#i really love the story recruits of the rescue team games so i often have magnemite/magneton/magnezone absol gardevoir etc on my team

[azurityarts]

Your Pmd OCs are really cool! I know one is called Skye and one is called Brooke, but what are all their names?

Daily Doodle #77

An Improper Proper Introduction

I spent. Way too much time on this.

MEET THE GANG!

Rescue Team

Arcas

Liselotte (Lilo)

I'm going in order of the games, but I actually played Explorers before Rescue Team! Gotta say, I absolutely loved the Friend Areas; they definitely made the world more engaging and expansive!

As for my team though, Arcas was actually an adaptation from a D&D character I made; a Dragonborn monk iirc. I don't quite remember where I got the name Lilo for a Cyndaquil from, though I recently retconned it to be a nickname of sorts. Names are fun!

In terms of playtime, Rescue Team is definitely the lowest for me. That being said, I've gotten more attached to these two little shits over the course of my doodles and shitposts than I ever thought I would.

Explorers

"Silent"

Arina

Explorers was my first ever Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game, though not my first exposure to the series. Specifically, I managed to pick up Explorers of Sky some years back, and that copy holds as my oldest PMD game.

And the fact that it's "old" helps explain my team's names; unlike my other teams where my initial goal was turning them into characters, my Explorers roster was just named after me and my old best friend. I just put our old usernames, but I still find it ironic that my old name is still appropriate given the "silent protagonist" trope PMD games usually run. Due to personal reasons though, both are now characters!

Explorers holds the title for the time I've sunk into PMD games, and it isn't even close. Incredible story, postgame, music, characters, and more; there's a reason why Explorers is considered the best entry in the series. Over 70 hours I've put into the game, and I don't intend to stop anytime soon!

Gates to Infinity

Brooke

Axdrew

Gates to Infinity was my first exposure to PMD? Is this a shocker? I'm not actually sure, but yep, the first time I had set my eyes upon this series was Marriland's playthough of GTI. I loved his voices as a kid, and I'm very happy to have finally gotten to play the game I idolized as a kid.

I had originally planned for Brooke to be another "quiet type" protagonist, but I noticed that the hero in GTI talks a lot more than in previous installments, and is also a bit sassier? Really glad I got the opportunity to give someone a more lively, snarkier personality that I don't often give my characters. Axdrew was a name given by a friend, and I've recently considered "Drew" as a hypocorism, but I'm still debating on that one.

Gates to Infinity gets so much flak, and maybe I'm just biased due to my history with the game, but it does NOT deserve the amount of hate it does. (There seems to be a theme with Gen 5 getting bashed before getting beloved tho...) I've sung the praises for GTI in old posts, so I won't be going on another rant (this is already the longest section here), but even if everyone pulls up with pitchforks and torches, I'll still hold this game close to my heart.

Super Mystery Dungeon

So, uh, this is awkward? I haven't actually played through PSMD yet. ^^; Between school, life, art, and other stuff going apeshit recently, I haven't had the time to start a new game. I'm excited for when I do though, since it apparently links all of the previous installments together. (Although I am still particularly upset that nicknames for recruits aren't a thing anymore ;-;)

Bonus!

Skye

Azure

Original OCs anyone? Yeah, I'm not too sure anyone's that interested in a random Absol or the 3817th Umbreon OC, but I've had these two for the longest time, even before I started playing Explorers! I guess it doesn't count to include them in this list, since they're not explicitly PMD-related, but I've been trying to write a story of sorts with 'em for a while now (though I've not got a clue if it's any good lol). Both of them have gone through a lot of changes and tweaks over the years, but they're definitely here to stay. :)

If you've made it to the end, thank you for reading! I've been meaning to introduce these fellas for a while now; my original plan was to showcase each of them individually through reference sheets, but that stuff takes way longer than I anticipated. ^^; I've always been nervous when it comes to really explaining the who for my OCs, but I'm really glad this ask came through to push me to make this. Thank you! If anyone's interested, y'all can ask my OCs things! I've seen a bunch of different PMD ask blogs and they're really cool- I'm completely new to this kind of stuff, but I'm willing to experiment! :D

Credit to Nicely Olo for the PMD Badges used in the background!

[teeterarting]

here's a list of things i love about PSMD for no reason other than i think it deserves appreciation (spoilers)

the hero gets adopted by a nuzleaf. Hero, a young child that doesn't know why they were brought into this world, attacked by beheeyem, scared and alone, finds someone that takes them under his wing and gives them a home. it's really sweet that once Nuzleaf brings them to the Village, Hero's not alone anymore.

yes it was all a trick, he deceived you. but being betrayed by your father figure hits so much harder. it's much more personal, especially when both Hero and Partner are kids. and when Nuzleaf goes through all that ordeal in the post game, then gets accepted back into the village?? And his little speech to Hero????? it's heartbreaking and incredibly touching at the same time

everything is just so cute!!!! you go to school with your new friendo and you're friends with the schoolkids, and you make the trip to school every morning taking in the scenery, the smell of dew and fresh grass, and the sun on your face... and you take classes about Mystery Dungeon mechanics, and principal Simipour is a big BRO, the school nurse Audino is super kind and helpful... and you get to play with your pokemon friendos in summer vacation, and explore a dungeon with 'em... AND your bond with your Partner begins to form, getting stronger and stronger from then on. PSMD's beginning arc is so warm and pleasant, it's like reliving childhood memories all over again, when things were happier and you didn't have to worry about how cruel the world is. this story section's one purpose is to get the player used to the game's mechanics, as well as foreshadowing. unfortunately most of the school kids get forgotten later on, but I still love this part for everything it is, even if unintentional.

it's not just the beginning that's cute. PSMD'S ENTIRE WORLD IS ADORABLE. It's just filled with life every town you go. there are a bunch of pokemon locals and they all have interesting things to say, in the main story and the post-game. there's a point where their comments get repetitive, but that's bound to happen in any PMD game. Even then, the days are never the same. one morning you wake up and the Lively Town locals are exercising, then the next they're having singing lessons, and then they're practicing martial arts. and you get to connect with (or recruit) some of them just by.... chatting!!! Sitting next to that big ol' venusaur and sharing stories, laughing and having fun. it's good stuff.

Sometimes you find travelling pokemon in dungeons and it's jsut the coolest thing. Imagine you're exploring a dungeon, then your Connection Orb notifies you there's a fellow explorer in the floor. First thing you do is try to find them, and when you do - oh dang a travelling Archeops!!!! And then they just,,,, exchange their experiences and thoughts on exploration and how hard it is to fend off those enemies and the cool treasure they found the other day (the game calls it "[Team Name] and [Traveller pokemon] compared notes"). then the traveller heals you, fills your belly and restores your PP. and they go on their way. idk man it's such a cute interaction. explorers chatting, empathizing and helping each other, bc their job is not an easy one...

PSMD Partner is the most developed Partner in any PMD game yet. They start off as this naive, hyperactive kiddo, then stuff happens, and worse stuff happens, and you get to see how they grow and change and by the end they're a different person than they were before (in more than one way ...). It's just so nice to be by their side, from the beginning to the bitter end, and watch their growth. in contrast, Hero is a little unbalanced in that their backstory is not explored as much, and their personality is kind of a blank - probs meant to be vague so the player can be in their shoes. to me this just gives you the opportunity to shape their character however you want, so you can have tons of different hero/pardner dynamics.

The music is rlly flippin' good. Some of the tracks are recycled from previous entries, but when they go original??? it's a blast!!! "Echoes of the Mystical Forest" is one of my favorites in all four entries, it has no right being so amazing for a random dungeon. "Time to Set Out" makes me cry immediately (also i think it would be a better fit for the parting ways scene at the end...). Don't even get me started on "Second Dark Matter Battle", it has everything an epic climax needs and MORE. the Partner remix????? absolute genius

speaking of which, Dark Matter ITSELF,, is freaking amazing. Its actions were foreshadowed in the very beginning, though they were not blatant through the game. i do think they could have done a better job at showing the pokemon's negativity raising in the world, as well as negative feelings in the characters... but it's not like Gates did a good job at it, either (outside of cutscenes, all the locals in Post Town are incredibly nice to you and fights didn't "break out often". it's like the game tells you the world is a dark place, but what it shows in gameplay doesn't add up). so i'll cut them some slack. Still, I find Dark Matter a more compelling villain than the Bittercold for several reasons. it is sentient. its speech is a jumbled amount of voices all talking at the same time - the anguished voices of the world. It actually concocted a plan to hurl the planet into the Sun, using pawns like Nuzleaf and Yveltal to do its dirty job. in the Voidlands, Hero and Partner discover its past, and how it'll come back after defeat, like a cycle. when Partner accepts Dark Matter, they accept negative feelings as something everyone has within themselves. Most of all, the fact that Dark Matter is a manifestation of negative feelings doesn't make it just a generic threat, a final obstacle to be defeated so the world can be saved. It makes Dark Matter - negativity itself - a natural part of the world, the yin to its yang. and that's why I LOVE IT SO MUCH DANG IT EVEN THANKS PARTNER FOR THEIR ACCEPTANCE

The fact that Dark Matter can possess pokemon that have "even the smallest amount of darkness in their hearts". it makes me think of Mr. Nuzleaf and what he might have gone through in the past to make him so easy to be controlled. Did he hold a grudge against someone?? Did he commit a crime?? Had Nuzleaf always been malicious???? And if so, is this why he shows so much remorse in the post-game??????? because he had always been this vile fiend and then he met this small kid and got attached, but still carried on with his evil actions because his malice was still stronger than the positive feelings and Dark Matter's hold on him intensified?????? I don't know!!!! and as much as i wish the game could have given us that sweet mr. Nuzleaf backstory, it's pretty fun to have freedom to come up with your own version.

Everything about Super's climax is just phenomenal. Every single flippin' legendary is there to help you. Arceus is in the game. MEWTWO IS THERE. and when things are looking hopeless, they really seem hopeless. First the Tree of Life is dying, then your allies get turned into stone and sent to hell The Voidlands, Arceus gets turned into stone, the entire world is stone (except for several mon' that are still safe and holding onto hope, but they're so few). Your Harmony Scarves stop working and you and your Partner are back to your feeble, basic stage forms. You are bordering exhaustion, you have no Emeras, it's just you and your Partner against an eldritch abomination that's killing the life on the entire planet like a parasite, devouring all hope. but you still fight back. Given how adults in the game always discourage the village children from going adventuring, that they cannot do this or that because they're so little and fragile, it's awesome how Hero and Partner beat Dark Matter as tiny kids.

PSMD is not a flawless game. in fact there's plenty of things that hold it back and i even mentioned some... but it's still full of love put into it and it resonates w me more than PMD Explorers of T/D/S and Gates to Infinity (Rescue Team is a close second). its my all-time favorite PMD game.

[catflowerqueen]

I’m really loving Dwebble’s little sub-plot. Also Trubbish’s and Mienfoo’s, but I’m thinking I like Dwebble’s more.

And, like... it’s the sort of thing I was saying earlier, about how it was something you had to discover on your own. No one is making you talk to these characters, or go searching for their letters, or climbing up the hill or to the rooms at the inn to find them. You have to do that on your own, and actually go searching for where they could be.

Unlike with your main party members, where, sure, they sometimes end up in little places and you can seek them out... but mostly they just say something like “hi” or “put me in the party and we’ll explore.” All major character growth is just outright given to you in the cutscenes. (save for some of the post game stuff, like Emolga and Virizion’s developing relationship. Well. Part of it, at least. I’m just about to go to the Worldcore, so I don’t know if it will be remarked upon more in the future).

Which is fine, in a different way. It’s like.... hm... I guess it just felt more like I was reading a story this time, rather than being immersed in one like I did with the others. And the story itself was pretty good! I just... didn’t feel like I was really a part of it. If that makes sense?

...And now that I’m thinking about it, I think another part of that might be how (and this might just be my perception of things--it isn’t as though I went back and counted) few dungeons there were that were plot related, vs. existed in total? Like, you would often finish a plot-related dungeon, and then find out you suddenly had access to a ton more that, because of Companion Mode, the actual hero might never actually step foot in over the course of the adventure. Whereas in other games, the available dungeons were mostly those you’d actually visited due to the plot itself--at least until post-game, and probably barring a few exceptions. Which just gives me a feeling of disconnect about the whole thing? I guess?

Anyways, I will probably finish up the the actual “plot” parts of the game tonight (since I think Worldcore is the end of that?), and since I don’t really care about 100 percenting stuff or recruiting legendaries or whatever, I will consider the game “completed.” Then I will be able to give my analysis of it.

(And that will actually make it only the second PMD game that I’ve actually finished all the plot for, since I was too disheartened by the partner essentially becoming irrelevant in Rescue Team to actually finish up all the stuff with Gengar myself [instead of, say, looking at guides or watching other people do it with Let’s Plays], and the same sort of thing happened with my anger over the PSMD main game ending [in addition to my compulsion to go around and talk to everybody i could, which was taking way too long between each dungeon that even the gameplay stuff wasn’t fun anymore] and me accidentally getting spoiled by what ultimately happens to get the partner back to finish it myself)

[yue-muffin]

I finished Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the first time and wow, am I impressed. Having only played the 3DS era games and started Sacred Stones recently, I came to expect a certain range of quality and reach in terms of story. There are games that I found not overly complex but executed well (Echoes) and ones with a good premise and sloppy execution (Fates). Sacred Stones, so far, is one I find with a simple story done well. I’m not terribly enthralled with it, but there’s nothing there to annoy me either.

Path of Radiance is one of those games that takes the ‘simple/standard FE plot’ path, but the execution is brilliant, filled with both depth and heart despite the story having the same basic beats as many other FEs. I was really impressed with the worldbuilding, the character writing, the gameplay/story integration...

My biggest gripe with Awakening and Fates was that the characters were colorful, but few of them were compelling and many lacked the depth to take them beyond their archetypes. Path of Radiance did a good job making me feel that its characters all had a stake in the outcome of the battles, that they had an actual cause to fight for and didn’t just join the army just because. There is always a bit of contrivance in an FE game, but the quality of the writing can lessen or emphasize that feeling.

The gameplay mechanics change from game to game, and I find it really fun to test out the unique features of each installment and see how they influenced each other. the shoving animations are amazing

People also say this is one of the easiest FE games and I have to say, the bonus exp mechanic is probably why. I love this mechanic because of the way it allows the game to reward the player for taking certain actions encouraged by the story (like wanting to spare as many of the enemy as possible = we’ll give you bonus exp if you do). I, uh, am never doing a stealth run of the prison break chapter again though.

I went ultra vanilla and restricted myself to using only the Greil Mercenaries for this run, and I’ll leave my impressions on this post because half the fun of a FE game is building up your team.

I went with the Greil Mercenaries (+ Mia, because she joins them for the second game) for my first playthrough because otherwise I would have no reason to use both Rolf AND Shinon at the same time and Rhys would just warm the bench the whole game lol. And I was really curious to see Rolf and Shinon’s support line and actually have a use for all of those light magic tomes.

Ike: My Ike didn’t get screwed over in any stat, so absolutely no complaints other than the fact that he refused to proc Aether more than once in the Black Knight fight, making Nasir bail him out at the end of the allotted turns. I supported him with Soren because I wanted to see their support line, and have to say that it worked out really well. I was between Soren and Oscar, but it worked better this way because Oscar was always riding off with Titania at the front and Ike just lags behind unless you dedicate several units + Reyson to shoving him to the frontline. And when you’re using Mist, Rolf, and Soren, that really cuts into the units available for shoving.

Oscar: He, uh, ended up the MVP and netted the most kills in the run. Oscar can become an amazing paladin, but mine was so screwed in the strength stat for much of the early game that I had to abuse the bexp mechanic at the base to ensure he didn’t keep lagging behind. His defenses were super good by the end, and the little damage he did take was mitigated by activating Sol every other hit. Also, I have a bias for calvary units, so. Oscar. Loved him.

Titania: I...I love Titania. I love her character. She plays her role perfectly as the super strong unit who is there to support you in the beginning and falls off a little towards the end. She can still hold her own in the endgame, however, and I have no regrets for relying on her early on. There is so much experience to be had in normal mode that she doesn’t really rob anyone else of it unless you go ham and let her destroy everything. In the end, I gave her Savior so she can help deliver chip damage and save Shinon’s ass, I mean, rescue drop people.

Boyd: Super frustrating and nerve wracking to train, super hard hitter who still keeps you on your toes by the end. He is the most lopsided unit I have ever used (comparatively low defenses, speed, and skill compared to his attack and HP) but he was definitely fun and made sure I didn’t get too complacent. I don’t normally use fighters/axe units in the modern games because their accuracy is shit, their defenses are even more shit, and why bother with the headache. Once you can forge Boyd a good iron axe, though, his performance becomes more consistent. I did keep Tempest on him for a while, because I find it fun to use the skills a unit comes with, but I took it off eventually. It does help in certain situations when his hit rate isn’t so good (having the biorhythm doubled then is helpful).

Soren: I have a bias for this little asshole, lol. He’s a standard mage, basically. Kind of annoying to train in the beginning because he can barely take a hit, his movement is low, and MAGIC MAKES THE EMULATOR CRASH SOMETIMES, but if you can stick it out, you’ll be rewarded in the end with a unit that doesn’t care about how physically bulky any enemy is and can take down dragons with ease (plus, he heals A LOT because of his high magic stat even with a basic heal staff). I will admit, he’s a walking liability if Ike isn’t his support partner and magic in this game is slightly annoying because each element has its own weapon rank. He basically ate all of my Arms Scrolls because he has FOUR ranks to build (including the staff rank) and all of them have their uses, so I didn’t have him concentrate in one or the other. Although he gets weighed down by a lot of tomes because he is a twig, mine capped speed and didn’t have a problem doubling the dragons in the endgame with Thoron.

Rhys: One of the reasons I did a Greil Mercenaries run haha. He’s not a bad healer. It’s just that there’s benefit to training Mist as your main healer for that one fight later on, and having a team with THREE HEALERS is overkill (unless for whatever reason you made one of your mages use knives...). The problem is that while Soren can take a hit and Mist can run away, Rhys can do neither. His magic stat is very good though, and he was objectively better than my Mist by the end except that he wasn’t on a horse. He was really useful for the endgame since I gave him the Purge tome. Finally, he didn’t have to risk his neck to actually fight. I lowkey love his character though. 

Mist: She is so cute, but mine was so screwed in the stats department. If not for bexp, it would have been a nightmare to train her and Rhys at the same time. I early promoted both of them, but getting her to level 10 was hard. Mine ended up getting magic on so few level ups, that I gave her two spirit dusts by the endgame and it was still amazingly low. Her strength stat was 13. 13!! I love the horse, though. Makes her a lot easier to use once promoted. She has no shoving capabilities, though, whereas Rhys (frail, sickly man he is) can shove like half the army. Go figure.

Mia: I love Mia. She can have my heart and run with it. In newer games I tend not to use mercenaries/swordmasters because their movement is kind of eh, their dodge-tank capabilities are not that impressive, and I don’t like relying on crits too much, but Mia was such an awesome addition to the team. It can be a bit difficult to train her in the beginning given her low defense, HP, and strength, but once she gets going, she wrecks things like nobody’s business. Would have liked to do some Wrath combos with her, but mine had Vantage and Adept and that worked just fine with a Killing Edge or a forged sword of some sort. The only issue is her super low strength cap (22?? really??) but the reliability of her crits and/or skill procs make up for that if you can get her past the early game.

Rolf: ROLF. Literally only viable because of bexp. I actually really love how they wrote his character, but what were they thinking by making him join so late, with such low bases AND his strength growth isn’t even that good (40%, less than Oscar’s). All else could be forgiven if his strength growth was at least 50% like his speed. If you can’t actually do damage, there’s no point. Once you pour exp into him like nobody’s business, he can actually be a good unit. I do really like using him, and mine got enough defense and resistance that he wasn’t a liability, but he definitely needs investment. On the other hand, his hit rates were so good that Gamble actually worked well on him.

Shinon: The racist asshole whose only redeeming quality is his relationship with Rolf. I loved their support chain, and actually I do like how the game put him on our team (after giving you a hard time recruiting him) because of how it brings an element of realism makes these characters more human, but yikes he’s potentially worse than Rolf to train because of how long he’s gone for. If you put aside the need for even more bexp to use him, he’s a pretty good crit unit. And he can surprisingly take a hit once trained. I left Provoke on him and BOY he nearly got himself killed in the endgame, but it is pretty nice to draw aggro in order to get some enemies closer for the foot-locked units to kill.

Gatrie: I miss tanks. Newer games make them so much less fun to use because they don’t tank very well (I’m looking at you, Fates...). Gatrie can’t get places fast and only laguz can shove him, but it was fun having someone who can take a million hits and soften enemies up for the others to take care of. He can’t really one round anything because he can’t double and leaves them with a few hit points left (except if he procs Luna) but he’s a worth while addition to the team. Takes a bit of bexp though, since he often doesn’t get as many kills as the rest.

Reyson: Not a Greil Mercenary, but like I was going to pass up a dancer singer who can refresh FOUR units. It was a pain in the behind to get the Knight Ring, but he does make really good use of it. He can also use the Full Guard ring so he can enter certain areas without being murdered by ballistas. I love his bird form, and the fact that frail heron man can SHOVE people who the tiny people in my army can’t (Mist, Rolf, Soren, I’m looking at you). no but really, Reyson’s character is actually really good too, I like him. 

It was, uh, interesting getting through some of these chapters without a flier. Absolutely not necessary to have one, and if it was a chapter where I kind of needed someone, I just used Tanith or Janaff (the Naesala chapter was the only one that was annoying without a trained flier).

I genuinely had no idea who to stick skills on, haha. This was an interesting system where you really had to think about who to give a skill since they’re like old TMs in Pokemon...one use only. I like to have some limitations in the skill system though, unlike Awakening and Fates where it’s a free for all. I just like the more limited set of options.

[fantasyresident]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue Rescue Team DX Review/Discussion! (SPOILER ALERT)

Just yesterday, I finished Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue Rescue Team DX and I’ve been thinking about what really resonated with me about the game, and what I think in particular could be improved. I without a doubt enjoyed the game, and like the previous Mystery Dungeon games I played, the ending was so emotional and I loved the story. Of course our “good friend” IGN bombed the game with a 6 and complained about what makes Mystery Dungeon what it is, but I’m not here to do that. Let’s begin this super long review discussion.

1. The Story (*****) 👍

The story of Mystery Dungeon DX was quite intriguing. It didn’t go on for as long as other games, but I was very hooked on the suspense that the story offered, even if sometimes the foreshadowing gave a good hint of what would happen next at times. The story of DX begins with the arrival of you, the Pokemon of your choice (once being a human prior to said arrival) into the world of Pokemon. Upon arrival (much like other games), your eventual partner finds you and helps you get to know the new world you arrived in so mysteriously. You band together with your partner to begin a rescue team, which along the way has several bumps and delays including the building of your rescue base which you must count on Chestnut-hungry Mankey to finish. You the Pokemon (mine was Chikorita, my fave) have frequent dreams of a Pokemon-like figure that is communicating to you through sleep, but the messages they convey are a bit cryptic and don’t make complete sense at first. 

You eventually discover a legend in which a human supposedly stole a tail from Ninetales. According to this myth, if a tail was ever stolen from Ninetales, the one who stole it would be cursed. As Ninetales began to cast the curse on the human, their companion Gardevoir sacrificed itself to take the curse instead of the human. For much of the story’s beginning, this myth was put in question by the Pokemon in Pokemon Square. However, after consulting Xatu about the reason you the player were turned into a Pokemon in the first place, the myth began to be confirmed. 

You learn that the human that was protected from the curse abandoned Gardevoir, and Ninetales predicted that the human would eventually be reborn as a Pokemon, and when this happens, the world will fall into disarray. Gengar, the antagonist, tries to convince everyone in Pokemon Square that the player is the human causing all of the imbalance and disasters in the world. Initially, this accusation is taken seriously, causing you and your partner to become fugitives until you are able to discover the truth behind the Ninetales legend. This is where a big and very beautiful theme comes into play: faith. Your partner denies the truth of the accusation that you are the human that stole the tail and abandoned Gardevoir and chooses to believe in you no matter what. You both venture to where Ninetales is said to reside in order to get the truth. Along the way, Absol joins your party and helps you on your way to the top of MT. Freeze’s summit, the home of Ninetales. Upon reaching the top, Alakazam, Tyranitar, and Charizard clash with you and your partner due to you supposedly being the cause of the world’s crisis. Ninetales, however, stops the fighting and tells them a relieving truth: you are not the human of the legend. 

You and your partner return to Pokemon Square to present the full truth, but their lack of proof of their own exoneration makes Gengar continue to spread doubt. However, his campaign of fear-mongering falls apart, and everyone quickly realizes they have been conned by the troublesome Gengar.  Afterwords, rescue team ACT (Alakazam, Charizard, and Tyranitar) goes to quell the rage of Groudon, the Pokemon causing the earthquakes in the region. They never return, causing panic. Blastoise, Octillery, and Golem form their own team and try to defeat the unstoppable Groudon, but they too are hopelessly defeated. You and your partner decide to go after Groudon determined to defeat it. After venturing through the Magma Cavern and defeating Groudon, Xatu informs you of a falling star that is approaching the planet. It is this falling meteor that is the true cause of the world’s imbalance, and Rayquaza is the only one that can stop it. You the player are responsible for scaling the Sky Tower and convincing Rayquaza to cooperate in saving the world through battle. In a dream prior to heading outfor the Sky Tower, Gardevoir tells you that your transformation into a Pokemon occurred because you are the one destined to save the world, thus turning you into a Pokemon to fight alongside your Pokemon friends. 

This also means that once your mission is achieved, your role is over, sending you back to the human world. This makes you as the player sad, due to the inevitable departure from your close friend and partner. During this encounter with Gardevoir during sleep, a Pokemon’s presence can be felt trying to interfere with the dream, but it hastily leaves due to the overwhelming sorrow that can be felt. (This Pokemon is Gengar, who previously was turning your dream into a nightmare.) 

Xatu and Alakazam begin preparing the portal to the Sky Tower, but receive help from a mysterious “ghost” Pokemon. (Again, it is Gengar) Once the player makes it to the peak of the Sky Tower and once Rayquaza is convinced to destroy the star, the player ends up in the Netherworld. Here, Gengar can be seen and drags the player off claiming he will send you to the “dark world”, but claims he has “forgotten” his way around. In actuality, Gengar saves the player by taking them out of the netherworld and bringing them back into the Pokemon world, where you face your fate as the hero of the region. 

This is where the story concludes. You fade away after Gardevoir informs you that your role has ended. This disappearance shocks your partner and the emotional goodbye ensues. Afterwards, like in all of the titles, the player eventually returns to see their partner again due to the strong bond between them. I very much loved this story and enjoyed each twist and turn it offered. The idea of having unbending faith in someone you care about is powerful, and Gengar as a character is just a beautiful concept to me. An additional reveal that I neglected to mention until now for a reason, is that Gengar is the human that stole the tail of Ninetales and betrayed Gardevoir. This is part of the reason that he tried to invade your character’s dream, but fled in a panic. Gengar always regretted his selfish actions against Gardevoir but could never face the one he abandoned due to shame that he clearly hides throughout the majority of the story. To try to make up for his actions, he helps the player twice in saving the world that he was partially responsible for tearing apart. Gengar’s character as well as the plot just comes full circle and makes for a beautiful experience as a Mystery Dungeon fan. My only slight grievance with the story is the reuniting scene was too short, it came to a really quick conclusion and didn’t exactly show you what your partner’s full reaction was to you returning to the Pokemon world. Besides this, the story was fantastic, emotional, and unforgettable for me. 

2. The Gameplay (****)

There isn’t a lot I have to say about the gameplay, since it sticks to what worked well in the dungeon crawling genre, but added some features like the automatic choosing of your best move when pressing “a” and other helpful little quality of life improvements the game boasts. There is the auto mode for movement as well, pressing L will automatically make you search the floor for items, find Pokemon in need of items, and then find the stairs. Shiny Pokemon can now be found in dungeons, although the roster of them is limited. I appreciated that recruiting Pokemon takes more effort than it did in the past, you now have to have the matching friend camp to recruit certain Pokemon. You can recruit up to 8 Pokemon for a party while in a dungeon which makes fighting bosses more interesting. Even though the base of the gameplay is the same as its always been, it’s still fun for anyone familiar with the franchise that liked the gameplay in past games.

3. Visuals (*****) 👍

This can be addressed quickly and efficiently. The game looks beautiful.✨ The watercolor visuals makes it look like an animated story book and I enjoyed every moment of it. The boss encounter scenes look more fluent since the animations have been kicked up a notch and the style perfectly compliments the style of storytelling the game has to offer. A + +

4. Dialogue (***1/2)

Some of the dialogue was a bit stale at times, while it can be cheesy in others, but for the most part, it suited the game well. I feel as if there were more moments where I was either satisfied with the dialogue, or really liked it rather than off-put by it, but the few off-putting moments are still there. Sometimes dialogue would go from one thing to the next too quickly, but more often than not it was on track and consistently good. 

5. The Soundtrack (*****) 👍

Need I say more, the soundtrack in Mystery Dungeon games are killer. 🎶🎵🎼Never once did I hear a track I didn’t like, or a track that didn’t suit the situation/dungeon it was produced for. The song playing during the farewell scene made my eyes more teary (just like in the last 2 games I played) and I found myself thoroughly enjoying the music as a whole.

________________________________________________________________

Verdict:

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue Rescue Team DX is a game full of twists, turns, laughs, tears, and surprises. It’s faithfully good gameplay coupled with its strong story, soundtrack ,and characters makes for an adventure worth having in the world of Pokemon. Although it has some weaknesses when it comes to dialogue and its gameplay could have used a few more facelifts here and there, all in all, the game is a strong representation of what works in the Mystery Dungeon franchise. With an emotional ending, a fantastic message, and a great story, this entry to the franchise is one to be celebrated. 

My Rating: ****1/2  Strongly recommended.

[howtohero]

#298 Taking Over the World

Hello? Is this thing on? Ah, perfect. Hello world, it’s me, Smuggles, the fiendish criminal who orchestrated the end of the Age of Superheroes and ushered in the Age of Villains, or the Age of Smuggles, my compatriots and I are still workshopping the name. Anyway, now that things are well and truly finished for your pathetic heroes and those who would try to guide them through life, I thought I might take a moment to explain to you all how all of this came to be, so that you might truly comprehend the absoluteness of our control and the futility of trying to stop us. And yes, I’m sure I know what you’re thinking, thanks to the mind reading flakes that Professor Brain-Scrambler mixed into every box of the aggressively marketed Cereal Flakes: Everyone’s Favorite Cereal and Favorite Flake in the world. You’re all thinking: Ooh is he really going to monologue now? That’s so passé, how gauche. But I feel as though I deserve this. You might have trouble believing this but this is actually my very first supervillain monologue. I don’t often succeed at my villainous plots, and even when I do, a successful smuggling kind of means there won’t be an audience for whom I can monologue. So excuse me if I feel like gloating for a bit.

Before I get into things though, I think it would be quite remiss of me not to thank those who helped me get to where I am now, starting with the real MVPs, the How To Hero team. The How To Hero team? Aren’t they good guys? Aren’t they victims in all of this? How could they have helped you? All good questions, to be sure, but they are indeed responsible for my meteoric rise to power. Of course they didn’t know it at the time. You see, three years ago I was nothing more than a petty thief with a costume and a codename. Barely a supervillain as some have called me. It was rare that I even saw superheroes, let alone did battle with them. Until June 8, 2017, when a certain blog told every two-bit would-be cape-fetishishist that I would be a good villain to test their crime-fighting chops on. Suddenly, I was being accosted nightly by every man, woman, child and giant badger with a hero-complex. It was humiliating, it was painful, and I vowed that I would get revenge on anybody who contributed to my nightly beatings, so, every superhero ever and also How To hero. I decided to start with the blog, as that seemed easier, and also they were the only ones on my revenge list who hadn’t already decisively proven that they could beat me up. So I began reading their guide, know thine enemy and all, and in time I discovered that while they may not be much of a superhero guide, they were, unwittingly, laying out everything one might need to be the ultimate supervillain. I reached out to an old accomplice of mine Perry the Pirate, who helped me hack into How To Hero’s database so I could access notes and drafts that they had yet to publish so I could glean even more information and tips from them. Apparently another lawyer in his firm worked closely with the guide and had a backdoor into their system on his computer. I pored over the information I found, sifting through thousands of unbearable puns and jokes to get what I needed, and thus, a plan began to form.

Historically speaking, the main obstacle in any villains way to world domination is the large contingent of heroes who love freedom and peace and living in a non-dominated world. They’re always spouting on and on about rights and justice and love, I know, they’re exhausting. But people tend to like them, and people tend to be inspired by them. Which often means that when a supervillain manages to take out one hero, somebody else will very quickly take up their mantle and continue their fight for them. So it is not enough to just pick off heroes one by one. In order to truly get rid of them, they, all of them, would need to be taken off the board all at once. And such an event would need to occur when a villain, or a group of villains, is ready to step in a take control, so that they may do so swiftly as soon as the heroes fall. This part, I realized, was crucial, no time at all could pass between the fall of the heroes and the rise of the villains. Any sort of grace period would allow for the rise of new heroes, and we would be right back where we started. So even though How To Hero had foolishly provided me with a roadmap to taking out the world’s heroes, I needed to put some pieces into play first. I needed to garner the support of my fellow villains.

Not an easy feat for the preeminent starter-villain. 

Honestly, it wouldn’t be an easy feat for anyone, had it not, once again, been for How To Hero. You see, most villain team-ups fail eventually. The villains will always end up betraying each other or falling out over some petty reason like “who gets to control which coast” or “what are we going to name the henchmen”. The rate of decline goes up the more villains you add to your team. So if I was going to form a villainous alliance capable of taking out the heroes and taking over the world, I would need to find a way to overcome the virulent backstabbing and counter-plotting that often plagued supervillain team-ups. So imagine my delight, when How To Hero published a guide on fights between supervillains and how to resolve them. Armed with the tools I would need to diffuse any fights that might arise I approached Al “Da Boss” Marconi, a big time supervillain and crime boss.

A few things you need to know about Marconi, he is quick to anger and only speaks to people whom he respects. So my first attempts at meeting with him ended with me being hurled out of a fortieth story window. Thankfully, on the advice of How To Hero, I was wearing a parachute and ended up being just fine. I realized I would need to find a way to impress Marconi. If I could get him onboard, most of the villain community would be similarly swayed. So I set my eyes towards bigger fish... Oh, not Charlie, that was actually something else. You know what, I might as well talk about that now, while we’re on the subject.

If I was going to take out every hero in the world I would need engineer large-scale threat, but as I’ve said, I didn’t not have large-scale threat connections. In fact, after Perry the Pirate left the villain game to become a lawyer, my only supervillain contact was another low-level villain named Charlie the Fish Whisperer. He mind controls fish by whispering to them, that’s not exactly large-scale, world-threatening stuff. It is, what you could charitably define, as a lame superpower. But that’s ok, How To Hero has a guide to using lame superpowers to your advantage. It was all about perception. All I needed to do was make others perceive Charlie the Fish Whisperer as a world-ending threat. But how to do that? Charlie was only a semi-formidable threat in the water so what were we to do? Mount on attack on Atlantis? How To Hero told us we’d be fools to try. Besides, if we allowed the idea that Charlie was only threatening in the water to stick, he’d never rise to world-ending threat. I realized we would need to speak to a specialist. 

Our world has nearly ended so many times, that there are several former heralds of the apocalypse just hanging around without much to do. I set up a meeting with a fellow called The Dark Harbinger who used to do some freelance heralding for folks like Karalaxus and The Living Ingestor. He taught Charlie and I what these big threat guys are actually like, and How To Hero taught us everything we needed to know about putting on a facade to trick others. But being able to talk the talk wouldn’t be enough. We needed a big dramatic action that would cement the new Charlie the Whisperer in the minds of heroes. Thankfully, How To Hero clued us in to another specialist we could speak to. A man named Ivan Karolov, aka Mister Immortal. Karolov agreed to meet with us, who can say why, I honestly think he was just bored. He had somehow found himself as the prime minister of Finland and I think he was itching to fake his death again and move on. Karolov used his skills and experience at faking his own death to help us make it look like Charlie the Fish Whisperer had killed him with a goldfish he had smuggled into Kesäranta. Charlie rebranded as Chuck and the heroes of the world became convinced that he was truly dangerous and locked him away in an alternate dimension. Obviously that’s not how I saw things playing out, but no matter. I had a world-ending threat that I could use as needed.

Now, to switch gears, I must explain how I finally gained the respect of Al Marconi and the rest of the supervillain community. To put it briefly, I went to Hell. Now, now, don’t give me that look, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as it sounds. In fact, How To Hero made it easy. All I needed was some peanut butter, and get this, I already had some! Just lying around in my cupboard. All I needed to do was put some out in a pentagram to attract a demon and we were in business. I planned on recruiting some Underworld bigwig to my campaign. How could Marconi not respect me if I had the legions of Hell behind my cause. The rulers of Hell are actually easier to appeal to than mortal villains. All I would need to do is pledge my everlasting and eternal soul to whomever was sitting on the throne that day and I would be given an army of ghouls and undead spirits to command. What do I care about my soul? Whatever demon I dealt with would only get once I died, and How To Hero had very helpfully laid out exactly how I could achieve immortality. Luckily though, I didn’t even end up needing to pledge my soul, once again How To Hero came to my rescue. While reading one night I came across a shocking diatribe against a man named Greg Greginski. Greginski is a well known talk show host who frequently talks about superheroes and their ilk, and rarely in a positive light, which is why How To Hero takes issue with him. Greg Greginski is not well-liked in the superhero community, but those of us in the supervillain community are privy to the fact that Greg Greginski is not simply a television host. He’s so much more. He’s part-time ruler of Hell, Greg the Skeleton King, and after How To Hero’s disrespectful remarks towards him, he was willing to throw his weight behind my crusade against the blog, free of charge. 

Once I had Greg the Skeleton King on board, I went back to Marconi with an army of damned souls and he was very quick to endorse my movement as well, especially after being dangled out the window by a ghost who occasionally struggled to stay corporeal. Marconi agreed to spread the word amongst the rest of the villains and I moved on to the final phase of my plan. Taking out all the world’s superheroes in one fell swoop. As I alluded to at the beginning of my post, How To Hero handed me the perfect plan on a silver platter. All I needed to do was trigger a superhero/supervillain team-up. According to How To Hero, when a threat is large enough, superheroes will form temporary alliances with supervillains until the threat is dealt with. This makes sense, supervillains don’t want the world to be destroyed, who would they do crimes against if the world is gone. So heroes need no worry about supervillains pulling anything shady during such a team-up, unless of course, the villains knew that the threat was fake, and that there was no real risk to the world. Enter Chuck the Fish Whisperer, my very own personal world-ending threat. The only problem though, was that Chuck had already been defeated and locked away, earlier than I’d planned. Oh well, at least he was still alive, I just needed access to a interdimensional portal generator. How To Hero had already laid out to me how difficult it is to cross dimensions, the easiest way would be to use somebody else’s existing interdimensional portal generator. Luckily, I knew somebody who could help, Frederick Kaminsky aka Dr. Brainwave. 

Dr. Brainwave was perfect, he had already built a portal generator, and he lived in How To Hero headquarters. He could be my man on the inside. He could be my partner in all of this. Or, well, he could have been. If he hadn’t been a world-grade idiot. It seems that, in his work with How To Hero as their supervillain correspondent, Dr. Brainwave had actually grown to like the team behind the blog. He had begun to think of them as his friends. He wouldn’t allow me access to his machine he told me, but as a professional courtesy he wouldn’t tell anybody about my plan to free Chuck. I let him think that Chuck was the brains and that I was simply his henchman, his sidekick. Brainwave didn’t think I was a threat, and so he didn’t take any steps to report me to the authorities. This ended up being his undoing. If Dr. Brainwave wouldn’t help me, then I would need somebody else on the inside. Unsurprisingly, Brainwave’s beloved guide held the answers. Allow me to quote from the blog’s guide to joining a team that has not invited you to be apart of it: 

If you want to join one of these teams and there’s already somebody there with your powers you’re definitely going to have to sabotage them. We understand that sabotaging another hero to steal their spot on a superhero team isn’t a very superheroic thing to do but some things are just more important! [Don’t] Poison them! Depower them somehow (maybe with some type of ray and/or beam)! Humiliate them by beating them at Dance Dance Revolution at the next superhero dance festival and tractor rodeo which I’m nigh certain is a real thing.

If I wanted to join the How To Hero team, I would have to get rid of the person who already filled my niche. I wouldn’t do it with poison or Dance Dance Revolution though, I would do it with a bomb. A bomb that I had smuggled out of Brainwave’s own workshop when I had met with him. I mailed a bomb to How To Hero’s office. Best case I kill everybody in the building and then just waltz in and use Brainwave’s portal generator to unleash Chuck, trigger a superhero/supervillain team-up, and then have the villain betray the heroes once they’ve let their guard down. Worst case, I take out Brainwave and steal his job. I knew Brainwave always wore rocket boots, he was almost as much of an avid reader of this blog as I was, so I knew that if anybody was going to fly the bomb out of the office, it would have to be him. Afterwards it was just a matter of filling out an application and coasting on my reputation as a non-threat. Sure enough, those fools fell for it hook, line and, sinker. So here we are now, the superheroes are gone, and I and my allies rule the world. And it’s all thanks to this little blog. 

That’s all for now, stay tuned for my first slew of villainous decrees and demands soon. Welcome to the new world order.

[horseluvr00-ff]

A Place to Call Home | Present Day (ch1)

Masterlist Here

Rating: T+

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Genre/Warnings: action/adventure/family | kidnapping, violence, strong language.

Story summary: It’s been a few months since the Battle of New York. Steve Rogers is acclimating to life when he crosses paths with teenager Katelyn Sanders, a SHIELD recruit and highly valued asset with a dark past. Follow Kate’s adventure from SHIELD asset to Avenger to wanted fugitive over the course of her youth and into adulthood with her Avenging family. Follows Infinity Saga and beyond.

Words: 1,242

Disclaimer: Majority of properties within this fanfic are owned by Marvel/Disney. My OC Katelyn Sanders, as well as a few other unaffiliated things within this fanfic are of my own creation.

Author Note: Chapters usually average between 6k-8k words, but range from 4k to 10k. Relogs are welcome :) Please no plagiarism or reposts on other platforms. Updates occur weekly on Fridays, however posts on Tumblr usually occur Saturdays.

Author Note: “Present Day” chapters are mini chapters and continue in present day, following up the prologue. These happen every twenty or so chapters.

Full story available on FanFiction.net and A03 here and here.

Check out the full Present Day (1) chapter below:

My eyes dot about the scenery, catching the pond before meeting the tree; my lips twitch just slightly before my eyes shoot down.

To think how I came here. All the things that needed to happen a certain way. Where would I be if things had gone differently?

Steve cared about me, I had known that. The team, while more professional or oblivious to the matter, were kind to me. Steve had been the first person to turn his head towards me, and not only take notice but act. That was something I could never repay; the harsh reality I was escaping by Steve harboring me at Stark Tower.

Those first few weeks at the Tower… So long ago… They were rough and quite bumpy. I was a nervous wreck back then. Nothing like I am now. Sometimes I wonder how things would've been different if Steve had found me at the warehouse, when SHIELD first rescued me, as opposed to at SHIELD, following years of training. I would have opened up to him a hell of a lot quicker if he had met me then… After SHIELD got a hold of me though, a lot changed.

Those few weeks leading up to the first meeting Steve were like any other. All because he had to be stupid and stand in front of the microwave. Scary thought… What might have happened if I hadn't gotten up to microwave my stupid cup of tea and asked him to move over.

I don't know why I think like that… Mulling over the "what if"s… It's not healthy, but-... Now, given everything that's happened. I couldn't exactly do anything worse than mull over my life and all of its choices, events, and other semi unimportant to crucial points.

Glancing down into my lap, my eyes find the Fritt bar. No point in letting it go to waste, might as well eat it now.

Rolling my eyes quietly, I rip open the wrapper and take a small bite of the chocolate toffee bar. Had a familiar, artificial taste… something I was trying to get away from, I'll admit. When you're aware of, and able to sense the actual taste of such foods' ingredients- thanks to one of the many aspects of my ability- you start to crave natural basic foods more often. Despite the fact however… It was a pretty good candy bar. Not surprised this was one of his favorites.

Taking a few more small bites of the Fritt bar, my eyes lift and move along the grass and across the way towards some of the fence line where the livestock is. The gate is closed; however a few goats are nearby chowing down on grass shoots, outside of the fencing. The goats always got out. Stubborn little bastards. He loved them though, so I can't really argue with their presence.

Lowering my gaze back down, Steve pops back up into my mind. He was such a dork back then. There was still a sense of innocence to his situation. Despite trying to accommodate himself at the Tower, in the new environment, he still had it a priority to check on my accommodations and make sure I was comfortable and welcome. Despite their politeness, it was obvious everyone was wary of me at first. Especially Natasha. Don't blame her. My SHIELD file did sort of imply I was a loose cannon. Did Steve catch that part though? I don't believe so.

Clint was in the middle ground along with Bruce. Both were kind to me at first, however it was obvious they had their doubts and concerns.

Tony was a loose cannon in his own right. From day one he had me all figured out as the next little avenger in training; labeling me Steve's kid after Steve had sort of decided he was keeping me for a few weeks… Those weeks were chaotic now that I really consider it. Geash.

Despite the chaos, I maintained a relatively calm and shy demeanor. While it was more of a defense mechanism than anything, it did allow me plenty of space and time to figure everything out. It was an awkward time! Having to figure out a game plan when you have nowhere to go, no family, and certainly no life to "get back to" if that makes sense.

To the outside world, I didn't exist. Which in some ways probably could have made things easier if I had ended up on the streets.

Glancing into my lap, my eyes find the no empty Fritt bar wrapper before I crumple up the plastic and shove it into my pocket.

… Here I am complaining about my potential experiences on the street… He had hell to deal with. Mind you I helped, but he still had a much worse situation than I did. However nowadays- if he was here- he'd probably disagree with that.

Clenching my jaw I rest my head back against the hut wall, eyes finding the large tree several yards away providing enough shade for the current time of day.

The day Fury had given Steve another week (two weeks) with me… That was definitely one of the deciding moments when things changed. Following that decision, things changed and my life took some dramatic turns.

That night at the Tower, sharing dinner with the team over some light conversion was a good memory. Back when things were simple. Simple… God I miss those days. Things hadn't been simple for years. Damn did I miss it.

That dinner was one of those simple nights when I was younger. I couldn't have predicted how things would turn out then, but you can't help but wish that you'd treasured those moments while they were happening, as opposed to looking back on them - wishing you had appreciated them better.

Following my departure from that dinner, I hung out in the stairwell for several minutes listening to the team chat. While I'd never admit it to any of the team today… I eavesdropped a lot in my first week with them. Just a precaution, mostly. Just so I knew precisely what they thought and how things were going, it was a nice way to keep track of the reality of the situation I was caught in the middle of.

I only heard good things that night; mostly Tony joking about my nice manners, however it was still a time when the team rarely sat down together and had a meal or just talked. Those times when I was there; Steve holding the team together for when I was around so I had people to socialize with… Those were some of the few times when the whole team was together and getting along… They were good times.

The next several weeks, and months, however where just as good. Maybe even some of the best in my childhood. Well- What was left of it at least.

Full story available on FanFiction.net and A03 here and here.

Stay healthy, stay safe, sending lots of love. <3 

Masterlist Here

[bae-leth]

FE3H x LoZ

Hey, I saw that you enjoyed my Zelda AU so I decided to expand upon it! This includes eight students for each house, and even strengths based on the Three Houses weapon types. Also for convenience all of the students are Hylian/Gerudo/basically human.

To set the scene, the Gerudo Empire is in the desert to the west, the Kingdom of Hyrule is in the north and east, and the Ordon Alliance is in the forests to the south. The main religion is the Church of Hylia, and the Officer’s Academy is still in the center of the continent because the name sounds generic enough. The curse of Demise exists, but records of it have been lost to time and none of the students are aware of it (cue emotional revelations and plot twists).

CRIMSON BOARS

Since there are so few Gerudo characters of actual plot relevance, I decided to include Ganon’s other allies from across the series, plus a few wild cards.

Ganondorf - house leader. Heir to the Gerudo Empire. Strong and very physically capable, as well as a firm leader. Strengths: Lance, Brawl, Reason, Authority

Ghirahim - Ganondorf’s cunning retainer. Only really ever thinks about himself and his master. Strengths: Sword, Reason

Cia - used to be a warm, angelic girl when she was little, but has become the opposite since then. She idolizes Ganondorf, but also admires Link from afar. Strengths: Faith, Authority, Flying

Lorenz Zant - a foreign exchange student from Twili, a faraway archipelago. Only friends with the people in his class, and hates everyone else. Especially despises Midna. Strengths: Brawl, Reason, Flying

Urbosa - probably the nicest person in the class. Has a motherly attitude. Very strong and protective of her allies. Strengths: Sword, Bow

Astrid - a quiet girl who is almost always studying. Also has an obsession with fortune telling. Strengths: Faith, Reason

Onox - son of an imperial general. Large and built, and loves training. Always agrees with Ganondorf. Strengths: Axe, Brawl, Heavy Armor

Ruto - daughter of a wealthy noble from Hyrule who became close to the emperor, but she does not always approve of the Empire’s methods. Very flirty, and has many admirers. Strengths: Lance, Riding

AZURE OWLS

These characters are all either Sages, Champions, or Resistance members.

Zelda - house leader. Crown princess of the Kingdom of Hyrule. Extremely smart, and though usually kind, can be cold and relentless on the battlefield. Strengths: Bow, Reason, Riding, Authority

Impa - rescued by Zelda during the Tragedy of Sheikah and has become her faithful retainer since then. Often found accompanying Zelda or praying. Strengths: Sword, Lance, Faith

Revali - son of a renowned warrior in the Kingdom. Thinks very highly of himself and looks down on those who are physically weaker than him. Often trains to the point of intense fatigue. Strengths: Bow, Flying

Mipha - a shy, quiet girl who mostly keeps to her room. Dotes on those who are injured despite her introverted nature. Strengths: Lance, Brawl, Faith

Medli - daughter of a famous musician. Incredibly skilled at playing the harp and dreams of becoming a star as well. Kind to everyone she meets, but has a reputation for being clumsy. Strengths: Axe, Flying, Authority

Byrne - A quiet student who often goes unnoticed. However, he is immensely skilled in battle, which tends to surprise people given how often he disappears during training. Strengths: Sword, Brawl, Heavy Armor

Shad - a scholarly student who is extremely interested in history. Will approach any random student to help him with his research. Unlikely friend to Ashei. Strengths: Faith, Reason

Ashei - the daughter of a noble, but she would rather be a knight than an heiress. Blunt and sometimes downright undignified. Unlikely friend to Shad. Strengths: Sword, Axe, Riding

VERDANT WOLVES

These characters are Link’s friends and companions from throughout the series. 

Link - house leader. Future leader of the Ordon Alliance, though born a commoner. Kind and genuine, as well as very charismatic, but hides insecurities. Strengths: Sword, Faith, Riding, Authority

Ravio - son of a merchant family. Very close to Link, almost like a brother. Quite lazy, and would rather scam people than study. Strengths: Axe, Bow, Flying

Midna - the princess of Twili, who came to the Academy as a foreign exchange student. Admired by many for her beauty and charm. Incredibly snarky and mischievous, and often gets into trouble. Strengths: Lance, Reason, Flying

Saria - the youngest student at the Academy. A sweet and charitable girl who loves animals and feels at home around nature. Strengths: Bow, Faith

Daruk - a noble who dreams of becoming an accomplished knight. Very friendly and outgoing, but has a fear of dogs. Strengths: Brawl, Heavy Armor, Authority

Fi - a girl who is very religious and is usually found praying. Very analytical and excels in her studies. Often responds to her peers without emotion, and many have never seen her smile. Strengths: Sword, Flying

Groose - Link’s self-proclaimed rival. Always trying to one-up Link, much to Link’s exasperation. Has a massive crush on Zelda, and is willing to join the Azure Owls for free. Strengths: Axe, Lance, Brawl

Malon - a farmer girl from the Ordonian countryside. Works extremely hard, as it took a lot for her father to send her to the Academy. Known for her distinct singing voice. Strengths: Bow, Reason, Riding

OTHER NOTES

Despite moving some things around, such as their locations on the map and certain events like the Tragedy of Sheikah (Duscur), the nations here are loosely based on those in Three Houses: Hyrule = Adrestia, Gerudo = Faerghus, and Ordon = Leicester. (oh and Twili = Brigid)

Though Hyrule is a KINGDOM and Gerudo is an EMPIRE, Hyrule is larger because Gerudo is still growing and expanding. However by the timeskip Gerudo won’t have grown much because of Hyrule’s declaration of war.

The Tragedy of Sheikah basically went as follows: the people of the Sheikah region were close allies of the royal family, but were then blamed for the mass assassination of several nobles, including the queen. In retaliation, Hyrule massacred the people of Sheikah.

Since elements were pulled from many LoZ games, the three house leaders aren’t based on any specific incarnation. However, if I had to pick, Ganondorf would be from Ocarina of Time, Zelda would be from Breath of the Wild, and Link would be from Twilight Princess.

I haven’t really thought of who would be the leader of the church, or the faculty, or the equivalent of Byleth, but then again it’s not like this has to be an exact copy of Three Houses anyway. However I do think that Telma would make a wonderful stand-in for Manuela.

There are still cats in the Monastery (speaking of the monastery, I don’t have a name for it). Link and Saria give them the most attention.

I hope you enjoyed this!

--------

notes from bae: OK ROUND TWO.... LET’S TRY SUBMITTING THIS AGAIN....

in short: HJHGDSFGFSGJDFSHD??? JDGFSHGFHS??? I LOVE THIS??? I LOVE THIS??

this is so well thought out im going to cry. instead, I am just going to go through everything in order (prob not ) and scream at things i want to point out

'no one knows about the curse of Demise until later' IM BWUBWUWBWUBBWUB NOO.... NOOO..... THIS IS GOING TO TEAR APART FRIENDSHIPS..... i NEED to see the confrontations after this, because.... that's so heartbreaking and I don't want to imagine it... but i Need to see it :((

i AdOre how you incorporate characters from across the games, too. seeing chars like Byrne, Onox and Astrid make my lil Zelda heart happy...

and speaking of the characters, I love the strengths you gavce them!!! and the backstories... because this REALLy makes me want to see their supports. can you imagine.... Midna and Zant, Ravio and Revali, Groose and Zelda, Groose and everyone, Link and Ghirahim trying to hold a friendly conversation (which. oh dear. doesn’t work)... there is SO MUCH POTENTIAL and i can only IMAGINE!!

if you have any story details sketched out, I NEED to know!! i esp liked how you adapted the tragedy of Duscur to the tragedy of Sheikah, since there’s already hints of hostility towards the Sheikah in 10,000yrs ago-BotW, so it’s definitely not remiss that they wouldn’t be blamed ;; and this also makes me intrigued about Zelda’s motives!! Why does Hyrule declare war? because of her own personal reasons pertaining to the tragedy? in response to the Empire? something else entirely??

same with Ganondorf.... WHAT makes him declare war.... because I don’t think it’s just a case of conquer n conquer..... eyes emoji....

(and ofc our boy Lonk. with the best team, imo.... I Love the Verdant Wolves. would join them ASAP. they look like the house with the most Chaos but ALSO a lot of POWER...)

ESSENTIALLY I JUST NEED STORY DETAILS and house leader interactions!!! because, pre-timeskip, the triforce trio are friendly?? Yes??? And then it all falls apart??? Yes???????

TELMA AS MANUELA. PLEASE. PLEEEEEEAAASE..... she’d be absolutely fantastic!!! I also think we could have Kaepora Gaebora in replace of the white owl at the bulletin boards. Just for some friendly little advice...

and of course!! Link and Saria give the cats the most attention!! Saria plays the ocarina for them, and Link canonically picks them and runs around while giving them cuddles.... EXCELLENT....

 I also think Ravio would be a very good replacement for Anna. y’know, just to get the best bargains for the Wolves.... maybe steal for them a house, too.....

LORENZ LOOKING LIKE ZANT I SDJHHDSFH WHY HAVENT I NOTICED THIS BEFORE IM GOING TO CRY. IC ANT LOOK AT LORENZ ANYMORE WITHOUT SEEING ZANT P L E A S E SAVE ME I DIDNT WANT THIIIIS

also? Groose joining the Owls without any recruitment requirements??? I. Groose ily but shUT UP STOP THAT!!! LINK Probably just facepalms mournfully.... who else is going to play around with the Groosenator with him :((

IN SHORT: I LOVE THIS. SO MUCH. IT HAS MADE MY DAY AND I AM GOING TO NEVER STOP THINKING ABOUT IT

[askweisswolf]

tell me about your ocs! what is their favorite time of day, their hobbies, and most embarrassing fuck-up

I apologize inadvance that I only have three to gush about right now: a Warden Ifinished Origins, Awakening, and Witch Hunt with, a Hawke stalled outin Act 3, and a Shepard I just started over the weekend due to poorimpulse control. Let’s do this!

What is theirfavorite time of day?

Solom Tabris has been and always will be a morning person,much to the dismay of his cousins and the delight of his father. It’san old habit from his training days with Adaia that didn’t die withher, and it’s always been something of a mixed blessing; on onehand he’s usually up before anyone else so hey! Fire’s all set,breakfast is made, everyone gets to relax and talk while he’s onthe road. On the other hand oh Maker, he makes everyone feel so lazy.Even Wynne.

Also Morrigan has many, manycomplaints about this habit because she wants morning cuddles dammitSolom but she’ll never admit it out loud, so instead she justgrumpily follows him around when he gets up during the Blight andcomplains about him keeping her awake at an unreasonable hour.

(The only exception to this is onhis wedding day; a combination of nerves and anger keep Solom uplate, unable to sleep, and he ends up sleeping in quite a bit as aresult. This disorients him for most of the day, and delays hisnormal reactions when Vaughan and friends show up in the alienage.)

OlgierdHawke lovesnight, and not for the reasons most people expect. In truth, yes, hedoes like to go to the Hanged Man for an occasional drink and a gameof cards with his friends (even though he usually loses terribly atcards; he has an awful poker face and always cracks up when he gets agood hand), but that part of the night gets done fairly early. He’snot really a drinker and he can’t tell stories as well as Varric,so it isn’t long before a few hours pass and he heads home.

No,what Olgierd loves about the night is when it gets dark and quiet,and everyone else is asleep. It’s the only time everything in hisbody just seems to settle,and he can process everything that’s happened during the day. InLowtown, this time was spent formulating ways they could earn moneyfor the expedition and how he could stay one step ahead of thetemplars without endangering his family or Aveline; in Hightown heuses this time to answer letters, particularly after he becomesChampion. There’s something about the low light, the smell of ink,and the scratch of writing that helps him relax.

MackenzieShepard had a favorite time ofthe day once, maybe. He thinks. The truth is, ever since Akuze hisability to tell the passage of time has been shot to hell and back;he can recognize that it’s night or day, but it’s not reallysomething that clicks with him. Left to his own devices he won’teven be aware of the time passing, and as a result he’s programmedhis omni-tool to remind him of specific times or hours passed so heremembers to do things like eat and rest.

Ifhe was pressed, he would say his favorite time of day is when heknows the thresher maws aren’t active—but that’s specific toAkuze, and it’s difficult for anyone to track the times of day whenthresher maws will or won’t be active.

Peoplehave stopped asking him about his favorite time of day.

Whatare their hobbies?

SolomTabris grew up in the Denerimalienage, and while he can’t speak for every alienage in Thedas, hecan say that in Denerim song and dance were a huge part of theculture there. He’s never been able to sing, even though Sorisoffered to teach him and Shianni has a voice beautiful enough to beheard in the Chantry, and dancing has never terribly interested him.It’s too similar to fighting, and he finds it hard to focus enoughto differentiate the two in his mind.

Whathe can do,and he enjoys doing it greatly, is play music for Shianni to sing toand Soris to dance to. He has a lute back in Denerim that he leftbehind when Duncan recruited him, something he bought with his ownmoney, and while he understands the need for haste it always breakshis heart that he can’t take it with him when he leaves. He’sabsolutely delighted when Leliana purchases a lute during theirtravels to lighten up the evenings, and he often plays while shesings songs or tells tales.

Lelianalets him keep the lute, at the end of the Blight.

OlgierdHawke has always known he willdepend on his hands, as a mage. His hands are how he casts magic, hishands are where he draws his blood from, and without his hands hedoesn’t know what he would be. It’s no surprise, then, that hisfavorite hobby involves his hands like everything else does. He has ahunting knife from Malcolm, a gift from his younger days when heyearned to be a warrior, and when he isn’t using that knife for hisblood magic, he uses it to carve wood.

Nothingbig or magnificent, of course, oh no. Nothing like that. He only hashis knife and his hands, and asking for anything more would bedrawing eyes to him that he doesn’t want. Instead he picks up smallblocks of wood throughout Kirkwall, and in the quiet times betweeneverything else, he carves. He never has anything specific in mindwhen he starts, but he always ends up with something when he’sdone; he’s carved a mabari for Carver, a recreation of Wesley’sshield for Aveline, and everything in between. All of his friendshave wooden trinkets: a wolf for Fenris, tattoos painstakingly driveninto the wood to match what’s on his skin. A tabby cat for Anders,the eyes painted blue. What he imagines a spirit of wisdom to looklike, for Merrill. An arrow for Varric, though it’s too small forBianca. A slightly roughrecreation of the Prophet Andraste, for Sebastian.

WhenIsabela flees Kirkwall, the only thing she takes with her is the woodcarving of the Rivain country symbol he made for her.

MackenzieShepard likes to fix things.That feels a little expected of him to admit as a hobby, consideringhis profile in the Alliance as an engineer, but it’s true. Eversince he was a child, all he’s wanted to do is fix things;something he picked up from his father, encouraged and solidified byhis mother. He spends his childhood tinkering with toys andappliances Hannah can convince people to part with on space ships,and he never fully drops the habit as an adult.

Asa result, the crew of the Normandy take to carrying old fashionedthings that occasionally require fixing—old watches and otherthings that require being taken apart and put together. Nobody askswhy soldiers are purchasing slightly out of date toy sets, but it’sworth it to see how calm the Commander gets when he’s putting itall back together for someone; and nothing can describe the smile onhis face when a person sits down and asks him if they can help.

Whatis their most embarrassing fuck-up?

SolomTabris once managed to slip outof the alienage completely alone as a child, without his mother orfather. It wasn’t an accident; he wanted to get out, to see whatthings looked like beyond the small walls he’d known all his life,and it was easy enough to be quick and quiet when no one was lookingat him in the first place. All he had to do was stick close to amerchant passing through the area, keep his head down, and boom—hewas out of the alienage.

Hethen proceeded to get horribly lost in the Denerim market for therest of the day.

He’shungry, thirsty, and his feet hurt by the time he manages to get backhome. And of course, getting back into the alienage provesharder than getting outof the alienage. He hasto scale a wall somewhere to get in, and ends up falling head firstinto a bush. He’s quitecontent to stay in thealienage after that until his wedding day.

OlgierdHawke is young and horny whenhe decides it’ll be a good idea to use his magic to show off toconvince a local girl to sleep with him. It is nota good idea; they’reboth drunk when it happens to boot, so all his magic show manages todo is scare her so badly that she runs off in a drunken panic andfalls into a ditch somewhere. It’sa blessing in disguise, since once he pulls her from the ditch she’spassed out from the combination of fear and alcohol. Olgierd haulsthem both to a nearby barn, and tucks them into the hay for thenight.

Muchto his everlasting relief, she remembers nothing in the morning. He,on the other hand, becomes violently ill and terribly hungover. Andhe’s still avirgin.

Thewhole experience puts him off of trying to have sex for quite awhile,at least until he meets Isabela in Kirkwall.

MackenzieShepard is military born andbred, so for the most part he’s composed enough to avoid anyterribly embarrassing situations. That said, there is one moment thatties into his rescue from Akuze. He’s tired, hungry, thirsty, andhasn’t slept for days when the rescue team manages to find him;he’s quite convinced that they’re a hallucination, and a signthat he’s going to die.

Onthe plus side, he doesn’t panic and try to kill them.

Hedoes spendan annoyingly long amount of time arguing with them about whether ornot they’re actually real, an argument that lasts until one of themgets close enough to tranquilize him. It’s not something that isterribly funny at the time, but once he’s made some measure ofpeace with Akuze he can look back on it and laugh, at least.

[ripplesofaqua]

Black Emporium 2020 Letter

Dear Author/Artist,

Thank you for creating something for me! I cannot wait to see what you come up with! Please write/draw whatever you are most comfortable with, and feel free to follow your own ideas. But if you are in need of some prompts for inspiration, here are a few things I like (and dislike):

DNWs: major character death, underage, incest,  non/dub-con, depictions of abuse/homophobia/racism/transphobia/etc,  whitewashing or straightwashing, excessive gore/torture/violence,  serious illness, body horror, A/B/O, hardcore bdsm/kink, bestiality,  infidelity, angst without at least a hopeful ending

Feel free to  write whatever rating you’re comfortable with. If you do write smut, I  tend to prefer it on the slightly less graphic side, and always with  clear communication and lots of feels

Things I enjoy:   strong ladies and admiration between them, fluff, banter, angst with a  hopeful ending, humor, balanced and respectful relationships, mutual  pining, slow burn, repressed feelings, (rivals to) friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, oh no  there’s only one bed, huddling for warmth, secret admirer, long awaited reunions, Victorian/historical AU

Prompts: I tried to include lots of pairings, so that there would be plenty of options to chose what you’re most comfortable with. I hope it’s not too overwhelming! I love all these pairings, so please choose what you would enjoy creating for the most. If it helps jumpstart things, here are a few ideas and things I like most about these characters, but this is all optional of course!:

1. Cassandra, Josie, & Leliana: they’re so different, but are all so skilled and work well together as a team. Tender moments, repressed feelings, pining, romantic gestures, palace intrigue - feel free to throw all the tropes at these two! Or maybe think about their relationships before and after DA:I. How did they meet? Did they have to push aside an early crush to work together, except the crush doesn’t go away? Do they lose contact and reconnect after DA:I? Does one of them become Divine? (I generally prefer Leliana as Divine, but am open to other options as well - though please, not too angsty if you that route!

2. Even more Cassandra: just Cassandra being her heroic, grumpy, romantic, wonderful self with a bunch of other amazing ladies! Feel free to throw all the tropes at these pairings, as well!

- Cassandra/Seeker: I love the idea of having Cass rebuild the Seekers into something much better than they were, and going off to the Hunterhorns for some soul searching. Does she meet someone new there, or perhaps reconnect with an old friend from her training? Or do they send letters across Thedas while looking for recruits?

- Cassandra/Hawke: Disaster!Hawke, awkward flirting, banter, meeting heroes, smutty romance novels, secret admirer! How does their initial meeting at Skyhold go? Is there mutual admiration and awe, or sore feelings from Cassandra’s treatment of Varric? Or perhaps have them both at Adamant together.

- Cassandra/Inquisitor: Action packed adventure, romance, slice of life - how do these two get along? Are there repressed feelings, attempts at wooing, or perhaps a rivalry that slowly turns into something more. Does Cassandra reject the Inquisitor at first, and then realize she does have feelings? How would they reconnect after Trespasser?

3. Some more pairings:

- Lace Harding/Leliana: Glances from afar, hesitantly touching hands, working late together. By the end of Trespasser, Harding is one of Leliana’s most trusted agents - how does that relationship grow? Would Harding stay with a Divine Leliana? How would Harding’s optimism and romantic heart mix with a softening, but still hurting, Leliana? Would Leliana show up to Harding’s dance classes, or help her with her fear of heights? Does Leliana inadvertently send Harding into danger, and have to deal with the guilt alongside rescuing her (or have Harding rescue Leliana!)

- Shokrakar/Cassandra or Adaar: Sparring, banter, teasing, shenanigans, and valiant heroics! The letters Shokrakar sends, and her nicknames for Inquisition members, are absolutely delightful. What would happen if they met? What would Shokrakar make of Adaar’s new job leading the Inquisition? Alternatively, how did Adaar join the Valo-Kas? Did they start a relationship back then?

4. Vivienne: Vivienne being in her element and playing the Game with skill and finesse, making impressive use of her knight-enchanter skills, having deep feelings beneath her political mask, and being the nerdy mage that she is! Perhaps send her on some intrigue with Leliana or Josie or Cass - or maybe send them shopping, on a spa day, or to a fancy Orlesian restaurant! Would one of them go out of their way to hunt down a rare book or artifact for Vivienne? Or perhaps, you could have them work through the aftermath of Bastien’s illness.

5. The Avvar: Here are some screenshots if you need visuals! [X] [X] I’d love to see more of their world! Daily life, quiet moments and storytelling by the campfire, sunsets over the lake, blizzards, rock climbing, bears, and the warmest looking hoods! 

- Svarah Sun-Hair: I would love to see her being the badass, competent, confident leader she is - whether this involves fighting, negotiating, or daily duties. How would someone catch her eye and win her heart? The best friend she’s had from childhood, her second-in-command who’s not afraid to challenge her judgment, the Thane of a rival Hold with whom she must learn to work together to reach a common goal? If you choose to pair her with someone outside the Avvar, how would they work through their differences in culture and develop mutual respect and understanding? Would someone from the Inquisition get snowed in or injured and have to live with the Avvar for awhile? Would they fight of danger together, or perhaps work together to open trade in a way that benefits the Avvar? Also, Svarah really knows how to sit on her throne <3

- Cassandra & Storvacker: bear puns! Cassandra becoming friends with her natural enemy! ;) How would these two learn to get along, and what shenanigans (or heroics) would they get up to? (feel free to include other members of Stone-Bear Hold in this too!)

- Sigrid/Trevelyan: How would Sigrid react to a mage Trevelyan - would she agree to join the Inquisition? If you choose Josie for the war table mission, she receives a letter with some interesting possibilities for lecture-circuit shenanigans [X]. Would she and Trevelyan try to outdo each other with explosive results? Alternatively, how would Sigrid deal with leaving or reconnecting with her hold?

- Fullna/Gyda: Fullna is the Hold’s skald (vaguely like a bard), and responsible for keeping their stories and history alive. She’s only had the position a few years and hasn’t yet earned her legend-mark. Gyda is responsible for the Hold’s funerary rights. Would they nerd out together over lore, histories, and nature? They’re both fairly young and new to their positions - how might they support each other? Would they have an adventure (or perhaps something less grand!) that earns them their legend-marks? Would Fullna woo Gyda with a song?

- Linna & Runa: In Up and Away, Linna, a fisher, cannot find her cousin Runa, who got lost climbing. Perhaps you could show that quest from either of their povs? What is the relationship between these cousins like? Did they often get lost and cause lots of trouble sneaking out to climb together while they were kids?

7. Tragic Couples: I’d be happy with both angsty or fix-it fics for these! For easy reference:  the Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe [x], Ritts & Eldredda [X], Jehan & Fabienne [X]

6. The most adorable nerds: bonding over exploring and making discoveries, creative inventions, teaching, awkwardness, showing feelings by sharing knowledge.

- Colette/Harding: Adventure! Mayhem! Does Colette make a big discovery with Harding’s help, and finally get the recognition she deserves? Does she help Harding with her fear of Heights? What danger’s lurk around the Basin’s ruins?

- Your Trainer: she’s given up so much to learn dangerous rift magic, I’d love to see her end up somewhere safe and happy (and the same for Minaeve, too). What knowledge can she share? (Also, feel free to explore an ace or queerplatonic relationship relationship here - or really for any of my prompts, for that matter!)

- Belinda/Luka: adventure! explosives! mushrooms! I just love this multiplayer pair!

[upshotre]

From Football to Golf- Osaze turns handicap 4 golfer after retirement

Football is a truly global game and Osaze Odemwingie knows that better than most. Born in Tashkent, the capital of modern-day Uzbekistan, to a Nigerian father and a Russian mother, he played for clubs in seven different countries, spread across three continents. “I was very driven career-wise and I love this game,” Odemwingie says. “I don’t know why some people can’t settle in another country. The dressing room is full of boys – it’s always lively and you can always find someone to get close to and have a bond with. “I never struggled to adapt. I really enjoyed the football itself and that was the language that was more important than anything.” After spending the first 18 months of his life in the Soviet Union, Odemwingie and his parents left for Nigeria. Seven years later they returned to Russia, going from Tashkent to Chelny, where their son’s career started in earnest as he was recruited to the CSKA Moscow academy. Then, at the age of 17, he moved back to Nigeria again, turning professional with Bendel Insurance, where he scored 19 goals in 53 league appearances. “My parents had finished their studies, and salaries for doctors were not great in Russia at that time. With their degrees, Nigeria was more appealing and they could do more work. That was the main reason, but also my dad believed that my career would progress better through Nigeria than Russia so we went and he was right.” Odemwingie earned a call up to the Nigeria squad in April 2002, winning his first cap against Kenya, and signed for La Louvière that same summer. He won the Belgian Cup in his first season and by 2004 had impressed enough to get a move to Lille, where he believes he played his best football. “The Premier League was the toughest challenge and the hardest place to get good numbers, but I think I was probably sharpest at Lille in terms of movement, speed and goals. “I was more mature in the Premier League, but Lille was a great time as well. We played in the Champions League and knocked Manchester United out of the group one year. We beat AC Milan away at the San Siro to get through to the next round and I scored.” After two years of competing with Europe’s best, Lille slipped to mid-table in Odemwingie’s final season as the squad started to be picked apart. Kader Keita and Mathieu Bodmer left to join a dominant Lyon while Odemwingie went to Lokomotiv Moscow. There had been interest from Roma and Werder Bremen, but the Russian side made the decisive move. “There were a few options that I could have waited for, but the first team that put money down on the table for Lille was Lokomotiv Moscow and they accepted it. “I thought it was a step back maybe in terms of the league, but they always played in European competitions. It was also a chance to live with my mom again because at the age of 14 I left. She moved back to Moscow then and she’s still working very hard to this day. She loves her job.” Lokomotiv won the Russian Cup the year that Odemwingie arrived, but they didn’t enjoy great success during his time there. Regardless, he enjoyed being back in the place where it all began. “I love Russia. It’s my country. I grew up there. There were some negative parts, but it’s my motherland and I love it. I always kept in touch with my classmates and I just returned from there recently. I love the language, the cinema and the jokes. Moscow is a top city.” Unfortunately, Odemwingie’s departure from Lokomotiv brought some of the worst elements of Russian society to the fore. Racist banners targeting the striker were displayed by supporters following his move to West Bromwich Albion. Odemwingie is keen to stress that racism is far from unique to Russia, as the rise in incidents of abuse in England, both in stadiums and on social media, has shown. “Russia has a bad reputation, but we see today that it’s everywhere in the world. It’s a crowd mentality. It’s aggression, it’s alcohol, it’s youths misbehaving. I think it’s everywhere around the world. Of course it wasn’t great to experience that, but sadly it’s a problem in industries like football where there is a lot of money and a lot of envy. “But if you go to those same countries the general population are pretty tolerant and welcoming. Russia is no worse than any other country in Europe where we read headlines of racial abuse going on.” Move to England Although Odemwingie ended up at West Brom, it was actually local rivals Birmingham City who were the first club to make an offer for him ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Lokomotiv held firm as they thought that a good tournament would boost his value, but Nigeria crashed out at the group stage. So with one year left on his contract, West Bromwere able to pick Odemwingie up on the cheap. He soon became their star man. “I believed in myself. A lot of people were saying that it was the wrong club, that they go up and then they come down, but I have a strong intuition generally. I had a good feeling about the move and when I was signing the contract the sporting director said, ‘If you score goals here, everything else will fall into place.’ “I happened to score the winner on my debut within two days of joining the club, and I won Player of the Month for the first complete month I played in England. I settled into the league well.” It was an ideal start and he scored 15 goals that season as West Brom were rescued from the threat of relegation by Roy Hodgson, eventually rising to 11th place. Odemwingie was again named Player of the Month for April. He would repeat the trick once more in his second season after bagging a hat-trick against Wolves on the way to a top-half finish. “It’s a dream league. It’s so simple yet so complicated. Coming from Russia, where you’d sometimes spend three days in the clubhouse before home games, I couldn’t believe that in England you’d just drive up to the stadium on the day like it’s Sunday league,” he laughs. “But as soon as I arrived at The Hawthorns for the first time I started seeing the fans walking up and I could feel that there was something in the air in the dressing room. There was a lot of music playing and the players were so relaxed. It was like the quiet before the storm when I walked out on the pitch. They gave me a great reception straight away.” Eagerly embraced by Albion supporters on his arrival, Odemwingie’s relationship with them soured in his third season as he grew frustrated at a lack of playing time and looked to move elsewhere. “Steve Clarke came in as manager. I have a lot of respect for Steve, but he has his own managerial style and at the time it wasn’t something I liked. He often put me on the bench without saying anything, even if my last game had been fantastic. This was something new I had to deal with and I think if we had more communication maybe I’d have been less angry about it. “He moved me out of my striking role onto the wing. In my first two seasons I’d been top scorer for a reason, because I played through the middle. I had to deal with that at the same time as being one of the players they rotated. “There was all this talk that I wanted to leave because Queens Park Rangers were giving out big contracts, and that it was money-motivated, but the summer before I’d had massive offers from the Middle East and I never even gave them a single thought. “I thought I still had a lot to offer the game and the Brazil World Cup was around the corner so I needed to be playing. I was a bit angry that the club never protected my image. They made people think that money was my motivation, but that was never the case.” QPR truth The saga reached a slightly absurd climax when Odemwingie was interviewed in his car outside Loftus Road on transfer deadline day in January 2013, having driven down in the hope that an agreement could be reached. It never was as Junior Hoilett belatedly pulled out of a potential swap. “If all parties that took part in that whole situation would have said exactly what happened then everyone would have understood. But nobody spoke about it because it wasn’t in their interests to do so. I took the hit myself. I was that close that they prepared a shirt with my name on. “From what I knew, we had agreed everything. They were working on bringing Junior Hoilett to West Brom and apparently him changing his mind at the last minute is what killed the deal. I wasn’t aware of that; otherwise I wouldn’t have gone anywhere.” Odemwingie criticised the club publicly for what transpired and was fined two weeks’ wages. He was eventually integrated back into the first team but felt stung by the way perceptions of him had changed. “It was annoying to listen to West Brom fans singing that I was greedy when people inside the club knew what was going on between me and a few of my colleagues and Steve Clarke. They knew my ambitions and I always gave my best in games. It was a bit sad that, as they say in England, they hung me out to dry. “It was a sad story, but most importantly my relationship with the club survived the hit. I played for them with honesty and I loved it there. I can’t forget them singing to me throughout the games. You can’t blame fans – they see, they read, they react. I could absolutely understand their anger.” The wounds gradually healed, leaving Odemwingie and the Albion supporters to focus on the good times instead, but a parting of the ways was still in everyone’s best interests. Following a short and somewhat disappointing spell at promoted Cardiff City, Odemwingie found the fresh start and redemption he was looking for at Stoke. “I was happy to return closer to Birmingham. I lived there and I was settled there. I was happy to join Stoke and it was really nice that people didn’t judge me based on what they’d heard. When I walked into the dressing room, nobody was putting my attitude under the microscope. “At Stoke, the dressing room was really fun. I hit the ground running thanks to Mark Hughes, who trusted me, and the supporters sang the song – ‘He scores goals.’” They continued to do so even though Odemwingie missed a lot of football after he suffered a cruciate ligament injury when stretching to keep the ball in play during a win over Manchester City. The backing he received was much appreciated. “That was something that I’ll never forget. When I needed fans the most in my career they were absolutely there for me.” With opportunities scarce following his return from injury, Odemwingie went on loan to Bristol City and then spent a few months at Rotherham United after being released by Stoke. When that contract came to an end, he embarked on a new adventure on the other side of the world. “I only recovered from a calf injury in April and the leagues everywhere were finishing. I had this offer on the table from Madura United in Indonesia. The only place I knew there was Bali and the town was really close. I thought it would be good to retire in a beautiful place.” It was a fun final swansong for Odemwingie, who scored 15 goals in 22 games, but he didn’t officially hang up his boots until earlier this year. Tempted to prolong his career, and confident that he could still perform in the Championship at the age of 38, it was a difficult decision. For now the former Nigeria international is excelling at another sport. He only started playing golf when he came to England but is already down to a handicap of four. A regular at his local club and in various tournaments, sometimes alongside other ex-footballers, he’s seeing how far he can go. There are other ambitions too, including coaching and completing a degree. “I’m happy that I’ve retired and I’m looking forward to the next part of my life,” he says. “I will be doing my coaching badges slowly and starting my education. “The next five years I’m going to dedicate to education and pursue a degree just to tick that box. I have an urge to study, probably because my parents are doctors and it’s somewhere in my genes, calling me to do something outside of sport.”

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[siodymph]

What am I working on?

Alrighty! Thanks @themindofcc for tagging me! I always love sharing about my projects and such, this should be fun! 

Do This: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they are working on. This can be anything!

First off is my school, I’m currently struggling through my sophomore year of college, Bio major. I commute from home to a local college and have taken a slower pace then I originally planned due to scheduling reasons and personal junk. But I’m hoping this fall I can wrap up my AA and hopefully transfer to USF (University of South Florida). Science-wise I aspire to go into environmental science and do research and studies in the everglades and the Florida marine.

The other half of my future goals involves pursuing a career as a writer for book and film. I know I don’t post about my writing often, but I have a bunch of stories lined up that I’m currently working on in between school stuff. For fanfiction:

I’m wrapping up a Stanchez fic, Gotta Catch’em All. I started it when the Pocket Mortys game first came out and have had a lot of fun with it. I’m actually working on the last chapter so this will be interesting. First multi-chapter fic I actually wrap up!

I’m also working on the second chapter of a new story I started fairly recently, On Strange Waters. It’s a Mabcan (Mabel Pines/ Candy Chiu) story about Mable the mermaid meeting human Candy and the two of them trying to prove true-love is real while getting into trouble and having fun. 

And I also have another mermaid fic! (I like mermaids, don’t judge me lol) I actually feel bad cause I haven’’t touched this story since January   -_-. It’s called There’s Something in the Lake. And it’s takes place in a mystery trio au where Stan Pines meets a merman named Marcos, (a gravity falls OC that was cool a while back, I like him and his design a lot. He’s half-jellyfish and had this colossal plume of tentacles, pretty cool). Anyways I am working on it even though it feels like forever since I’ve worked on it, and since it’s been so long I think I’ll try to post like two/three chapters at once.

And then there is a bunch a various one-shots that I’ve been thinking about, and even suggested, to extend. and these include: Someone Entirely New (Morty Smith meets Stevonnie from SU), Why don’t you talk to eachother? (A sorta-rewrite to the ending of the SU episode “Bismuth”), and Into the Unknown (a Morty Smith/ Wirt fic where they meet at a halloween party in Gravity Falls.)

These are all stories you can find on AO3 if they tickle your fancy. These next few are still in the works and hopefully will be posted soon! 

This first one is still untitled but I’ve been working on it for a while now. It’s a Gravity Falls/ Rick and Morty/ Adventure Time college au fic. It focuses on Simon Petrikov going through college and forming a rather unlikely friendship between his four-radically different roomates, Stanford, Fiddleford, and especially Rick. Also his budding romance with Betty. 

And this other one is untitled (I was thinking of going with “The Sinister City” but I want to find a word that’s more alliterative.) and is asoue/Gotham crossover. (Fun fact: originally it was going to be asoue/gravity falls, but then I started watching Gotham and got completely re-inspired and reworked the whole thing. lol) It takes place ideally when 6th book, The Estraz Elevator” happens, except the Sqalor’s live in Gotham. While they’re and trying to find the Quagmire’s, they meet young Bruce Wayne who joins them in rescuing Isadora and Duncan, as well as solve the troubling conspiracies surrounding both their family names.

Jeez louse I’m working on a bunch of stuff lol, guess this post is going to be a lot longer than i originally thought. Now that was all for fanfiction. And last off I have two original projects I’ve been working on. 

I haven’t come up with a real name yet, though I keep referring to it as “The Florida fairies” or “The fae folks in Florida”. And the name describes the basic gimmick. The main character, Violet Valley-Miles, and her family go down from Massachusetts to Florida to stay with a good friend of her Mom and Dad’s. And what-do-ya-know, mermaids and fairies and swamp-ape-men are all real and adventure ensues.

This last one also takes place in Florida (Hey! Don’t judge me lol, they say write what you know about and I know a lot about this hell-state!) There’s no title, I don’t even have a real name for the main character yet lol. It’s about a young but powerful superhero who goes by Quasar and after she leaves a team of heroes from unknown reasons, she sets out to organize a team of her own in Florida. She recruits her friends from school and together they set up a base in the Tampa/ St. Pete area. (I imagine this takes place in the near future, as well as an alternate universe where superheroes are a norm. So in this future, the populations in Tampa and St. Pete explode and grow and grow into towering, sprawling nightmares that are practically spilling over into the Bay.)

And that’s it! This might sound weird, but writing this all out was actually really helpful. I know I got a lot I’m working on and sometimes can get overwhelmed. But seeing everything categorized and summarized like this is helping me keep track of my thoughts. So thanks again @themindofcc ! This was really fun and helped me out a bunch! 

And now to tag some other folks! I’m curious, what are you guys working on? Tag me so I can see! @k-yers , @danvssomethingorother , @star-pines20 , @clonelabs , @shadowofthelamp , @beckypotterwholock113 , @dracolord1208 , @ellewritesfiction , and anyone else I might no of named who wants to do this! (If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to of course.) 

[oodlyenough]

aight i just finished tales from the borderlands, shoutout to @beingfacetious who dealt with me DMing her on twitter every ten seconds

man i loved this game! much more than i expected to. what a blast.

first up i DIED @ rhys looking at that drawing and saying “my forehead’s not that big! ...is it?” asklfhalkwhlawth WHAT KIND OF JEFF WINGER SHOUTOUT??? my fave corporate assholes forced down a redemption arc through the power of friendship

i so desperately wanted an option for fiona to yell down “IT’S NOT SMALL”

totally thought the uncomfortable rhys worship of vaughn’s little cult was going to go somewhere but it... didn’t. oh well.

i’ve said this the whole time but especially by ep 5 like -- lol fiona and rhys’ relationship is such catnip for me, at one point I send catey a message going “THEY’RE BOTH PLAYING BAD COP DESPITE PREVIOUSLY AGREEING OTHERWISE!!! WHY IS THIS SO TAILOR-MADE FOR ME” followed shotly by “I guess because I have literally been writing their relationship half the time, but...”

seriously though: both playing bad cop akslfhlawrasfkhlawr

i spent this whole game like “man i really enjoy their friendship i hope neither did somethign catastrophic to ruin it, hence the present-day falling out” but then it turned out their falling out was over some petty bullshit which in turn only made me love them more, christ

rhys/sasha was predictably my jam as well, lmao i finally got some stats at the end of this ep and i happened to look away during rhys’ (!! lmao of course when it finally works i’m not paying attention) but i saw fiona’s and it was like “you and 91.5% of players shipped rhys and sasha”

i mean fiona being pissy about it was gr8 but like i also play rhys and want to get up in there so

i talked a lot about how much i loved rhys mainly because my love for him surprised me whereas fiona is so obviously a character i would love, but i should state for the record fiona is the bomb. female con artist smartasses w a heart of gold 4 ever.

the loaderbot reveal was interesting, i didn’t spend that much time wondering who the captor was but i did kind of wonder if they were a robot, yet never quite made the loaderbot connection. so that was funny.

the vaughn reveal, i knew it would be vaughn immediately and just found myself irritated by his dramatics lmfao you ass why would you make your friends think you’re gonna murder them before you rescue them

sasha’s death fakeout was really good because I was like “i’m SURE if she died i would’ve seen tumblr rage out over it at some point....... but she sure seems dead....... but this doesn’t seem like that type of game..... but it IS telltale.......” so it kept me in suspense long enough to work while still having me relieved it was a fakeout

the team choosing part was really cool! that’s a neat way to integrate your choices from earlier in the game. despite hating august i had to recruit him because i had no one else left LMAO.

at least the lesbians were on board.

i thought handsome jack worked pretty well as a villain -- i can’t figure out why anyone would’ve trusted him throughout the game (aside from a conscious decision to play rhys as more of an asshole, i guess) but even still he worked; the “oh so is there where you give a speech about how we’re the same” “no you’re way better at killing than me”  confrontation w rhys worked better than those scenes often do, since usually the hero and villain are so far apart they make no sense (callout post 4 twdg s2 with carver and clementine) but here it worked

sidenote, why was rhys continually surprised by his robot arm being stronger than his non-robot limbs. this seems like something you would not forget, if you had a robot arm.

way more eye horror in this game than i anticipated honestly

this whole game just culminating in THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP~*~*~ was somehow precisely what my cynical ass needed at this point in time, so that was a welcome discovery

my main complaint would be that the ‘gameplay’ element was pretty light, even by telltale standards. but in ep 5 they at least tried to compensate with the robot transformer fight scene

anyway overall like 9/10, i would’ve liked more scenes where you can wander and explore, or more puzzles to solve. but the characters, story and humour were great, and for a game without any life-or-death choices (mostly) the choice mechanic worked really well.

in true telltale style, i see their answer about season two has basically been ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ so lmao. i have many complaints about telltale as a company but at the end of the day when they get it right they make some of my fave games sooooooooooo i guess i’ll continue to throw money at them

[jwb2012]

Greetings Fanboys and Fangirls everywhere, After suffering from Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue and the second season of Earth Defence Club, I just go a visit from the Freelance Police whom some of you might Recognize from there 1993 Hit the Road game, Sam & Max... Yeah Sam & Max are characters I never talked about on my Review page before, Basically starting out as Comic Strip Characters like Garfield, They began to hit big with there games and from what I've seen, They do not suck like Earth Defence Club in the like, But the Tell-tale game are what is the Resurgence to the Franchise, They came to me with a file of Complaint of Evil forces in the Neighbourhood, Alternate Dimensions making this one look odd, making fun of some Magical Boy groups without a licence, And turning a School Idol group evil... So they might be condemning my statues for the time being, But Max did say (Max: look on the bright side, You can stop with Phelous for the time being.... JWB: SQUIDWARD JWBS REVIEWS IS MOVIENG OUT!!!!!!!!!!) And so I'm Relocated in the Basement of Phelous's house, JWB: Thanks Phelan. Phelous: No problem buddy, now that your Review statues is part of mine temporarily, You can review some Animes and other stuff. JWB: Yeah and I might do the Live-Action TMNT movie reviews. Phelous: Yeah, But you know what would be interesting for you to do after the suffering you been in... Have you ever talked about a movie that features one Pretty Cure Group? JWB: Well you have a good point there Phelous, I don't think I have before. Considering that I've only covered three Pretty Cure All Stars movies so far (And probably defending the second DX movie and Phrasing two villains from Spring Carnival) I don't think I covered one of the Single team movies in general, in this case it shall be Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart the Movie released back in 2005 (Which is the first Pretty Cure movie ever to be made) with the Group that started this all, That's right everyone Cure Black and Cure White, along with there new recruit or stand-in Aid Shiny Luminous, Lets talk about the history, Well this Team started in 2004 Futari wa Pretty Cure or simply known to us all as Pretty Cure (PreCure for sort) this was the first series in the Pretty Cure metaseries created by Izumi Todo(Whom has become something of a God of PreCure). The original series, directed by Daisuke Nishio, aired on TV Asahi between February 1, 2004 and January 30, 2005 in the same timeslot as Izumi Todo's previous work Ashita no Nadja. It was the first of the Pretty Cure series to have received an adapted English-language version, Let me explain that more On February 25, 2006, 4Kids Entertainment announced broadcasting and distribution rights for Pretty Cure in the United States, though never produced an English version of it. In July, 2008, Toei Animation began making episodes available through IGN's Direct2Drive service subtitled into English, and have also started making those same episodes available for free internet streaming on the Crunchyroll website. The subtitles were produced by "Nippon Golden Network", a Hawaii-based cable network that broadcasts Asian programming (mostly from Japan). In April 2009, Funimation used to license the English-subtitled version of the series for online distribution on the company's website. The series is currently available for streaming in North America on Crunchyroll and Hulu. The theme song of the English dub is: Together We Are Pretty Cure. An English-dubbed version was produced by Toei and Ocean Productions using their Blue Water studio in Calgary, Alberta which aired on Canada's YTV channel from March 6, 2009 to July 31, 2010. The English dub makes several changes to character names, cultural references and theme music, though mostly retains the original version's main soundtrack. This dub also aired in the United Kingdom on the Pop Girl digital channel from September 6, 2010. The anime later re-aired on TV Asahi's cable channel, TeleAsa Channel 1. (What I think of the Dub.... I didn't think it was that bad, Would have been better then what 4kids would have done.) with the success of the first season A direct sequel, Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart, or simply Max Heart, aired in Japan between February 6, 2005 and January 29, 2006. (Unfortunately, This season along with the rest in the future never got dubbed at this point) Hence where we are not Reviewing the first Movie in the Franchise. Now the movie was directed by Atsuji Shimizu, I would look into some of the other things he's done but on Wikipedia, there's not much to look into I'm afraid, But at least we might learn more about them in the future, Now that we have that out of the way, Let's dive into the first Movie Pretty Cure movie that came into existence.

We begin our Story in a Dark and wet cave and for some reason a Pirate Ship is in it, (Wait a second, WE FOUND CAPTAIN MORGAN'S SHIP!) No it is home to our Antagonist of the movie the Dark Witch where she is looking into her Crystal ball for something that's interesting catches her eyes, Now she is voiced by Katsuki Masako now this might shock some people... She was the Voice of Sailor Neptune in the original Sailor Moon Series, She explains that she want's the Garden of Hope's Diamond line (Well that gonna cost you a lot) so she sends her minions the Zakenna's (Which the Pretty Cures of the first to seasons would usually fight) Now the opening theme here is from the first season which in this is the Max Heart version, Now to many fans the song is Iconic, How they put the opening in this movie kinda makes it feel like your watching an episode, Now we cut to our main protagonists of this movie and the Show itself let's start with Cure Black real name Nagisa Misumi who is voiced by non other then Yōko Honna whom some of you might know as Rin form xxxHolic, Ere from Oh my Goddess and Chika from The Cat Returns, In the English dub she is named Natalie Blackstone and was voiced by Rocio Barahona She is often known for her catchphrase of yelling "Unbelievable!" (Okey if you seen my other three Precure reviews before, and remember when I call her an Idiot, You must think I flat out dislike Cure Black, Which is not true, I do have some respect for her Character Development but when it comes to her personality... Well, I like to think of her as a special case, That or I like to make jokes about her) and Cure White real name Honoka Yukishiro who is voiced by Yukana who you might remember as Yuri Tanima from Wedding Peach and Mailin Li from Cardcaptor Sakura, In the English dub she is named Hannah Whitehouse and was voiced by Michelle Molineux, I sometimes see her as the Brainy girl to Nagisa's Stronger points like Yin & Yang are eating at Tako Cafe, and Akane Fujita / Alex Fujita who is voiced by Mikako Fujita says that if Nagisa keeps eating so fast and improperly, she'll never find a boyfriend. I'd take her word Nagisa, We wouldn't want your Female figure to go all Donute inside, But Hikari asks if it is Shougo / Shawn... Which makes her head blush, (Don't Hide it from me Nat, I seen the season where your going Red) Hikari Kujo aka Shiny Luminous by the way is voiced by Rie Tanaka who was Mars in Pokémon Diamond & Pearl and Shuri Kurosaki from Asura Cryin' (Good times) It's also not helped when He and his friend Kimata arrive, but is seems they are preparing for a Run... With Nagisa missing her chance to say something to the guy, I sometimes get the idea that she's afraid of boys, , Not sure if it's true or not but I can always speculate, After the boys left, Akane, Hikari, and Honoka were laughing in front of Nagisa, making her feel offended and almost went away, before Honoka noticed a diamond on her neck. Nagisa returned and everyone said it's really pretty. Akane-san said that she gifted this to herself for her birthday. While everyone were looking at the diamond, someone with a brown coat and hat was watching them. (Oh god it the demon creeper from Jeepers Creepers), While the girls and there Fairies Mipple said that she'd like to have one, and Mepple said that he'll definitely give her one someday. (phelous: HAHAHAHAAA HE said Mipple and Mepple HAHAHaaa) They got into love-love mode but suddenly returned to their commune forms, sensing a stalker. It keeps asking if they are really Pretty Cure. The girls were prepared to fight, and that figure kept asking them. Then more voices came from the invisible figure and he took of his coat. It appeared there were many things inside him and they started attacking Nagisa, Honoka and Hikari. The girls transformed into Pretty Cure and Shiny Luminous. And let me tell you something about the Transformation in this, IT's like they have been turned into Metal like the Liquid Metal T-1000 from Terminator 2, Shiny Luminous how ever doesn't have the same idea, But let me tell you something, She is "Life of the Queen" in human form after the Queen got split apart following her last encounter with the Dark King. They defeated those thingsand they reveal there true colours (Phelous: OH DEAR GOD, THE CREEPER IS REALLY THE GREMLINS, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES GIRLS!!! JWB: Noo... It's not the Creeper, It's much worse.) it appeared to be normal frog mascots with elastic arms. Oh god... This are the Courageous frog Warriors of the Garden of Hope. (Which I'm guessing is a Sister Location to the Garden of Light) we have Round I believe is the leader Oval, Heart, Pear, Trilliant, Marquis and.... GRRRR Square AHAHHHHHHHHHHHH They reveal to be that they were testing the Cures because they wanted them to protect their home world, the Garden of Hope. They explained their story about the Dark Witch, trying to thief their precious Diamond Line. Mipple, Mepple, and Pollun said that it's probably something similar to the Garden of Light's Prism Stones. They will help them; however, Hikari notices Akane will be really busy today. Then Honoka's grandma came, and they had to hide everyone in the closet. She asked to take off the laundry because it's going to rain. Sure deal with the Daily tasks first, I'm sure nothing bad will come while Time passes by... Later, the mascots kept asking them to come right now. Pesky little buggers aren't they, They said, that they'll give them charms - the proofs of courageous warriors in the Garden of Hope,, I guess that's the best way of Bribing them into it. So they go off and... It looks like they get encased in a Diamond as well (Phelous: I'm sure they might die due to lack of Oxygen, Knowing there might not be any air holes in them) http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/prettycure/images/c/ce/Goh1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150616115347 Is it me or does the Garden of Hope look like a Diamond shaped version of Earth... I'm just saying cause there's some similarities in it. So they land in the most Meateor hitting earth like manner and seems Pretty Cure's Mascots are sleeping, Ahh good they might need the rest. But unfortunately for Pretty Cure... They'll be traveling to where the Frogs will guild them... on foot... (Khadger: Well, the Lang travel on foot might gain them some VP, But they might need some weapons to fight off some enemies along the way), They finally make it to a Castle that... Just an even bigger Diamond then the rest, These Damn frogs are living the dream aren't some enemies along the way), They finally make it to a Castle that... Just an even bigger Diamond then the rest, These Damn frogs are living the dream aren't that's when they meet the Prince... Why... Why is he here? file:///C:/Users/new%20user/Pictures/Saved%20Pictures/Prince_of_Hope.jpg Seriously, The Prince look like Nagisa's Crush, Really what's he even doing here? They also head over to the Fountain of Hope where they are looking at a Frog Statue, I kid you not, It's explained that this is the Guardian God of the Fountain, The Kero Kero God, And gee, I wonder what there Queen will be like, I must question the idea of everything even the buildings being made of a Mineral that's is... harder then glass, the Garden of Hopes must have this very weird Diamond based economy, (Phelous: I can imagine some Pirates and Treasure Hunter's going crazy for this one, Isn't that Right Old Man? WOW This worlds fortune most be higher then my Cousins bank account, Old Mayor, ) So they meet the Queen who Greets them with her Horned Butler What the Damn hell is he? He then gives Pretty Cure the Diamond Line which is just a Necklace Earrings and a Bracelet, So that is what the Dark Witch is after... Not much to see there, Alright, And your entrusting the Girls that are still new to there upgrades season with it, you dumb shit, And the reason why they are entrusting them with them is that they are the Queens B-Day presents, Fare enough... and it gives hope to all the worlds, and if the Diamond Line is stolen, then all the hope is lost and all the worlds (including Garden of Rainbows) will be deserted in darkness, (This is quite a lot to take in so, Please take your time) before the trio agreed to help them. Later, when the mascots told girls about the party, And this is where I point out Why I really hate Square... Because he is the Biggest Ass-hole of the Group, Square opposes the Cures' help, and proves that the warriors should be protecting the Diamond Line, and now walks away. (Phelous: Trust issues much?) Anyway the mascots told girls about the party, and Pollun awakened. He met Marquis and they became friends. Honoka follows to talk with Square, but when they tried talking, And like a Prick he just ran away. And things start to get unsavoury, At the Party Square started making fun of them, that they can't work alone, only by combining their powers. (NEVER INSULT THERE FIGHTING TECHNICKS) Nagisa got furious at him and ran away, which makes Mepple follow her. Nagisa getting pissed like this is like me getting Angry at Square at this point. Don't forget She's bigger then him so She'd squash the Basterd. Then the prince came, and asked, did the witch already came. Honoka lied, that she went to patrol outside. (Okey I know that Telling the Prince on Square's Ass-hole behaviour might discredit him in front of everyone in the Party might make you girls look like bigger Asses, But Lying to the Prince is probably the Worse thing you can do, Have you heard of the Story of the Boy who cried Wolf, I though you where smarter then this Honoka?) Meanwhile, everything started and the Queen came out wearing the Diamond Line. She blessed the diamonds of the citizens, and went outside. Until.... Dark Witch Finally shows up to interrupted the celebration and begins to attack with her Zakenna, formed into a pirate ship. (Well gotta hand it to her, She is quiet creative) The knights tried battling her, and she transformed front of her ship to shark Zakenna. Without Nagisa, Honoka and Hikari could just watch. Then Hikari transformed to Luminous to fight until Nagisa comes, (Blame Square for making her Run off) but she was beaten by one shot... The witch triumphantly stole the Diamond Line from the Queen, According to the Dark Witch, she is one of the servants of the Dusk Zone, and her goal is to resurrect the Dark King with the Diamond Line, (Okey, Now I must say something about the Dark Witch's design, Abit alright but All I have to say Yish to that Hair do, Did Taz do his Spinning on there head?) since all the world will be imbalanced. Luminous halted her, but the witch knock her unconscious. Nagisa finally arrived to transform to Pretty Cure. (Nagisa: Sorry sorry, I was late, I had some minor Traffic involving Party people to deal with. Honoka: Ohh That's okey, Traffic Jams involving running crowds are hectic at times.) They tried fighting back, but they become flimsy, before the Dark Witch disappears. (Well that didn't go so well) Everyone, especially Square, blamed Black, (WOW, Not even the slightest amount of Remorse from the Blue Frog, And Admits that he was right without even acknowledging the whole they can't transform without the other SQUARE YOU F%$@ING MISRABLE FROG OF HATE!!!!!!, The Beast was at least was a sympathetic character when you get to know him more in Beauty and the Beast. And why are the rest of you Blaming Nagisa for this little Defeat you Dumb shits?) but Mipple and Mepple defend her. Sadly enough, Black just apologized to everyone and went away crying. So the just asked these girls to protect the Diamond Line without getting information about this Pretty Cure Group, That's abit rushed don't you think? Loo I admit, Maybe they screw up abit... on some occasions, But was this really necessary? This just pits some of the fairies as Sort-sighted Arrogant little Ass-hats that would kick anyone that screws up some of the most simplest tasks, Which is... Wrong And... I fell sorry for Cure Black in this, I don't blame her for being late for the battle, If Square had kept his Frogy mouth shut, Then the Out come would have been different, After the prince talks to Black and giving her his Badge of a Warrior, Then Black was walking the hall when White called her. They decided to go and take back the bracelet. Everyone (except Square, who was still thinking of them as burdens) (JWB: Square just shut the f#@$ up! Phelous: And I though Toad was annoying) seemed to be forgiven Black. Without the Diamond Line, the Fountain of Hope started parching, and the Garden of Hope started being wrecked too. Then everyone flied to the place where the witch is with the same spell. The prince tried to follow them, but he couldn't travel without his charm. (Then Why didn't you have another one in your Room... The People of the Garden of Hope are ether crazy or Just Stupid?) So they make it to the Ship Graveyard and... It seems she's been gathering a lot of Ships, I'm not impressed, I mean where's the Titanic? until the bat Zakenna broke the diamond, making them fall. White had to save Black from falling, because she can't swim. (Really Cure Black, You can't swim, Haven't you taken Swimming classes at school Nat?) While the battle goes on the Dark Witch decides Hay I want to fight Pretty Cure to. she prepares to battle the Cures. Square tries punching her with his elastic abilities, but she moved quickly and used a move on Square. YAY the Ass-holes got what he desearved, Pretty Cures decided to use Marble Screw Max, but the witch dodged the move with her gigantic dark element. Now, every ship was set ablaze. (JWB: Phelous, Just how powerful is this Witch? Phelous: It's Over 9000!!! JWB: WHAT 9000?) Anyway The girls tried to save everyone, but Marquis was missing, and Round finds his torn cape. Square blamed Pretty Cure,(IT WAS THE WITCHES FAULT YOU WALKING BLUE MISTAKE OF NATURE!!! I'm this close to ringing that Frogy neck of yours) but everyone else said, that it was the witch's fault. Then the charms reacted to the bracelet in order to discover Marquis. Well that's useful, So The Cures fight against the bats to proceeded to the witch and steal the ball from the Dark Witch. Pretty Cure were battling the witch, while the mascots carried the bracelet into the Garden of Hope, and started carrying it to the palace. While Battling Cure Black just remembered something, that today is a sale at chocolate store, and because of that witch she won't get in time to buy them (Cure Black, that's not important to this plot, though... Idiot!). But To the Girls credit there Fighting stills are kinda fast pace (Phelous: JWB, What's the status on Pretty Cures Powers? JWB: It's over 8000!! Phelous: 8000... That's not to bad) but she fired her move right in front of the girls' faces, making them collapse. Then Marquis came out of the ship to the Black, and the witch flew back to the castle to take back the bracelet. Well at least the Prince is Helping the Frogs take the bracelet to the Castle, Marquis cried of Pretty Cure. He said the spell, but nothing happened. (Holy shit are they really dead?) He started crying again, but the charm the prince gave to Black reacted. Trouble comes when The witch sent her bat Zakenna to fight the frog mascots, while she herself headed to palace. Prince and Hikari got to the palace, but the witch quickly appears. Prince tried battling the witch with his sword, but he was trembling, (Phelous: You know the Prince is bit of a weak moron isn't he?) even though he faces his fear. The Dark Witch fired at the prince, but Hikari sacrificed herself, and passes out. (NOT AGAIN, I'm getting the idea that She's not the most useful without her fellow Cures) Then Black and White got mad and stood to fight. (Ohh shits going down now!) The witch summoned dozen of bat Zakennas, and Black and White defeated them with one blast. (JWB: Phelous... What are the readings now? Phelous: T.t...t... 10'000!!!!!!!) Alright it's the final level and The witch transformed to her true form and started attacking cures. The girls were weak, but they still stood. White said, that for them to losing is "Really unbelievable". (Cure Black Hey!! That's my line! Cure White: Ohh Sorry, I couldn't think of anything else to say) The Queen now regenerates and commands everyone to give their powers to the girls. They have to believe in the cures and the diamonds. Everyone stood in circle around the cures, and gave them powers. Hikari woke up being transformed to Luminous. The Dark Witch summons her attack at everyone, but Square sacrificed himself barely to deny the attack. Ahh that was pretty Noble of him to Sacrifice his own existence for there's, Maybe he's learned something from this... But then again... Maybe not. Everyone, including Square, gave the girls their charms. They transformed into golden versions, and have the ability to fly and were too fast for the witch. allowing Pretty Cure to defeat the Witch for good... Okay there golden forms are nothing special in my opinion, Just gold versions of there Precure cloths with some extra features, At least it's not as stupid at Power Ranger's Metallic Armour that's really Glitter. The Garden of Hope and the Fountain of Hope reverted to normal. After a really tearful goodbye (With the Acceptation of Square having al little bit of Character Development), the girls returned back to their home. with Square in tears, (JWB: Ahh I love the sound of a Crying Ass-hole, What about you Phelan? Phelous: Yes, Feed me your tears you little Basterd Hahahahaa) And so this Movie ends with Hikari came back, Akane said that it's still her break. Honoka worried, that she didn't took off the laundry her grandma mentioned earlier. Then Nagisa saw a frog outside. Honoka claims that it's the Kero Kero God. The girls decided to try flying just the 2 of them, but nothing happened, reminding this playfully. Not sure that's how the Frog God works but that's gonna be something I'll have to accept without question, So Phelous did we learn something from this? that WE HATE THIS MOVIE COMPLETELY!!!!!

Okey Truth be told, We didn't hate it completely, It was... Okey for Pretty Cures first outing into movies, It's by all means not perfect, But it's enjoyable but Frustrating in places, Feels like it could have been a Movie that would Bridge the First season and the Second season, But it's alright, The Animation is okey for the most part, Probably the same budget as the show, Funny because this feels like a three part Episode, So I give this first Pretty Cure movie 7 out of 10, Also Square is an Idiotic and Untrusting Ass-hole, The other Frogs should have killed him for being this stupid, (But then Phelous and JWB see Square Hungged and such image shocked the two Reviewers) Ohh I guess we get the pleasure of Ghostbusting Square now... Man this is bad... Hope Sam & Max don't bust me for Murdering a Frog Mascot.

Cure White: Turns out Being Murdered did not help Squares position as Guardian at all, He was replaced by an Old Man. Old-Man: Haha, Now I'm the Guardian of the Garden of.... What ever this place is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxlBmJdtMVA.

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 4/2/19

Ace of the Diamond, Vol. 21 | By Yuri Terajima | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – It’s still the finals of the West Tokyo preliminaries for Koshien, and Seido is still facing off against Inashiro Industrial. Tanba is obviously in trouble, and since what trailing Seido needs is an injection of heart, it’s Eijun to the rescue. His confidence and trust in his team exude from his every pore and it’s this spirit that gets the momentum going in Seido’s favor. It’s so nice to see Eijun doing really well and exhibiting some reliability—after spending so much time with him as a hothead with poor pitching control—and that his grandfather is there to see it. Of course, there’s yet another cliffhanger, as we make it to the bottom of the ninth with two outs to go before the volume ends way too soon. Can Seido manage to hold onto their lead? Tune in next time! – Michelle Smith

A Centaur’s Life, Vol. 16 | By Kei Murayama | Seven Seas – In this volume we get: social justice discussion; historical backstory with violence and slavery; Nozomi dressed like a girl and getting hit on; volleyball fanservice complete with a double-page “swimsuit malfunction” spread; the triplets somehow traveling in time to the past and meeting their big sister as a little kid; Kyouya talking with one of her male classmates who’s pretty good-looking and nice, but she’s not really that into him; How To Centaur For Beginners; a human teacher dealing with her new job at a frog school in a very clear racism allegory; a girl telling her male date—after the date—that she’s gay, and Manami’s Daily Life. All in a day’s work for a series that is anything but predictable. – Sean Gaffney

The Delinquent Housewife!, Vol. 4 | By Nemu Yoko | Vertical Comics – Everyone gets shot down here. Yoshino is too nice to go through with her “revenge,” and gives up on Dai. Dai and Komugi takes longer, and is more problematic, but eventually he gives up on her as well. The best parts of the book deal with Komugi and her mother-in-law, who discovers the truth and has to deal with it, as well as resolving to “train” Komugi as a housewife. As expected, the series ends with Tohru coming home; also as expected, we do not see this homecoming, cutting out just before it happens. This series lived and died on its premise, and I must admit I found Komugi’s struggles as a housewife more interesting than the romantic entanglements. I’m still happy I read it, though. – Sean Gaffney

The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún, Vol. 6 | By Nagabe | Seven Seas – The good news is that Shiva and her teacher actually touch in this book, and nothing untoward happens to her, so his fears were not justified. The bad news is that, of course, he has been distancing himself from her all this time because of that. Oh yes, and also everyone else is still after them, because Shiva’s uniqueness makes her either something to kill or something to experiment on. We also get a bit of teacher’s past as a doctor, though not much, as he doesn’t recall it himself. Throughout the series, it’s been Shiva’s innocent conversation that’s kept me reading, and that’s still true here, in a lighter volume for this series—and given how dark the volume gets, that says something about the series. – Sean Gaffney

Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Vol. 8 | By Canno | Yen Press – Yukine and Ayaka crawl towards being a couple, but we’ve got two volumes after this, and it’s clearly the endgame, so it’s only a crawl. As is the case with this series, most of the focuses goes on another couple, Hikari and Nagisa, whose first names just make me think of Strawberry Panic!. They’re both running for student council president, despite living together due to circumstances. (Ayaka is ALSO asked to run, but decides against it.) As is often the case with this series, both Hikari and Nagisa are nicer than the other one thinks they are, and slowly fall in love, though given they’re the volume couple, not AS slowly as our heroines. This is good, but I’m ready for the end. – Sean Gaffney

MachiMaho: I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person into a Magical Girl!, Vol. 2 | By Souruu | Seven Seas – How long I stay with this series depends on how much it can continue to be ridiculous. It does its best her—I liked the reporter girl who’s dragged along by events, as well as a taste of Kayo’s actual home life and what she’s rebelling against. When there’s a more serious plotline, such as when Nako’s seemingly dead classmate is possessed and Nako has to be convinced to fight against her, it can’t quite ride the cliches as fast, and gets stuck. Kayo is a very entertaining and foul-mouthed main character, though, and despite a high death count this does not seem to be “watch magical girls suffer” like some other series. Mildly recommended. – Sean Gaffney

New Game!, Vol. 5: The Spinoff! | By Shotaro Tokuno | Seven Seas – This is something rare for a 4-koma series like this—a full-volume flashback, that was not serialized, that shows Aoba and Nene in high school, and how Aoba came to work at Eagle Jump straight out of it. We are introduced to two other “regulars” for this volume: Hotaru, a frail art student who is actually better than Aoba, and is going to art college; and their teacher Chinatsu, who is a “Sensei-chan” type who is one of the girls but occasionally dispenses good advice. There’s so much cute 4-koma humor that this could easily be a volume of Hidamari Sketch or GA: Art Design Class instead, but it does show us how Aoba got up the gumption to follow her dream. – Sean Gaffney

Precarious Woman Executive Miss Black General, Vol. 3 | By jin | Seven Seas – I still enjoy laughing as I read this very dumb but very funny title. MVP this time around goes to the evil overlord’s secretary, who I’ve taken to calling Riza Hawkeye because of her general appearance and disposition. She’s attacked by a rival henchwoman, and also accidentally drinks a love potion. Hijinx ensue. As for the General and Braveman, situation much the same. We do get a beach episode, which shows us that even on vacation, everything still descends into chaos. The funniest chapter sees the urban legend Slit-Mouthed Woman attack some little boys… and General, trying to recruit her, instead verbally tearing her apart completely Silly, silly, silly. – Sean Gaffney

That Blue Sky Feeling, Vol. 2 | By Okura and Coma Hashii | Viz Media – I greatly enjoyed the first volume of That Blue Sky Feeling and was very pleased to find the second volume is just as strong if not stronger. The series is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, realistically addressing with compassion some of the challenges faced by gay high school students. A large part of the manga’s effectiveness is due to the exceptionally well done characterizations of its two main leads. Noshiro is an earnest if somewhat naive young man. He has such an incredibly kind heart but in his efforts to help others he still makes the occasional mistake. As for Sanada, it’s wonderful to see him start to open up a little bit more in this volume. But, because of his sadly understandable efforts to protect himself, he hasn’t yet been able to be completely honest with even his closest friends. I look forward to seeing their friendship continue to develop. – Ash Brown

Total Eclipse of the Eternal Heart | By Syundei | Seven Seas – Nearly a hundred years ago, a famous novelist raped and murdered nine boys, all of whom he subsequently wrote about in one of his books. Now, Yamada Omihiko, a teen who writes exactly like that novelist, is classmates with (and on the verge of becoming more-than-friends with) a boy named Hoshino Terumichi, who keeps having a recurring dream about the death of a boy named Tsukimura Shou. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that reincarnation is a factor here. I enjoyed the bulk of the story, though the ending is a little baffling, and much of that is owing to Syundei’s easy-to-read retro-ish artwork. I’ve said previously that her style reminds me of Rumiko Takahashi, but owing to this volume’s theme, I actually got more of a Please Save My Earth vibe, which I’m not complaining about whatsoever. I’m definitely keen to see more of Syundei’s work translated in the future! – Michelle Smith

By: Ash Brown