#i start by writing some extra info and / or flashback that has nothing to do with the current plot

[guidingthulite]

i have to make a point to mention ena's shoujo mangas otherwise is it really a chapter of my fic

[silver-wield]

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Review Chapter 12

Okay, this collection of posts will be filled with spoilers, including clips and screenshots, so if you don't wanna see things, then don't look. Some of the things I'm gonna highlight will include references to Remake and other sources to link with the overarching plot. This is a straight path playthrough with no sidequests or extra content.

Onto the guilded saucer!

First things first, we gotta find Dio, and with arrangements made to represent him in a battle royale the next day (yeah it's the OG monster battles only way better) we head off to get some sleep.

Entering hotel we hear an announcement that a contest to become Rosa for the play is over and they're not accepting more entries, and yet as we pass Aerith we see her writing up an entry that she not only enters late, but wins. Because that's how things go when you're the Mary Sue and decide you wanna do something.

Yes this annoys me. If a contest is closed then you don't get to enter, let alone win. This is bullshit.

Anyway, Cloud has a two hr nap in which we get another sneak peek into Zack's world where he hears a bunch of confusing info from Marlene before heading off to find help for Cloud, but gets intercepted by a note from Biggs.

Back in the main scenario, Cloud has a date. What happens on each date is specific for Cloud's feelings to them, though all the dates are optional and there's no default.

Jessie plays a vr ballerina version of Rosa, which makes Tifa and Barret cry.

The second stage of the play is viewer interactive where the audience can take the role of a character in it.

There's three battles and some fun dialogue choices. If you confess to Varvados instead of Rosa, Barret breaks character for a second to be all "are you kidding me with this?" 🤣

The third act of the play is the contest winner singing. Yeah, I'm still annoyed they let her win a closed contest and somehow have music and production cued to the lyrics she hastily scribbled down within two hours of learning about the contest.

After the play is the gondola ride, although it's now called the sky wheel. Each date has a different conversation and plays out to a different mood depending on how Cloud feels about them.

In both Tifa and Aerith's dates we see a flashback to Tifa telling Aerith about how Cloud recalled Zack. This is before she started writing the song lyrics. Tifa tells Cloud she hasn't had a chance to. Aerith tells him nothing important was spoken about.

Tifa goes onto imply she's aware Aerith has feelings for Cloud, and Cloud reassures her the only one he has feelings for is Tifa before they share the only kiss in the game.

The following day we see the Turks on approach to the GS before we hit up the arena and get into a series of battles that ends in a second round against corneo and his sewer monster.

Obviously our heroes win and give him an extended cut of their threats from Remake before he runs off to go harass people in Wutai ready for part three.

The devs in a shady bit of piss taking, have Cloud and Tifa high five just like he did with Aerith in the last set of coliseum bouts.

With Dio triumphant, we're about to get the keystone when the Turks get in the way. Cait Sith betrays us and the party splits to chase his traitorous ass down.

Cloud, Tifa and Aerith are our trio for the rematch against the Turks but before we're done, Rufus shows up for another one on one with Cloud.

Why? Who knows. He's a petulant sob who doesn't like losing 🤷

After Cloud kicks corporate ass, we go on a kitty hunt, but one that's more serious than finding Tifa or Betty's kitties.

When we finally catch up to Cait, it's too late to stop him. The Turks leave and Cait has to face the music. Tifa stops Barret from shooting him, but everybody has had enough and leaves him behind after Vincent lets them know he can find the Turks location.

The play itself is the bulk of the chapter and we get three different versions of it. I honestly have very little interest in Loveless and I found the first part kinda dull. The interactive part is fun and also has slight differences in dialogue and actions between each of his dates. I've only played Tifa's because, frankly, idgaf about the other dates. The intimacy between Cloud and Tifa on the sky wheel is everything and I'm so glad they showed how proactive Cloud is with her. He initiates the kiss and everything else. He engages her with conversation. He's the one staring at her while she's looking at the fireworks. He's being shown as very much into her.

[jaekaicx]

so ive had this idea for an amphibia fangame for a lil while now-

(LONG post)

its based around the idea that sometime after anne got sent back to earth, she decides to sneak out one night to visit sasha and marcys bedrooms and poke through their stuff. this causes a bunch of memories to come back to anne through flashbacks while she tries to process everything thats happened and her feelings abt their friendship.

i was thinking itd be mostly a visual novel type thing. maybe with a few small choices, but the story would be mostly linear. thered be around 3 main story beats: a prologue bit w/ anne sneaking out of her house, marcys bedroom, and sashas bedroom. also one of the main mechanics would be looking at one of their bedrooms and clicking on random objects of importance and triggering a flashback sequence.

it came from the idea that anne will probably try to just shove all her emotions down and try to ignore her feelings abt true colors and everything that went down then. especially with what we saw in the sneak peek, anne will probably try to hide her emotions and bottle them up, which is obviously not healthy. so eventually shes gonna have to work through her emptional baggage and try to process everything.

i havent thought through EVERYTHING just yet, just some more major plot points and maybe one or two ideas for flashbacks. nothing too solid yet. but heres a bit more detailed runthrough of the plot

summary - prologue

so it would start off with anne at home. she and her mom are talking outside annes room. her moms concerned abt how annes been handling everything that happened in amphibia but anne keeps brushing everything off. her mom tries to get her to open up, but she keeps dismissing her and eventually shuts herself in her room. after taking a bit to cool off and think anne decides that shes gonna take the night to just ride off her emotions and stop repressing them for once. she also makes an impulsive decision to sneak out and check out marcy and sashas rooms.

anne goes to gather her stuff in her room, and just as shes about to climb out the window, sprig walks in to check on her. hes still rly concerned abt his big sis but he knows he cant stop her. he tries to go with anne, but she tells him she needs to do this on her own. so, sprig lets her go and tries to cover for her while shes gone.

so at this point i’ll probably give the player the choice of whose house to visit first. it doesnt rly impact the story or whatever, but i guess it might have a small emotional impact depending on whose house u choose to go to first??

(quick note: after this bit, there arent too many specific details for the plot and stuff like that. its largely just an overall idea of how the plot is gonna go. and even then, there isnt much to it. i didnt think that far ahead yet, which is why there isnt as much refinement yet. so far i just have general ideas for how annes gonna get to the bedrooms, with a couple of vague flashback ideas. just keep that in mind; this whole thing is still being thought over and planned as im typing this out)

summary - sasha

with sasha, annes still rly conflicted abt how she feels abt her. of course shes still rly hurt by being backstabbed by her twice and swordfighting her as many times. but as much as she hates sasha she cant bring herself to fully give up on sash. she hates her guts but deep down shes still willing to give sash another chance.

there may or may not be a small sequence where anne has to sneak into sashas house, but eventually she works her way into sashas room. im not entirely sure abt the details of sashas house n her family yet. im probably gonna wait for info from s3 until i solidify anything, but for now i do know that sashas family has a big house n theyre probably rich.

so anne goes into sashas room and its been left pretty much untouched ever since annes birthday, save for the few times someone came in to dust things off. again, dont rly have all the details for sashas room, but it kind of has a vibe of controlled chaos, with organized clutter and a bit of a touch of a rebellious teen girl. one detail i do want to have is a calendar opened up to the month the trio disappeared, with annes birthday circled and highlighted so much that its impossible to miss.

the calendar itself might include a flashback. im thinking of also having a varsity jacket and some old stuffed animal be different “artifacts” that trigger their own memories. there’ll be a bunch more, but those are the only ideas i have so far fjsbndnd

summary - marcy

ok so i want to be rly mean about marcys segment: this is going off the theory that marcys parents moved away while the trio was in amphibia.

anne doesnt know this yet tho, so shes in for quite a surprise when she turns onto marcys street to find a realtor sign on the front lawn. the clues are all there: an empty driveway, sign on the lawn, an overall empty vibe coming from the house. but it doesnt completely register at first. its not til anne actually comes up close does she notice the sign.

anne tries to deny it, and decides to prove to herself that “no marcys parents wouldnt do this. theyre not that cruel. im just gonna check marcys room myself.” the front doors locked, so she just goes over to marcys window and climbs in.

but its completely empty.

ok not totally empty, but a lot of marcys furniture and stuff is gone, except for a few stray toys and other “junk.” the home guys (idk what theyre called????) are still kind of in the process of cleaning everything out, so theres still some stuff left here and there around the house. but its still way too empty. and its yet another gut punch for anne.

anne searches the rest of the house a bit more, hoping that shes just hallucinating. but no, marcys parents are really gone. she tried to deny it before, but now she has more of an idea of how shitty the wu parents are. so anne decides to just mope around in marcys old room, checking out the stuff their parents left behind.

maybe she finds an old blanket marcy liked when he was rly young. or an old rubiks cube from marcys vast collection. a cnc figurine, some cards, a pride flag, and old diary? a couple of other old toys, an old report card or two, or maybe even some stray clothes. whatever anne finds, its all thats left of marcy, at least in LA.

it really doesnt leave anne in that much of a better emotional position. she already felt conflicted enough about what happened in true colors and what she found out abt marcy. but seeing even a small glimpse of what marcy was dealing with, it just makes her more confused. marcy was such a sweet kid! theres no way they couldve done anything wrong. yet here anne was, betrayed by both of her childhood friends.

only now is anne really taking the time to process the fact that marcy essentially kidnapped her and sasha with the calamity box. he didnt mean to do it, and theres no way they couldve known the box would actually work, but it doesnt completely excuse marcy. his actions still hurt anne and sash, and while they meant the best of intentions, it didnt rly come through that way.

and now marcy was dead. stabbed in the back by the newt king.

and now annes curled up in an empty bedroom, wrapped up in one of marcys old blankets, trying to wrap her head around her feelings about marcy while reminiscing in the past.

summary - extras/epilogue??

i kind of like the idea that anne ends up drifting off in which ever bedroom ended up being the second one she visited. she slowly comes back to consciousness, with her surroundings feeling somewhat familiar, only to wake up in horror bc “OH SHIT I FORGOT TO GO BACK HOME” im not completely sold on the idea tho bc it feels a bit abrupt and like too much of a tone shift?? idk it doesnt feel exactly right

but anyways, im also playing around with the idea of a small epilogue scene with the calamity trio hanging out in annes room, a good amount of time after amphibia ended. dont know what theyre doing in there, but theyre just chilling and feeling a bit nostalgic i guess.

but uh yeah thats pretty much what ive got for the overall idea. it doesnt feel too out of reach, but somethjng like this would definitely be ambitious. i could mayyyybe handle writing out the vn and drawing the character sprites, but i have no idea how to code a vn or draw detailed backgrounds, both of which would be pretty important to this fangame fjsndj. so i might consider having help with this.

THIS ISNT ANY SORT OF PROMISE OR WHATEVER. id rly love to follow through and make this fangame a thing, but im not making any guarantees. i have no idea if i’ll actually follow through, but i would definitely love to.

who knows. maybe in like a couple years this might actually become a thing. but for now i have no idea

[canmom]

on exposition

@baeddel​ popped me a writing question, about how to handle exposition:

how do I write background info

like why this girl is going where she's going

Am I qualified to give advice? Well I can sure try!

One key question is: how much of this information is actually relevant? If it doesn’t immediately serve a purpose (making what’s happening comprehensible, adding important texture or character...) it’s worth considering whether you need to dwell on it. That doesn’t mean “cut all ‘extraneous’ information” since that would lead to a very bland story, but sometimes you can trust that by the time it’s relevant, it will be obvious.

I'm assuming you're starting a scene in media res: you open with some sort of enticing unexplained hook to grab the reader's attention and set a 'promise' that you're going to make sense of this opening over the course of the scene.

In this case, 'why is this girl going somewhere?', we first establish that she's going. For example:

My feet ached. You know, I've had blisters before, I've gone on long hikes - but this was on another level. It was like the soles of my boots were made out of knives, man.

I've already dropped some extra characterising details here - the character isn't used to walking this much, she takes a chatty, conversational tone which suggests she’s relatively at ease at the time she’s narrating - but we've raised the question: why is she walking so far?

Now we have a few options. We can immediately segue into an explanation, addressed directly to the reader (or whatever diegetic audience is hearing this story)...

A week ago, I could scarce have imagined that it could all come crashing down so fast. We'd heard the rumblings, seen the smoke on the horizon, but the calm voices on the radio assured us the rebels were contained, justice would be swift, there was nothing to worry about...

Is this ‘telling’ or ‘showing’? It’s a little of both, though more on the ‘telling’ side: I’m quite directly telling you what happened that led to this event (the character is walking a long way because she’s running away from a war), but also showing some things: the character had a relatively comfortable life, she defers to the radio, she’s a bit naive. The show/tell distinction is a matter of degree: after all, to show one thing indirectly, you have to directly tell another thing (such as that an action took place).

The potential drawback of this direct approach is that it takes you out of the immediate scene. In film terms, we’re cutting to a flashback, and then later back to the present. I like cutting around in time personally - and fittingly I’ve been told VECTOR feels very ‘cinematic’, which at a guess is partly because I’m constantly cutting between POVs every few hundred words, and partly because I often use techniques where I move the narrative ‘camera’ around to set emotional context instead of say, explicitly narrating characters thoughts and feelings.

It can also feel a little formulaic, and slow the action down. If you ever read the Animorphs books, they have all this expository information they have to dump in the first couple of chapters to get new readers up to speed, and they do it like this, by quickly summarising what has happened so far in a way that addresses the reader quite directly.

I think this ‘directly spell it out’ approach works best when the narrator has some character, maybe even addressing the reader directly in the second person. (“And why was I walking such a long way, you ask?”) Lean on narrative voice: a quirky narrator can get away with more ‘obvious’ direct-telling.

You can of course defer this information a bit, or even a lot: a well worn structure expands this ‘in media res/flashback’ structure to introduce some striking image or moment from late on at the start of the story, and then rewinds to a seemingly unrelated scene at the beginning, so most of the story is in one giant flashback (or conversely, the opening scene is a flash-forward). This became a meme: ‘*freeze frame* so I suppose you’re wondering how I came to be in this situation’.

But it’s not a bad structure, there’s a reason it’s so common. You have created anticipation on two fronts: for most of the story, the reader is anticipating answers to ‘what the fuck was going on there’ and ‘what will happen after’. Then you get the ‘relief’ once you catch back up to that scene: if the writer’s done the job well, you’re excited to return to it with the knowledge you were missing the first time, which makes it feel a natural outgrowth of the events in the flashback.

If you don’t want to do this so directly, the other approach is to stay within the scene, and reveal the information through dialogue and incidental descriptions:

“Fuck, man. Are we far enough ahead?” I stopped on a small rise to glance over my shoulder at those thin, distant lines of smoke, barely visible in the evening light. My legs felt very bare, but it was better than letting my skirt drag in the mud.

My companion spat, and scratched her chin idly, shifting her rifle strap to a more comfortable position. “You ain’t seen an army try to get somewhere quick?”

I had to admit I hadn’t.

My companion smirked a little at my affronted tone. “Well, gettin places quick’s not really in the nature of armies. ’specially not when there’s food right where they’re at. They’ll be enjoying your fat little sheep for weeks to come, kid!”

I shuddered.

Here, we’ve spelled out a lot of information about why the characters are travelling: they’re on the run from an army, the POV character was a sheep farmer but wears a nice skirt she wants to protect, so presumably from a moderately wealthy family, while her companion is armed and at least pretending to be familiar with military matters.

There’s also markers of class and age: the POV character swears and likes to say “, man” but otherwise uses conventional grammar so it (hopefully) seems like a bit of an affectation, while the companion is given various abbreviations. One can imagine the narrator is consciously focusing on these aspects of speech because she sees her companion as lower class than her, even though she’s relying on her for protection right now.

Or maybe that doesn’t come across at all from this brief scene! But having these relationships in mind as you right will help it all come together in a longer piece.

In both snippets I am also trying to give hints as to when this story is set: radios and rifles exist, but the main character wears a long skirt, so hopefully it feels a little early-20th-century, maybe up to world war ii sort of era. (The dialogue is much more modern, but trying to write halfway plausible period dialogue is tricky and personally I prefer the ‘knights who say fuck’ approach, where you use modern language and speech styles and trust that the reader can understand it’s been ‘translated’ from whatever language the characters are speaking.)

The trick with giving information through dialogue is that it has to make sense in the immediate context as well as its purpose for the story. The reader can probably tell that the reason this particular conversation is being narrated is that it quickly establishes context, but within the scene, “will they catch us?” is also a natural conversation to be having along the road when running away.

If you don’t have that justification, you have the infamous “as you know, your father the king” sff exposition-dialogue, where characters relate information that they have no diegetic reason to discuss. This can be taken to parody-worthy levels - there’s a very funny story where a trip on a plane is narrated in the style of hard sci fi, with characters launching into long technical asides on how the engines and wings work, which I’ve sadly lost the link to.

So at the same time as you give expository dialogue, remember always that the way your characters act itself communicates information about how they fit into this world. If something is normal and everyday, they probably won’t talk about it and you need to find another way to convey the information if it’s relevant. But if nobody needs to talk about it, maybe it’s not relevant after all...

Anyway, the trick is to trust that the reader is pretty smart and can draw inferences themselves! Reading is an active process: the reader will be constantly updating their understanding of your story as new information arrives, mostly unconsciously.

So, the answer to ‘as you know, your father the king’ would just be to skip past directly stating that the main character’s father is the king, and instead get to the ‘meat’ of the story: the character discusses how her father is handling the diplomatic situation with xyz kingdom, say, or has an interaction with a servant who incidentally uses a title. Whatever the story’s about. From there, if it matters that the character is royalty, it will probably be blatantly obvious without having someone directly tell you.

Give enough information that it’s clear what’s going on to an engaged reader, and then only give more if you feel it adds to the texture and emotional weight of the story to have it emphasised with more words.

So I guess the overall thrust of this advice is that every sentence tries to accomplish multiple things at once: you’re simultaneously revealing world information on multiple fronts, establishing characterisation of the narrator and other characters and how they see each other, setting an emotional tone, trying to create vivid images...

Incidentally, the author of the Baru Cormorant books has some excellent blog posts analysing their work starting here. Even if you’ve not read the Baru Cormorant, I think their approach of discussing the work that each sentence and paragraph is doing is very enlightening, and comprehensible even without the book. I found it really crystallised my understanding of what prose is supposed to be doing, in a way a lot of prior writing advice had not.

Anyway, a more specific variant of this ‘in-scene’ approach is to go into the character’s head and have them think about the thing directly. Here’s a rather stiff example:

I could hardly believe I was almost there. Just a couple more stops and I could get out of this stifling bus and come face to face with Jackie! My mind ran over all the things we were gonna do...

But actually you don’t need all those markers of thought, since the narration is effectively the narrator’s thoughts anyway.

Almost there. So close. Jackie would be waiting with that big smile, and I’d run up and lift her up and spin round like in a film. It would be so fucking cute.

The bus lurched, and a trickle of sweat dribbled into my eye. Just a minute longer...

This is another example of the ‘telling/showing’ distinction: the former more distancing, the latter more immediate. Which should you use? The latter usually seems more lively and engaging, but takes twice as long: it’s got more ‘weight’ in the story. Generally speaking, the more time and words you spend narrating something, the more prominent it will seem to the reader.

That said, writing out the first example helped me clarify what I was trying to show in the second example. Writing is iterative refinement, like all creative processes.

So it’s not ‘always show, never tell’: it’s ‘what do I want to show indirectly, and what do I want to tell directly’. That’s a judgement call, and depends on context. It’s also important to have variety. If all your story is long back-and-forth dialogue scenes, it can get exhausting. Different scenes call for different styles.

So to summarise, the approaches to exposition I described:

directly relating it to the reader e.g. through a brief or long flashback

establishing it through expository dialogue that hopefully feels natural in context

establishing it through implication by narrating something else which would only make sense if...

establishing it indirectly through the style of narration mostly for the intentions, interests and state of mind of the narrator

And while you’re doing this, think about whether it’s relevant here, or should come later, or maybe doesn’t need to be in the story (rather than something you keep in the back of your head to guide you).

In the little story I was writing above, I would probably go for the ‘conversation on the road’ scene over the ‘remembering the radio’ scene - it’s more immediate, and since the main characters’ personalities are obviously very important to the story, I’d prefer in this case to show through action how the character feels about leaving her home, rather than simply declare she was surprised.

But I won’t just forget the radio scene - later on, maybe I can have a scene where the main character is remembering her time at home and how much nicer it was, and I can drop in the idea I had there (hearing about the rebels on the radio) and ground it a bit more in her emotional context. Maybe I can have the character talk about the radio with someone else and how bullshit it was.

And even if I never use anything involving a radio, writing that scene helped me conceptualise who my MC was, which helped me write the second scene. So overall my main advice is I guess to try it multiple ways and see which one feels best in practice! The best way to get to a good sentence is to write a mediocre or bad sentence and then think about how it falls short - having something definite in front of you makes it much much easier.

I’m not yet at the stage of doing a distinct editing pass on any of my stories, and I worry that I’ll be much more tempted to write something new than refine something existing when I finish one, but I do tend to edit as I go - when I’m writing, I’ll keep jumping back to tweak paragraphs, and each time I reread the story to remind myself of what happened, or because someone else read it recently, I might spot something which sounds clunky and go back and tweak it a little. You can’t clip straight from worms to beetles, but need to feel around the arthropod space first.

This kind of got away from the subject of exposition and also, ridiculously long, but I hope it’s useful and helps you figure out what’s the best approach in this situation.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 256: Fucking Superb You Funky Little Hero Eggs

Previously on BnHA: Aizawa and Mic’s frankensteined best friend Shirakumo, better known to us as Kurogiri, had his memories briefly restored through the Power of Friendship, and was all “YO Y’ALLS BETTER GO CHECK OUT THOSE HOSPITALS” before his head started steaming like a tea kettle and he randomly fell asleep. Aizawa and Mic were all “!!” and Aizawa was all “(ಡ ﹏ ಡ)” and Mic was all “Aizawa are you crying” and Aizawa was like “NO!!!” and then they left the prison and Nao called HPSC Lady who called Hawks and was all “eck-chay ethay ospitals-hay” because Hawks, as you recall, is still a secret agent and all that. Anyway so Hawks was all “EUREKA!!” in his head which doesn’t really add up but hey, and then the chapter ended with Dr. Ujiko dancing in sadistic glee as he watched Tomura get all mad scienced. It was pretty freaky. I could use some wholesomeness right about now so let’s see if this chapter will deliver.

Today on BnHA: Class 1-A shows off the fresh skills they learned during their assorted internships, such as “determination”, “enhanced search techniques”, and “becoming a literal blob of acid.” The Wonder Trio is a particular highlight, and All Might is all “my little baby off to destroy people :’)” as he watches Deku shred a robot to pieces using Blackwhip. We then cut to Aizawa and Mic, who may or may not be planning some rogue vigilante style investigations of the whole Noumu thing, or maybe they’re just brooding, but either way they’re interrupted by Mirio and Tamaki who come running in to get them to stop Eri’s quirk from going haywire, which, yikes. The chapter then ends with All Might handing Deku a notebook full of DETAILED, CATALOGED INFO ABOUT THE PAST SUCCESSORS AND THE FUCKING SIXQUIRKS. We just have to wait two more weeks to find out what that’s all about. 2020’s got some fucking zip to it so far huh.

so it’s about a quarter past 7 right now and it’ll be a miracle if I can have this recap up by 10pm tonight. surprisingly the wait for this chapter didn’t really bother me, but this Sunday/Monday release schedule is really doing a number on my punctuality. but anyways we’ll figure it out eventually. if memory serves, there’s about a 90% chance that this week’s jump will also be a double issue, so that gives me another extra week to get my shit together lol

(ETA: so that wasn’t too far off actually! I think a three-hour turnaround time isn’t bad for 3000 words lol. and actually it was more like two hours of reading/blogging and one hour of editing/photo cropping. anyway so in all likelihood either Sunday or Monday night releases will become the norm, depending entirely on how busy that particular Sunday is. not quite the same as getting the chapter on Friday and having the whole weekend to ruminate over it but we will adjust!)

anyway, so I’m somehow remarkably unspoiled for this chapter despite it having been out for nearly a week and a half at this point. so that’s something! let’s see what we’ve got here

yaaaay my babies

All Might was offering free cotton candy, yes? I didn’t expect we’d cut right back to this lol, but you sure won’t see me complaining. I want to see what everyone else learned during their internships, and also what with the break and the last couple chapters being Tartarus-focused, it’s been about a month since I last saw my little hero eggs, and of course I missed them I’m only human

omg

did the original dialogue really reference Skynet. Horikoshi truly gives no fucks about copyright. like one or two episodes ago the anime made some copyrighted reference which you could clearly hear in the Japanese but which the English subs hilariously glossed right over. I’m trying to remember what it was now. damn. anyways we millennials can never resist a good pop culture reference, facts

OH MY GOD AOYAMA

THEY’RE EATING THE COTTON CANDY

TOKOYAMI EATING COTTON CANDY IS THE GREATEST THING TO HAPPEN IN 2020 THUS FAR. LET ME TELL YOU, WE REALLY NEEDED THIS

SHOUTO EATING COTTON CANDY IS THE SECOND BEST THING TO HAPPEN IN 2020. IT WAS VERY CLOSE

I STALLED FOR TIME SO MUCH AND I STILL DON’T KNOW WTF TO SAY ABOUT AOYAMA’S NEW ATTACK OH MY GOD. JUST. I DON’T KNOW YOU GUYS. THIS BOY IS REALLY OUT HERE SLICING ROBOTS IN HALF WITH HIS BRAND NEW LASER PENIS. THE AMOUNT OF FUCKS THAT HORIKOSHI GIVES IS IN THE NEGATIVES I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY

OH ARE YOU STILL GOING

is... what’s... ldkfj okay nothing to see here guys just the naked invisible chick getting all friendly with Aoyama’s beam boner. just manhandling his sparkle shaft. there are children reading this manga. I mean, they’re already mentally scarred from all the dead dogs and child quirk wine and whatnot, but still at what point do we put our goddamn foot down

anyway so somehow she’s redirecting his laser beam?? I guess with her light refracting quirk skills?? great job Hagakure with your help Aoyama can finally shoot lasers at stuff that’s behind him. you’ve mastered the power of making it so that he doesn’t have to turn around great job truly an internship well spent

“now I can yank light and warp it!” you go girl now you can whip that thing around like it’s a fucking fire hose I guess

YOOOOO MINA!!

THIS GIRL LITERALLY COATED HERSELF IN ACID AND DID A FUCKING BARREL ROLL AHHHHHHHHH. NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT, NO OFFENSE TO CAPTAIN DISCO DONG AND COMMODORE “I CAN DO EVERYTHING A MIRROR CAN DO” BUT THERE ARE UPGRADES AND THERE ARE UPGRADES, AND LET’S FACE IT, THIS IS THE REAL DEAL HERE

AHAHAHA I LOVE ITTTTT

is it too late for Mina to actually change her name to Acidman. what is she calling herself now again?? Pinky?? come on Mina strike some fear into the hearts of your enemies

and now All Might and the others are applauding. I don’t see Shouto’s cotton candy anymore. boy fucking inhaled that shit

oh wow, they interned under Yoroi Musha? if memory serves me, and I’m honestly not going to bother to check right now, isn’t that the samurai dude who somehow beat Ryuukyuu in the billboard charts? not that I’m still salty about that, oh wait I absolutely am but anyways

OH MY

IS THAT SOME KIRIMINA CONTENT UP IN MY PANELS. hot damn that is some cute fucking shit. Mina better not get any undue hate for this. everyone please remain calm this cute interaction does not threaten your ship in any way (unless you want it to in which case have at!!) and we can all have fun if we just play nice you guys

lmao All Might

“WE’RE ALREADY ON PAGE FOUR AND THERE ARE TWENTY OF YOU, WE DON’T HAVE ALL FUCKING DAY CHILDREN”

so Satou and Ojiro learned how to punch harder and stuff. again, it’s fine, we can’t all be Acid Men. but meanwhile they interned with some lion guy named Shishido whom I INSTANTLY LOVE so that’s badass. only one character away from Shishida though, but that’s Horikoshi for you

OH MY GOD

BLAH BLAH YES ENHANCED SEARCH TECHNIQUES ZZZZZ BUT FUCKING LOOK THOUGH AT THE FLASHBACK OF HIM YEETING THEM, YESSSSSS. THE OLD WAYS HAVE NOT YET BEEN FORGOTTEN, GANG ORCA YOU ARE THE HERO WE DESERVE

meanwhile Sero, Kami, and Mineta learned how to literally kill people with their quirks flkdjsflk

(ETA: btw I really love that Mt. Lady’s internship emphasized teamwork. now there’s someone who’s come a really long way her own self. anyway I stan and she had better join the other two in the the top 10 real soon. come on BnHA society get with it.)

damn Mt. Lady what the fuck. “if you guys work together you can suffocate and electrocute villains to death with ease!” the government’s plan really is working huh; these children have become bloodthirsty, ruthless killers in a shockingly short period of time

anyways so Iida as we all recall learned how to be more footloose and fancy free, and meanwhile Kouda learned “smooth communication” from Wash, the literal washing machine man whom I also don’t still harbor a grudge against for inexplicably beating my dragon queen in the hero polls, and once again that is a lie because fuck you Wash! you’re adorable but fuck you!!

man this is taking forever why are there so many kids in this class. for anyone wondering why Horikoshi doesn’t focus on class 1-A as a whole more often and leaves them as supporting characters, this right here is why. I love these children to death but we would still be stuck in the basement arc. oh my god I just shuddered

Tokoyami mastered “improvement on all fronts” because I guess he kind of peaked at flying when it came to new moves huh. that’s fine for now

and Kiri mastered “making baddies lose the will to fight real quick” which sounds like some bullshit you’d write while desperately trying to pad your hero resume, except that it’s accompanied by this convincing panel of him chomping a steel bar in two or some shit which YIKES

can confirm, if some demonic rock man came trotting up to me and snapped off some railing from some stairs and fucking snapped it like a twig with his GIANT FOSSILIZED DINOSAUR TEETH, I’d lose my will to fight pretty quickly too

and Ochako and Tsuyu learned “determination” smdh. Horikoshi did you fucking fall asleep towards the end of this segment or what

WHO IS MAJESTIC OMG

excuse me did she just create a bunch of fucking dynamites. is that what those are. is my girl encroaching on my young son’s turf. because if she is, ENCROACH, MOMO, ENCROACH! FEEL FREE TO FUCKING IMPINGE, EVEN!! god, and I know I was bitching just a moment ago about these “lessons” becoming increasingly vague and intangible and motivational poster-y, but I read Momo and “predicting and acting efficiently”, and my thoughts immediately ran to Nighteye and Mirio’s fighting styles, and I was like “YESSSSSSSSS” because, I mean. YES, though

meanwhile Kacchan has learned...

this fucking -- I swear -- YOU LEARNED WHAT YOUR FUCKING HERO NAME IS GOING TO BE YOU TROLLING PIECE OF SHIT. oh my god. Katsuki I swear to god I will take your internet privileges. NO SRIRACHA FOR A WEEK UNLESS YOU TELL ME WHAT IT IS

oh for fuck’s sakes

don’t mind him he learned boom with five b’s and three oo’s what did you all do this week. and somehow Todoroki learned how to be even more fabulous

so All Might’s looking on in pride and giving Endeavor some mental props, and waiting for Deku to go do his thing too

sdfkj he’s thinking about the day he gave Deku THE HAIR and that “[it] feels like ancient history now.” DOESN’T IT THOUGH?

OH MY FEELS

“you don’t look back at me anymore... and you don’t need to.” oh Aizawa’s dry eye has spread to me now huh. must be those January allergies. and that’s some nice bloop there kid. great jorb

someone tell All Might he’s not allowed to look on at Deku with this much fatherly love without giving me at least a week’s notice in advance

sigh. now you’ve done it you two I’m going to become a big cat blob of feels right here and it’s all on you. you did this

oh my god a whole big panel of reactions from the other kids and I’m ( ˊᵕˋ )

lol Kacchan can’t agree with anything even if it’s a compliment. and lmao, who the fuck was that who was all “TODOROKI FINALLY YOU’RE A FAST FUCKING HIMBO HUH!” like they really went and put that “finally” in there, like they were so fucking tired of Todoroki Shouto and his LANGUID FUCKING PACE all the fucking time, GOD, FINALLY SOME SPEED BOY WE WERE DYING OUT HERE

Mineta being happy for Deku also warms my heart, ngl. we’ve gone almost an entire chapter with Mineta not doing anything even remotely perverted, can it be, has Horikoshi finally chilled the fuck out. or did I just jinx it we shall see

also love how Deku is just reduced to an inkblot here and it still is him beyond any shadow of a doubt. and poor Sero, you are also being impinged on huh

lmao Mineta’s just socking Deku in the solar plexus out of comradery and Deku’s fucking vomiting on reflex and not even paying the slightest attention wtf

I love this panel there I said it

so he’s going over and thanking Ochako for “that time” and says he’s using Blackwhip a lot better now. I assume he’s referring to when he first unlocked it and went hog wild and she was all “smh” and went and hugged him to put an end to that nonsense

oh, right!!!!

I forgot about those!! looool Horikoshi’s 2020 resolution is to make everyone Spider-Man now huh. hey everyone guess what I LOVE THIS

oh my god this wholesomeness

I fucking can’t?? yo I’m seriously living for this? I don’t get why some people think Deku inhibits Ochako’s character growth tbh. or that her story is becoming all about him. if it is, then it’s in the same way that Bakugou’s is. Deku keeps inspiring her to be better, ain’t nothing wrong with that. yes she has the crush, and she’s honest with herself and in tune with her emotions enough to be aware of it and to acknowledge it, but she refuses to be distracted by it. I actually really like that, because it shows that romantic feelings can actually exist and not be the central focus of a character’s story or their development. and I think the fear is that it somehow will become the focus, but so far I haven’t seen that happening, so it seems unwarranted to me

anyway

shit’s cute

oh no Mineta’s doing something weird I fucking did jinx it I’m sorry guys. it’s a fucking fistbump dude relax

so All Might seems to be dismissing them now, and he’s saying something about how he reordered (?? rescheduled, maybe??) class so that Aizawa can watch later. that’s nice. he’ll need something to cheer him up, and if Acidman can’t do the trick I don’t know what can

and now we’re cutting back to the dorms!! dorm shenanigans yessssss

oh no shit wait

these are not playful dorm shenanigans these are depressed Miczawa shenanigans to bring me down. nnnn

but Aizawa fucking knows something is up now, shit. that’s right son your babies are in danger

KLJKLGLKSH

okay (1) HOW HOT IS AIZAWA THOUGH HOW DOES HE ALWAYS DO THIS

and (2) is “have a karaoke contest” code for “fuck shit up” or what. son of a bitch, having these two so personally invested in the Noumu arc now is such an unexpected and wonderful gift

MIRIO NO

(ETA: but you all know Aizawa was about to say “I’d go and fuck shit up” though.)

I LOVE YOU BOTH BUT THEY WERE HAVING A SEXY ANGSTING MOMENT, MIRIO CAN YOU NOT READ THE ROOM!! DO YOU NOT SEE THEM BEING ALL ANGSTY AND DARKLY CONTEMPLATIVE!! YOU TWO OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW WHEN LOVERS ARE BONDING OVER THEIR ANGST WHICH ONLY THE TWO OF THEM UNDERSTAND! FUCKING GODDAMN

NO!!!!!

[SLAMS HANDS ON TABLE] HORIKOSHI I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU LAY ONE FINGER ON HER PRECIOUS HEAD

NOOOO MY SWEET BABY GIRL

oh my fuck that sweater is the cutest fucking thing and this girl has had no shortage of cute outfits let me tell you. BUT ANYWAY SHE’S SCARED AND CRYING NOOOO. holy shit her horn is fucking huge now I don’t feel comfortable with this at all, and Nejire is Best Mom for not giving a single fuck and holding and comforting her regardless of the risk, I love her so much

OH THANK GOD

PALPABLE RELIEF. boys I’m sorry it was wrong of me to yell, you did the right thing interrupting their sexy brooding

BREAK ROOM AHHHHH THE SCOOBY SQUAD LIVES AGAINNNN

it means you constantly amaze him!! you have so much potential he doesn’t even know what the limit might possibly be! don’t act like you don’t love it. or stop being so suspicious and trying to look for the hidden meaning and just accept the praise for what it is. you did good. now ask him if he’s heard any news about Best Jeanist :/

!!

that’s right, he was researching and making faces a while back, are we finally gonna find out what all that was about??

DSLFKAJSLDKFH

HE MADE A NOTEBOOK FOR HIM AHHHHHHHH HE KNOWS WHAT HE LIKES THIS IS AMAZING

DOES HIM GIVING HIM THE INFO IN NOTEBOOK FORM MEAN IT’S UP TO DEKU WHETHER OR NOT HE WANTS TO SHARE THIS INFO WITH KACCHAN. HMMM. OBVIOUSLY HE WILL, BUT THAT’S A REAL POWER MOVE THOUGH, DAMN

“PAST SUCCESSORS / QUIRKS” EVERYONE, THIS BOOK CONTAINS THE SECRETS OF THE SIXQUIRKS. AND THE PREVIOUS OFA AVATARS. THAT’S FINE I’M JUST GONNA. ...I’LL BE FINE. FOR TWO WEEKS. FUCK

shit. well I know it was coming, that’s another reason why I didn’t feel particularly rushed to read this chapter lol. I kinda wish I’d had the foresight to save the Korean scanlation though, just to compare. ah well it’s probably still lying around somewhere

and lol and here’s the bonus page, and this one I did see floating around tumblr haha

I’m not sure how the three smartest kids in class are all present and yet not one of them had the foresight to consider that maybe, just maybe, this could be a bad idea. let’s let the kid with the combustible sweat handle the mochi I’m sure it’ll be -- [everyone immediately dies]. anyway so that’s some good friendly advice from Horikoshi there. happy new year friends!

[donotstopthisdebatenow]

V3 Prologue Replay 0.1- It’s Time to Wake Up

Well, guess this is happening now.

Hello there. I figured I might as well write down things I picked up on during my replays and discussions with others, as well as some translation issues I (and many others from what I’ve seen) have noticed throughout out the game, with some fun trivia along the way too. This is mainly for the sake of my own peace of mind than anything, as I haven’t properly went through the game chapter by chapter in order recently, and I mainly compared translation as bits and pieces than going through line by line.

I will be recording the game both in English and Japanese to compare the lines and comment on differences if they seem of worth to note, which honestly most of it isn’t given that in terms of adapting the language in a natural sounding way -as a localization- they did a pretty good job. Most issues seems to come from lack of communication between the team in terms of context of some lines, but that’s mostly on the management of the team and I don’t have the insider’s knowledge beyond knowing that they were given some characters/sections of the game to translate so I can’t exactly comment on what was going on there.

For the trivia bits, please do keep in mind that it is me being nitpicky as a translator myself, and that I’m only pointing those out as how I would personally prefer those to be translated but at the end of the day, it really does come down to preferences since they do communicate the main thing they are trying to relay and unlike context relevant errors that do in fact cause geniune harm to gameplay and player’s experience (ie. inconsistencies in translation making Trial 5 a confusing mess) they are more what it says on the tin- some extra info/context on things.

All that said, let’s start~

Here we start with a shortened version of the V3 promo we will see in trial 6, as well as the V3 opening. Before I move to the latter though, I do want to note that for the “This story is not over” part, the Japanese counterpart uses “物語は終わらない” which due to the verb tense has a heavier “This story won’t end” vibe, which Monokuma kept insisting on in trial 6 as well.

It is not a big thing but simply a nice touch with the bold claims they make throughout the game on how it will never end.

It is also worth touching on given that one commenter in trial 6 was saying that it’s been three years since last season, so it is a bold “come back” line by whoever the group running this season 53 is.

Beyond that, it is just a nice recap and I personally love how the music blends fairly well together.

Hello there, “Team Danganronpa”. Still love how this spoiler was staring at us in the face entire time.

For the actual opening Tsumugi having a red string (of their fates) at hand and Rantaro being the only one who becomes one with their shadow to have pink eyes open was a nice touch.

The character in that pink blinking eye that for some reason wasn’t translated is the kanji for “lie” (嘘) btw. Also nice touch with Kaede facing the culprits in that blink and you will miss it scene before they dissolve to letters.

Tsumugi and Rantaro being on top of the slot machine just like how Monokuma’s ‘throne’ is between their trial stands is nice too.

The opening, which was supposedly used in-game as show intro as well, having the meteorities and that talent suppressing machine for the Ultimate Hunt plotline is of worth noting too. It is easy to dismiss the Gofer Project plotline for us players now, but the show was genuinely going for that angle before Kokichi’s takeover, hence it is worth keeping in mind while going through first four chapters especially.

For the game name, this is sort of a dead horse at this point but “Killing Harmony” rather than “Everyone’s [Mutual] Killing School Semester” was likely used due to character limit, so they had to get creative with an alternative subtitle. Character limit is a genuine issue translators face with especially with a language like Japanese and why we end up things like Yasuhiro telling us to call him Hiro or Korekiyo saying we can use Kiyo.

It is also interesting that they play the show intro twice in the prologue, one before and after their memories were altered by the flashback light, and given Monokuma when he appears later saying that this prologue was going on too long, it seems like whoever was in charge of that (supposedly Monophanie, if kubs indeed have their own AI, or the person using the avatar of said bear) messed up so they had that version aired unintentionally, hence having to go for an intro again later.

And now it’s time to wake up for one antenna girl.

If this part felt pretentious and weird to you when you first read it, don’t worry it is just usual “Kodaka trying to go purple prose except it comes off really awkward especially in English” and the translator chose to simplify a good chunk of it, going “yeah we ain’t doing that here” and I can respect that tbh.

But just for the sake of having it here: A more literal translation of that part would be “There is nothing here yet. No light, no sound. Nor my form or voice. Nobody knows who I am yet. Who I am? Who am I? I reach out a hand. A hand that doesn’t belong to anyone yet. To grasp my own existence- This is me. My name is Kaede Akamatsu. I finally recognized who I am. ...Nice to meet [you,] me. Miss protagonist of this crazy story.”

Again, a few things are just reworded to sound natural in English for the localization’s take, but if the line “Nice to meet... me” confused you before, that’s because translator went half way cutting out Kodaka waxing poetics on regaining consciousness, so taking off the subject in translation makes it sound weirder when she suddenly seems to start to talk to herself.

Also, the heavy protag framing with her and Shuichi honestly did more harm to the game than good, at this point. It would be better if they started off without that last line, as it would blend better with unreliable narrator we just happened to see events from the POV gimmick way better. Same goes for Demo having her, Hajime and Makoto sharing the “Protagonist Room” and how much hype they caused by actively pushing that angle. Part of that was preserving the twist, yes, but I also get why people do feel like it was meant as a “take that” as well.

It also did not help with people recognizing that we were playing as “side characters” the entire time as far as in-universe story plotted by this TDR was concerned too, since Kiibo was set to be the in game Naegi-expy protagonist of the season.

But enough of that for now, because we have a title card to tackle.

蘇る超高校級

I have to admit, revival probably was the best choice to use there as looking back now, there are a few things this is refering to-

1-) The simpler explanation of how they supposedly had their memories sealed, hence the “restoring/bringing back memories” meaning of 蘇る, which also means “reviving” the title of Ultimate in the Gofer Project plotline universe given how they were supposedly last survivors of the earth and

2-) How this is a revival of Danganronpa, going again with the fact that show stopped for three years/some people were awaiting for a new season for a while now, hence the resurrection/revival of Danganronpa and by extention, the concept of Ultimates by using that meaning of 蘇る in that way too. After all, “Ultimate” is really just “Best in X field amongst other highschoolers” title (as commonly fan-translated and iirc even made it to anime subs as “Super High School Level”), so having high schoolers who are given memories and the title to match with it is reviving that.

Finally out of the closet locker, and before we move on, I want to add another side note that when you invert the UI, pre first flashback light UI turns a familiar pink.

While one reading of this could be that this lie magenta being the inverted version hints at prologue being a lie, I personally take it as due to the inverted color being the one we see, it means the prologue has the “truth” than later parts, since in trial we have blue truth bullet changing color to become pink lie bullet theme, that the color they are inverted to being opposite of what they are simply makes more sense to me.

We will see when we return to this locker again later that our UI changed to yellow which inverts to blue, reverse of truth, which is especially poignant with Tsumugi’s later trial 6 comment on “if they will call fiction a lie, then all their actions and words were indeed all just lies, since they were performed based on things some people wrote, fiction, too.

It changing immediately after we are shown that first light simply felt too relevant to not tack this on here, but moving on-

A mood tbh

Poor girl, honestly. This is not even the only time she will end up hitting her head when we are done with prologue.

A bit of a short fuse there, but also fair.

That’s what we all would like to know too.

Imagine someone goes through the trouble of kidnapping you while you are on the way to school, and brings you to... another school you’ve never been to. It almost sounds funny if you ignore the small big fact that they are brought there to kill each other.

You tried, Kaede.

Also I forgot how much of the prologue was really just “Kaede causes herself physical pain while trying to calm down simulator” wow

Dun dun duun

Insert “Wow, Kaede comes out of her own closet AND brings hat boy out his closet too? Doing Arceus’ work, Kaede” joke.

Also hi, Shuichi.

This is honestly a weird way to phrase it, as what Kaede says is that it is “A boy dressed in a normal school uniform...” than emphasizing on Shuichi’s own normalness, in the Japanese version.

It is also the only line that has a slight change in both takes as in the second take, she says “A boy dressed in a bit weird school uniform...” which due to copy-paste and adjective being used to describe Shuichi than his clothing in the translation, it ends up being glossed over.

On the one hand, still funny. On the another hand, this kid is justifiably terrified...

“Buddy I need some context here I have no clue what’s going on”

“Oh yeah that happened”

Shuichi: Sees a girl in high school uniform, kidnapped by likely people older than them himself

Shuichi:

Shuichi: You are working with them aren’t you?!

10/10 detective work there hat boy. I know he is probably just still too scared to think straight, but it is still funny on hindsight.

That’s one way to calm someone

And both of their names are the same both takes too. Their way of referring to themselves (私 for Kaede, 僕 for Shuichi, which are both used in the Chapter 1 title as well) are same, as well as their general speech patterns too.

Damn, girl.

Also a nice time to point out that Shuichi spends a good chunk of prologue retake and chapter 1 doubting if they can really trust everyone, and it is good to see that he had same tendency to assume he is the only one facing something/that people around must be enemy unless he is explicitly told or shown that they are not.

It makes sense in the situation, really, especially with how Kaede being the one who opened the door to his locker, his experience is that this girl could be working for/with the ones who kidnapped him, but still worth mentioning.

A real flashback time-

Which is coming soon, because tumblr refuses to add more pictures to this post OTL

[lesbeet]

Hi! Just out of curiosity, which of those writing tips did you like, and which ones did you not agree with? I've seen a lot of them before and thought they were pretty common tips

i'm sure this is more than you were asking for but i'm just gonna go through em one by one and add a bit of commentary bc i have nothing better to do

1. every character’s first line should be an introduction to who they are as a person

generally a good rule to follow - personally, i try to make every element of my writing work on more than one level. dialogue for the most part should be used to reveal character (as opposed to exposition). like, obviously sometimes characters will reveal information aloud to each other which advances the plot, but well-written dialogue for a well-rounded character should reveal some combination of information that character intends to communicate as well as some information they don't (eg someone saying one thing and their body language or expression saying something else, which not only provides the information the reader needs, but also provides information about how that character wants to appear to others vs how they actually are/how they actually appear, etc)

2. even if you only wrote one sentence on a really bad day, that’s still one sentence more than you had yesterday

yes 100000%

3. exercise restraint when using swear words and extra punctuation in order for them to pack a punch when you do use them

i'm ehh about the swear words part bc they can be used to demonstrate character info, but definitely re: exclamation points and the like. idk if by "extra punctuation" they mean like "!!" which is something i personally never do - exclamation points should be used sparingly as is, but if what you're writing requires more than one right next to each other, your dialogue isn't strong enough.

4. if your characters have to kiss to show they’re in love, then they’re not in love

absolutely

5. make every scene interesting (or make every scene your favorite scene), otherwise your readers will be just as bored as you

easier said than done, but a good goal

6. if you’re stuck on a scene, delete the last line you wrote and go in a different direction, or leave in brackets as placeholders

this one is a good piece of advice, but ive seen people say (and have found out for myself) that usually the problem is further back than the most recent line you've written. rarely do you detect the problem so soon after you write it, so it helps to go even further back in the scene to find where things got muddled

7. don’t compare your first draft to published books that could be anywhere from 3rd to 103rd drafts

this is one of the most difficult items on the list and also one of the most important lol

8. i promise you the story you want to tell can fit into 100k words or less

sure, but Can doesn't necessarily mean Should. concision is the best practice, especially for less experienced writers (and i include myself in that), but i would caution that some stories work better with a little bloat or with a tasteful amount of subplot or scene that doesn't necessarily move the plot forward; however, you still need to be able to justify a scene's inclusion in the story. if it's not advancing the primary plot, it should be advancing a subplot and/or revealing more about character or even some slight worldbuilding.

i hate to mention jk rowling here because she's not that great of a writer, but think of all the people who talk about how much they love the scenes that don't show much more than the hogwarts daily grind. studying in the common room, meals, classes, just adding to the worldbuilding of hogwarts and student life and showing us what the main characters do when they're not saving the world or trying to solve a mystery. the hp books would be significantly shorter without those scenes and maybe readers wouldn't have even noticed if they'd never been added to begin with, but so many people (again, including me) love and appreciate those scenes. they make the world and the characters feel more real, more relatable, etc.

this one got long (lol irony) but basically, shooting for an arbitrary number of words should really only be a rough estimate (also unfortunately if you're trying to get picked up by a publisher then you're probably better off sticking to the status quo of your particular genre in terms of average word count). take out what isn't necessary, but maybe open up your definition of "necessary" - just a little (seriously, just a little)

9. sometimes the book isn’t working because it’s not ready to be written or you’re not ready to write it yet; let it marinate for a bit so the idea can develop as you become a better writer

idk how i feel about this. im good with writing a draft and then taking a break for a while before going back to it, but this just seems like a really effective excuse for not writing something.

maybe it's just how this tip is phrased idk i just feel like the idea of you or the story "not being ready yet" is kinda silly. if you've been hacking away for a while and getting nothing out of it but frustration, then yeah take a week or two off. but this makes it sound like "oh you haven't matured enough to tell this story yet. try again in a few years." imo it's always better to write a steaming pile of shit and make it better through editing than to put it off until you feel "ready" - bc, at least in my own experience, it's very easy to convince yourself that you're not ready yet instead of taking the plunge and just getting started

10. a story written in chronological order takes a lot more discipline and is usually easier to understand than a story written with flashbacks

this one is confusing to me bc i'm not sure if they're referring to the writing process or the story itself. i agree that writing it in chronological order takes more discipline than writing whatever scene tickles your fancy at a given moment, but just because you WRITE it in chronological order doesn't mean the final product has to be structured that way. likewise, chronological order is usually easier for a reader to follow, but you don't necessarily need to WRITE the story in order. do what works best for you.

personally ive found over time that i prefer to go in order unless i get stuck somewhere, in which case ill move on and go back to it later. so there are a lot of holes in my drafts, but i do try to write in order so the timeline of the story stays clear in my mind, and also so i can get up close and personal with the mechanics of the story, like how different events and scenes lead to what happens next, etc. and like the tip mentions, it's a fantastic disciplinary practice - otherwise you could write all the fun/easy scenes and be left with very little motivation to write the more complex or less favored scenes (which, contrary to that tip up there, are sometimes necessary even if they're not AS exciting as others)

~~

as usual sorry my answer was so long djsksksksk

[pxiao]

Reasons I’m glad V///R is dead and gone forever

So V//R is dead and cancelled and my only reaction is FINALLY. Since VR is gone and we can finish forgetting the forgettable show and get rid of all our salt. You’re free to add to the post but there are rules. 

1. DO NOT TAG IT SO THE FANS CAN SEE. As much as I hate the show and the fandom even they don’t deserve to see people bashing the show in their tag. 

2. Don’t write the name of the show or the characters. Use /// or ---- in the character’s name like Yu///saku so the tumblr search can’t pull them up

ok good? Good. 

Everyone but Yu///saku is worthless. 

Seriously when have any of the characters actually progressed the story? Potentially only SB have done anything truly worthwhile. Everyone else was just to die to build tension for Yu//saku. And if you’re asking for RE///volver. OHHH I have a section just for him, don’t you worry.

Sto//rm Acc/ess aka Yu//saku is such a shitty duelist that the MINORITY of his duels has him not cheating. 

SERIOUSLY it’s written that Yu//saku can get a random extra deck monster with his skill BUT the issue is despite it being “random” Yu//saku ALWAYS gets the monster he needs to win. NOT ONCE IN THE 100+ EPISODE HAS HE GOTTEN A USELESS CARD. ALWAYS THE ONE HE NEEDS. Totally doesn’t seem like plot armor. And you know it wouldn’t be as big of an issue IF HE DIDN’T USE IT FOR EVERY SPE///ED DUEL!!!!!!!! For a character that the show likes to say is “invincible” he sure isn’t good enough to win with the deck he built. It got ridiculous with his duel with G/oo in season 2 where G//o countered his skill BUT A//i revealed it had a secondary effect that let him draw a card AND still get a new extra deck monster. 

Plot twists: 

They fall into two camps, “we already knew you dumbasses” or “THE HELL WERE YOU GUYS SMOKING!” Essentially the twists are obvious like A///i was based off of Yu//saku’s data as why wouldn’t he be. Or the dumb ones like Spec///tre beating A///oi or somehow Spec//tre had CONSCIOUS TREE AS A MOTHER. There have been a few twists that I can count that surprised me but they lead to other twists that fall back into stupid.  

the “Plot” just plain doesn’t exist.

 It’s just things happening with some connecting plot lines BUT they rarely lead into each other. Light///ning revealed that his plan was happening THE EXACT SAME TIME as season 1′s finale. A//i being the villain is more due to Light//ning’s simulation somehow proving that A///i will destroy humanity than the fact that A/i’s the only Ig//nis left. And each season’s arc has no connecting plot either. Season 1 can be broken down to Yu//saku gets A//i which has him meet the “main cast” and then Yu///saku go to S//OL for info that was TOTALLY pointless. Which is isolated from Re//volver setting a virus that traps you on the internet which leads to Re//volver learning Yusa//ku’s face AND MEETING HIM but does jack shit with that info. And then Re///volver’s final plan happens that was based on timing than anything else. 

Does that seem disjointed? YEP because there is no narrative at all, things are just happening. There is a vague connection at best but none of the characters’ actions actually affect how the story goes. THE FRUSTRATING PART IS THEY SET UP MOMENTS WHERE THEY COULD HAVE BUT THEY DIDN’T. SEASON 2 AND 3 IS THE SAME THINGS JUST HAPPEN AND THEN YU//SAKU HAS TO SAVE THE FUCKING DAY. V/R has no rhyme or reason why things happen, they just do and let me tell you, that’s fucking boring.

The Yu//saku praise

 My fucking god. Look the protagonist getting praised isn’t new, it happens with each series BUT the issue is the volume that Yu//saku gets and how early he gets it. Most protagonists have to wait till at least the second series before the population love them. Yu///saku got it by the THIRD EPISODE. BY. BEAT. A. MOOK. He was called a hero, people were saying he was hot, people were copying his avatar. AND IT NEVER STOPPED. EVERY OTHER EPISODE HAS SOMEONE SAY HE’S AMAZING, STRONG AND SOOO IMPORTANT. 

An A//oi episode in season 1 has a less than five minute section just to show that a kid HERO WORSHIPS YU//SAKU AND WAS IT. The kid appears with an avatar based on PM, PM saves him and tells the kid to trust him to save and then the kid logs out. AND THIS HAPPENS CONSTANTLY. “YU//SAKU IS INVINCIBLE”, “YU//SAKU IS MY HERO!”, “EVERYONE DEPENDS ON YOU YU//SAKU”. IT’S BEEN AN ENTIRE SHOW OF PEOPLE SINGING YU///SAKU’S PRAISES AND THE WORST PART OF IT IS, HE DESERVES NONE OF IT.

The setting. 

Let me ask ... THE FUCK IS IT. What even is Link Vr//ains? Is it a game, a site, a program? WHY IS IT ONLY IN DE///N CITY? WHY IS DESTROYING IT WILL LEAD TO THE ENTIRE INTERNET CRASHING???????? Link Vr///ains is something that NEEDS to be explained but the show NEVER DOES. HELL IT NEVER EVEN TRIES. 

The girls

Jesus christ ... the girls are .... just sad. A///oi ... my fucking god A//oi. A///oi’s personality starts and ends with “onii-sama”. NEARLY EVERY MOTIVE OF HER’S IS I WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR MY STEPBROTHER. Everything else is a passing fancy. Mi///yu? Yeah nice motivation but that’s why her two duels as BM in season 2 is more about her relationship with Ak//ira than her “friend”. 

Em//ma’s backstory was absorbed into BS’ despite the fact he was a new addition when Em//ma was around since season 1. 

Vir//ya is just a bit character meant to fill out the remain KOH, since their return in season 2, she haven’t done anything of value. 

Qu///een ... why is she there? I mean she appeared in a Bikini ... in virtual reality. seriously there is no point in that shit, and then did nothing besides watch over Ear//th’s death and then lost to A//i when her skill was named honey trap. 

Mi////yu is so unimportant we haven’t gotten a scene of her out of flashback despite being a lost chi//ld.   

Back to A//oi, it’s not even that A//oi isn’t important,sadly that’s not uncommon in YGO, it’s the fact EACH TIME SHE TRIES TO DO SOMETHING, THE SHOW PUNISHES HER FOR IT. She tries to be a symbol for people, it’s stupid why she trying but still, Spec///tre reveals he was toying with her the entire time and she had no chance. She tries to get stronger in season 2, SB beats cause she doesn’t have an Ig//nis and then she does nothing for half the season. She tries to save her “childhood friend”, Bow//man beats her and takes her consciousness so Yu//saku has to save her ... again. She tries to protected Ak//ira, A//i beats them and only takes A//oi to taunt her over her failure. THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE SHOW, ANYTIME A//OI TRIES TO DO ANYTHING, THE SHOW BEAT HER UP AS IF TO SAY, YOU SHOULDN’T DO ANYTHING EVER. Great message there. 

Simulations

You know as people there are plenty of reasons that conflict starts, greed, hate, anger, lust, desperation to survive, hunger. And how does conflict start in V/r? FUCKING SIMULATIONS. EVERY SINGLE CONFLICT IN THIS SHOW IS BECAUSE OF A SIMULATION. K//OH are a thing cause Kog///ami did a simulation that showed that the Ig//nis are learning TOO FAST AND WILL CAUSE THE END OF HUMANITY. Ligh///tning turned evil because he learned no matter what he can NEVER BE FRIENDS WITH HUMANITY CAUSE OF A SIMULATION. A///i turning “evil” because he’s doom to end the world cause of you guessed it a SIMULATION. Simulations are just tools and are NEVER THE FINAL RESULT. There are too many variables to truly make an 100% accurate simulation BUT HERE THEY ACT AS IF SIMULATIONS ARE A FUCKING GOSPEL. IT’S STUPID AND INCREDIBLY LAZY THAT THE CAUSE OF ALL the conflict in this show is because of independent simulations.  

Mental illness

As a person with a mental illness and went to therapy I can say this, VR doesn’t deserve any brown points for covering mental illness. If anything VR touching mentally illness takes points away. I have already said my piece on how poorly VR tackles mental illness. But my take away is this when it comes to mental illness VR is a absolutely horrible.

Rev///ovler

Re//voler is in all honestly a shitty character despite what his fans think. He’s an asshole that has no drive of his own. He admit he does this all BECAUSE OF HIS DAD. The one time he did do something of his own accord, turn his dad in, he later regretted so much that he refuses to do it again. LOOK I can understand missing your father despite the fact he’s trash, human relationships are complex BUT RE///VOLVER BEING “FATHER I WILL NEVER EVER GO AGAINST YOU AGAIN DESPITE THE FACT YOU KIDNAPPED KIDS AND THEN TORTURED THEM BECAUSE YOU FELT SAD HUMAN WILL EVENTUALLY GO EXTINCT ONLY TO TURN ON YOUR CREATIONS” IS FUCKING STUPID. And then he goes the EXTRA MILE OF ASS and says to Yu//saku’s face that he REGRETS SAVING HIS LIFE TWICE. And he never apologized either. 

Also his “development” is forced as shit, Revo//lver never develops onscreen or shows signs of changing, just the show and characters say OH YES RE//VOLVER CHANGED.... IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.  Honestly after his return in season 2 where he showed he DIDN’T CHANGE, then he tries to help Hom//ura despite telling Yu//saku he regrets saving him. WHY THE CHANGE. HE HAS SEEN NOTHING THAT MADE HE FEEL SYMPATHY FOR THE LOST KI//DS. BUT HE’S ALL OF A SUDDEN KIND TO HO///MURA. AND THEN AFTER HE LOSES TO LIGH//TNING AND SAY’S A/I NAME, ONLY TO SNAP BACK IN SEASON 3 AND WANTS TO KILL A///I. What I’m saying is, he has no real character development, you can tell what the show WANTED him to become but my god they were too lazy to actually show him changing. 

Yu//saku

OH BOY this is going to be long. Yu//saku is by far the WORST WRITTEN PROTAGONIST IN YGO HISTORY.  He has no personality and no real background besides HE WAS TORTURED, POOR HIM!!!!! Seriously what was his life like before the Lo//st Incident. What did he like to do, did he have friends, where the fuck are his parents. There is no information about him, past or present. Like his current “personality”, WHAT IS IT besides he’s stoic/emotionless. He’s not nice or even mean anymore. He has no likes or even dislikes. All we know is he’s determined ... and that’s it. Yu//saku is a blank slate for the viewers to project on. Yu//saku is honestly NOTHING. 

Honestly, Yu///saku isn’t strong as he cheats the MAJORITY of his duels, he isn’t smart as rarely does he do anything that’s smart, wanting to brutal force the solution and he doesn’t follow his own advice. 

Yu//saku: Bonds are important and the only thing that are absolutes

Yu//saku then fucks off for 3 MONTHS NOT TELLING ANYONE

And like Re//volver, his “development” is forced as hell. He just says things that make no sense for him to say. Yu//saku shouldn’t say revenge doesn’t help WHEN IT OBVIOUSLY DID. The show was supporting him and he got the guy that kidnapped him killed and then he got better. HELL JI//N WAS SAID TO GET BETTER ONCE THE K//OH WERE BEAT.   

[idealisticrealism]

Blindspot 4x03

Had a busy Halloween week (my first ever!) so I’m extra late today. Also changed my format slightly bc what is consistency?

Reade-- What is there to say, other than he looks super cute covered in paint? It’s kinda weird that the usual ‘main team’ has barely been seen this whole ep-- and even then, mostly only through brief video calls or over the comms. And Reade wasn’t even heard from at all during the actual bomb disarming. Honestly though…. I’m kinda down with that. As much as I love the others, we all know Rich and Patterson are my Dream Team lol

Zapata-- yep there’s Zapata, jogging slowly away from her problems as usual lol. Seriously though what is she doing being apprenticed to a literal evil witch EXPLAIN GERO. Ugh I feel so bad for her but a little bit ‘serves you right’ at the same time. Though lbr I just want her to come homeeeee

Weller-- I feel like this dude has been on the edge of tears for like a year. Poor guy. But omg does he make a cuuuute Jackson Pollock lol. I love him being all serious and sarcastic towards Madeline while literally covered in paint and feathers. I feel like the real mystery of this ep is HOW DOES IT MAKE HIM HOTTER. Someone please explain. Also oooh he cannot be happy about being stuck in the station while ‘Jane’ is zooming away on a doomed train. ALSO SPEAKING OF WHICH, dude the bomb is on one of the lines past the apartment I lived in back in September. I got off at that station multiple times aaaahhhhhh this is so cool. Ugh now he’s back at the apartment crying over Jane again ahah. Seems like all the poor dude does these days is hug her and cry. But wait, maybe not! Ooooh he followed her and he has got his suspicion on. THERE’S the badass agent we’ve been missing!

Remi-- I feel like she actually feels a tiny bit bad that she made Weller cry?? Lol girl’s supposed to be killing him and she has a hard time even seeing him cry. Lbr she’s gonna fall for him despite herself, his mix of badass agent and suburban dad is apparently just irresistible to any iteration of her being lol. Tbh I loved the sequence of her disarming the bomb over the comms-- in most eps we would be with her and Weller and Reade out in the field and only hearing the home team over the comms, I loved seeing this turnabout. Also ugh she nearly lashes out at Weller when he lifts her hand bc she’s such an abused little puppy that she doesn’t know anything but coldness or punishment and I think she was startled and secretly pleased to be greeted with cheers and hailed as a hero. Ugh Remi honey you’re gonna grow to love it here. “... right under our noses, putting on a friendly face, pretending to be the hero” I guess she’s seeing some similarities between herself and Madeline lol. And then oooh on the couch, Roman’s like the devil on the shoulder trying to pull her back into the deep shadows of the dark side and then Weller appears and shines all his love and support all over her and Roman disappears for a moment. I see what you’re doing here Gero…. Also lol Remi must be surprised at how easily she can make Weller cry haha

Patterson-- okay firstly, how dare some guy make out with my baby and not know her name. Also, I just have mixed feelings about the making out in general but I am all about supporting my precious queen. THen I was like ‘pfft she won’t say her name’ and then SHE SAID HER NAME AND I SCREAMED and then it hit me that she was almost definitely undercover and I was like ‘oh a fake name of course, shit Gero you got me well done’ and then turns out it wasn’t an op but a whole different kind of ‘undercovers’ hahahahaha. Well good on you girl I support you and all your choices. BUT WAS IT A FAKE NAME OR NO??? Omg okay yes it was, thanks for the heart attack Gero. Is anyone else having early Grey’s Anatomy flashbacks rn lol or is that just me haha. Also flustered Patterson is the most adorable Patterson, fight me on it.Ugh poor girl cannot seem to catch a break this ep and you KNOW Rich is deliberately playing with her lol. But also I mean c’mon writers, Patterson is a professional agent, I can see her being flustered to start but let’s not act like she wouldn’t suck it up and focus on her job pretty quick. Also omg *dead serious voice* “I can already tell you, that I’m gonna scoff” is one of the best lines of the episode and probably the entire show lol. “Okay get to the part where you solved it. Oh my god I just sounded like Weller” hahaha well  he is your big bro, so makes sense you’d pick up a few traits lol. Great throwback to the ‘where math is done’ line too writers, nice work. Also wow the way she just went toe-to-toe with Weitz… why do I ship it a tiny bit lol?? And I also kinda ship her with Lincoln. Get it, girl!

Rich-- how was him being like ‘Hey guys here’s the terrorist’s address okay be careful bye’ one of the funniest things he’s ever done??? I stg whoever writes Rich needs to be my new best friend. Though tbh he does actually seem almost a touch subdued in this first scene, without that usual devilish gleam in his eyes… maybe he’s trying to show he can be both useful AND mature so they don’t actually decide to replace him with Boston haha. “I didn’t say magic, I’m not seven, I said magical cures’ hahahaha my baby. And he’s so excited to brief the recruits ugh. And then omg “sounds like the greatest takedown in FBI history I’m so sorry I missed it” aren’t we all, buddy lol. Also ugh him and his little recruit ducklings LET ME DIE. “There’s a bomber! Who bombs!” literally if someone who had Rich’s sense of humour and talked like he talks were to appear in my life I would marry them on the spot. “He’s probably an angry man with a victim complex, that’s a dangerous combination” OKAY EVERYONE LET’S FACE IT THE BOMBER GUYS CAN GO HOME BECAUSE RICH JUST DROPPED THE BIGGEST BOMB OF THE EPISODE RIGHT THERE. “Oh yeah, would an unprofessional do something like this??” The answer is yes and also marry me. And ugh he says his main reason for going after the book of secrets is because Jane is dying ughhhhh he is too good for this worldddd. Also wtf was that weird cackle when describing Roman that was hilarious. “It’s been very evident all day. Also I am like a sex-narc and you are terrible at lying” EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS MAN AND THIS FRIENDSHIP IS THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. “It’s very unprofessional, I think that’s what thrills me the most actually” hahahahaha. “This is my smug face, I save it for special occasions” hahahaaha c’mon no he does not, that’s just his normal face but THIS is why I felt he seemed more serious than usual, it was so his face could be extra smug later hahahaha. And the victory dance??? “You and me, Ride or Die”?? Let’s be real I am SO ride or die for these two there is literally nothing more important than this friendship aaaaaaaahhhhhh

Weitz-- I love this sleazy bastard and his weird love/hate feelings towards Zapata and his semi-corrupt work ethic lol. Also omg yasss he told them all about Zapata leaking info to Carter! I wondered if that would ever come out. And omg he’s Patterson’s hookup’s uncle THIS EP IS RIDICULOUS AND I LOVE IT. Also oh no “What am I saying, special treatment’s fine” was hilarious, like uh oh no way am I starting to love Weitz??? I am having feelings about a Patterson/Rich/Weitz dream team haha. “Might be our only shot at [Madeline], so it is unfortunate that you look like that” how does this show do so many characters with their own distinctive styles of sass I love it so much. Also, show of hands, who thinks this guy is on some kind of uppers because honestly at this stage I’m convinced haha. He’s especially nuts when he comes in to give Patterson the special computer-- which I’m sure that a) she already would have had one of, and b) someone in his postion would have just had someone deliver for him. Although it does seem like he makes any excuse to come hang out and be bizarre. He’s the boss I wish I had lol. Especially if I happened to be related to him bc wow there is some unabashed nepotism happening right here haha. Oh dear he seems to be coming down off his high right now and is getting grumpy. Better call his assistant to bring his next hit lol. Also “CAN YOU JUST CHECK HIS WORK PLEASE” clearly withdrawing-Weitz has no time for workplace flirting hahahaha. And ugh then Patterson stands up to him and he listens to her and holy shit that was a big amount of trust, if they were wrong the whole city is gonna turn on him for letting so many more people die than was necessary. Looks like he doesn’t just always do what protects his own ass??

Afreen-- you are a queen and I love you

[alixzin]

Unfinished Medical Procedures Fic

In which Lin takes Alex to see a neurologist and has a series of brain tests done (EEG and MRI) to make sure nothing more serious is wrong. I wrote this last January while I was snowed in and highly productive. This was before I knew what in the verse to write and was doing a little of everything. I stopped working on it when “Where You Started” took over and demanded all my attention. At this point it’s been so long that I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to it, but it has some really nice moments that deserve to see the light of day, so here it is. 

They are at first neurologist appointment, discussing tests he wants to run before prescribing medication to prevent migraines.

 “It’s not at all scary, not like the MRI,” the doctor reassures them after expressing the need for an EEG. “All that happens is we attach electrodes, which look a bit like watch batteries, to different parts of your head with washable glue. Each one is attached to a wire that records the brain signals. You’ll just lie on a bed for an hour and your parents can stay with you.”

It’s starting to become a thing that every doctor they see refers to them as Alex’s “parents”, “Dad” or “Mom”. They’ve given up on correcting it.

“Now one part of an EEG that is challenging is that we intentionally put the brain under a lot of stress to increase the likelihood of catching unusual activity.”

Lin’s eyes widen at this and he gives Alex’s knee a squeeze. As if he doesn’t have enough stress on his brain already.

“What exactly does that mean? Can it be done without that?”

“It would just be a waste of time and money to be honest. The biggest aspect of this is sleep deprivation. For teens this means staying up for at least 24 hours beforehand.”

Alex full on rolls his eyes at this. Even Lin has to crack a smile. Alex would consider being allowed to stay up all night a special treat.

“I saw that look. It’s noted on his health history he has insomnia. Is staying up like that typical for Alexander?”

“Very. If we aren’t policing him Alex will go a full week with only a couple of hours of sleep.”

“That does not sound at all healthy and increases my worries about unusual brain activity. I’d be interested to see what’s going on in his head when that’s happening.” Wouldn’t we all. “If we’re going to do this, it’s best to do it right. Do you think Alexander could tolerate going 48 hours?”

“Alexander’s right here, you know!”

Lin grins. He loves Alex’s sassy side.

“What do you think Alex?”

“Please. That’s cake. I can go longer if you want.”

“No!” Lin and Vanessa say at the same time.

 Alex is confident in his ability (and likely ecstatic to be allowed to stay up that long), but Lin can’t help but be nervous that this might not end well.

 There’s a catch. Of course, there’s a catch. When Lin finally reads through the info packet on the test the night before Alex starts the sleep purge one detail jumps out at him: absolutely no caffeine.

Alex’s entire existence is powered by mass quantities of caffeine, which is one of the many things they have in common. Him and Vanessa have figured out that even when Alex is home sick or recovering from a bad migraine he still needs coffee, or else caffeine withdrawal symptoms get added to his illness. With all his anxiety cutting back on Alex’s consumption has been on the “things with Alexander that need to be addressed” list for a while now, but they haven’t gotten to it yet. Partially because that would mean Lin going through coffee detox with him to avoid looking like a huge hypocrite and partially because then they would lose their most powerful Alex negotiation tool. Need to convince him to do something he doesn’t want to? Bribe with extra coffee. Need to get Alex to stop an unhealthy behavior like refusing to go to bed? Threaten to take away his coffee. In their defense they are very new to this whole parenting thing.

 He does try to convince Alex to back out of this and just do the twenty-four hours, but once Alex gets something in his head as a personal challenge there is no backing out.

 The pamphlet recommended having an adult stay up with him to make sure he doesn’t sleep, but they all know that with Alex on the first night it’s not at all necessary. They’ll save that for the second night, if for nothing else then to keep him company and show solidarity.

The next morning over breakfast all Lin has to do is take one look at Alex to know this is proving more difficult than they had anticipated, taking in how pale he is and the already increased size of the bags under his eyes.

“Alex, you’re not going to school today.”

“What? No, I’m fine.”

“Even so, I’d really prefer if you didn’t, mijo.” He wants Alex near him just in case something goes wrong.

Lin’s concerned that if he leaves Alex home alone he might accidently fall asleep, which would normally please him, but that would just mean having to start this whole thing all over again. However, since Alex isn’t actually sick, Lin can’t quite justify taking the day off with him (given how many times he’s done that already), so he quickly comes to the decision to have Alex tag along with him all day. Besides it would probably be better if Alex was up and about doing things all day.

 [Insert fluff of spending day together and finally meeting the cast for real. I’ll get to it!]

-         Spoiler from nearly a year later, nope never did, oops.

 Later on in the day at the Public Theater backstage, Lin finally convinces Alex to formally meet a few people.  Knocks on Daveed and Oaks door. 

“Hey Daveed, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is my…this is Alex.”

A man with one of the largest afro’s Alex has ever seen pops his head out. He looks familiar though.

“Alex. Good to finally meet you officially.”

“Hi.” Alex resists the urge to hide behind Lin. Not cool Alex. Not cool at all! You’re fifteen, not five.

“I’m glad to see you looking better. You really worried me a couple weeks ago.”

That’s it. He recognizes the voice now. This was the guy who called him “baby Lin” and had so frantically called Lin claiming he needed an ambulance. Alex could just about melt into the floorboards in embarrassment. What the heck is he supposed to say after meeting someone like that?

“Wait until you hear Daveed rap tonight Alex. The man’s a beast!” Lin gushes, completely oblivious to Alex’s humiliation. Or is it because of?

“Are you seeing the show tonight?”

Alex nods. Why is talking so hard?

“You’re in for a real treat! You’ve got a certified genius for a foster dad. Seriously, if anyone else had pitched this idea to me, I would have laughed at them, but because it’s Lin... Okay, I still laughed at him. Listen, I want to apologize for our last encounter Alex. We’ve been hearing Lin talk about you for so long, we were a little too eager, but shouldn’t have burst in like that. I’m sorry for the additional pain we caused you.”

Alex gapes at him. Nope—no idea how to respond to that either. He must look like such an idiot.

“Are you kidding?” cuts in Lin. “Daveed, you get that if you, Oak and Ramos hadn’t disregarded my orders to leave my kid alone, it probably would have been another hour before I checked on him? I don’t even want to think about what state he might have been in then. I am so incredibly grateful for your interference.”

Did Lin just call him his kid? What the hell is he supposed to think of that? This is his tweets referring to him as his ‘son’ all over again. Everyone had assumed he had meant Sebastian with that one, but sheesh. It flashes him back to the conversation he overhead Lin and Vanessa have about it while he was still recovering in bed.

“Oh come on, give me a break here! There are only 150 characters allowed. I don’t have room to put foster in front of it. Besides, the public doesn’t need to know about him.”

“You didn’t have to tweet about it at all.”

“People thought I was dying. I didn’t even give a goodnight tweet. I had to give some explanation.”

“And those fault is that? Lin, you have a twitter problem.”

  Lin is very aware that Alex has never seen him preform outside of ‘In The Heights’ youtube clips he caught him watching, so he decides to still go on as Hamilton as planned. Instead they get a sitter for Sebastian so Vanessa can sit in the audience with Alex.

 Alex is dazzled by the first act. Lin sees him from the stage go from drooping in his chair looking close to falling asleep to wide awake and hanging on every word by the second song. It makes for one of his best performances. Having Alex there and earning his approval matters so much more to him than any celebrity in the audience. What’s truly adorable is that when Vanessa brings him backstage during intermission Alex is acting shy and tongue tied around him, as if he’s suddenly star struck by his own foster dad. Lin’s not worried though, he knows it will pass the next time he annoys him.

“Did you really write that?” he asks shyly right before they leave to take their seats in the audience.

“I did.”

“How?!”

“It did take me seven years. If you like we can add a discussion of the writing process to our nights planned activities.”

“I’d like that.”

 It takes him a while to notice since his back is turned to the audience for the second half of “The World Was Wide Enough”, but as soon as Lin comes forward his eyes zero in right on Alex. He’s bawling his eyes out and Vanessa is starting to look worried. Lin’s distracted enough by this that he misses his cue and grabs Pippa’s hand at the wrong time. At least he doesn’t have to sing anymore. Lin doesn’t know how he could do it when his Alexander is in the front row crying like that. During the bows he makes eye contact with Vanessa who shoots him a panicked look. She holds up her phone to indicate that she sent him a text, which he nods at in confirmation. Once they’ve gone through the motions, he all but sprints off stage to get to his phone.

“Bit of a situation here. Alex *freaked out* when you got shot. Flashback maybe?”

“Stay put for now. Don’t try to navigate the crowds. I’ll meet you there once it clears out a bit. See if I can get security to move things along.”

“Did you hear him scream when Burr shot you?”

That was Alex? Shit! On most nights at least one person shouts out when that happens so it was barely registered. In retrospect, it did sound a little more anguished than normal.

 “You didn’t say you were going to die!” Alex wails, clinging tightly to Lin in a death grip.

“I’m sorry. It’s common knowledge that he dies in a duel. I thought you knew. Leslie even says he shoots me in the first song.”

“Shoots! Not kills!”

 Would give him a sedative if it wouldn’t make staying up any longer impossible.

 “Alex honey, you’re exhausted. Your emotions are all out of sorts right now. It was stupid of me to think seeing the show tonight would be a good idea.”

“No, I’m glad I saw it. It’s a masterpiece. You just need to change the ending.”

“Mijo, this isn’t just something I made up. You can’t rewrite the endings on a real person’s life and make it happy.”

“Then you need to play a different part where you don’t get shot.”

“It’s not real.”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t want you getting shot at every night.”

 Too exhausted to hold back emotions that night Alex ends up telling him about the cousin who took him in and moved them to New York after the hurricane and shot himself in the head soon after. That’s how Alex ended up in the American foster care system and why he’s not at all a fan of guns.

 Alex is not satisfied until he gets to examine the prop gun and confirm that it can’t hold bullets that someone who dislikes Lin might sneak in. Even so, they have to get the props department to remove the trigger to reassure Alex he’s not really being shot at and make it so that if someone replaced a prop gun with a real one it would be obvious. Even after all that, it’s clear Alex doesn’t trust Leslie.

   It’s past midnight and Alex and Lin are holed up in a café getting desert.

“Alexander, I know you don’t like talking about these things, but do you think you could fill me in a little on what happened tonight? That was a pretty big reaction.”

“I don’t like guns,” Alex mutters, taking a sip of his herbal tea. Even though it doesn’t provide the caffeine fix he takes comfort from the ritual of drinking a hot beverage. It gives him courage.

“Can you tell me more?”

“My cousin Peter shot himself in the head while I was in the next room. There was a loud bang, I ran in and he was on the ground. There was so much blood.”

This is a huge breakthrough. Alex has never shared anything about his past with them. All they know is the bare facts: his father’s not in the picture, his mother died quite suddenly of “natural causes”, cousin who was given guardianship of him committed suicide and he’d suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of his most recent foster family. The exact details of these occurrences are foggy and until now Alexander hasn’t been willing to share.

“Do you think tonight was a flashback to that?” Lin tries to keep his tone mild and calm.

“Yeah…probably…” he looks so defeated. “When I hear a gunshot it’s like I’m back in that room again. Usually, like when Lee and Phillip were shot, I can talk myself out of it, remind myself it’s not real and I’m being stupid. But…when there was a gunshot and then you were keeled over... It looked like there was blood everywhere. I don’t think there was though. There was nothing to clean up after.”

“No Alex, there was no blood on stage.”

“All in my head,” he breathes heavily. The absolute exhaustion just oozes out of him. It’s clear all his defenses are down and Alex doesn’t have the energy to resist questioning. Lin will have to tread lightly.

“Do you think you could tell me more about Peter, mijo? Did he treat you okay?” Lin asks gently.

“I liked Peter. He was kind to me.” Alex stares down at his plate, not making any eye contact, but he talks. “After my mother died the probate court ordered all her possessions be auctioned off and the funds given to my half-brother, her legitimate son. Peter went to the auction and bought back all her books to give to me. He didn’t have to do that, I never asked him to and he never had much money, but he did anyway.”

“He sounds like a good guy,” Lin comments, encouraging him to go on.

“Peter was never stable though. His emotions were all over the place. He’d get really down sometimes and be too depressed to get out of bed for weeks. I ended up having to lie about my age and get a job so we could afford food and rent because he never went to work and couldn’t keep a job. When he got like that I’d have to bring him food or he wouldn’t eat at all. I used to worry all the time that he was going to die in bed like Mom. Sometimes he wouldn’t eat what I gave him, so I would force him and he’d yell at me to leave him alone to die.”

“How old were you when this happened, Alexander?”

“Twelve. I was twelve when I moved in with Peter.”

Over a year then. Over a year with that horribly depressing home life.

“It wasn’t always like that though. Sometimes Peter was full of energy. He was a lot of fun. He never slept much when he was like that and would take me out on wild late night adventures, sort of like we are now.” Alex smiles fondly. It’s clear that despite everything, he cared a great deal for the man. “Peter would get all these wild moneymaking schemes that he’d obsess over, but usually he’d get sad again before anything came of it. Except with moving to New York, that was the one plan he actually did and his mood didn’t change until a week after we moved.” Alex’s breath hitches in his throat. Lin can already see where this is going. “I don’t know where he got the gun…I should have kept a closer eye on him. I should have known the crash was coming.” Alex blinks rapidly, trying to keep the tears from falling.

“Mijo, it wasn’t your fault. Not even a little. It sounds like Peter had severe bipolar disorder that was untreated. Do you know what that is?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Alex sniffs.

“You never should have been put in a situation to have to care for him like you did.  He shouldn’t have been made responsible for a child in that state. It wasn’t fair to you.”

“I loved him.” At this the tears start running freely that Alex tries to rub away, though it makes no difference. Lin can’t hold back anymore and gets up from his seat across from him to pull Alex into a hug.

“I know honey, and that makes it so much worse.”

“I must not have mattered that much to him if he could kill himself and not care what happened to me.”

“He had a mental illness Alex. His brain was sick and not functioning properly. I don’t think he was capable of thinking of anything but his own misery at that moment. But it sounds like he did care about you a good deal.”

“He bought me back the books.”

“That’s right mijo, he bought you back your mother’s books. That sounds like a man who cared. Who loved you as much as he was able.”

Lin wishes so badly that this was the end of his trauma. That Alex was brought to live with them right after his cousin’s suicide, because surely all of that had been enough horror to last a lifetime. It’s not the end though. It’s not even close. After all of that Alexander’s story gets so much worse.

[superemeralds]

sonic forces review

EDIT: added day after thoughts under read more

Hey nyall! Time to review forces!

First, a broad, spoiler free, review. Under the cut will be a more in depth review containing spoilers for both, the main game AND episode shadow.

Please note that this is from the perspective of someone with adhd. I can’t tell how some of the things that peeved me would affect neurotypicals.

General info:

There is an easy and a hard mode. (hard mode is just normal mode “for ppl who played sonic before”) It took me 7 hours and 44 minutes to complete the entire game including episode shadow. Granted, I took quite a few breaks for breathers and shitpostingly liveblogging me playing the game on a discord server + I think I’m just bad at the game.

There are over 30 levels to play, of which a few did repeat and you just play with a different character, but it was still fun!

The hub map got increasingly confusing and hard to navigate and i really hate it now that i completed it because there’s too much happening at once on the screen.

Game play:

There was a Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic and Custom Character type game play.

I personally do not enjoy Classic Sonic game play but it was very well playable once I remembered I could use the arrow key pad instead of the left joystick.

Modern Sonic was often too fast in platforming sections and the absence of drift made sharp curves in 3D areas hard to handle, mainly when you activated boost (as the game intends you to). But it was very fun and refreshing to be able to boost again.

The Custom Character could use different wispons to do progress in the game. This is probably what has the most replay factor, as you can go back to levels using different wispons to clear new paths that you were previously unable to go through. The wispon use can be kinda sloppy at times, but once you get used to it it can be very fun.

The tag team game play was sloppy. It was never clear which character you are playing as right now (until later I realized you are playing both at the very same time ? I think? i am still confused).

Visuals:

The lighting in the cutscenes and levels often comes short and can even ruin the atmosphere at times. A lack of detail in some scenes undermines this. 

The characters are not as expressive as they could be, but there are some iconic expressions to spot throughout the game.

Sometimes camera angles shift weirdly or zoom out too much (some times the character even blends in with the stage and you don’t see it at all anymore when you are in movement) and you lose track of your character and most probably fall off the stage or get hurt. Sometimes there is also a little too much going on in the background.

On the contrary, the game had also tried to pull quite a few visually stunning shots and lighting in both levels and cutscenes.

It is overall still better than previous games because it has more heart and life in it and I hold it dear.

Overall feelings about the game:

The game had mostly been very fun! There was a lot of variety between stages and the wispons gave the gameplay a very fresh kick.

Some stages were frustrating because the character was too fast/very hardly visible for the platforming and I ended up dying a lot in the same spot. 

Not to say too much about the story, but Classic Sonic was pure fanservice and was not important to the plot whatsoever and the game would’ve done very well without him.

Character development was pretty absent.

The pacing of the game in general was very sloppy and almost even uncomfortably fast (rushed) and bland.

Most of the levels were very short to a point where you’d expect there to be multiple acts of it because you refuse to accept that this was already the end of it.

The story had some strong points, though, and the music was absolutely phenomenal, like always, BUT the music was not as recognizable as it was in previous games. I played the final boss only a very few hours ago and i cannot remember the tune to it at all.

The game had a lot of potential but it was executed rather sloppily than exceptionally.

All in all this game gets a 7/10 for effort from me.

because im very generous and i still had fun and was hyped and enjoyed it despite all the annoying parts. I mean i am also 06fucker69

Longer and more in depth review including spoilers under the cut

!!!! WARNING SPOILERS START HERE !!!!

I will try to stay in chronological order, but that is the first thing that is kinda peeving me in this game. 

(warning i quickly grew tired and couldn't write anymore but i forced myself to finish)

The time skips and flashbacks are inconsistent and have a harsh transition. For example the 6 months between Sonic’s defeat and the recruitment of the Rookie is just white text on a black screen that isn’t even narrated. Sometimes the time between perspectives is very disorted and you forget about Classic and Tails while you are busy with another mission that is forced upon you thanks to the linear 1 perspective story.

I would’ve had a 3 perspective story, with 3 story modes. Each story mode would explore the same story from the different perspectives like in SADX, SA2, heroes and Sonic the hedgehog 2006. (mostly 06 though)

The stages were perfectly arranged and build to be incorporated into a 3 perspective story. Classic might have had more time for character development and relevance. Also more, mostly consistent, time with him would make us more attached and feel actual emotions about his parting in the very end.

The idea of having Mania connect with forces like that and have a “reason” for Classic to appear is good, but Classic just arrives and is there. For not reason at all besides the sake of being there in order to please 2d/classic enthusiast fans. Great concept in theory, sloppily executed though.

Modern Sonic

The game play was very sloppy as Sonic just could fall off the stage and you just had a very huge lack of control of his speed. Mostly when you were in boost in a place that intended you to boost. The absence of drift was very unnerving.

The thing about Sonic being imprisonment was just. so..... unrealistically done. Sonic just came out of the cage and he’s been doing just fine. But he’s gotta be down, because couldn’t run. He absolutely hates being stuck in a place and it’s been SIX FUCKING MONTHS. The bars are also so far apart he can just slip out. Also Sonic can easily break out of prison.

This was not the first time he was imprisoned. In SA2 he had a far greater emotional response, and he broke out the moment he knew what he had to do to make things right. (He volunteered to be imprisoned in SA2, in forces he was forced in prison.)

This is not just out of character for him, but also very lazy writing. The time skip between was badly done, in a black screen with text. No context as to why Silver is suddenly here (if you didn’t read the comic you have no idea whats going on) or how the resistance formed.

Everyone thinks Sonic died, Knuckles is very upset and admits he cant get used to him being gone; and suddenly he gets the news that Sonic is fine and it doesn't trigger any emotional response in him. Or anyone really much besides Amy; who had refused to believe he died in the first place.

He just immediately goes on a mission and fights Infinite.

Tag Team

It was a very good idea to incorporate this mechanic and was mainly well done and fun; the double and triple boost was a nice lil kick off to regular gameplay.

As mentioned was it never clear who you are playing right now and it didn’t warn you about swiches. It could’ve been done better with the heroes mechanics of swicharound. There were more than enough characters to have multiple teams that could be playable.

Avatar

The custimization options aren’t spectacular, but that was not to be expected. I was positively surprised to have the option to chose between 3 voices. 

Villains

Chaos is. Just there. He wasn't even a boss. He was just there for the shock value/fan service.

The Metal Sonic fight was okay.

Zavok was annoying but okay and reasonable.

Shadow wasn’t even a bossfight he was also just shock-factor. He joined the team but was of very little value. (Except for DLC, will talk abt later.)

Infinite has 4 boss fights. And in the end he just vanishes. He’s basically still existent? I think? what happened? Are we just going to accept this?

The final boss was lame and not memorable at all. At least nega wisp phase 2 was iconic.

Infinite

Infinite is a very interesting character with much potential, which they sadly didn't really use much at all except for him being extra. He didn't show off much of his personality and we couldn't learn to appreciate/hate him. 

The game doesn't mention much about his origin, so you will have to read the online comic in the social medias to understand. This might be good marketing to get consumers to consume media on different platforms, but it does not make much sense for newcomers who know nothing about Sonic and don’t follow the social medias to begin with.

Someone who just picked up the game and it’s their first Sonic game.... They won't understand shit.

I want to see more of him. He got so much potential to grow and ultimately redeem himself. Maybe in a future game? Or in the comics at least.

Episode Shadow

The 3 levels were well. One time it was a sonic level but with shadow and some lil things changed. The other was a custom character level but with shadow. The other was just generic 2d platforming with cubes. None of these were long or new. It was fun, sure, but it wasn't exciting.

I was kinda peeved that even though infinite was revealed, we still didnt get to see his face.

Visuals

Lighting harsh, sometimes interesting, but not completely fleshed out/good/atmospheric. 

There are scenes/levels that have stunning visuals (the sonic level in space and the scene with the sun.) even when its not perfect.

Just. The characters sometimes float above the ground and the lighting is very white and harsh and not atmospheric. (The colors are meessed up and too bright. The characters look like they have a completely different light source from the environment)

EDIT: A DAY AFTER ADDITIONS

okay so a day after, replaying some stages, I still think the game is very fun.

There are quite a few things that are peeving me still. I just remembered the whole null space thing, which is totally wasted potential. You could’ve had a few levels in that space with fucky gravity and weird cube shit going, but you just had to double boost out and that was it.

Many tricks the villain packs out are treated as something they can oercome easily and they just. Win “because they always do”.

I want to see the heroes doubt themselves and have character development. The only character that does have character development at all is the custom character. Infinite arguably does undergo some development too; in episode shadow.

There is a lot of potentials for DLCs and I hope they release them and have more characters playable.

[paraphrasingtool759]

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[todokori-kun]

The

 queen is back and I’m so freaking happy <3

‘annoyed’ nothing you say is annoying ok, I’m actually just really relieved and happy that I’m helping in any way at all. Also you listen to my rambling all the time and you supported me with my anxiety (you have no idea how much our convos helped after I first saw a doctor about it and was feeling really confused about what to do) so ‘what did I do to deserve you’ is probably what I should be saying to you.

Tbh when things are as serious as you’ve described then you’re definitely not overreacting. Like I said before, I’m always ready to listen/talk when you need to. And you don’t have to stress about replies; I honestly don’t mind at all as long as you’re ok.

Thank you Queen Luna you’re the best ;-;

Also, good news and bad news:

Bad news- A bit after I sent the last message mom apparently found out about Tumblr and decided that I probably shouldn’t get an account here because of all the NSFW content. I get why she’s worried so I guess I won’t be getting an account here for a while.

Good news- HOWEVER, I was chatting with someone on ao3 and they asked if we could move our convo somewhere else. They recommended something called Discord so I got an account there. If you’ve never heard of Discord it’s basically a voice and text chat system usually used by gamers, but it seems to be pretty popular among non-gamers too. PMing is possible there :D (The only flaw is that you can’t send very long messages, so you have to send multiple short ones, which is a bit annoying…but otherwise it’s pretty neat so maybe we can try it if you’re ok with that?)

XD yeah that’s actually pretty accurate.

*reads Luna’s message*

*inhale*

UM. DO YOU HAvE ANY IDEA HOW AMAZING YOU ARE. LET ME TRY TO BE A GOOD, SUPPORTIVE FRIEND AND TELL YOU

Yep it was one of the grossest things that ever happened to me OTL I’m still swimming but I’m taking a long break right now- a break that started because my little sister broke her toe and we were basically stuck at home taking care of her (the pool is a bit far for me to go on my own so if mom’s stuck at home so am I), and then got longer because the pool’s old and some things had to be ‘fixed’, and then got even longer because my coach is getting married (just reread that and realized that I sound super annoyed, I’m actually not, I have no problem with my coach getting married XD). I’ll probably start again around next month, though :)

Thanks ^^

Oooh are you a comic fan??? I haven’t read any superhero comics because there seem to be so many AUs(?)/different timelines so trying to figure out where to start is really confusing, plus I actually sorta prefer manga/manhwa art styles (not that wester comics are bad- a lot of them have really good art too, I just personally prefer the manga/manhwa styles (especially for the panels). Also the ecchi-ish costumes/anatomy for almost every single female superhero gets a bit ridiculous sometimes lol). Some of them seem really fun, though, and I’d like to try them out someday…

It’s really cool that you’ve been a fan of T'challa for so long, it must’ve been even more exciting to see him in the movie :D

Imagine everyone watching The Winter Soldier together. Then the  'brainwashed bucky’ scenes start.

Illumi: *stares intently at the screen*

Illumi: I see no problem with this.

Watching Civil War and Leorio goes Dad Mode and covers Gon’s and Killua’s eyes when Hisoka starts making…innappropriate…noises during the fight scenes

(Hisoka low-key writing reader insert lemons about various MCU heroes. Most likely Natasha (because she’s a lot like Machi, his only female crush so far), Bruce (how Hisoka would love to unleash the beast), Thor (he’s a literal GOD imagine how badly he could mess Hisoka up *schwing*), Wanda, and Vision (he probably liked Loki too before Loki got beat up by the Hulk and Hisoka was like ‘oh I have a new senpai’)

Then Illumi gets Milluki (his tech genius little brother) to hack into Hisoka’s computer for info and is like 'what is this Hisoka I do not understand why you derive pleasure from this trash’)

Everyone thinks Gon should relate to Tony on a personal level but he doesn’t, because despite being a sunshine angel he’s also a freaking weird kid who doesn’t hate Ging. At all. (Though that might have something to do with the fact that he doesn’t even consider Ging his parent in the first place; he never even calls him 'dad’ or 'my father’)

Killua, on the other hand, relates to Bucky a bit too much and thinks HYDRA is basically the Zoldyck family.

Everybody’s Team Cap except for Illumi, who’s Team Iron Man (“Why would you want to break the rules?”), and then Hisoka randomly shows up like 'Team Hulk ;)’

Every time Howard Stark is mentioned everyone just stares at Ging, who shifts uncomfortably

(Yeah did I tell you about the time Leorio punched Ging for being a trash dad?)

OMG. Thank you for that. I’ve seen a lot of 'Hisoka as the clown from the 'It’ movie’ posts on tumblr but never any fanart for that idea. Run, Gon. Run.

I’m considering teaching myself to animate just to make those animatics XD

(Also, random thing: it’s Chuseok over here (basically like the Korean version of Thanksgiving, I guess?) and usually, people recieve money from older relatives during holidays like this in Korea. I got about 80 dollars (50 from my maternal grandparents, 10 from my paternal grandfather and 20 from my uncle) so I’m debating on what to spend it on: It’s either a tablet so I can learn how to do digital art (I’m thinking about polishing my drawing skills for a while and then making a webcomic. My parents support this so they’re willing to pay a little extra for a tablet) or a ukulele (I like the piano but I realized a while ago that it’d be great to have an instrument that I can carry around, so I did some research and the ukulele seems good. I really like the sound so I’m willing to put some effort into learning it). Idk which one I should choose, though. Technically the tablet should be my priority but I also like the ukulele…

(and idek why I mentioned this either, guess the talk about animating reminded me of the tablet lol))

I thrive on angst. Tragedy fuels me. (But tbh HxH is a LOT darker than I was prepared for. I’m currently shipping an ant king with a genius human girl and I know from spoilers that they’re both going to die)

Yeah, she’s alive :D but apparently Kaneki is now 'dead’ (though I don’t think he is really, if Ishida kills him off now (after all the stuff with Hide? All the character development Ken hasn’t gotten yet? When he still hasn’t talked about anything with Shuu or Hinami or even Akira?) and gives us a new protagonist or something I might finally rage-quit this series.

Or not, since with all the Touken stuff and Kaneki being sorta insensitive ever since he became the OEK…maybe a new protagonist is what we need?). I was liking all the parallels with Arima in the first series until this, because it was just…um. I think my main problem with the whole thing is the freakng PACING because it just feels so clunky and awkward. This is probably one of those chapters that will be really good if Ishida somehow manages to connect it with the next chapters and has everything make sense later, but if he doesn’t do it well it’s going to suck forever OTL

At least TG finally confirmed Naki’s death, though. I mean, the ideal situation for me is if he never died in the first place, but at least a confirmed death is better than Ishida suddenly bringing him back to life after that panel with Yamori. And his death scene was handled well. (Now please just tell me that he, Kanae and Hairu aren’t coming back as Kanou-Furuta zombies and I will be semi-satisfied)

Also AOT if you haven’t read the new chapter yet spoilers but

(The-Reiner-Eren reunion I HAVE WAITED SO. LONG FOR THIS

Also Eren’s grandad ;-;

And maybe we’ll finally be seeing Annie again soon since she’s been appearing in so many flashbacks and Reiner’s probably going to ask about her if he and Eren get to actually talk

Love those hints about something finally starting to change

ANOTHER PERSON FROM MIKASA’S CLAN? I hope we see this lady again, she’s lovely

I can’t believe how much the art has improved, it actually looks GOOD now 0.0)

Aw, that’s ok! I’ll be looking forward to seeing it when you get a new skirt :D

Yeah, I’m really excited for OC’s name too…must be something important if they’re keeping it hidden for this long. I guess it’s French (or a word from some other non-English language) since 'Ciel’ is French for 'Sky’…and it probably has a meaning related to the sky since they’re twins. Idk. Maybe it’s the word for 'star’ ('etoile’) since stars are also a big thing in this arc?

Looking forward to your reaction! I haven’t read the novel yet but from what I know it sounds great :D (also I cannot resist the L + Naomi duo even if they never actually interacted in manga/anime canon)

Btw, is it ok if I ask how far you’ve gotten with the DN anime?

(Also fun fact: Ryuk was originally designed to look like a handsome young man (an 'attractive rock star’, in the words of DN’s creators. You can find a pic of his original design on google). His design was changed because the creators felt like he was overshadowing Light XD

But also, I just found a post on tumblr that said Takeshi Obata (DN’s artist) mentioned that Ryuk’s face in canon could just be a mask to hide his true appearance…which means that he could technically still look like that in canon. Wow. I actually think I have the book where it says Obata mentioned that, I have to go and check it now lol)

Watch it if you dare and prepare to weep over all the wasted potential, because now that I read/watch more about it I guess the saddest thing is that it COULD have been great. I mean, like I said, the visuals are REALLY good, L’s actor could have been a good L if not for the bad script, Ryuk’s actor/design were also super great (it’s just his role in the movie and his motivations they messed up ;-;)…

I don’t watch Avatar (I’d like to when I have the time, though, because it seems like a great show) but I’ve heard of that movie and tbh I can’t even.

Ty :D (Ayy the queen said I’d make a cute Peridot *fangirls*

You’re also my closest friend right now and I love talking to you so much <3 thank you for everything Luna.)

See this is why you’re awesome. Thank you so much ;-; (and what, did Queen Luna mention me to her parents. Did I make a good impression. Omg. (jk, jk lol))

Also: I’d like to rec a song to you, it’s called 'Lovely’ by Twenty One Pilots :D

Oh look I actually replied within a week :’)

OK ILL START W DISORD BC IM EXCITE. I already have one, from a while ago, my # is 5773! So add me whenever you want ^^ ((But please just send me a short message here, cause I turned notifs off for it, so i can turn them on again ^^)) Well, uh, here’s the thing about short messages.  If a site/app has an instant message feature, you can bet I’ll be the one to split a sentence into 10 separate messages for dramatic effect… So, uh, prepare to have 42 new messages instead of like 4 waiting when you open the app ^^

I never ever ever have any problems with listening to you. I just appreciate you’re comfortable enough with me to be able to come to me. Honestly, I truly appreciate you in my life, especially considering that you can always reassure me with your words ^^ Truly a writer’s talent :p

Well, I’m going to a psychologist soon, so we’ll see what they’ll say. Idk tho, I dont think I even care anymore. I just want this stomach thing to pass as soon as possible.

Ouch, I hope your sister is better now… I’ve never broken anything so I wouldn’t know the feeling. Aww, coaches getting married is actually the cutest thing ever XD My archery coach got married a few years back and she was practically glowing.  Ah, if you don’t mind me asking, do you have a particular stroke you specialise in or do you just swim everything? 

I could say the same about comic/manga styles. Tbh, I don’t really consider myself a comic fan? When I was a kid, I used to buy the children’s comics to ward off boredom, but never really continued after I got into reading actual books. Black Panther happened to be among those comics and I remembered him when they mentioned T’Challa in CW. I wonder if i still have those old comics somewhere… But yeah, i was pretty excited when they mentioned him XD

That viewing actually sounds amazing… I get the feeling they’d all want to do an in depth analyzation of the characters? (But idk i don’t really know the characters that well) except for Hisoka, who’s probably just schwinging around being creepy per usual. I’m torn between wanting to read those lemons and just backing the fuck away…. Probably read like a paragraph and then set everything on fire. Yeah, that sounds good. 

I presume you’re not gonna watch IT? Random, but i thought of it bc of the fanart… Tbh I won’t watch it either. I’ve never watched a single horror movie in my life and i intend to keep it that way. Unless you count Coraline as horror, which I actually would in some ways? Idk tho, that movie traumatised me. Not even joking when I say I occasionally have nightmares related to it. Advice; if you haven’t, DO NOT WATCH CORALINE. Don’t be fooled by the fact that it’s a cartoon. I mean 9 is a cartoon, but it’s also freaking dark. HAPPY TREE FRIENDS IS A CARTOON AND I WOULDNT TOUCH THE VIDEOS WITH A 9 FOOT POLE.  Long story short, cartoons are not a joke.

For some reason I confused the Ukulele with a Lute and was like ‘I’m not gonna judge, but… why?’ then i actually googled it and realised I’m an idiot.  But, um, I can’t say anything other than it’s your choice and you should do whatever would make you happier? There’s that trick of throwing a penny in the air and if you’re disappointed when it lands heads/tails, you know you want the other one. Idk, tho, both options sound equally nice!

… HxH gets weirder every time you tell me about it

KANEKI IS WHAT NOW Um, okay then.... alrighty...

guess who dropped TG again

WELL FUCK IM SCREAMING ABOUT THE NEW CHAPTER WHOAH EREN’T GRAMPA WHOAH THE REUNION However, the best part is Reiner acting like a dad during the festival

Oooh Etoile would be interesting!

I’m still at the ep where L dies ;-; I haven’t had the time to move forward, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to watch some during this weekend

Well, uh. My mom came into my room while I was writing this and had to ask me why i was crying (I’m pretty sure she thought I was having one of my all-time-lows again). The reason why I was actually crying? The song. Words can’t express my gratitude. I’d download it, but tbh I feel like I’ll start ugly sobbing again every time I listen to it...

random note, i started going to school by train! It’s actually a lot nicer than the bus and cheaper XD Idk why i put this here but yay

[midorichan10]

Last Game Summary *MAJOR SPOILERS*

MAJOR SPOILERS! If you don’t want to be spoiled about Last Game just don’t read this. Also, for those who are gonna spazz and post about the summary PLEASE DON’T SPOIL FOR OTHERS WHO DON’T WISH TO BE SPOILED. (There are people trust me). If you are gonna post about Last Game please use the hashtag #last game spoilers so people can block it. Thank you.

The show I went to had the liveviewing for the seiyuu greetings as well so I’ll write a bit of that after this.

Now if you want to be spoiled, please continue!!

I’ll start off with some basics. Granted being an anime adaptation they had to cut some scenes from the manga, such as Seirin practicing in the beginning so we don’t see the new first years, Akashi talking with everyone about Bokushi coming back, Riko talking about the issue with their teamwork, Kise and Kagami freaking out over Kuroko missing, Nijimura at the end (I WANTED TO SEE NIJIMURA), the “fillers” as I would call them. But I guess with the time limit they had to cut those ;n;

But now I understand the “original story” concept they added and why it’s called “Last Game” rather than “Extra Game”

Okay actual movie report. I had to try to memorize almost 3 hours worth of stuff (Movie & greetings) so I apologize if I don’t include everything but I’ll try my best.

Movie opens up with Kagami transferring to his middle school in Japan after moving back from America and joining the basketball club. He makes a dunk and accidentally knocks down someone in the process. Much like his current self, he extends a hand and apologizes as he tries to help the guy up, but the guy comments how he saw how Kagami’s face looked like he’s playing as if he was bored. Time progresses and people note how Kagami is always alone at school because the basketball club doesn’t like him. Kagami looks out a window saying it’s boring and he wants someone to do something about it.

Scene then cuts to the current time where it’s hot in the summer as Kagami walks to Seirin. Then we see Kuroko was actually behind him with Nigou in his bag saying it was his turn today to take care of Nigou. Kagami then gets a call from Alex but we don’t hear the conversation. Then we see Alex and an American coach who praises how good of a player Kagami is. Alex responds by she guarantees Kagami loves basketball more than anyone. The coach asks her if he can be expecting a “good answer” from Kagami.

Kagami and Kuroko arrive at Seirin (late of course) just before the Team Strky match begins. The news introduces Jabberwock on the screen. Seirin talks about how amazing it is for Kagetora to guide them and that’s how Hyuuga and Riko got live tickets for the exhibition match. Izuki mutters if things are “going well” for those two and Koganei mentally tells Hyuuga to be a man and “clutch” her heart. At the court, Hyuuga sneezes. XD  We see the rest of the GoM and their teams excited for the match too. Yosen in particular died seeing Okamura’s new hair haha. Hyuuga has a quick flashback to a phonecall with Kiyoshi (who’s at a hospital for rehab) how Kiyoshi’s heard of Jabberwock but has heard many bad rumors about them which Hyuuga then grows worried.

The match between Jabberwork and Team Strky begins. The animation for this was insane. Team Strky starts off strong and each member gets a turn in the spotlight, though Kasamatsu and Imayoshi get a bit more naturally. Then Jabberwork was super fast and seeing them making of fun of Team Strky was really heartbreaking. Kasamatsu offers to shake hands despite the loss but Nash takes the chance to make fun of everyone as we all know then spits in Kasamatsu’s hand. Kagetora proposes the revenge match which we all know who the members are.

The GoM arrive at the gym commenting how they never thought this would happen again. Unlike the manga where most of them were bickering with each other over Interhigh they cut that part out and just had them greet each other calmly. Kise asks Kagetora if those two were coming and he replies of course. Akashi comments how they were the ones who beat them so how could they not. Kuroko and Kagami then arrive which Momoi immediately glomp tackles Kuroko. Hyuuga, Takao, and Wakamatsu arrive as well as the bench members. They even had the scene where Hyuuga questions himself if it was okay to be there and Akashi reads his mind and tells him he’s more than welcome XD. They show a bit of the GoM practicing, like a quick scene for each character, then it cuts to the day before the match. Kagetora tells Riko and Momoi he’s going to Roppongi to watch over Jabberwocks to prevent them from going crazy which Riko worries. These scenes are pretty much teh same as the manga. Kuroko overhears Kagetora and Riko’s conversation. Kise then asks Kagami to have a one on one match. Aomine asks if anyone’s seen Kuroko and Midorima says he hasn’t been seeen since Kagetora left, which Kise and Kagami look at them blankly.

Jabberwocks are at a club and sees Kagetora arrive asking why he was there. Then they see Kuroko which Kagetora freaks out asking why he was there. (All in Japanese) Kuroko confronts Jabberwock in the same way as the manga. For censorship reasons, instead of a punch to the face Nash kicks Kuroko in the stomach before the GoM arrives. (Oh yeah they had the running scene before commenting how Kuroko is so reckless, unpredictable, etc). Akashi stops Aomine and Kagami before a fight breaks out and tells them to save it for the match as Kuroko wishes (same as the manga) and they start to leave. Jabberwock makes fun of them for chickening out which Akashi retorts back in ENGLISH, “Shut up you scum! You guys better be ready to lose. We’re gonna mop the floor with you tomorrow.”

The next day is the actual match. Seirin comments how they’re playing in a stadium which Izuki replies that Jabberwork made fun of basketball for not only Team Strky, but the entire country. So of course many people are going to come to watch the match. All the other schools are watching as well. Mayuzumi comes in too later in the match (and he talks! He just provides random commentary every now and then) The stadium is decorated with Jabberwock and Vorpal Sword banners everywhere and on the monitor it shows the Vorpal Swords member info much like the first promo they did. (It’s the same picture for Akashi as my icon for those who can’t remember which one).  Silver says in English “Hey you babies! Did you remember to put on your diapers??” The match for the most part follows the manga so I won’t go too much into detail. (ALso I just don’t remember every single thing about it or that’s worth nothing). VS starts off strong until Jabberwock starts taking them seriously. For more details on the match please just read the manga as it follows most of that, if not all. They did include all the big points though, such as Midorima’s 3 pointers, Kise and Aomine team play, Kagami teaming up with Aomine and Mukkun, Kise going into the Zone, the short Kise and Aomine Teiko flashback with Momoi crying, Aomine vs Silver, Akashi vs Nash and his Devil Eye, oh yeah BOKUSHI. Mayuzumi comments how even with Emperor Eye, Akashi was still being pushed back. They did include the scene of Kise talking to Kasamatsu telling him to win for the sake of their hard work so far and Okamura teaching Mukkun after Winter Cup. They also included Akashi and Midorima’s miracle play (same as Takao). Takao comments how he knows what’s gonna happen and he’s amazed but also frustrated at the same time. He seemed a bit sad about it ;w; Mukkun breaks his wrist like in the manga and Kuroko takes over. KUROKO WAS PISSEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD DAMN KUROKO YOU SCARY. For Kuroko’s comeback after switching with Mukkun, they played a new insert song, “Against the Wind” by no other than Ono Kensho! Bokushi’s farewell was done quite well. If you remember the original Yu-Gi-Oh and how you often saw a transparent Yugi talking to Yami Yugi it was similar to that. Bokushi was playing as he was talking to Oreshi who was transparent next to him, saying he needs to disappear for the Emperor Eye to be complete. Oreshi’s heartbroken face was a stab right to your own heart *sobs* As Bokushi says farewell and thank you, their fingers are briefly partly locked together before Oreshi walks away letting go of Bokushi. (Oh for you fans out there this time theyr’e actually naked). Mayuzumi notices Akashi’s change. Akashi makes use of his fully developed Emperor Eye and VS attacks Jabberwock with less than 30 sec remaining. They manage to narrow it to down by 1 point and as we know, Kuroko steals the ball and Aomine and Kagami finish it up. So very similar to the manga just much better because the ANIMATION IS AMAZING ESPECIALLY FOR KISE’S SCENES OR ANY SCENE WITH TEH ZONE.  Vorpal Swords win and everyone is happy. Mayuzumi also smiled! 

Kagetora throws them a party at his gym where he’s drunk and tells everyone to drink up! Hyuuga tells him that they’re only high schoolers but Kagetora tells them juice is okay! Momoi comments how Kagetora likes to spend money and Riko gets embarrassed asking her to forget about it. The GoM are together enjoying all the junk food (including Akashi) and Kise says he wonders what news Kagami has to say. (Oh yeah the Seirin first year trio is there too. Oh should say second year trio now). Kagami and Kuroko are seen alone in a different room looking out the window. Then we see the two of them talking with Seirin. Kagami announces he’s going back to America. They ask if it’s like the time he went back for training but Kagami says it’s different. He’s been recruited to a very good high school and will work to become an NBA player. Everyone in Seirin is shocked and tells Kuroko to say something about it (who all this time has had a sad expression). Then they ask if Kuroko knew about it the entire time and Kuroko answers yes because he was coincidentally there when Kagami got the call from Alex. Seirin was sad but they tell Kagami that they’ll support his decision. THe GoM then comes out having overheard everything. Kise comments how he noticed Kagami was acting a bit weird. Aomine sulks saying HE should be the one recruited to which Midorima asks him since when did he become “number one.?” . Everyone else in their own way expresses their happiness for kagami. Akashi tells Kagami that the GoM gives their support to him and thanks him for the matches they played against him . Akashi also says that Kagami was not only their best rival, but also their best friend.  Akashi suggests it’d be sad for Kagami to just leave like that and as the GoM they’ve already had the greatest match with Kagami, so as a farewell present for Seirin he suggests one last match. Seirin vs the GoM. Everyone is shocked and Akashi assures them he’s already prepared their uniforms in which Koganei screams “HOW FAR CAN YOU SEE INTO THE FUTURE?!?!?” Seirin asks if they’re okay playing a match and the GoM assures they have enough strength to play another game and Kise says if necessary they can use the subs (Wakamatsu and Takao) and Seirin could change out too.  We see them on the court for the Tip Off (GoM is in their VS uniforms and Seirin in their school ones) but we don’t know the outcome. Yes even Mukkun decided to play with one arm.....XD;

Then we see Kagami and Seirin at the airport. Kagami politely thanks them and he’ll do his best and becoming an NBA player will be easy for him and shakes hand with Kuroko. Being quite formal about it. Kuroko thanks Kagami and wishes him luck. As Kagami lines up to go through the gate, he starts to regret not thanking Kuroko properly and leaving with just a handshake. He runs back just as Kuroko was leaving and yells at Kuroko that he was wrong and lied and that he realized that becoming a pro is going to be difficult and he’ll struggle and that Kuroko has done so much for him and that HE was the one should be thanking Kuroko and starts crying. Kuroko with his back towards him, wipes his eyes and turns to him and says “Well of course there’s going to be obstacles. Did you really think that you could become a pro THAT easily? Struggle more” Kagami is a bit shocked that Kuroko was talking to him like that, but then Kuroko says that if it’s Kagami he can overcome them. Kuroko also starts tearing up and raises his hand in a fistbump saying he’ll always be Kagami’s shadow. Kagami smiles back and raises his fist back at him and the scene/movie ends with the two of them smiling with their fists out as they stood apart.

THE END. TIME FOR GRANRODEO’S NEW SONG IN THE CREDITS

Okay not the end. After the credits there was a short post-scene.

We see an airplane flying away and Kise says “So he’s gone huh....?”. We see the GoM together on a bench watching the plane depart outside somewhere . Mukkun says “So that means we’ll never play against Kagami again?” And Aomine  says “No way” and Midorima agrees. Aomine declares he’ll go to America. Kise asks if it’s to see Kagami and Aomine says “Of course not, BAKA! I’m gonna become an NBA player!” Kise asks when and Aomine responds that he doens’t know yet but it’ll be soon. They ask what did Midorima mean (about fighting against Kagami) and Midorima smiles and says that it’s pretty much a given that they’re all going to continue playing basketball. Akashi smiles and agrees and says that only the stage has changed and that as long as they play basketball they’ll be able to fight Kagami again. We see Kuroko running and smiling as he meets back up with Seirin who were waiting outside for him.

The ending card is very similar to the photo of Seirin winning Winter Cup. All of the Vorpal Swords members are on the court smiling raising fist bumps with a giant banner that says “Vorpal Swords,” including Kagetora, Riko, Momoi, Hyuuga, Takao, and Wakamatsu.

UPDATE: Added a bit more to the ending scenes since I saw it a second time

[onlyfools-fall-foryou]

So I wrote for the school magazine but this was never published because we ran out of time. Long story. Just gonna post this here.

Lina’s Completely Self-Indulgent To-do List for You and Me

Most of these listed items are pretty mature. By that, I mean high school and older.

Upcoming Movies: Dunkirk Why don’t we just watch all of Christopher Nolan’s movies while we’re at it? Dunkirk is, yes, another WWII movie on the side of the Allies, but it’s a Nolan film, so I’m not complaining. Nobody’s complaining. Like Nolan films, it’s incredibly star-studded, with his usual Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy etc. Nolan really hasn’t given away anything by his short and simple trailers, other than what people already know about the Battle of Dunkirk. (Spoilers, they get rescued.) Release Date: July 21, USA

Spider-man: Homecoming Can I just say, I am loving new spidey. That guy is ador(k)able. Marvel is finally giving us the sassy teenage Peter that we didn’t know we needed. Release Date: July 5, Finland

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Luc Besson, director of /Leon, Nikita, and The Fifth Element/ decided to turn the futuristic sci-fi time-traveling comic series, /Valerian and Laureline,/ into a movie starring Dane DeHaan and the beautiful, beautiful Cara Delevingne. (I was slightly obsessed with Cara Delevingne in 2016.) Let’s just hope that Cara is better at acting here than she was in /Paper Towns/. Release Date: July 21, USA

Detroit From the only female director who has won the Academy Award for Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow, director of /The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty,/ comes another possibly scarring, possibly life-changing movie based on modern historical events. (By modern, I mean 50 years ago.) This time, it’s about the Algiers Motel Incident, taken place during the 1967 12th Street Riot that left three black males dead and two white females and seven black males brutally beaten by the police. Remember when I said this would be scarring? It stars John Boyega and many other beauties. Release Date: August 4, USA

The Dark Tower This is the beginning of a possible movie franchise adapted from Stephen King’s novel series of the same name. Starring Idris Elba as our formidable hero and Matthew McConaughey as our mysterious villain. If you’ve read any Stephen King or seen any adaptations, notably I’ve seen /The Mist,/ you know they’re chilling and terrifying and scarring. Watch with caution. Release Date: August 4, USA

Movies If you’re a nerd who likes to spend most of their life in a screen like me, just invest in a Netflix account (unfortunately, I get nothing out of this promo). And, all the Netflix original shows are top notch because Netflix goes all out on their shows. (Edit: DON’T TRUST NETFLIX. THEY MIGHT CANCEL YOUR FAVOURITE SHOW.)

Patriots Day (2016) It’s about the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings. Apparently watching it the first time around is the best, according to my brother who watched it twice. For the first 20 minutes or so, you’re so tense because it’s just people getting ready for the marathon and you know what’s about to happen. That was interesting, because the movie did try to tense us up, but it didn’t try that hard. It was mostly our knowledge of the bombings that did most of the work. Most of the characters are real people, except for the main character played by Mark Wahlberg, who is fictional. It leaves you sweating from your pores (and tear ducts) at the end of the movie so drink some water before starting.

Moulin Rouge! (2001) If you’re into music, beautiful people dancing and singing, renditions of pop songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Like a Virgin,” you should watch this sort of rom-com/rom-tragedy starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman. Go read my other article on page * for some extra info.

Inglourious Basterds (2009) Glorious cinematography. Glorious deaths. Glorious acting. The opening scene is pure gold. It’s one of those scenes you get completely lost in. It also gets you sweating from your pores. Everything from the cinematography and the acting and the set and music and everything is just so well done. Everyone who has seen this scene knows what I’m talking about. And of course, Mélanie Laurent is (one of) the main character(s) so that’s a lot of, em, eye cleansing.

Twilight (2008) Just kidding.

TV The Get Down Go read my other article on page *. Tl;dr: About the origin of hip hop in 1977 Bronx told around beautiful brown young adults with voices of angels.

Lost You have probably head of /Lost/, whether it’s something good or bad. Lost is infamous for its bad ending, which, I don’t think is that bad, but who cares about an ending when everything else is good? The premise is, a bunch of people were on a plane going from Sydney to LA but it crashes on an island. For the first couple episodes, you might think it’s just another survival show, but boy you are wrong. The episodes vary from present to flashback, the centric-character changing every episode. Try not to cringe too hard as Daniel Dae Kim completely ruins the Korean language. Lost is one of the shows I only watch when I have a lot of time because it and its soundtrack completely emotionally ruins me.

Books Sorry, this list may be shorter than the others because I shamefully admit, I don’t read as much as I watch. (Stop judging me, I know my brain cells are dying.)

Harry Potter Need I say more? If you haven’t read Harry Potter, where have you been and where is your integrity?

13 Reasons Why I read this book in the summer of 2015 and it was one of those books I couldn’t put down, not because it was so fun to read, but because my stomach was shaking with uncomfortable angst and I had to get it over with in order for my life to move on. It’s about a teenage boy who gets a mysterious tape one day. On the tape is a recording that a sort-of-friend/ex-crush, Hannah, made before she killed herself. The thirteen reasons are, yes, why she killed herself and are directed at 12 people in total (it goes to a person twice). It deals with some pretty mature content like sex, sexual assault, and obviously suicide. I think I was a little young to understand the book to its full potential, because the book is heavily about the relationship of Hannah and everyone around her and I didn’t realize relationships were so hard at the time.

Percy Jackson Yes, I can hear you snickering about how big of a nerd I am. I admit, I was obsessed with Percy Jackson, still low-key am, but to be fair, so was my mom! Whenever we would get a new book, my mom, brother, and I would pass it around none too patiently. Percy Jackson is definitely more for younger kids, i.e. middle school, because the level of darkness and death sort of stays the same throughout, unlike Harry Potter that matures along with us, becoming darker and darker. If you don’t know who Percy Jackson is, he’s the son of a mortal and Poseidon. He then struggles to save the world every book. The series really educates you in a fun way on Greek (and later, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, and who knows what next) mythology and it’s fun to see how the writer portrayed his Godly characters. It’s just a really, really fun read. Another perk is Rick Riordan seems to keep writing books, so the series doesn’t seem to ever end.

Music

Hamilton If you’re into American history, people of color, hip-hop, bromance, and death, listen to this amazing cast album of Hamilton: An American Musical (or watch the bootleg). Basically the story of Alexander Hamilton’s life, through childhood in the Caribbeans, coming to New York where dreams are made of, the American Revolution, trying to set up a government and finally his death. Will you become a non-functioning human for a couple days while you finish it? Yes. Will you start violently sobbing when you hear the name John Laurens? Yes. Will you start breaking into song and rap when you know you can’t sing or rap? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.

Harry Styles Following the classic tradition of naming your debut album after yourself, Harry Styles comes back to the music industry with this album that is completely different from One Direction (before they started writing their own songs, so this album more like MITAM). After a year (and a half) of being in the new Nolan movie (life goals right there mm mm.) and chilling in the Caribbeans, he randomly dropped news of his single “Sign of the Times” and the rest of his album in April. The album is like a time capsule from the 2007s with a mix of the 1970-80s, giving off rock god and sappy indie breakup band vibes at the same time. I’m actually listening to it as I’m writing this right now, and gosh it is good. It’s Harry doing everything he couldn’t do in a band, every song has him straining his vocal cords and (*wipes away proud tear*) you can just imagine him jumping around stage and having the time of his life.

Other

Duolingo.com (Like I said, I get 0 money out of this.) Duolingo is a website for, you may have guessed it from “duo” and “lingo,” learning languages. It’s completely free, these people don’t even require you to “upgrade your account” to do all the languages. There are most of the European languages, some Asian languages like Vietnamese (Japanese and Korean etc are in progress), Swahili, and Klingon (in progress). You can choose how seriously you want to learn and set your daily XP goal. It sends you an email and application notification so you don’t forget (but of course you can turn it off) and there’s an app too. If you do it intensively (really intensively, like a couple hundred XPs a day), I think finishing a language course during the summer is possible. It’s such a good and wholeful website/app. I’m currently learning Norwegian so if anyone wants to join, halla at me!

Learn How to Box Finally, a non-nerd item on this list! More broadly, get in the habit of working out. Whatever we’re going to do in the future, we need the stamina for it, even if you’re just going to sit at a desk all day. I’m only putting boxing up there as an example because it’s fun and it makes you feel powerful. Not that I’m an expert or anything, I did like four months and quit (lol) but I still work out in various ways. Grab a friend and convince them to go with you. Working up a sweat, even for a short time, generally makes you happy. I don’t know how much this applies to other people, but personally, I spend my workout minutes giggling most of the time. When I’m doing something really challenging, I start manically laughing. This is also an excuse for you to get your mom to let you out of the horrible cycle of hagwons and tutors!

[auideas]

Ask the Admins 12.0

Anon asked: Jynn, how much are your commissions? How much money do you need left?

Jynn: My prices are super flexible just bc I’m super desperate right now. The deadline for my getting a car was moved back slightly but I’ve only received about $50 in donations since the post was made. The situation I’m in right now is that I’m allowed to use my parents car to get to work… as long as I’m staying at their house while I’m using it. You can find more info on pricing on the services page of my original content blog: @jynnisloriginal

Anon asked: Is your NSFW blog ever going to come back :^( ?

Chamomile: Maybe? I have ideas for it, but I’m not comfortable with running the blog. It would take a lot of work to get in touch with the old admins, get new admins, clean up the blog, get tags set up, have enough posts in the queue to start it up…maybe we’ll make it a summer project when we have the time.

M: Welllllll, I was never really an admin on it in the first place (mainly did coding & general management), but if there’s an interest for it to return, we could open up applications for new admins

@genosha-meiuqer asked: Which Never Book quote do you think most represents who you are?

Chamomile: “Tea should always be enjoyed in the presence of good company.”

M: “He’s like faraway thunder: a soothing rumble in the distance that promises fiery destruction.”

Syren: “Believing is my flying.”

Jynn: “I am but a humble witch who loves cereal.”

Anon asked: If your car could talk, what do you think it would tell you?

Chamomile: “I was once owned by the US Government but now I shuttle a tired college student who swears way too much at other drivers.”

M: halp.

Syren: CHANGE MY GOSH DARN OIL

Jynn: “Kill me.”

Anon asked: Imagine the pain someone in a poly relationship would be in if all of their lovers suddenly didn’t love them anymore. Any prompts for that?

Chamomile: or…..consider this. Everybody is in love and it’s all okay. It was a really bad dream and Character A is able to turn over in bed and snuggle into Character B’s back while Character C absently murmurs words of “it’s okay…you’re okay…” to Character A.  

Anon asked: omg how do you come up with such amazing aus??????/

Chamomile: I have anxiety and I use AU sh*tposting as a coping method

M: I made a deal with several witches of a bloodcult. Long story.

Syren: I can see into other universes, so I just take real stories I see happening and write them down. Duh.

Jynn: Inspiration from real life!

Anon asked: Did Vox go poof?

Chamomile: Yeah, unfortunately.

Anon asked: What do you think when people say asexual is the same thing as aromantic?

Chamomile: Just calmly explain the difference so that they understand. It took me forever to learn all the LGBTQ+ terms (and I’m still learning) so it’s good to be patient with people.

M: I still say that they are two very different things, regardless of what people might think or say. Romantic attraction and sexual attraction are fundamentally different.

Syren: I definitely think they’re not the same thing. It seems pretty cut and dry to me, but I guess it’s just harder for some people to understand?

Jynn: I think they’re misinformed. I’m asexual, and even I used to have that misconception when I was younger.

Anon asked: Can you dig Elvis?

Chamomile: no.

M: Is dug.

Syren: …….. I can dig Elvis. *violent flashback to That Fic* Why would you do this

Jynn: I can dig the King baby.

Anon asked: Gandalf or Dumbledore?

Chamomile: Dumbledore

M: Gandalf

Syren: Gandalfff

Jynn: I’ve never read LOTR so can’t make the call.

Anon asked: For May’s AtA: Gurry, Geno, and I are graduating in the 15th, so out of curiosity, I was wondering if any of you had some fond memories of your graduations. If you don’t mind sharing, of course.

Chamomile: Okay so I mix up words and letter orders a lot, so when I was ordering my graduation gown, instead of writing down 5’6” and 160lbs, I wrote down 6’5” and 160lbs. So my gown comes in and it’s GINORMOUS and I had to hem it the best that I could, but in all of my graduation pictures, it looks like i’m being swallowed up by my gown. It was also a really sad-sweet experience for me? My final school was the longest I had ever attended one school (3 years), so there was a lot of crying and laughing with my friends. (I graduated on a Friday and packed up my things to move to Texas on Sunday morning, so you know, it was a //very// tearful Saturday with my friends)

M: Well, I didn’t particularly like high school, so my fond memories of graduation included being able to leave :/

Syren: I’m a junior, so I don’t have memories of that yet :( But at my sister’s a few years ago, we all had to go through metal detectors and get searched cause there was a rumored shooting

Jynn: Just graduating was a miracle for me honestly. I finished school on homebound and it took an extra year for me to graduate, so I had to watch my class walk without me. My teacher did pull some strings, and I did get to walk with the next class a year later when I never thought I’d get to at all. Our school colors were blue and white and I had a white gown, so I made myself memorable by dying my hair bright blue the day before the ceremony.

Anon asked: Are any of you single?? 😍😍😍

Chamomile: I’m not single! We’re celebrating our 6th month anniversary this week.

M: Uh, well, technically yes. (It’s a bit complicated, to be completely honest…)

Syren: Yup! I am also a wee 17 y/o with no interest in getting a gf just yet

Jynn: Happily taken!

Anon asked: Do the admins have jobs? If so, what do you do?

Chamomile: I have my new coffee shop job! I also do nannying.

M: I worked in IT up until recently, and before that I worked for a butlering / catering service and did freelance voice acting work (which I still do on the side now). I’m hoping to snag something for the summer, so crossing fingers on that one!

Syren: I work at a daycare for a few hours after school every day, and it’s the best job ever. The kid’s are amazing and hilarious, and working there has honestly made me understand so much more why some kids turn out to be d-bags as teens.

Jynn: I have two part time jobs. I’m a game master at an escape room, which I absolutely love, and a lifeguard at a school affiliated wellness center. I also do a bit of modeling and general management product promotion. Trying to get back into voice work atm too!

@thechubbyballerina asked: @admin chamomile, what is the weirdest thing that’s happened at the coffee shop?

Chamomile: So far, nothing much has happened, but I did accidentally get locked out while taking out the trash and I had to call the other night worker (who was in the office doing money counting) to come let me back inside. Not sure if that counts as weird, but it was raining and like, 10pm

Anon asked: Do you work in a small family owned coffee shop or a commercial kind (like Starbucks)?

Chamomile: it’s a family coffee shop inside of a larger restaurant! Sometimes I have to double as a waitress, but mostly I’m just making coffees and selling pastries.

Anon asked: my friend and i saw admin m's personal blog profile pic and we're a lil bit obsessed [[😬]] are they still single?? we know they were sometime before but can't remember (asking for a friend obvs hahahaaa 😅 plsbesingle)

M: Oh uh, thanks, I guess! (?) Like I said before, I’m technically single, yeah.

(P.S. What’s up with all the admin love lately? It’s not like we mind, but we haven’t done anything special lately…)