoilers - 17 posts

#my writting - 11 posts

#pokemon sv - 4 posts

#green should have fought gio in frlg and i will die on that hill - 3 posts

#giovanni - 3 posts

#nice - 2 posts

#i'm unfortunately self aware enough to know that if presented with the opportunity to own a litteral firery mare (rapidash) i would take it - 2 posts

#i love this so much - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i'm unfortunately self aware enough to know that if presented with the opportunity to own a litteral firery mare (rapidash) i would take it

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Hiya! Could I get Giovanni with 🏳️‍🌈, ❤️🩹, 🥖, and 📖 for the ask meme? Thanks so much~!

🏳️‍🌈- Orientation headcanon

Bi but leans more towards women

❤️‍🩹- Angsty headcanon

Periodically he'll find a handkerchief or other belonging that Silver had lost before being taken around the house. He's kept all of them.

🥖- Food headcanon

He's a good cook, but almost no one knows this

📖- AU I’d like to see them in

I have a half baked equestrian au that's probably never gonna go anywhere, but I also think a vampire au would be fun

5 notes - Posted August 1, 2022

#4

I've come to understand that actually the Pokemon fandom doesn't have a clue what they want! They whine about how much they want an jerk rival like Blue or Silver all the time! We get Bede and Melli and they're the worst most annoying characters ever and they hate them!!! And not in an affectionate way like they hate Blue and Silver!

Funny, I thought Bede was Rose's horribly abused son who's worse off than N and Lillie combined /s

I think part of it is that, in a cast of characters singing your praises constantly, the asshole ones will stand out more. And I feel like the older games did a bit less of that. There's at least not like... a chosen one vibe to the player character in Kanto or Johto. Your just a kid who keeps ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(Not to mention bland as hell nice rivals making the mean ones seem even worse)

5 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

#3

I know there's going to be a separate unrelated or loosely related twist "villain" late game because that's just how they're doing things now for whatever reason

But I wish I'd recorded my audible groan of disappointment when I saw Team Star in the trailer

5 notes - Posted September 7, 2022

#2

They will really do anything to replace HMs except letting you ride your own team huh

22 notes - Posted August 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sakaki | Giovanni & Silver Characters: Silver (Pokemon), Sakaki | Giovanni Additional Tags: Team Rocket (Pokemon), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Torture, Organized Crime, Tags May Change, let's play how much can I make you hate Pryce Summary:

Silver and Green's first attempt at escaping The Mask of Ice failed.

He was quick to ensure there would not be a second.

Years later, a split second of not-fully-snuffed-out rebellion lands Silver in the depths of Team Rocket's headquarters.

23 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[jebblyphishes]

(He/Him s/o) Fizz and Asmodeus with an s/o that's half the size of Fizz ❤

Aaah!! Thanks for the request!

This ended up cuter than I wanted it to and is probably more SFW than I have ever done before but I imagined Ozzie keeping S/O in his pocket and Fizz calling them his 'pocket rocket'

- Fizzarolli is no stranger to seeing smaller imps and demons than him. Even before the robotic limbs, he had been taller than most of his kind, and that's why he doesn't understand what it is about his S/O that makes him want to cuddle them.

Maybe it was when the other drunkenly tried to use his extended leg as a stripper pole?

- Asmodeus never really has to worry too much about stepping on Fizzarolli; the imp was good at bouncing around and avoiding getting stepped on... unless that's what he was in the mood for. Most of the time, Fizzarolli lived on his shoulders or 'accessorised' the Lust Demon.

Their new S/O; now, he was a cause for concern. He was so small, and Asmodeus adored small things, but what if he broke him?

- They both constantly pick S/O up. They just love carrying him around. Even if he squirms and hisses, S/O could be sitting minding their own business, and Fizzarolli will pick him up, take the seat and sit S/O on his lap. Mechanical arms looping two or three times around them. His head resting on top of their's if he was feeling particularly like a bastard.

- Asmodeus mostly picks him up so that they don't end up under a heeled boot. S/O just about reached the spurs on his shoes... but he also fit so well in Asmodeus's fluffy cleavage.

- Misplacing their S/O.

Had he slipped down into Asmodeus's jacket? Was he buried under the sheets of the massive bed they shared? Had Asmodeus rolled over onto him?!

So much anxiety!

S/O turning up with Hellbucks and watching as the two panic search for him... he literally told them he was going out for Satan's sake!

- Fizarolli constantly reminding them of how short they are.

"While you're down there~"

"What?! I'm not even on my knees... I'm gonna kick your ass!"

"Bwah! You want me to lay down so you can reach or get you a stool?!"

- S/O getting revenge by making sad faces and grabby hands at Asmodeus, "Fizzy's being meaaan!"

Almost always followed by a giant hand scooping him up to a fluffy chest that rumbled as Asmodeus scolded Fizzarolli. All the while, S/O is looking down smugly with his tongue stuck out at the Jester.

- Did I mention cuddles and snuggling?

Bundling him up and holding him for hours. Face nuzzles from Fizzarolli and gentle fingertip pets from Asmodeus.

- Both looking fondly on when S/O goes feral on a guest who did not pass the vibe test at the club.

"Awww, look at his tiny claws go!"

"Go for the ankles! Yeah! And now piss on him!!"

- S/O unknowingly giving Fizzarolli so much comfort when he lets him wrap around them like a cocoon.

They both curl up on Asmodeus's chest. Sometimes they'll tag team and nuzzle and love and kiss his faces all over. Sometimes they just fall asleep listening to the Prince hum a tune. Asmodeus has to hold in his coos at how damn small and cute they are!

- Fizzarolli got him a bell to wear so that they can find him at all times.

That bell was later heard rattling around in Fizzarolli's ass whilst Asmodeus tried to get S/O to stop pouting angrily at them.

- No one else is allowed to tease S/O for being small. Not unless they like being on fire or stepped on by two very protective boyfriends.

[flowercape]

Hi hi! I recently got into Xenoverse from a streamer i watch and i saw your art well scrolling through the Pokemon Xenoverse tag and the fact that you seem to like Silver a lot (admittedly i don't know much about the gen 2 games but Xenoverse has made me want to play them so i'm probably gonna play the remakes soon!)

But i had a thought since Xenoverse has direct connections to gen 1/2 and the fact that celebi is from gen 2 i raise you the idea of Xenoverse Protag getting yoinked into the past and meeting young Silver (perhaps during the storyline of GS/HGSS?)

You decide if Xenoverse Protag has had the reval of who Versil actually is because honestly it's an interesting idea both ways of having Xenoverse Protag know who Silver is or if Protag doesn't know who he is

But yeah this has been brain rot for a while for me and i wanted to share with someone but the Xenoverse community is small, the tragedy of fangames~Xenoverse Anon

Ahh hello!! So awesome to meet another Xenoverse fan!

Oh geez you're in for a TREAT if you play HGSS! Definitely some of the best Pokemon games out there in terms of the amount of endgame content and the "adventuring with your Pokemon" feeling. Unfortunately regarding Silver and his backstory, most of it is locked behind an event Celebi that's impossible to obtain without looking into how to connect to the old Nintendo Wi-Fi that's long been defunct and download old event legends online, but of course you can always watch the Celebi event online (not sure if you did already though considering you brought up Celebi!)

Xenoverse actually seems to be based on the manga more than anything-- Silver and Green being together is based on their close relationship in the manga, and Clover's Pokemon are even nicknamed the same as her team in the manga, not to mention Lieutenant Surge being in Team Rocket is also from that-- and HGSS's storyline and character backstories for Silver and co are very different from what happened in the manga. Game Silver is my favorite tbh and it would be good to play before reading the manga to get a feel for what's being adapted, but manga Silver has an EXTREMELY dark backstory, so the idea of the protag being yoinked into the past to see it breaks my heart, I love that idea so much!

I actually played Xenoverse in the first place because I saw a man that looked suspiciously like he had Silver's hairstyle on the promotional art on the game's website; Silver has been my favorite character for over twenty years now and I was on a fangame kick so I jumped right on it. Xenoverse is like the ultimate Silver fan's dream fangame, with the parallels like with Trey and the way Versil's plan repeats history yet still has good intentions is all just (chef's kiss)

Thank you for the message! I didn't think I'd ever get to talk about Xenoverse with another fan of it!

[thunderbirds-are-fab]

9 & 20 with Lee and Kayo

9. If you had to choose one Thunderbird to be a passenger on - which one would it be?

This is such a hard one! They’re all awesome for their own reasons. Rather than just picking the one that has my favourite bro as a pilot (as if I could even make that choice either), I’d probably go for the one that would give me the most unique experience – what could I experience on a trip in one that I’d never be able to get any other way? Initially I’d have chosen Thunderbird 4 because THE OCEAN IS COOL and SEA CRITTERS, but in the end I’d go for Thunderbird 3. It’s a solid combination of supersonic jet and space rocket. If I can only choose the trip of a lifetime once, then why not pick the one that can take me all the way to the sun and back in a day?

20. Send me two characters and I'll tell you which one I think is....

WHOEVER CHOSE THESE TWO CHARACTERS ABSOLUTELY KNOWS ME THEY ARE MY FAVES THANK YOU I MISSED MAKING HEADCANONS FOR THESE TWO SO MUCH

· Most afraid of the dark

I don’t think that either of them would really be afraid of the dark. It was probably part of their respective training for what they do that they can cope with staying calm and functioning without light.

Kayo probably thrives in the dark because she’s an absolute ninja and it would give her a sneak boost. Though probably not afraid, Lee would at least be concerned by the dark, because if the lights go out then he should probably be worried about what else in the space station has lost power and how he's going to fix it.

· Putting off homework/paperwork

Kayo strikes me as the type that always got all her homework done on time, but it took years of Kyrano sitting her down and telling her that she had to do it before she was allowed to go out and play. She probably doesn’t put off paperwork any more because she’s learned not to, and she needs to be a good example to Alan (who absolutely does/did put off homework).

Lee may be an adrenaline junkie flying by the seat of his pants with only instincts aged like fine wine to guide him, but I bet he’d have his paperwork sorted for good reasons.

“Houston, the capacitors in the main circuit have blown and we’re hurtling towards the planet at terminal velocity with only bubble gum and paperclips to make the repairs, but I did put this in the risk assessment so you can tell the legal team that I'm off the hook for this one."

· Going off the grid for fun

Lee absolutely does this, and we’ve seen it in Colony. He’s been dragged back from the moon, supposedly retired, and Kayo has to go flying into a blizzard to find him climbing in an icy crevasses as part of his retirement activities. You can't make this man sit still. I think it’s because he’s based on the Apollo generation of astronauts who were the type of guys who would go hiking and sailing and other outdoorsy adventure activities in their spare time. Because, y'know, it's not like the the day job was exciting enough.

Kayo probably isn’t allowed to do this as much as she’d like for recon because her brothers would get worried if she’s AWOL for too long and come find her and drag her home. She hates being babied.

· Reading Jane Austen in their spare time

I like to think that it’s Lee. As he gets older he probably feels some affinity for timeless classics. Plus he’s probably one of the few characters in the series who has any nostalgia for actual books.

· Going to move off Tracy Island first

Technically this is definitely Lee. One of many small details I’d really have loved to have been confirmed in TAG was Lee’s role in International Rescue prior to the boys being old enough, since it’s implied that he and Jeff may have started it together? Did he ever live on Tracy island in those early days after Lucille died, helping his best friend rebuild his life and ideals? What made him go back to the moon after that? Just little things that would have made these characters and the timeline for the show that much deeper.

Kayo is also mentioned to have ‘been away at school’ when Lucille was still alive in Home on the Range, so I guess she moved in, went away, then came back? Again, the official timeline doesn’t go into enough detail that far back. I don't know if she'd ever leave Tracy island to live elsewhere when she's older. I can't imagine that.

· Secretly replacing Grandma's cooking

Wow, would either of them be rude or brave enough to do that? XD

Lee would probably just make up an excuse not to eat. Kayo would be the only one sneaky enough. Secretly replacing the food instead of refusing it probably fits her relationship with Grandma. We never saw much of them together, but I can tell they mutually care about each other’s feelings quite a lot.

· Taking all the family photographs

I imagine that as Jeff’s second in command, Lee may have been behind the camera on many important occasions. Maybe even taking photos of Jeff and Lucille together in their first family portraits. Who knows? Again, I wish TAG had given us so many snippets of totally unimportant lore and backstories for characters the series barely featured. I guess that’s why we have fan fiction!

· Planning a picnic for the next sunny day

A picnic probably isn’t Kayo’s style, or at least not planning one. Lee I could see planning a day outdoors, perhaps hiking to a nice spot somewhere. The hike would probably involve several miles of trekking and a section requiring climbing gear, but it’s still a walk to a picnic somewhere.

[theangrypokemaniac]

@nyarthsis

If Team Rocket 'always had a heart for unpopular Pokémon', that's an admission their Alola catches aren't particular loveable creatures, so I'm not thinking anything too controversial.

You're saying they take pity on the animals no one wants, as in it's normal for me not to find them adorable.

Some Pokémon, such as Lucario, become fan favourites without the advertisement of a regular role the anime. With Wobbuffet, Bewear, Stufful, Mareanie and Mimikyu, do people like them for themselves, or because of their association with Team Rocket?

I think its the latter. I can't imagine there would be such interest in them were they to be owned by a Twerp or appear as a one-off. Really then, it's not what or who they are, it's to whom they belong that matters.

Alola has really devalued catching. Rather than be true to the source material, so battering a Pokémon into submission, as Ash did with Bulbasaur, Primeape, Muk, and many others, now you have to ask their permission!

Bewear didn't even get that. She hung around for no reason, and her 'friend' Stufful was belatedly tacked on. I see why those two were left behind, as Team Rocket had no right to take them elsewhere.

In terms of welfare, Mimikyu and Mareanie are better off staying with them, free and safe, rather than locked in the insalubrious depths of H.Q., but then it never bothered the writers sending previous Pokémon into an uncertain future, so what difference does it make now?

It can only be that, like their predecessors, there is no intention to ever bring them back, but unlike the rest, the fans can't even be allowed the vain hope of a return, not with this rather awkward disposal.

It's feasible that Jessie and James could call their base and request old monsters to join them, but it's difficult to imagine they'd fly across the world to Alola, wander through the woods, pick 'em up and go all the way back again. Why make parting so final and irreversible?

It does imply that Game Freak don't like them, so why should I?

I keep noticing this fickle attitude. A new era starts, we're expected to fall instantaneously in love with every element, beg for more and yet more. Then, once the next region arrives, this adoration asked of us is meant to evaporate and immediately transfer to the next batch.

Well why start to like them, if eventually the makers don't care, to the extent you wouldn't even know previous Pokémon had ever been alive?

Have you heard one mention of Seviper, Yanmega, Dustox, Cacnea, Carnivine, and Mime Junior since they left?

Why were they happy to chuck Wobbuffet after Sinnoh, yet fetched for Kalos?

How could Team Rocket live without it for an entire generation but suddenly it's indispensable again? What do you imagine the rest of their Pokémon felt about that?

Have Jessie and James wondered allowed how Arbok, Weezing, Lickitung and Victreebel are doing?

What of the last two generations?

What is this nonsense where every character is so detached from the past?

Supposing I was to force myself to appreciate them: since they've gone, never to return, I'd be dissatisfied with the show, thus no better off than I am now.

My feelings don't run on a switch. I can't find myself besotted one minute then dump the object of affection without a second thought, just because Nintendo want it from me.

Even if I had a more positive opinion of the current interpretation, there's no benefit to becoming involved when it's all so fleeting.

Mareanie is ugly, with three teeth. I think he's a sea anenome, so ought to be more attractive, but it's covered in nipples instead!

It looks like a bonsai tree growing breasts, reminiscent of the hideous content lurking within an Hieronymous Bosch painting.

The idea that all Mimikyu copy Pikachu, the most famous Pokémon, when in their world it's nothing special, is too stupid for me to accept. How could that be coincidence?

It's referencing reality, acknowledging the real world's view of Pikachu as the star, so if it's breaking the fourth wall, it invites disbelief.

Wobbuffet does sod all. It's a complete dead weight and has no attacks. Yet it's the one to survive generation after generation. Where's the logic in that?

I suspect his popularity rests on being there so long he's considered part of the furniture, the sole catch in which you can invest an emotional connection whilst fairly certain he'll remain around.

By now it ought to have developed some semblance of a personality, but it's as faceless as ever. Other Pokémon that have been and gone had a bit more about them, but Wobba's so bland no one can summon the energy to write him out.

If he went, what would you miss? Breaking out of his ball and hissing 'WAAAAAHBUHFEH'? Is that so integral?

I have several objections:

What is it meant to be?

Why does its tail have eyes?

Why is that never mentioned?

Is it a sort of quadruped, or has it only one foot with four toes, arranged like the bottom of a medical walking stick?

A lot of my reactions to Pokémon are influenced by encountering them in the games. With Wobbuffet, I remember first coming across it in the cave near Blackthorn City, and just as you're winning the fight, it pulls out Destiny Bond and suddenly you're both down.

When you finally get one, it's tricky to train. You have no choice but to guess whether the opposition will launch a physical or special move, and mostly you get it wrong. He never learns anything else and doesn't evolve, so it's that forever.

Persevering with Magikarp is worthwhile, but what's to be gained from taking any time out to fight with Wobbuffet?

The anime eliminates this problem. You're aware of the nature of the approaching onslaught because you can see it coming, and the opponent said it aloud.

In this context Wobbuffet should be the most powerful Pokémon in the universe. Come on, it can deflect every attack!

Is it? No. It has a successful defence about once a generation, and still loses the battle. I can't say if it's worse to be utterly pointless, or to not fulfil one's potential.

I resent it muscling in on the motto, as if it's considers itself of equal rank to Meowth. No it's not!

When I was young, there was a tendency for magazines to refer to Team Rocket as a duo. Meowth was judged to be in the same position as Pikachu: a main character yes, and valuable enough to be accorded the privilege of liberty, but still very much owned by people.

You would see references to Jessie and James as his Trainers, though how they assumed this worked went unexplained. Even if shared, one had to have to caught him, thus be his proper owner.

Later on this developed into them being three equal members, and the term 'TRio' emerged, but now, although perhaps not officially recognised, there's an attitude of treating them as a quartet.

It's just wrong! Wobbuffet's not been around since day one. He didn't join Team Rocket voluntarily because he had nowhere else to go. It was a choice made for him by his original Trainer, so out of his hands, or rather his flippers.

If he was an independent Pokémon who just tagged along one day, that would be different, but it belongs to Jessie. Promoting one of hers means James is lesser, and no longer equal.

In each generation Team Rocket catch at least one local Pokémon, but as Wobbuffet's there, it ends up with Jessie having more on her side than James, and I dislike the imbalance. Plus the one he does get is violent.

It can't be solved by giving him another new one, as then he's captured two in the region, and she has only one, so again it's skewed.

Whilst Wobbuffet does count in numbers, he's not on the level of the rest, who fight regularly. He's both there and not simultaneously.

I'm still irked the way Lickitung was ejected to make room.

It was the best Pokémon they ever had! It took out Pikachu, Vulpix and Bulbasaur with one move! It would've won those Princess Dolls for Jessie if the writers hadn't changed the rules so that Lick only affects those of sound mind!

It was as if they realised their mistake too late, and so Lickitung was featured less and less to avoid it dominating a fight, then hurriedly traded away for something reliably feeble.

The following analogy you may not understand, but I think it fits rather aptly:

There's a game called Final Fantasy VIII. One of the side quests involves you racing through a castle under a time limit. If successful, you are rewarded with Odin as a Guardian Force, which is a deity that will provide a defence.

Unlike others, he is out of your control, but every so often, as you enter battle, he turns up and annihilates your opponents. It's very welcome.

Unfortunately this game was programmed by bunyips, who clearly didn't want the last section of the game to be accidently easier for you. Oh no. If you're progressing, it ain't gonna be through luck, or turning the console on and off until he arises.

Therefore, towards the close, you come up against ex-friend Seifer. Odin is fixed to rush to your aid, but when he does, bloody Seifer slices him in half, horse and all!

He killed Odin, the ancient King of the North! The Lord of Valhallah! The Father of the Vikings!

It's not normal fighting death, it's irreversible. He's gone for good.

After this Gilgamesh introduces himself as a replacement. He too will randomly appear and set about the enemy.

The problem is that whilst Odin destroyed monsters unfailingly, with Gilgamesh it's a rarity.

He uses four swords, and which you get is also a lottery.

One is the same as Odin's, two deal average damage, but not death, and the worst one depletes 1 HP, so it might as well not have bothered.

Not only does it arrive but a fraction of the time, but it's in a fraction of those times that it's of any assistance, which is something of a comedown.

Lickitung is Odin: didn't see it often, but it tore the place apart!

Wobbuffet is Gilgamesh: once in a blue moon it provides rescue, but it's on a lot lower percentage than it's predecessor.

It's difficult not to be disappointed.

[championfrita]

Creepiest Locations in Pokémon

So, I don't really do Top 10 lists or stuff like that but I recently recieved Black 2 from a friend and reached one of the creepy game locations (you know what I'm talking about).

Suffice to say, I thought I'd talk a little about the creepiest locations in Pokemon.

Without further ado, let us begin!

Strange House - Unova Region

Yeah yeah, playing Black 2 so OF COURSE I'd put this on the list, right? Well that's not why. I put this on the list because it, for me, is the CREEPIEST location in Pokemon. Having not played White 2 in a while (because I lost it heh heh ^^') I had mostly forgotten it until now. I find Strange House to be the creepiest location in Pokemon not just because of the way it looks. The entire thing is Hellagar creepy. Not only does it have some of the eeriest music ever, but the furniture moves on it's own. AND YOU CAN HEAR IT MOVING. Straight up paranormal crap guys (and I'd know, I have paranormal investigative training and I'm a sensitive). When I first encountered this place I was super tentative about walking around inside. I jumped three feet when the first Pokemon Battle activated, no joke. Not to mention the backstory. A little girl put in an eternal nightmare by Darkrai who never wakes up and dies in her sleep? Yeah, no thanks. *horrified shuddering* Let's move on, shall we?

Old Chateau - Sinnoh Region

Yeah, you guys kinda expected this one huh? I put this on the list because it also has some seriously creepy music. Sure, Strange House is creepy, but mostly on the inside. Old Chateau is creepy ALL AROUND. Even the dilapidated exterior just screams "Yeah btw I have demons locked up in here, that a problem bro?" HELLGAR YES, IT IS! But that isn't even the creepiest part. The Chateau is straight up haunted. Ghosts of residents and even a butler can be found wandering around inside. Encountering them is for the most part a random event, except for the little girl, who you simply encounter by entering rooms on the second floor in order. Still not the creepiest part. In one of said rooms is a painting...who's EYES MOVE WITH YOU SO IT IS ALWAYS WATCHING. Plus in the kitchen possessed tableware flies at you if you stay too long. Even better? Find all the ghosts and a secret door under the stairs opens up to take you to the basement. Lovely. And guess who's down there? The creepy as Shuppet Gengar who's been using that painting I mentioned earlier to stalk you. I was so afraid of this place that I wouldn't enter it for like 2 years after the games came out. One look and I was like "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Did I say NOPE?!"

Lavender Tower - Kanto Region

This is obviously a classic from my childhood. Lavender Tower was the original creepfest of Pokemon, and while it may not actually be all that scary anymore, going in there without a Silph Scope was terrifying as a kid. Literally everything was a ghost, not just the ACTUAL ghost of Marowak that haunted the place. Even your Pokemon were too scared to fight in this place. Not to mention the crazy as Shuppet Channelers walking around the joint. Yeesh. Get a life guys.

Caves - All Regions

I know, I know. You're all thinking, Seriously?! You're afraid of CAVES?! Well hold on. Have you ever walked one without Flash, back in the old days when the screen was just black? It's not so much the dark that's terrifying. It's the idea of never escaping that cave. Of being lost in there forever because you can't bear to lose those Pokemon you've spent months lovingly raising. Without Flash, your options were: Try and stumble around in the dark hoping to get lucky and find a way out, or restart your game and do things from the beginning because you done messed up my friend. Horrible. Not to mention you had no idea what might be down there.

Kaminko's House - Orre Region

I don't care what you say, when the screen suddenly goes black and white and some deranged lunatic comes flying out of a creepy mansion surrounded by dead trees roving like a madman to challenge you to a battle, it's creepy. It may not be super scary, but still creepy. Especially when you enter the building and discover that it's home to basically a mad scientist. For a while I thought the player character, Michael, was gonna almost get murdered. Super weird stuff in there I tell you.

Scary House - Kalos Region

Not actually that scary. The way this location becomes pretty creepy is by watching the XY anime episode that goes with it. It reveals the house to basically be a house of horrors for Ash and friends. The old man they find there says it's all for the sake of saying hello the Ghost Pokemon Way. Entertaining his guests with a good scare as it were, except that at the end of the episode both he AND THE HOUSE DISAPPEAR. Then they reappear for Team Rocket. A DISAPPEARING HOUSE?! How is that NOT creepy?

Chargestone Cave - Unova Region

It's dark, weird stones float around, and it has creepy music. Yeah, no thanks. That being said, I absolutely LOVE Chargestone Cave. It is one of my favorite locations in Pokemon, but it's still creepy. You can practically FEEL the supercharged air through the game screen, which sets off all your instincts to flee, and you never know when a Pokemon is gonna suddenly attack you. It just has an all around creepy feeling to it.

Pokemon Mansion - Kanto Region

Oh look, and abandoned mansion. Let's go look inside! Creepy music and statues with switches and eyes that light up? Great! Oh boy, a book! Let's read it. Oh it's a journal…with the creation of a superstrong clone of Mew in it…Oh yeah, btw you're just casually walking around in a place where Mewtwo SLAUGHTERED ALL OF IT'S CREATORS. LOVELY! No big deal, just an abandoned house of DEATH. And you better have an Escape Rope with you if you plan to jump off that broken floor, cuz if you don't you'll be stuck there…FOREVER. Place is super creepy. And thanks to the one and only Braxton Burks and his musical reboot called Kanto Symphony, it just got creepier. Woo!

Route 217 - Sinnoh Region

Yup. I'm just gonna paste this snippet from Bulbapedia:

“If the player re-enters the house near the Ice Rock after the Spell Tag is obtained, the woman that gives it has disappeared. When obtaining the Spell Tag, her speech is: "...A person...? ...A rare sight... ...Thank you for visiting... ...A gift..." The nature of the item, in conjunction with Ace Trainer Olivia's comments of hauntings in the area, implies that the woman was a ghost, specifically a Yuki-onna.”

A Yuki-onna is a Japanese ghost woman who froze to death and roams snowcovered mountains waiting to kill people. It's a wonder the player survived. O.O

N's Room - Unova Region

I LOVE N. Love, love, LOVE him, but his room is creepier than a Mega Banette in a dark alley. N obviously has some serious mental issues, and it's this implication of dereanged mental health, combined with equally deranged music, that makes this place so darn creepy. The whole CASTLE is creepy, but this room takes the cake for creepiest room in the whole building.

Abandoned Site - Alola Region

Not exactly THE scariest location, this newest of creep fests lies in the context of it and the idea of being there in person. I know I'd find it super eerie, especially at night and when Accerola mentions she thinks you're crazy because the room you found Mimikyu in doesn't exist. Gave me some chills, let me tell you. Observant players will notice Mimikyu in the background of this scene, shuffling away behind the chainlink fence.

Pokémon School - Alola Region

While normally cheery and upbeat, if the player does a sidequest in UltraSun and UltraMoon this innocent place of learning turns into the stuff of nightmares. A creepy little girl and her Drifloon want you to look into some rumors...and appear only at night. The music makes for utterly terrifying atmosphere that will give you chills, especially if you find your own school creepy at night. While the occurences turn out to be completely harmless or normal things they make for some heartpounding suspense, and the little girl and Drifloon mysteriously disappear after you finish investigating. Creepy. It is strangely satisfying if you time it right like me and end up completing the quest at in game dawn though.

And that's about it. What locations do YOU think are creepy? Let me know in the comments!

[movienotesbyzawmer]

August 21: Mission: Impossible II

(previous notes: Mission: Impossible)

Not gonna lie, this is without question the Mission: Impossible movie that is remembered most unfavorably by me and, I'm pretty sure, everyone else. My recollection is that they tried SO SO SO SO HARD to make an action movie for Today's Kids; I'm typing this with the title screen of the 4K Blu-ray blasting its turn-of-the-millennium neo-metal version of the classic theme with Tom Cruise running in front of a wall of flame and it's just like come on. Is there even must fun spycraft in this? The first one promised lots of gravely furtive glancing, world-class makeup disguises, and dazzling gadgetry. Did this movie's director John Woo replace those with just way way way too much shooting and chasing and sexy vehicles? That's how I remember it but it's been a couple of decades.

I should probably address this series' exciting approach to director selection. The first one was directed by the legendary Brian De Palma, who brought us Carrie, The Untouchables, and Carlito's Way. Whether or not this one worked out, the trend here seemed to be to choose a respected director with a certain cred that could be imported into the franchise. More on that as this series unfolds. I am now to press play.

Opening scene is about a scientist who injects himself with something while a voiceover teases us with I-already-forget-what.

Oh, he's pals with Ethan; they're on a plane together out of Sydney when some bad-guy shenanigans totally thwart the whole fly-to-the-destination-safely thing. But! It wasn't even Ethan! It was good-ol' makeup fake-outery! It was a heist to take the warn leather pouch that the scientist had.

This I remember - during the opening credits, the REAL Ethan Hunt is climbing somewhere impressive, all freestyle like. All the related supplemental marketing materials never fail to talk up Tom Cruise's penchant for doing his own stunts, but these don't look real.

He then receives a fancy techno-message in a very, very dramatic and action-movie-ish fashion, which is that someone flies a helicopter by his climbing mountain and fires a rocket near him containing message-glasses tech! The voice in the message glasses sounds like Anthony Hopkins. Is it Anthony Hopkins?

Anyway now he has to go to Spain to recruit Thandie Newton and here is where it's already starting to get way too the-style-of-John-Woo. There is a flamenco show and Ethan and TN spot each other across the room. There is SLO MOTION and SPANISH STOMPING and ACOUSTIC GUITAR, and THOSE TWO GAZING AT EACH OTHER. I tell you I do not care for it.

What happens next is TN proceeds to use fancy technology and lockpicking skills to steal a well-concealed necklace. Ethan tags along flirtatiously. She still tries to steal the necklace even though this Lothario, this smarmy but irresistible cad, is trying to distract her with his testosterone.

Ugh, I was very right to remember not liking stuff about this movie. Ethan fails to recruit her at the jewel heist, so he car-chases at her the next day! He calls her during the car chase to irritate/seduce her, and she's all "you'll have to catch me ha ha", and it ends in a nearly fatal crash and then they KISS. The director worked very hard to ensure the kissing was HAWT, and Ethan has now successfully recruited TN for both spy work and boinkage.

Anthony Hopkins! He is in the next scene! That really was him! How did I forget that he is in this movie. This scene where he meets with Ethan and fills him in on everything is effectively expository. But then after he knows what he's gotta do, he walks with INTENSITY and it is in SLOW MOTION next to a BURNING EFFIGY THING with ELECTRIC GUITAR MUSIC GOING ON.

0:33:40 - Oh now it's a little more what I like, with a montage about using spy tech to get Ambrose, the bad guy who was pretending to be Ethan on the plane in the beginning, to track TN. And to further assure us that there is techie-fun to be had, Ving Rhames returns to be that guy for Ethan's team. But there is also time in this sequence for shots of TN walking slowly and looking super pretty. You know, so she can seduce Ambrose. A flowing scarf figures prominently in this imagery. A John Woo Film.

I like that they tricked Ambrose into thinking he is so damn smart for tracking her down. I also like Ambrose's compound on Sydney Harbour, it is a bitchin property.

Scene just happened where Ambrose seriously menaces his friend and uses a cigar-clipper on his finger. Ambrose is a bad friend.

But then they're all at the horse race game, even Ambrose's injured friend, who we learn is named Stemp and who is spying on TN, and Ethan and VR are spying on them all. There are shots of TN doing sleight of hand to steal a tape from Ambrose's pocket and it's pretty good spy-shot stuff.

I guess I should mention that there's one more guy on Ethan's team of four, an Australian guy. I haven't caught his name, so he is Australian Guy now, and he is pretending to be an employee of the horse race game venue. He gets bullied by Stemp! We don't like Stemp!

The tape she stole, they watch it right away and it shows footage of what the virus (there's a virus problem at the center of this) does. It is effective, and a little shocking.

But then, this is surprisingly actually kind of well-conveyed - they made it VERY clear that the tape was originally in Ambrose's left jacket pocket, and they showed very clearly that TN returned it to the wrong jacket pocket, AND it's obvious a moment later that Ambrose knows it has been replaced in the wrong jacket pocket. Don't know why, but at least it's keeping us on top of this situation.

Also not-too-shabby is how they're doing the consequences of Ethan and TN fancying each other, except then she has to go and seduce Ambrose and that's uncomfortable and drama-making. In Ethan's defense, as well as Ambrose's, I am also in love with TN right now.

1:02:12 - Ethan disguised himself as Scientist, the dead one from the beginning, and I'm just saying I'm glad this movie is embracing the disguise-craft theme that was established in the first movie. Ooh, is the show like that too?

And then just as I've typed that, it turns out that Ambrose did an Ethan disguise (it was established by Anthony Hopkins that Ambrose was an IMF agent so he can do that stuff too) to trick TN into outing her intentions. They make it very clear that there is voice-fake tech with their disguises that involves a wire mesh thing stuck to the throat.

Next up is a heist scheme to break into a skyscraper where they're growing stuff about the virus, and it's a little bit of that style I liked so much in the last movie, with the added twist that Ambrose is somewhere else anticipating what Ethan's planning, and, I think, plotting a separate, way-better heist. They're still talking about it and the heist is happening and it is suspenseful! I totally like this more than I remember.

1:13:30 - Ethan is at the part of the heist where he's at fancy lab facilities with robot arms and AI voices and oddly no people. VR and Australian Guy are observing everything that's happening using technology and Australian Guy's helicopter, making it more suspenseful, but I also don't know exactly what's going on? We appear to be where Scientist originally injected himself, and Ethan is I think killing the virus while also somehow visualizing Scientist injecting himself.

But then that all goes away because a platoon of thugs in black burst in and are shooting at Ethan. It all quickly became an action movie with blazing guns and VR's tech van getting bombed.

In the fracas it's clear that one of the injector guns contains the last of the virus, and also gunplay might shatter it and make them all infected, so that's decent suspense. But also, the lighting in this bio-lab is like a nightclub, with inexplicably roving spotlights and neon accents that pop in 4K.

TN is in the mix, and she decides to inject the last of the virus into herself, and there's a dumb moment where it's like ETHAN YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SHOOT ME WITH YOUR GUN and Ethan, Man of Ethics, does not do that. Instead there is more gunplay and Ethan jumps out a hole he made in the wall.

1:28:45 - We've moved to new location, a new compound, and it's on a guard-patrolled island and Ethan sneaks up on a guard and does a totally unnecessary body-flip martial arts move to take him out. I think he needs to steal the antidote from this compound so that he can save TN, who is somewhere else. He is visually passionate about this mission.

Ethan got caught sneaking in to this new compound by Stemp, and he did a whole grenade blowup thing but he still got caught. It's a trick, right? Yup, he put an Ethan mask on Stemp and a Stemp mask on himself and got Ambrose to kill Stemp. He realizes he just killed Stemp because of the finger injury, good job with that.

I am reminded that this movie is from the director of Face/Off, so I needn't have feared that the mask/disguise conceit would be forsaken.

But did he get the antidote? He must have. Sometimes when I'm typing notes I miss stuff, but he's now motorcycling away while VR and Australian Guy are providing support from their chopper.

This is now the vehicle-chase opera that I remember ending the movie so terribly extendedly. Much gunplay. Vehicles pirouette with violent elegance. Ethan can do such exquisite dances with his motorcycle and firearm. This climaxes in the ridiculous feat of Ethan and Ambrose riding their cycles at each other and jumping at off them at each other to finish the job sans vehicle. It ends as a tussle on the beach, and Ambrose has a knife that almost gets in Ethan's eye. The visual on that is striking. But it's no good, Ethan is too Tom Cruise for him. He gets the knife from him and DISCARDS THE KNIFE, and punch-kick-fights him a lot instead. Ethics.

Turns out Ambrose has a gun after all oh no. But then it turns out Ethan is standing by a sand-obscured gun somehow also oh good. He does a thoroughly storyboarded sand-kick-body-twirl gun recovery that ends like you'd guess.

So although there are some dumb things about this movie, I think it's better than I remembered. And having just watched the first one, I think it actually did a good job of having a story where you don't have to ignore a lot of stupidness. It's not like it's an especially good plot, but it didn't try to make you forget its holes like the first one. I still like the first one better, though.

(next: Mission: Impossible III)

[hunkkeiths-blog]

So I just scrolled 20000 years back on your blog like the creep I am and I saw you mention schizophrenic Keith headcanons but never actually saw schizo Keith headcanons and I'm 👀👀👀

once again thank you so much for sending this! i really really love this au but i never talk about it bc i feel like no one cares and this makes me sooo happy!

also sorry again for answering late i just wanted to be able to type everything relatively quickly and use a readmore

(i added links that lead to wiki pages to explain what certain stuff is, you don’t need to click them or anything)

ok so here goes

[Food mentions and slight emeto for this part]

Keith has a lot of trouble with food, both bc of sensory issues and paranoia

when its sensory, its mostly if the texture is too different to whats hes used to, or if theres too much taste and theres anything else (a sound, some lights flashing, whatever) hell get overwhelmed really easily. so he tries to stick to relatively tasteless stuff

Keith also gets a lot of persecutory delusions and some of the most recurring ones is that his food has been poisoned, having relatively tasteless food helps with not being as convinced of that

On good days (well as good a day as you can have when you think your food has been poisoned anyway), he can sort of just power through it and eat enough to not be starving.

On bad days, he either doesn’t eat at all, or if he only realises it after having eaten he becomes sick/makes himself sick.

Back on Earth, especially during his year alone, he had 3-4 “trusted foods/brands” and he almost exclusively only ate those

Once on the ship, things get very complicated, because from the start, he doesn’t trust the altean food goo (he still doesn’t if he’s entirely honest, but they’ve all been eating it and none of them are dead yet so if it is poisoned its slow acting enough) so he mostly only eats when hes absolutely starving for the first month or so before he slowly starts to eat more of the altean meals

He does however trust what Hunk cooks partly because he trusts Hunk, partly because Hunk eats it too, and (taste+texture of the food goo aside) hes always more comfortable when Hunk cooks.

[Warning ended]

While developing and after when he had it (which was 2 or 3 years before he entered the Garrison), Keith ended up almost entirely isolated from people, in part because he would willingly withdraw from others, in part because the people who took care of him after his father left/died (foster families i guess? i dont really know how the system works and i cant imagine how much worse it must be for a schizophrenic kid so) didn’t really know what to do with him because he had really bad emotional blunting

Because he was mostly left alone, he started focusing alot on the delusions he had at the time, the main one of which was that he just wasnt human (which yes turned out to be somewhat true, but it’s still a delusion). that led him to thinking of going to space because of a feeling that something would happen there. which led him to the garrison which is how he ended up there.

At the Garrison, he was amazing at flying and mediocre at best in all his other classes.

This is partly because outside of doing stuff that could actually directly get him to space, he wasnt able to get any motivation to do anything else. (even if he gets kicked out, he can just steal a rocket or something right?)

he also didnt really have any friends because he didnt approach anyone and more or less actively avoided anyone trying to get close to him.

the way he just was; never showing any emotion, barely speaking, the weird things he sometimes did, etc; sort of drove ppl away on its own

(this is also sort of the reason he didnt remember him and lances “rivalry” in s1ep1. he never actually noticed lance thought of him as a rival, he just thought lance was sort of loud)

Shiro ended up like being a mentor or something to Keith, and Keith wasnt able to really avoid him

They start off sort of rocky, because Keith hates interacting with other people, due to paranoid thoughts (”he can read my mind”, “he wants to hurt me”, and so on) that, while they werent nearly as bad as off meds, were still present even with medication.

Slowly though, Keith warms up to Shiro and starts trusting him (though shiro is never really sure because Keith doesnt show it at all)

Keith starts doing better in all his classes, because he’s interpreted that shiro will be extremely disappointed in him if he ends up getting kicked out because of poor grades, and hes terrified of disappointing literally the only person in the world he trusts

It also leads to Keith putting a minimum of effort into becoming at least somewhat expressive 

When the kerberos mission fails, keith is destroyed. all his grades almost instantly drop and he barely shows up to class because losing the only person he trusts essentially makes him totally apathetic, and go back to having alot of paranoid thoughts/delusions (mostly surrounding the garrison staging the entire thing, sort of fake moon landing style but with actual murder to make people back off on exploring space because of Something), and feeling like he’s being stalked by people (not entirely untrue tbh), and deal with anhedonia. and thats how he gets kicked out/how he drops out 

Living entirely alone (as in without any supervision) was hell for Keith.

Moving to the shack after dropping out messed with his entire routine, and without a relatively strict routine, he ends up forgetting his meds

Off medication, he had really really really horrible episodes that almost always ended with him getting hurt in some way

Off-meds, he starts his garrison/shiro conspiracy wall

He also found the blue lions cave during an episode

After a while (keith never tries to find out how much time he spent without his meds because he forgot about them), he ends up taking his antipsychotics again, and almost destroys the wall, except theres a feeling he still has that he rememebers he had during an episode.

He ends up going to the cave again, and “Holy shit that was real??” so he restarts his wall while being a bit more down to Earth.

The day shiro crashes on earth is one of the best days of his life bc, well, shiro, but also because he was actually right for once.

Overall, Keith’s pretty good at organising his thoughts and not speaking incoherently, but if hes at all stressed, hell go through a lot of thought blocking

It’s really annoying because Keith hates not being understood and not finishing his points, but often, even if the person hes talking to reminds him what he was talking about, he cant remember what he was going to say after

He also used to think that the thought blocking was aliens and/or the government stealing away all his thoughts to study humans (or, before the garrison: not entirely human entities)

His thoughts are alot more disorganised than his speech shows (under normal circumstances, there are occasions where he does get mostly incoherent). He’s learned to think of what hes going to say step by step before saying it

What he says often still comes off as not entirely thought out, rude, etc because thinking about what order words are going to come out of his mouth doesnt fix not understanding how to interact with others

And here’s a bunch of stuff i couldn’t really make long enough to warrant a separate section:

Keith stims mostly when hes nervous or bored, and he stims by scratching his nails against things, because he likes the sounds it makes.

[self harm (sort of)] at some point, the team notices that when theres nothing for him to scratch (like a wall or something), hell scratch at his own skin, because scratching fabric feels/sounds horrible, often until he scratches part of it off. so they make him these little squares of material to scratch at

Keith does a lot of magical thinking (i cant find an easy link for this but in this case its like seeing signs in things that are seemingly unrelated if that makes sense) where he’ll see a ‘sign’ and feel like he has to do something (what something is varies from something very specific to just “something”)

since he obviously cant always do what hes supposed to do after seeing the signs, hes started writing down everything so he can do it later (lance’s idea). it helps a lot.

Keith hates places with background noises that arent constant (like they stop and start, stop and start), even if they arent particularly loud, because he loses his entire train of thought whenever it stops or starts

Ok! that’s all I can think of right now, I hope this answered what you were looking for! 

I lost my entire train of thought at least 5 times while typing this so I’ll probably add more things in my tag later on when I think of them again!

I’m also writing an actual story with this, it should come out around the end of June if you’re interested!

[allcheatscodes]

timesplitters 2 gamecube

http://allcheatscodes.com/timesplitters-2-gamecube/

timesplitters 2 gamecube

TimeSplitters 2 cheats & more for GameCube (GameCube)

Cheats

Unlockables

Hints

Easter Eggs

Glitches

Guides

Get the updated and latest TimeSplitters 2 cheats, unlockables, codes, hints, Easter eggs, glitches, tricks, tips, hacks, downloads, guides, hints, FAQs, walkthroughs, and more for GameCube (GameCube). AllCheatsCodes.com has all the codes you need to win every game you play!

Use the links above or scroll down to see all the GameCube cheats we have available for TimeSplitters 2.

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Also Known As: Time Splitters 2

Genre: Action, Adventure Developer: Free Radical Publisher: Eidos Interactive ESRB Rating: Teen Release Date: October 17, 2002

Hints

Challenge Bonuses

Glass SmashPane In The Neck: Rotating Heads (Gold) Bricking It: Brick Weapon (Gold) Stain Removal: Nothing (Gold) Behead The UndeadFight Off The Living Dead: Sewer Zombie (Gold) Sergio's Last Stand: Unknown Day Of The Dammed: Feeder Zombie (Silver/Gold) InfiltrationSilent, But Deadly: Viking Hat (Gold) Trouble At The Docks: Pirate Hat (Gold) Escape From NeoTokyo: Big Ears hat (Gold) Banana ChompGone Bananas: Private Coal (Gold) Monkey Business: Unknown Playing With Fire: Wood Golem (Silver) Cut-Out Shoot-OutTake 'em Down: Ample Sally (Gold) Fall Out: Marco the Snitch (Gold) Pick Yer Piece: Sgt. Rock- Gold Timesplitters "Story" ClassicBadass Buspass Impasse: Badass Cyborg (Gold) But Where Did The Batteries Go?: R One-Oh-Seven (Platinum) Hit me Baby One Morgue Time: Cropolite (Gold) Monkeying AroundSimian Shooter: Insect Mutant (Silver) Monkey Mayhem: Lola Varuska, Mischief (Platinum) Dam Bursters: Robofish, Circus level (Gold)

Arcade League (Elite) Bonuses

One Shot ThrillsBabes in the Woods: Jo-Beth Casey (Gold) Double Bill: Beetleman, The Impersonator (Gold) Nikki Jinki Bricky: Nikki, Jinki (Gold) Duel MeaningIf I'm Ugly-You Smell!: Mikey Twoguns, Jared Slim (Platinum) Golem Guru: Kypriss, Fat Characters (Platinum) Golden Thighs: High Priest, Aztec Warrior (Platinum) Frantic SeriesHangar's Hat's Off!: Henchman, Dark Henchman (Gold) Can't Please Everyone.: Maiden, Changeling (Gold) Big Top Blowout: Mr. Giggles (Silver), Stumpy (Gold) Team Series CBags Of Fun: Ringmistress, Big Hands, Slow Motion Deaths (Gold) They're Not Pets!: Baby Drone, Bear (Gold) Nice Threads: Unknown Sincerest Form Of FlatteryAztec The Dino Hunter: Dinosaur (Gold) Half Death: Drone Splitter (Gold) Dead Fraction: Jebediah Crump (Silver)

Arcade League (Amateur) Bonuses

Beginners SeriesAdios Amigos!: Hector Babosal, Lean Molly (Gold) Casualty: Dr. Peabody, Crypt Zombie (Gold) Top Shot: Hangar Level, Sgt. Shock, Elimination mode (Gold) Mode MadnessChastity Chased: Regeneration mode (Gold) Shrinking from the Cold: Private Sand, Sgt. Slate, Shrink mode (Gold) Scrap Metal: Scrapyard, Chassisbot (Gold) It's A BlastNight Shift: Sentry bot, Leech mode (Gold) Spoils of War: Meezor Mox, Thief mode (Gold) Demolition Derby: Male Trooper, Female Trooper, Robot Factory Level, Vampire Mode (Gold) Too Hot To HandleMonkey Immolation: Crispin, Flame tag (Gold) Disco Inferno: Louie Big Nose, Lt. Wild (Gold) Burns Department: Undead Priest, Nightclub, Virus mode (Gold) Team Series AClub Soda: Slick Tommy, Jimmy Needles (Gold) Station Stand: Lt. Shade, Zones mode (Gold) Men in Gray: Accountant, Kawer, Assault mode (Gold)

Ending Bonuses

Successfully complete the game on the easy difficulty setting to unlock the Cardboard Characters cheat and Streets level in arcade mode.

Challenge Pane In The Neck Level Rewards

Successfully complete the Challenge Pane In The Neck level with a “Silver” rank to unlock the Rotating Heads cheat.

Arcade Adios Amigos Level Rewards

Successfully complete the Arcade Adios Amigos level with a “Gold” rank to unlock Hector Babasco and Lean Molly as playable characters in arcade mode.

2280 Return To Planet X Level Rewards

Successfully complete the 2280 Return to Planet X level in story mode on the medium difficulty setting to unlock Ozor Mox as a playable character in arcade mode.

2019 NeoTokyo Level Rewards

Successfully complete the 2019 NeoTokyo level in story mode on the medium difficulty setting to unlock Sadako as a playable character in arcade mode.

1972 Atom Smasher Level Rewards

Successfully complete the 1972 Atom Smasher level in story mode on the medium difficulty setting to unlock Khallos as a playable character in arcade mode.

1920 Aztec Ruins Level Rewards

Successfully complete the 1920 Aztec Ruins level in story mode on the medium difficulty setting to unlock Stone Golem as a playable character in arcade mode.

1853 Wild West Level Rewards

Successfully complete the 1853 Wild West level in story mode on the medium difficulty setting to unlock The Colonel as a playable character in arcade mode.

Cheats

Arcade League (Honorary) Bonuses

MaximusCold Corpse Caper: Cyber Fairy, Gargoyle (Gold) Killer Queen: Leo Krupps (Gold) R109 Beta: Ufopia, Gladiator mode-Bronze Elimination SeriesBaking For The Taking: Chinese Chef, Gingerbread Man (Platinum) Brace Yourself: Braces, Trooper Brown (Gold) Starship Whoopers: Chinese, Monkey Assistant, Trooper Black (Gold) Burns 'n BangsChinese Burns: Calamari, Chef Hat (Platinum) Snow Business: Snowman, Trooper Grey (Gold) Rocket Man: Venus Star, Capt. Sand, Duckman Drake (Gold) Outnumbered, But Never Outpunned!Someone Has Got To Play.: Capt. Night (Gold) Time to Split: Barby Gimp, Scourge Splitter (Gold) Can't Handle This: Chasm, Hatchet Sal, Handyman (Gold) Team Series BHack A Hacker: Krayola, Milkbaby (Gold) Rice Cracker Rush: Riot Officer, The Master (Gold) Superfly Lady: Capt. Pain (Gold)

Unlockables

1990 Syberia Level Rewards

Successfully complete 1990 Siberia on medium or higher to get hybrid mutant as a playable character.

1932 Chicago Level Rewards

Successfully complete 1932 Chicago on medium difficulty or higher to get big tony as a playable character.

Easter eggs

Currently we have no easter eggs for TimeSplitters 2 yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.

Glitches

Currently we have no glitches for TimeSplitters 2 yet. If you have any unlockables please feel free to submit. We will include them in the next post update and help the fellow gamers. Remeber to mention game name while submiting new codes.

Guides

Currently no guide available.