#if you want a timestamp: after the first character dies you can expect it all to happen very quickly in a montage

[shireduchess]

i’m more than halfway through The Sandman (it’s excellent so far), but i thought i would make a psa as i haven’t seen one yet about the intense trigger warnings in episode 5: 24/7. as someone going into the show blind, i definitely could have used a heads up about what that particular episode contains, especially in the second half.

the episode takes place in a 24 hour diner where john dee makes the customers and staff share their honest feelings with each other; while masterfully done, it is an intense horror episode. while the captions do depict the show’s general (and accurate) content warnings at the start of the episode, there’s no way of knowing how much will entail, so~

trigger warnings for episode 5 consist of: realistic body horror, graphic self-mutilation involving knives and toolbox contents, suicide, explicit gore, large amounts of blood, eye horror

(there is also a mention of sex that could be construed of as pedophilia, though it is clarified very quickly that it is not; however, the delivery of it came as a quick shock) 

[labarch]

Attempt at a Witch Hat Atelier timeline

We are still missing a lot of backstory for our main cast, but I thought I’d try and write a timeline based on what we know so far, and explore where their storylines might intersect.

I am pulling these numbers out of my hat for convenience sake, but here are some approximate ages for the characters: at the start of the manga, let’s say Coco, Tetia and Agott are all 12, Riche is 11, and Qifrey and Olruggio are 28.

20-23 years ago: Olruggio leaves his birth town Godley and moves to the Great Hall, maybe as young as 5 years old.

While many witches are born in the Great Hall, Olruggio comes from a town called Godley in the North. Yet he doesn’t remember Utowin, who came from the same place. We know that young witches usually start their training between the age of 7 and 10, but since witch society is awfully elitist, Olruggio would have been sent there as soon as his talent for magic became apparent.

Being ripped from his home at an extremely young age could explain his fear of being unwanted and left behind: he overworks himself as a way to feel useful and validated, is defensive about his own feelings, and he gets agitated and sometimes aggressive whenever Qifrey hides things from him.

20 years ago: arrival of Qifrey at the Great Hall at age 8. Olruggio befriends him soon afterwards. The both of them start sneaking out at night to chase Brimhats.

8 year old Qifrey was one fierce little thing, you have to give him that. His abuse at the hands of the Brimhats was brutal enough to break a grown man, but he picks himself up and goes right after them like “Alright jerks, you’ve got some explaining to do and I want my eyeball back!”.

Also it cracks me up that Olruggio was carrying this massive book in their flashback. Gotta love that his reaction to Qifrey’s “Let’s go chase some terrorists!” was “Sure, let me just pack my homework =>”.

Finally, there might be a slightly more selfish motivation for Olruggio’s fast friendship and devotion to Qifrey. Olruggio’s self-esteem lies in his ability to help people, so he would naturally be drawn to someone helpless. It’s unclear how much of Qifrey’s memory was missing: apparently he didn’t know about birthdays. How many other basic concepts was he missing? Did he know how to read? Between that, his lack of knowledge about magic and his injury, he was probably completely dependent on Olruggio at the beginning. Given Olruggio’s wish that they go back to “the good old times” when they were always together, I am wondering whether some hidden part of him misses being essential to someone. It’s well-intentioned, but not entirely healthy, especially if he is using Qifrey as a coping mechanism for his own insecurities.

14 years ago: Olruggio and Qifrey make a pledge of (betrothal) friendship, exchange tassels and attempt the Librarian test at age 14. It is their last adventure together, but Qifrey will continue his investigations on his own, to Olruggio’s disappointment and betrayal. Qifrey starts wearing his half-tinted glasses.

In the pledge flashback, they are wearing their old tassels, but they have swapped them by the time they undertake the third test. Also, when he remembers that pledge, Olruggio says that Qifrey’s investigation “should have ended at the Tower of Books”. The tower is the last likely place where Qifrey could have found answers about his past and a non-forbidden way of getting his eye back. Olruggio probably made him promise that he would stop his search afterwards.

Beldaruit says that he thought Qifrey had given up on his search after the third test, but Olruggio tells a slightly different story. Apparently he thought Qifrey “finally stopped causing trouble” after taking in apprentices, which means he was still behaving suspiciously right up until he became a teacher. Alaira also comments on Qifrey’s interest in the Brimhats in the first volume, so clearly his investigations were common knowledge among his friends, even as an adult.

Olruggio’s anger whenever the Brimhats are mentioned would then be caused not just by his own fear of forbidden magic, but by the reminder that Qifrey broke his promise to him, and refused to leave his past behind. Naturally, Olruggio doesn’t know about Qifrey’s change in circumstances: he is no longer looking to retrieve what he lost, but trying to stop an impending threat.

Qifrey’s discoveries in the Tower of Books also seem to have renewed his disgust towards his own scar: he starts wearing glasses shortly afterwards, even though his eyesight hasn’t yet started deteriorating.

14-5 years ago: in that interval, Coco’s father dies of illness. Olruggio becomes more and more famous for his magical items, and is given the title “Shining Torch” / “Master of Lights”. His glowstone paths become widely popular, and are installed around the castle near Coco’s mom. Both Qifrey and Olruggio pass the fourth test and complete their training.

At this stage, I really doubt that Qifrey intended to become a teacher. Whatever information he found at the Tower of Books convinced him he had to stop the Brimhats’ plan. He was probably planning to complete his training and then go straight on to his quest, not really expecting to return alive.

There are also hints that this was a strained period for Qifrey and Olruggio: Olruggio mentions that he would like them to confide in each other “just like old times”, which implies that they grew more distant after the Librarian test. I’m suspecting that Qifrey was trying to slowly remove himself from Olruggio’s life, hoping Olruggio would be so famous and beloved by the time they graduated that he would forget about Qifrey and barely notice his disappearance. Qifrey’s self-esteem isn’t the best y’all.

5 years ago: Coco receives the magic picture book from Iguin at age 7 at the Silver Night Festival. The Brimhats stop showing signs of activity. Qifrey takes on his first apprentice (probably Tetia, age 7). He interrupts his investigation of the Brimhats and creates the atelier. Olruggio becomes his Watchful Eye.

We don’t know exactly how old Coco was when she got her book, but her tiny chubby face makes me think she was 6-7. Alaira also tells us in the first volume that the incident with Coco’s mother is the first sign of Brimhat activity in five years. I am thinking that after Iguin gave away the book, he instructed the other Brimhats to keep a low profile until his scheme could hatch.

I also wonder whether Coco getting her book might coincide with Qifrey becoming a teacher and creating his atelier. Given that Qifrey is probably tied to Iguin’s schemes, how coincidental is it that Qifrey wandered into Coco’s village and set her fate in motion? Perhaps Iguin contrived for them to live in the same area so that they would meet eventually. Either he somehow influenced Qifrey’s choice of location for his atelier, or he selected Coco as his “child of hope” because of her relative proximity as well as her love for magic.    

7 years old is when we could expect Tetia to have passed the first test. For now we know little about her backstory, but we can guess a few things: she is enthusiastic and ambitious, but gets easily side-tracked by pet projects and struggles to stick to the curriculum. She craves positive feedback and is worried her spells and interests will be condemned as frivolous. It makes me think that she passed her first test early, but was then mistreated by her first teachers for being too childish.

We’ve seen that Qifrey has a compulsive tendency to adopt children in distress. It would fit his character if he became a teacher on impulse. Maybe he had to pass the fifth test in a rush to be allowed to keep Tetia by his side. This also brought Olruggio back into his life, as he was the only one willing to follow him away from the atelier as Watchful Eye.

The complicity between Tetia and Qifrey, and Tetia taking on the role of a big sister for both Riche and Coco, also make me think she was Qifrey’s first apprentice. Tetia is often shown teasing Qifrey, quoting both Qifrey and Olruggio, and imitating Qifrey’s teaching style: I can totally see them as a little family of three at some point in the past.  

4 years ago: Riche starts training under her brother’s master, a creepy asshole, at age 7.

We actually have a clear timestamp for that one in chapter 25, woohoo! Riche’s old teacher can eat a brick.

3-2 years ago: Qifrey and Olruggio learn about Riche’s mistreatment in her old atelier and promptly adopt her. Beldaruit takes on Ririfin as an apprentice. Qifrey’s eyesight starts deteriorating. He adds the light protection glyph to his glasses.

Before that time, Qifrey might have intended to put his quest on hold until after Tetia’s graduation, but now his impending blindness puts him on a time limit. He can’t do a lot about it however, since the Brimhats have been keeping a low profile for years and are not leaving him any clue.

It’s unclear how long Riche stayed at her old atelier, and whether she joined Qifrey before or after Agott. I’m hoping she made it out as soon as possible.

2 years ago: Agott passes the first test at age 10. She gets accused of stealing someone else’s spell, is rejected from her prestigious family’s apprenticeship, and joins Qifrey’s atelier.

Agott has been treated harshly by her family for not being enough of a genius. She mentions passing the first test at 10, the upper end of the normal age range. She was probably given a hard time for starting her apprenticeship so “late”, which explains why she is now adamant about passing the other tests as quickly as possible.

I wonder whether she felt ambivalent about joining Qifrey’s atelier at first. On the one hand, Qifrey was taught by the Sage of Education himself and is clearly very powerful. On the other hand, he has only a couple students and lives in a weird little school in the middle of nowhere, a big fall from grace compared to her prestigious upbringing. I wonder whether Qifrey went to find her after he heard she was the object of nasty rumours (he knows a thing or two about those), and Agott didn’t feel like she had other options.

0 year ago: Coco and Qifrey meet. Iguin goes “F***ing finally, I thought I’d have to watch that humdrum one-eyed twink bake potatoes for another five years. It’s dragon-slaying time now baby!!!”  

[gallivantingheart]

Me, a Princess? Shut Up!

masterlist | previous | next

⏮️ chapter 5: anneliese ⏭️

who?: jihoon/woozi x (f)reader

word count: 2800

genre/s: fluff, humour, social media!au

warnings: mild coarse language

synopsis: Life’s pretty good for y/n. Easy, even. Until someone claiming to be her grandmother says she is the queen of a small island country - and y/n, a princess.

a/n: this one’s kinda super long-ish than usual. and a bit of a filler/character chapter, but I still hope you like it 😊

**please ignore the timestamps - they are not accurate**

TAGLIST: @strykiss, @karrotkarrotkarrot, @3sriracha​, @minkwans​, 

don’t hesitate to send an ask or dm to be added!

Soonyoung doesn’t dare kick his feet up onto the antique coffee table now that your grandmother is in the building, despite how much more comfortable it would be to. The way he reclines so deeply gives away his bad habits as he clears his throat and sits up a little better. You’re glad that Soonhee has tasked the ambassador with your princess lessons for a while. Maybe a more relaxed approach might jog your memory.

“So, where did Her Majesty get to last you did this?” He says, flipping open the photo album.

You lean forward, holding your sandwich up and away from the pages. “Uh, great grandparents. So...sixth generation.”

His brows raise. “Only sixth?”

You whine, slumping as he laughs kindly at you, empty of any maliciousness. Since the security breach, you’ve really warmed up to Soonyoung, glad to have someone closer to your age to relate to and learn from. And he’s a great teacher. Patient but firm, not to mention relentless. He told you about his travels across the country and secret stories about Amaide. They gave you a better idea of the kingdom you may end up leading.

You groan loudly - bordering a roar - after mixing up your great, great grandmother with your great grandaunt (once removed) and snap the album shut.

“Soon, spare me. My brain is seizing up.”

He laughs louder this time, eyes vanishing into his round cheeks. “Okay, okay. You’re probably right. Class dismissed.”

You get up and check your phone, noting the time. Maybe you would have enough time to catch the start of Jihoon’s radio show, if you left now. Jihoon did say he wouldn’t mind if you dropped by - inviting you even before you needed places to hide. Tonight might be a good time to? You slide your kitten heels back on, pulling out your earphones. Only now do you realise that there is a constant, soft pattering from the roof - rain. At least Junwoo was driving you everywhere now, so no risk of getting too wet. Your footsteps echo through the embassy, killing the quiet you’d become familiar with in the old building.

“So where are you headed now?” Soonyoung asks, tipping his head at the attendant who hands him his coat.

You shrug your own on, as well as a felted plaid scarf. “Uh, back to campus? I’ve got a friend I wanna visit.”

The blonde checks his watch, eyebrows shooting up into his feathery fringe. “At this time? There are still people at your college?”

“Hmmm. They have a community radio station. Jihoon has a show on Thursday nights.”

“Oh, do you want a lift?”

You slant your head at him as he detours past the front desk down a short and fairly dim hallway, elaborate alcoves set into either side of the wall.

“Sure? Only if you’re going out? Otherwise Junwoo is at my disposal, so to say.” You wave your hand in a dramatic version of your grandmother’s wave.

Soonyoung nods eagerly. “Yeah! I’m meeting up with some friends in Hongdae later on tonight, so leaving a little earlier won’t hurt. Like I told you, I’ve got nothing to do now Soonhee is catching up.”

You grin, jumping for the passenger seat of the dark car Soonyoung indicates to. Darkly tinted windows, an expectation of most cars you get in nowadays.

“So, who is Jihoon? Is he the one you posted about the other day?”

You nod, carefully not looking at him as you gesture to turn right out of the gates. “Y-yeah. Ah, he’s Mingyu’s cousin.”

You flinch at your voice, stuttered and shy. You didn’t need someone else giving you crap over Jihoon. Soon’s eyebrows raise as he purses his lips, humming in thought.

“Huh. Alright.” Okay, he so doesn’t believe you, but whatever. “That’s nice that you have such a close group of friends. They obviously know about the whole princess thing.”

“Yeah. Can’t really hide something this big from people who have known you most of your life, y’know? Grandmother doesn’t know they know though.” You insist, bouncing a little in your seat.

The rain has died down into a drizzle, almost spitting, so Soonyoung turns the heater and the wipers down. But you can already imagine the cold wet seeping into your shoes, tucking them closer to yourself.

“Of course not. Her Majesty would lose it if she knew you’d broken protocol so early on. Secret’s safe with me, I swear.”

His eyes are wide and he’s quite serious about it, a little bit more desperate than you expected him to be. You don’t dwell on it as you tell him to turn again into the east entrance, past a familiar cluster of restaurants.

When he gets to a set of bollards, you sling the door open, fashioning your scarf over your head. “This is me. Thanks Soonie!”

He grins, waving. “No worries! See you next week! Be safe!”

“You too! Night.”

Shutting the door, you dash for the first spot of dry you see, turning to wave him off.

You navigate the dark campus and get out of the lift five minutes before the start of the show. It’s only then that you question whether or not Jihoon would really want you there. You’re just his cousin’s best friend he’s really nice to, maybe a friend of his yourself. You hesitate at studio 2, shifting from foot to foot as you overthink.

“You’re more than welcome to come by and watch one of the shows if you want. Mingyu and Minghao have even been in an episode or two.” Jihoon looks up briefly to smile small.

Quickly, you open the door and claim a seat next to Bumzu, Jihoon’s director and producer for the radio show. He’s quite well known in most circles, being everyone’s music and tech go-to. You put your finger to your lips, unwrapping your scarf from your head. Somehow, Jihoon is too absorbed in prep to notice you come in.

“Ji said I could come by. I hope I’m not in the way.” You whisper, unsure of the standards in the studio.

Bumzu smiles, his rougher edges softening. He passes you another set of headphones, plugging them in. The on air sign isn’t on yet, luckily.

“Not at all. We’re just about to start. Make yourself comfortable.” he murmurs. “Jihoon, we’re good to go. Cameras are rolling.”

You look over to see Jihoon settling in in his classic sweats and slides, despite being filmed.  The host’s eyes slide to you, widening in shock. He motions to you with a wave, brows quirked. You wave shyly, smiling tentatively. The on air light above you buzzes to life and you settle, fond smile pressing at your lips. A subdued but chill jingle plays, male vocals playing to introduce the show.

“Hey everyone, it’s Woozi and welcome to tonight’s Woozi Tunes, your thursday night music fix. We’ve got new stuff from Justin Bieber and our on campus artist, Bumzu.” Jihoon says into the mic, giving a short wave to a camera.

As he chatters about this and that, his eyes slide your way, holding for prolonged amounts of time. Even Bumzu smiles, waving him off subtly. You’ve probably put him off, poor thing.

“So, first up we have Golden by Harry Styles. All thanks to his new mv, which I really recommend watching. Hope you like it.” He turns a few dials and nudges his headphones off an ear.

Jihoon looks straight at you, squinting a little as he smiles. You mirror his actions, shuffling closer while carefully staying out of the various camera shots.

“Bumzu, we’ve got four in the queue, right?”

The producer next to you nods. “Yeah, an ad segment then I’ll open the request lines. So, ten, maybe fifteen minutes till live. Studio audio has been muted.”

You don’t understand any of the small terms being thrown out around you. But you don’t care too much, bundling your scarf closer to your neck in the enclosed room for something to do.

“Y/n, I didn’t know you were coming.” Jihoon says, empty of malice.

You smile but shrug. “Yeah, I ended up finishing pr- uh, study group earlier than I expected and thought I’d drop by. I hope that’s not too much trouble.”

He shakes his head, shuffling his slides back and forth over the tightly woven grey carpet. Beats and patterns wave behind his head, turning the fluorescent halo around his hair neon.

“Not at all. I’m glad you decided to come. I hope you enjoy it.”

“I always enjoy your radio shows, Ji.” You blurt out.

Your jaw drops at your lack of filter, promptly shutting your mouth as your stomach drops and flutters. Wow, maybe Minghao is a bit right - too obvious. His brows quirk, resting his elbow on his knee.

“You listen to it?” He asks.

“Of course I do! I like you-your music taste.” You clench your teeth through your grin.

Wow, you really needed to learn how to filter your brain better. At least you don’t blush easily. You chatter back and forth about the playlist for tonight and his upcoming guests - he has Seokmin and Jeonghan, a mutual friend of Joshua’s, next week to talk musicals and teaching (how they relate, you’re not really sure). You forget Bumzu is even in the room until he gently clears his throat.

“Jihoon, you’re back on in 60.” He calls quietly.

“Oh! Oh right. Thanks, Bumzu.” Jihoon glances back to you, the tips of his ears a fairy floss pink. He’s grinning though. “Psst, do you want to talk more after the show?”

You nod, shooting a thumbs up, casting a glance back up to the time, hearing the end of a Pink Sweat$ song fade out.

He’s more charismatic over radio than you realise, leaning back in his chair and chatting briefly to one of the callers requesting. Still subdued but open, cracking a grin here and there. You check the radio show’s page to see if anyone is commenting on the show tonight - you’re a frequent snooper. Jihoon has quite a few fans, not just on campus. You bop your head along to his rhythmic playlist and listen intently to his callers. Before you know it, Jihoon is hunched near the controls and ending the show.

“Thanks for tuning into another Woozi Tunes on 97.6 fm. Remember, if you want to listen to this episode or any others, podcast recordings and playlists will be available on Spotify. To play us out, a song for, well a friend. An oldie but a good one - Bruno Mars, Finesse. Woozi, signing off.”

You bite your lip to stifle laughter. His favourite artist, your favourite song. You let him murder it the summer of 2018, long after it had come out, just to annoy Mingyu. 

“And… cut. Cameras and audio are off. Another week down.” Bumzu announces, pulling off his headset.

You pull off your own, delicately setting it aside. You give a lone round of applause. “Well done everyone.”

The radio host looks to you, quietly preening as he stands to tug his jacket off the back of his chair. You stay seated out the way as they clear everything away, slotting equipment into draws and wiping down surfaces. There isn’t even any idle chatter between them, but rather than being awkward it’s a moment of peace you didn’t know you wanted. Working, content peace away from everything as of late.

“Jihoon, don’t worry. I’ll finish up.”

Jihoon’s dark brows shoot up. “No no, hyung. We’re almost done.”

“Exactly. There’s not much left and I lock up anyway. You’ve got an early seminar tomorrow. And a guest. You can head off.” The older man insists, his soft edges turning to a stubborn frown.

The younger of the two rolls pretty quick, pushing the keyboard away and nodding. Jihoon’s dark eyes flick to you hopefully as he grabs his keys and wallet from an open draw.

“Alright. Talk tomorrow. Night, hyung.”

You give the older man a wave, bundling yourself up again now that you’re leaving the enclosed space. “Thank you, Bumzu! Good night.”

You head out into the hallway, meandering down to the lift and then the small set of stairs to the entry of the arts building. The rain is heavier as you drift awkwardly, checking your phone and contemplating your journey home.

“How - how are you getting home?” Jihoon asks, flipping his hood up over his dark hair.

You shrug. “Bus. Soonyoung dropped me off, not Junwoo.”

His lips press together as he shows a prolonged nod, kicking at the lino in his slides. You click through for the bus timetable, patting your pockets for your purse. You wonder what he’s waiting for, seeing as he drove here and the carpark for this side of the campus is underground and less than five minutes. He probably had staff parking too because of the radio show.

“Are you busy?” Jihoon asks suddenly, a little sharper than you’re used to.

You shoot him some side eye, tucking your phone away. “What...when?”

“Uh, now?”

You smile, shaking your head and stuffing your hands in your deep coat pockets. “Nope, I’m free.”

His shoulders perk up and he pulls his hood back down. Jihoon’s ears are going a little pink again as he turns back for the stairs further into the building. You feel the tentative excitement rolling off him, rubbing off on you so that you mirror his frame, your own shoulders tucking up around your ears. Every shuffle of your feet echo and the light sensor above you flashes red.

“Do you want to see my new song? I know you haven’t had the chance to see much of them.”

You’d mentioned - gently hounded, you hoped would be the best alternative term - before that you would be excited to hear some of his stuff. You’re already on your way back to the lifts.

“Absolutely! Lead the way.”

You lean over the soundboard, listening intently to the demo track. His voice is distinct, so unlike what you thought it might be. Still, it's versatile and powerful when combined with the lyrics. The beat is steady and you bounce your head along.

You glance to him, leant back in his seat watching you. "You wrote this? Like, all of this?"

He hums. "Yeah. It’s the track I got an HD for.”

Jihoon's arms are crossed and you feel bad that he has to feel defensive with you. You smile then gasp when the pretty singing becomes fluid rapping. His gaze turns with your reactions, concerned. Finally, you pull off the headphones as the minute and a half closes.

"I - singing, rapping! Composing? This is amazing, Ji! I'm so glad your major is music, otherwise your talent would be wasted for sure." You proclaim.

He ducks his head and fluffs at his hair with a smile. Jihoon seems unable to look at you and you let the bashfulness slide - not. You nudge at his chair so it spins.

"Wah, you act like no one has ever said that before!"

"I - it sounds a little different coming from you." he shrugs, still not looking. "Most of them are a little amazed or they're assessors with a job of picking it apart."

You nod and sigh. "Makes sense. Still. I hope you keep that track. I'd listen to it."

Jihoon beams before his sight slides to the digital clock sitting on a shelf - how very retro and efficient - eyes widening as he sits up straight.

“I - It’s almost midnight. We better head out.”

You can’t help but pout, standing up to push your chair in. “Yeah I’ve, of course, got princess things to attend to. Bumzu said you have class, don’t you?”

His slim fingers peek out of his navy sleeves, flying across the keyboard to turn everything off. “Uh-huh. I’m supposed to be doing the readings on it now, but It’s a pretty lax class so I should be able to get away with it.”

Your mouth is flapping silently like a fish, unable to form any coherent speech to reply with. Something not scolding, nor a joke, seeing as he’d just sacrificed his valuable study time to entertain you. Then he’s in the doorway, hand hovering over the light switch.

“Are you coming, Princess? Or am I leaving you in the dark?” Jihoon looks at you expectantly.

You gasp - mostly at the teasing name - and scuttle after him, breaking out into the dingy hall, yellowing walls and all. “I - yeah, sorry! Let’s go.”

(If Jihoon sings along to the radio on the way to yours, you don’t say anything. You’re grateful that he does the same for you when the Top 40 segment comes up in the thirty-five minute trip.)

[thesomberfest]

Star Wars: Timestamps and Thoughts; The Empire Strikes Back

Salutations to all. Welcome back to my blog thing? Anyways today is the one and only The Empire Strikes Back which I think may be the most iconic Star Wars movie. But, don’t quote me on that. I’m only saying that as someone who has heard about Star Wars movies from the outside and honestly out of all the movies The Empire Strikes Back is the one movie I’ve always heard about; name-wise. I don’t think I know any spoilers about this movie, so we’ll see. I’m new to this and I don’t know what I’m doing so please have mercy and help a sister out, thanks. I have some idea based on what the movie is about based on the name but I’ll just take what Disney Plus tells me. I honestly have nothing to say. Should I start writing predictions before writing the timestamps and writing my reaction if I’m right or wrong based on the last movie I watched. Does that make sense? I can’t think of any other way to word it differently but if it makes sense then okay, let’s continue. This isn’t a prediction but um is this the movie where Luke finds about his parentage? Or is it a bit too early? Am I too early? Oh well. While adding timestamps I thought it would be a cool idea to add a “Favorite Scene” section under my “Final Thoughts” sections, I hope y’all like it.

03/9 Edit: Y’all sorry this is late but tomorrow is my birthday and I decided to not do my schoolwork and instead watch Star Wars and write. Before y’all get any ideas: yes. I am in fact still a minor. thanks. 04/3 edit: I AM SORRY THIS IS LATE I HAVE NO EXCUSE

Movie: Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Release Date: 1980

Summary(?): So obviously the Empire is going to strike back right? And Luke has to find Yoda to learn the ways of the Force? No? Oh and a final show down with Vader? Am I wrong again?

Warning: spoilers (yea no duh bibi) and mild language on my part

Timestamps

00:00:06- 20th Century Fox is here, hello.

00:00:22- the words on the screen have made an appearance

00:01:41- the iconic words have left, bye-bye

00:04:28- Han Solo

00:04:43- It’s Chewie

00:05:04- Ya’ll it’s my queen Leia. She’s looking badder than ever

00:05:22- so the guy we first saw was in fact Luke, whoops.

00:05:40- Han is leaving? What about Leia? Am I missing something?

00:06:00- Okay so I’m convinced that something happened between Han and Leia, right? She looks pissed, he also looks pissed. Uhhh...

00:06:03- Oh shoot, she called out his name and went after him.

00:06:27- the way Leia feels about him? Sexual tension?

00:06:34- does Han want Leia to admit she has feelings for him? Does she have feelings for him?

00:06:42- “Afraid I was gonna leave without giving you a good-bye kiss?”- woah there Han

00:06:47- yeah, something did happen. I’m calling it

00:06:53- YES 3PO and R2

00:07:12- Oh shoot, Han doesn’t want to talk to Leia no more

00:07:19- ain’t nobody know where Luke is

00:08:06- aw Han said Luke is his friend. Character development

00:08:36- um is that Luke being hanged upside down?

00:08:47- uh oh, it’s the abominable snowman, let’s uh call him Yeti for short

00:09:00- Lukie-boy that might be a bad idea 

00:09:34- he’s using the Force to get the lightsaber, nice

00:09:40- oh no, the Yeti noticed

00:09:48- he got the Lightsaber yayy

00:09:50- did he just cut off Yeti’s arm???

00:10:00- run forest run

00:10:40- aw R2 :( I want to give them a hug

00:11:58- Leia looks really nervous. Uh-oh

00:12:53- I’m sorry but Chewie wailing/crying a few minutes earlier makes me sad.

00:13:42- omg Yoda? Han found Luke I repeat he found Luke

00:15:16- I wondered where they filmed or if this was effects or something.

00:16:01- are they going to be found? oh I hope so

00:16:13- yay! Found at last!

00:16:35- i’m sorry. is that a man baby???

00:16:48- oh wait was that man baby Luke? Oh god i kinda feel bad now

00:17:02- aww Luke and Han. Their friendship gives me life (junior)

00:17:05- my queen!!!!

00:17:15- ok but seriously what happened between Han and Leia? I know something happened.

00:17:25- I know Han did not just call my boy Chewie a FUZZBALL, please

00:17:31- alone? South passage? was that when Han claimed he was leaving? Her TRUE FEELINGS

00:17:50- why does Luke look sad? Is it... is it because HE HAS FEELINGS FOR HER???

00:17:58- (lets out a female lead in horror movie scream) OH MY GOD. I KNEW A KISS WAS TO HAPPEN BUT SO SOON? AND ON THE MOUTH WITH A PEANUT GALLERY LEIA HAS SOME BALLS. SO IT WAS NOT A PECK LIKE I’D ASSUMED HUH OMG tho I feel bad for Luke ‘cause (i think) she only did it to spite Han also if my math is correct IT WAS FOUR SECONDS LONG. But like is this the only kiss between the two or is there more cause ummm...... AREN’T THEY RELATED? SIBLINGS? TWINS I THINK? *Sweet Home Alabama now playing*

00:18:13- why why does he look so smug? also Han about to kill Luke a man

00:19:14- idk what’s happening

00:19:18- pew pew

00:19:44- THE IMPERIAL MARCH omgg yess... I live for the movies music

00:20:32- oh no, the music ended

00:20:38- wait nvm it’s continuing we stand

00:20:40- breathing problems much?

00:20:52- It’s Darth Vader

00:21:47- wait, didn’t he (Luke) almost die? shouldn’t he like oh I don’t know RESTING?!

00:22:47- have i mentioned that I live for the Imperial March? ‘cause I love it

00:23:39- OH

00:23:51- he really dying in the background huh

00:23:57- so he’s like dead, right?

00:24:02- what’s happening? Are they gonna go against Vader?

00:24:12- what the hell is a stardestroyer?

00:24:44- i’ve been told the dark side has cookies so uh peace out. If you would like to reach me please send me a letter via mail. thanks.

00:25:39- once again shouldn’t Luke be resting???

00:25:53- aww I want those binoculars. Is that what they’re called? Idk but I want one

00:26:05- what the hell are Imperial Walkers?

00:26:27- oh. are those Imperial Walkers? Those robot-looking dogs? omg I thought they were talking about Stormtroopers.

00:26:30- laser beam robot doggies did not hesitate

00:26:40- aw look at Luke being leadership material

00:27:09- wow these walkers are slow huh as to be expected

00:27:50- OH NO DAK bruhh nooo

00:28:09- are those robot dogs really gonna win?

00:28:21- LANDING? You mean Vader isn’t even fighting down there? Is he going to join? Or just find Luke and kidnap him and spill the beans? Or is that just my active imagination running too far?

00:28:39- the music...*beautiful*

00:28:58- tying the feet and tripping the doggies seems to be the moves huh

00:29:15- ooh and face first into the snow. how embarrassing...

00:29:20- I just know someone is losing their job or life like that one dude from before

00:30:18- i like the explosions

00:30:52- while one of the those little planes fall i’m sitting here thinking: most book/movie/tv shows that have the whole two sides thing (good vs bad) there always seems to be a traitor which makes me wonder if the good guys have a traitor? possible plot? idk, we’ll see won’t we?

00:31:18- the way these little doggies walk keep reminding me of some eerie Tim Burton movie and idk whyyy

00:33:04- two robot doggies down one more to go

00:33:25- man I just know someone from the Dark Force is gonna be dead fired

00:34:08- are those stormtroopers? They run funny

00:34:12- Darth Vader!

00:34:45- wait i’m dumb. did Vader invade the building/camp they were hiding at?

00:35:18- what does Vader want exactly? Princess Leia? Luke? the so-called “rebel plans”? What am I missing?

00:35:42- they really said: “peace out”

00:36:30- not regrouping? and what the hell is the Dagobah system?

00:37:30- did two ships just crash?

00:39:10- the music really makes this asteroid field detour awesome

00:40:25- did they--did they just go in a asteroid? Orr..?

00:41:18- and just what the hell is Luke thinking? he putting my baby R2 in distress?

00:42:04- where in the HELL are they?

00:42:21- did my baby R2 just fall in the water? Can he even swim? Is it safe? Is he going to die? Idc how cute Luke is, I will hurt him if 2D dies!

00:42:33- what. how is R2 okay? I thought--

00:42:53- Is that R2 whistling?

00:42:57- oh god, is that Nessie? oh no--

00:43:10- OH MY GOODNESS DID NESSIE JUST EAT MY BABY R2 WHAT THE FUC--

00:43:41- R2 MY BABY WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU

00:44:01- YEA LUKE it was a bad idea going there! You put my sweet summer child R2 in danger! He almost got eaten as dinner!

00:44:18- ughhh the music is just AMAZINGGGG

00:44:38- whose brain is that? Is that what’s left of Mr. Anakin Skywalker? ooh now that I think about: what does Darth Vader look behind the helmet? I feel dumb for never thinking about that

00:45:34- hey you leave my man 3PO alone Solo

00:45:46- oh did Leia just fall into Han’s arms? ooh

00:45:56- “Captain, being held by you isn’t quite enough to get me excited” Leia woke up and choose violence 

00:46:56- oh OH Luke is looking for Yoda?

00:47:22- omg it’s YODA

00:47:48- man idk but lighting does wonders for Lukie-babe

00:48:26- is Yoda mocking Luke? ‘Cause I’m here for it

00:48:57- why is Luke lowkey being a pushover?

00:49:09- I KNOW Yoda isn’t hitting my baby R2 with a STICK the disrespect I-

00:49:56- at this point Yoda is just pulling on their legs for kicks and giggles huh

00:51:02- oh? alone? Leia and Han? my oh my

00:51:30- oh so now they hand-holding?

00:51:50- OMG when did they get so close to one another? I’m nervous

00:52:00- KISSING KISSING KISSING I REPEAT LEIA AND HAN ARE KISSING OH MY

00:52:04- ofc it’s 3PO to be the one to interrupt the kiss

00:52:14- oop-- Leia just left the crime scene. She’s going to pretend it never happened isn’t she?

00:53:04- wait. Vader isn’t emperor? Someone else is omg. I’m so dumb eye-

00:53:07- ew his side profile is not so good

00:53:10- the front is even uglier 

00:53:23- “young rebel”? my bby boy Luke?

00:53:25- “offspring of Anakin Skywalker”? wait a damn minute. Isn’t Vader oh idk ANAKIN SKYWALKER? Does that “emperor” guy not know? Or have I been lied to? WHAT AM I MISSING?

00:53:57- does this mean Anakin is considered to be a different person from Vader? I’m confused, someone explain please!

00:54:00- “could be turned”? say like Kylo? *dun dun dun* orr am I thinking too far?

00:54:16- “master”? you mean to tell me that Vader isn’t even the one pulling the strings? how embarrassing...

00:54:34- WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE R2 IN THE COLD RAIN?!

00:56:07- Luke my beauty dumbass just realized that Yoda was with the whole time

00:59:19- What is it?

00:59:29- Mynocks

00:59:35- oh hell no. I’m out

01:01:39- satan works hard but man does Luke work harder

01:01:57- “skinny boys are still the best oh i love when they slam and sweat.”-- Jack Off Jill, Lollirot (jolly good song) this one sentence describes it all :)

01:04:19- idk what’s happening but man does he look good. How long until y’all get tired of me simping over Luke?

01:04:40- wait WAIT THE FINAL SHOWDOWN IS IN THE FOREST? I THOUGHT-- I WAS TOLD--HOLD UP

01:05:01- but like, why it feel fake? Is this a dream? 

01:05:09- OH--[luke just decapitated Vader I-]

01:05:20- wait. it couldn’t have been that easy. This feels wrong-

01:05:29- omg. it’s luke! Wait what does this mean?

01:05:50- when i enter a room I would like the Imperial March to play, thanks.

01:06:26- uh, is that Boba Fett? If not I’m so sorry I’m new.

01:06:52- y’all I have a cofession to make: I have a fear of driving and my mother is forcing me to. How does this relate to the movie? Well, Han is steering the ship(?) so...

01:09:16- titanic part two?

01:10:31- my poor baby luke

01:11:37- luke please don’t give up :(

01:12:32- my man yoda showing up luke huh

01:13:35- uh oh. just like the first guy, he dead too. they’re just dropping like flies huh

01:16:05- and another kiss. a small peck, luke.

01:16:34- so is that Boba Fett or not? someone tell me please.

01:16:38- someone please run my baby R2 a bath

01:16:44-y’all the only time I can do a handstand is when I’m underwater (fun fact: i don’t like the pool)

01:16:51-[R2 is being levitated rn] if he falls and BREAKS into tiny pieces i’m quitting star wars

01:17:28- R2 good, he good “... I saw a city in the clouds.” you mean heaven?

01:17:37- “friends you have there” THEY’RE ALL GOING TO DIE WAIT--

01:19:50- they’ve [leia, han, chewie, 3PO] landed they’re safe, for now (i think)

01:20:25- [chewie replying “gahh!” to han] tell me why I laughed. I actually laughed like Chewie made a joke oh my...

01:20:34- uh oh [some dude just called han a slime(y)]

01:20:49- [they’re hugging now?] oh, wait. so they good now? or is this a joke?

01:22:01- i like the interior design of the building

01:22:49- [3PO gets blown up I think] what the hell just happened? 

01:25:13- he’s not coming back is he? [luke left to save han and leia]

01:26:13- finally. someone save 3PO or what’s left of him also I like leia’s new hairstyle it’s pretty

01:26:44- was 3PO decapitated? dismembered?!

01:26:55- good for chewie to fight for the parts of 3PO hopefully it’s all of his parts

01:27:35- my man 3PO in a box freaking dismembered and Lando out here flirting? 

01:28:30- what the hell? [its vader sitting at the head of the table] wait did Lando say a deal? as in turning in the princess? I--this is all happening so fast

01:28:41- [han and co. are now surrounded by boba fett and troopers] i bet they wished they’d stayed back in their rooms huh

01:30:31- oh so i’m assuming it was a stormtrooper who shot 3PO. what are they doing to han? omg is han being cooked alive?

01:31:33- wait I thought boba fett was a good guy? what the fvck.

01:32:05- what happened to han? mans looks traumatized 

01:32:34- oh leia...

01:34:14- i had also assumed all these years that vader was top boss and now i’m being told about some emperor guy? what 

01:35:18- i don’t understand why does boba fett want with han so bad? it can’t just be money, can it?

01:35:54- oh and another kiss and with an even bigger peanut gallery

01:38:22- what’s gonna happen to han now?

01:40:30- wait, is this where the showdown happens?

01:41:06- why is vader (his breathing) so loud?

01:41:10- OMG red vs. blue lightsaber

01:41:19- so this is it

01:42:01- oh, is lando helping them? does he feel guilty?

01:42:17- [chewie is currently choking the life out of lando] fuck yeah chewie

01:43:14- oh thank god R2 & 3PO have reunited once more

01:43:34- is it too late to save han now?

01:44:01- [back to the showdown, luke just lost his lightsaber] uh--this is why you never get too cocky too early, luke

01:44:27- [luke just flew?!] did he just fly like superman? what

01:44:31- who’s the emperor? I had assumed it was vader but i’m being told it isn’t?????

01:44:56- this showdown is a beautiful fight and those lightsabers are freaking cool 

01:46:15- it’s a beautiful dance and the Imperial March is giving me chills

01:46:32- [vader is throwing random objects at luke] aw that’s cheating. and nobody likes a cheater.

01:46:42- luke just flew out the window oh wait he good, now i think

01:47:12- hold up I just realized that they (han, chewie, leia) put 3PO in a fishnet bag (?) chewie really running around with 3PO like a backpack

01:47:49- [the citizens (?) are running] i’m getting titanic vibes and idk if i like it 

01:49:17- i hate to say it but these stormtroopers have really bad aim.

01:50:26- [vader just cut off luke’s hand] *shock* I-omg. He just did that. But, at the same time, I now understand the ERB Harry Potter v. Luke Skywalker so much more, make sense.

01:51:08- “father”? oh my...

01:51:17- “i am your father” oh my god. people this is not a drill, it happened, it happening uhh---

01:51:28- i feel so bad for luke. he looks like he’s about cry.

01:51:41- probs a bad time but luke’s kinda an ugly crier

01:52:14- [luke just fell & left vader standing] luke really said “i’d rather die”

01:54:04- wait, how does leia know where luke is? this some kind of force thing? maybe twin thing?

01:54:37- oh thank god they found luke

01:58:01- does vader care for luke? I mean probably not a lot since he DID chop off his sons own hand so idk

02:01:58- credits/the end

Final Thoughts? Wow. No yeah, I totally understand why Empire Strikes Back is a loved by all. It was amazing. I understand why it’s so talked about. This movie is beautiful; Leia/Han romance, 3PO and R2 banter, the good action. The soundtrack-THE SOUNDTRACK is SPECTACULAR and I would often fins myself rewinding scenes just to listen to the music. The visuals were so striking and appealing and it really showed during the showdown between luke and vader. 

Favorite Scene? Luke meeting Yoda and not knowing that Yoda was Yoda and every scene that included the Imperial March in the background.

If you have made it this far, thank you. I hope none of you people get tired of me fangirling over the Imperial March whilst simultaneously simping over Luke. Thank you for joining me on my adventure of watching Star Wars for the first time. If there’s any grammar mistakes I apologize. Also I got a cute R2 lego keychain from the lego store. Also if you want leave some comments I’m lowkey lonely. Thank you once again for joining me.

x bibi

[retphienix]

I did it :)

So, I cried. That's a given.

Also this might be the most overwhelmingly happy ending in the series so far, you know, if you're used to every entry ending with "KIRYU DIE?????"

Bonus points because this ending DID NOT immediately reveal that he lives! I know my intro here is all unserious and the like but genuinely, that does a lot for making the scene so much more impactful and it worked here even though I know he returns for Y6.

So, I'm gonna do this post like the last big post because there's too many thoughts to expel.

Timestamps as I rewatch so I can share my thoughts. Then a short conclusion because honestly? This game has taken all my words multiple times.

I just want to calmly and happily say my final piece at the end :)

0:39 - Spoiler, this ending SUCKS because it doesn't include a final rhythm battle for Haruka! Now I think I read somewhere that there's a member of that assassin clan she can dance battle as a final challenge but I clearly didn't do that right and missed out and that's beside the point- THERE'S NO RHYTHM GAMEPLAY IN THIS FINALE >:(

9:00 - I EARNED IT, I'M USING IT!

13:00 - Spoiler for later, Shinada doesn't get to say this from what I recall. Instead Baba gets a different wake up call, but that works out :)

17:00 - Not now, but this will come up, I offer to you my johns for what happens in the first boss fight. My eyes were dry as hell so I missed some QTEs which means I didn't get the flashiest stuff to happen. This actually happened at the end of Y4 also but I restarted just to capture good footage- not this time.

17:30 - MOUSE. MOUSE MOUSE, A LITTLE RAT, MOUSE. Love to see it.

19:00 - The audible sigh I let out when they played the same song I've heard like 40 times in my playthrough was palpable. I do dig the song! But there are what? 4 Idol songs? They really needed more or to not saturate their use so much :(

19:40 - I legitimately gasped and went "Oh no... of course it's you!" at Baba's role in this. It added a lot of weight to the way he practically begged Haruka not to show up.

20:50 - So here's the gist. Majima's plan didn't work out, we know that. Majima has a REALLY good line and motivator moment where he says he's following orders now to protect Haruka because she means more to Kiryu than anything (and that's how Majima rolls), Majima then reveals some shit which can be amounted to "I think you've gotten weak and wanted to protect you!!!!" which does ring slightly hollow since we saw Majima at a ridiculously low point earlier. So either his low point was him contemplating Saejima's survival chances, or his low point was sincere (it sure sounded it) and his worry over Saejima being weak was just also happening at the same time. I don't really mind either way to be honest, we beat him up. I fail some QTEs.

33:00 - Baba deciding not to fulfill his orders on his own accord is actually extremely important and good as hell. It shows that all this changed him and gave him the motivation to forge his own path- or rather it began to though he's overwhelmed with doubt. It's extremely good.

33:50 - The fact he intentionally leaves evidence shows how much doubt he has though, he's giving up entirely more than forging his own path, he's just refusing to follow the orders of another but hasn't found the strength to continue on his own. It's really good is all.

38:00 - This was the first cry I had beating the game x.x Shinada is just a phenomenally likeable character, and watching him accept where his life has gone and what it's meant to others is way more touching than I'd assume considering it's a tale of a baseball star.

40:50 - THIS WAS HYPE AS HELL AND LEAD TO MY SECOND CRY. THIS PRISON FAMILY HAS NO RIGHT BEING THIS ENDEARING. Also, more or less, they get to deliver the message Shinada was supposed to lol.

42:50 - THIRD AND BIG AS HELL CRY. SHINADA YOU FOOL, YOU'VE A FOUND FAMILY AFTER-ALL!!! I genuinely adore this moment so much is all. It's such a wonderful payoff for this loveable fool. After all the runnin' away he has a home.

43:36 - I love Shinada so much the silly fuck.

46:00 - I got a laugh out of Akiyama KICKING ASS in the news footage (didn't mention but the first brawl cutscene was rather lacking wasn't it?) and Kiryu just like... punches a guy. It's hilarious to me. Also you best believe- I UNLOCKED IT, I'M USING IT!!!

48:00 - Now this is a, well, it's a bad reveal. Like look, there is a metric ton of good going on in this finale- but the reveal that Aizawa is his son and is evil and is the final boss is just too much zero-build-up-payoff. It's the worst part. It's not like extremely detrimental or anything- like it doesn't take away from the good stuff- but it's just entirely uninteresting and bad. It makes Aizawa's interest in Morinaga bizarre and uninteresting since he got no payoff, he had buildup with Saejima and then in the final scenes he's just like "Yeah, Mori was nice but who gives a fuck I am the one who killed him (I think he said) and I aspire to be strong as fuck because all of YOU IDIOTS have FRIENDS and CHARISMA >:(" and like, who fuckin' cares bud.

52:00 - Now I'll more or less sum up all of Akiyama's payoff here. 1- I unlocked it so I'm gonna use it! 2- He offhandedly says he wants to be a legend in this town, which in Y4 he already was- he was a myth, a city mystery- but of course he means like Kiryu not the loch ness monster. 3- He gets to be a legend by being the only civilian (or person in general) the Omi would bow to. It's kind of not built up at all and is a bit lame, but to be honest Akiyama has a pretty bit part in this entire game. He's kinda just a convenient returning character with motivation to assist Kiryu and a career that allows motivation to get involved through Park. To be blunt, his part in the story is weak. I wish it was stronger. But it's inoffensive and he at least gets something- as minor as it is. Getting to say he's king of the world is something, you know?

56:00 - I will say that the build up of "Oh shit, these are Kanai's men!" and the reveal that "Oh shit! They are WATASE'S men and all the clans who the Tojo were seeking alliances with!" is a good one. Watase is a fine enough character which I bring up only because I was told he was a standout- but he wasn't for me. His scenes are great, his growth with Katsuya is nice, but he's barely in the game and really only exists to be betrayed and then to be like "I'm one of the good yakuza despite being a war-lusting one because being a good yakuza is just complicated enough to allow this overlap" which is interesting for sure, but I don't know. Unless he does stuff in the subsequent games I didn't catch much in this one. Maybe he does- I assume he runs the Omi now!

1:00:00 - I kinda summed it up but yeah. Here's the final boss, Aizawa, a character we were mislead on and who's motivation is empty as fuck. It's, whatever. It's not the good part of the ending. The good part is everything prior and directly after. Like his entire deal is anti-silver-spoon talking points but also he includes being charismatic or capable as silver spoon-isms??? He pretty much just wants to be leader because he's strong. He'd arguably be more interesting if he just said it that way.

1:11:00 - The lyrics to Dream are anything but subtle and I love them and I love Haruka. Sliding this in here- Majima gets no payoff >:( Park's dream is accomplished in seeing her star on the stage, but no Majima moment? No sight of him accepting her loss? Lame.

1:14:00 - I genuinely LOVE that Aizawa focuses in on Kiryu's gunshot wound. He still accepts it as a fair fight because Kiryu presents it as one, but even then he pays mind to it as you'd expect someone wanting to fight at their strongest would- he wants to fight Kiryu at his best and he's accepting this because Kiryu presents as his best even when wounded- it's pretty cool. Fight happens. It's fine stuff, flashy and fun. Still maybe the weakest final boss yet because he has no build up. I'd be the first to admit without looking it up I can't list every final boss thus far, but like, Nishi was built up, Mine was built up, Goda was built up, I just, in this moment, don't recall having a big "WHO THE FUCK, THIS MEANS NOTHING?" fight in yakuza and this is certainly one of those.

1:25:00 - I cried AGAIN. Haruka just hit me with a truck of emotion here is all.

1:41:15 - This is a beautifully shot, emotional, and tragic looking ending. Heck, at 1:43:00 I initially thought he was being awoken in a hospital bed and I was like "Heh, there's the old Kiryu dies fakeout!" but no! They hammer home, they go for broke, they give a TRAGIC AS FUCK bitter ending on top of an ending that's like 99% happy as fuck in terms of offering everyone involved hope for the future. This was a good end :)

So then, some overall thoughts I maybe didn't get out- I mean there's no way this post touches everything but I want to at least try to because I like sharin' the experience and what I got out of it.

The fighting styles were mighty uneven as far as strengths or fun factor. To be blunt,

Kiryu has an overpowered counter attack and heat mode and since heat mode is underwhelming as hell that means he has JUST a counter attack- his strikes don't really hit all that well considering the improvements other characters saw this time around, so he's a bit one note here.

Saejima feel even meatier than before, nothing particularly 'stands out' but the fact that he has super armor as long as he has heat is a pretty big factor in making him feel good to use.

Akiyama got the short end of the straw this time around. His new gimmick is the launch combos and they are... well... less than shit at least from what I could feel during gameplay. They don't hurt much, they burn heat like crazy, and they can MISS, all while being a move that targets just one enemy- has no counter to blocking or armor- and provides no armor in turn.

Despite not losing anything, he kinda got screwed.

(I'm lead to believe Akiyama is invulnerable during his aerial combos which my blurb in my finale post complained felt worthless and cited that as a reason.

If so then I was wrong but I still hold all my other complaints towards it, just not the 'it has no armor or invuln' bit assuming that's true.)

Shinada wins out for being unique and being a weapon oriented character that actually does well with weapons. Weapons have always been something I pretty much ignore in Yakuza and the series itself has always desperately tried to make them interesting with things like weapon skills, Kamiya works, and the like. But other than the god weapons like the golden gun weapons just never felt good to manage.

Using them, sure, that's fine, but managing them? Durability and skills and limited movesets and all that? Nah. But Shinada really does a lot to make them less shit! His innate abilities that raise durability a metric ton REALLY make weapons feel better to use with him- and his unique movesets with weapons are pretty damn good (mostly. The pipe/'normal one hander pole size object' moveset is worthless as heck, it regularly misses).

He's fun.

===

Revelations were a miss this time around for me. Since you couldn't have seen them if you tried on my blog let it be known- I ONLY got the quest related revelations for each character- which is to say- ONE rev per character.

Revelations in 5 are weapon based, and not just 'bat or pole or gun' or whatever- they are DISPOSABLE TEMPORARY weapon based.

What you are supposed to do is go to the specific place on the map where that one revelation weapon spawns, hope like hell you find an enemy, and wail on them like crazy. If you use a weapon x amount of times then you'll get a revelation according to the internet. This is beyond ridiculous and means a normal playthrough will get none of these, while a focused one will be bored out of their mind GRINDING to get these.

I did not bother.

===

Now.

Yakuza 5.

This might be my favorite Yakuza overall.

I still think 0 is probably the best overall for most people, it has the best style, it has from what I've experienced the best gameplay, it's story is tear jerking and exciting and fun.

But as a yakuza game overall, I really have to give it to 5 personally. Because 0 tried to work within its bounds- it made itself a great entry point to the series or a great addition to Yakuza 1 / Kiwami as background.

But 5 is building on 4 previous games and it does so fucking phenomenally.

There's something to be said about a later entry in a series gaining extra payoff thanks to multiple entries of build up and character depth and 5 fucking does it.

I just. It explores the motivation of some fan-favorites so well, it expands characters so fucking well, I know I've harped on about it but just Saejima- man! Saejima goes from a run of the mill "Decent" character to a fully fledged and explored entity! And I LOVE him!

And no he's not the only shining spot, like hell he is, but he's such a posterchild for what 5 does right in my eyes- take something that's already good and breath some life into it. Also I adore it's laser focus on a singular theme and all the ways it wanted to explore it.

Like. I think Kiwami and Zero take the cake for the most fun I've had " 'playing' Yakuza so far, but 5 takes the cake for the most fun I've had 'in general' like gameplay and me just thinking about it because there's so much to think on.

More time will tell as I compartmentalize my thoughts and perhaps forget some details as one does, but right this moment- this might be my favorite Yakuza game.

I love it.

Also, woot! I beat Y5 before Monhun Rise came out :D Now I can start that game without putting a story on hold!

...

Except I also told my sister that I'd start Omori after Y5. So I guess alongside monhun I'll be playing through a game with a hefty and wonderfully done story. Which is what I didn't want to do with Y5.

I just can't win, lol.

[sharkfish]

2020 writing summary ✍️

WORDCOUNT: 109,348 FICS POSTED: 10 (*plus a ton of poems) 

last year’s summary included my top 5 and bottom 3 (by kudos) fics, but since i only had 10 posted this year, i’m going to list ‘em all with some thoughts! 

below the cut to prevent endless scrolling... 

a delight for the soul - 24k 

No one has ever said Dean is smart, but inviting a client to his home is a new level of idiocy. He tries to counter the mantra of insults inside his head with it’s just Cas, but he wouldn’t be the first professional to get himself killed by a client they thought they knew.

The doorbell rings. It is just Cas, in jeans and a button-up shirt with sleeves rolled up his forearms. Dean’s heart pounds and he goes to his knees on instinct, eyes on the floor.

“Hello, sweetheart."

i returned to the world of bdsm aus (and sex work) and had a great time! dean’s not the kind of sub everyone is looking for, but he’s the perfect sub for cas. <3 

boombox & cookies - 17k

“I think I misjudged you,” Castiel says.

Dean shuts and then opens his mouth like an idiot fish. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t do well with alphas and I’m not interested in being flirted with.”

“Hey,” Dean interrupts, “I swear that’s not —”

“Dean.” Castiel’s voice is deep and firm enough to shut Dean up. “I understand that now, but my original assumption was that you’re the kind of aggressive alpha who just wants to get his knot wet. You're not like that."

i won’t wax poetic for the millionth time about how great a/b/o is as a vehicle to explore gender roles, queer identities, etc, but this one goes hard on the whole gender role expectations as well as trauma aftermath... and, of course, an insane amount of sappy fluff. 

born right in the doorway - 40k

“Jimmy’s heats aren’t usually as bad as mine, but —” Cas says, then closes his eyes like he’s trying to collect his thoughts. “He’s asking for you.”

“He’s asking for me,” Dean repeats, bewildered. He struggles to ignore the way Cas is obviously hard against the front of his boxer briefs.

“I believe you could make him more comfortable.”

“You guys know there are alpha services, right? It doesn’t have to be me.”

jimmy’s a huge stoner, cas is a trans alpha, dean is a fucking oblivious idiot the whole time, constant mating cycle-related boning, the longest fic (other than riptides) i’ve written in a thousand years... what’s not to love? 

love in the time of quarantine - 6k

Dean says, “We should have sex.”

Cas chokes and looks up at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that.”

“We should have sex,” Dean repeats, carefully enunciating each word. Cas keeps staring at him blankly. “It’s fun and you’re hot. Perfect quarantivity.”

my required “and they were quarantined!” fic for 2020. this one is a rollicking good time with lots of great jokes. and cas is trans, because i’m still on my righteous crusade to fill up the damn trans tags. 

most perfect possession (riptides sequel) - 17k & counting

“Hey,” Dean says, grinning. “I kinda like you.”

“And you’re willing to announce it to all of our friends and loved ones.”

“Let’s do this.”

i continued working on the riptides sequel, because these boys will probably never entirely leave me. i love them so much and it has been so great to see what their lives are like as husbands. 

punch walk - 1.4k

“Dean Winchester, get down from there.”

“Castiel Winchester, not all of us are clumsy,” Dean says. He’s in love with the stern squint Cas is directing towards him. “Remember that girl who got the first 10 in gymnastics?”

a demo day timestamp where dean hurts himself because he’s an idiot and maybe cas ends up being the one comforted. 

reckless, not reason - 6k

“When I requested a — you know. ‘Companion.’ I was just being selfish,” Dean says. “So fucking selfish that I didn’t even think about what it would be like for you.”

“Don’t worry,” Cas says, almost as if from outside himself. “It was either you or someone else. Perhaps someone worse.”

“It’s a big deal to my dad for me to get mated. He’s always trying to match me with some asshole or another, and I — I can’t, Cas.” He drops his head into his hands, rubbing furiously at his eyes. “I’m fucked up, I guess, because I just — I can’t be a mate to someone, not for real. I can’t — consummate, or whatever.”

vaguely based on one of the ace prompts i got way back in summer 2019, i returned to the world of dragons, magic, and consent porn. with a side of john winchester’s A+ parenting. 

slow dancing - 5k

Cas is near enough that their chests are nearly pressed together, an arm around Dean with the leather of their glove against his neck. They press close, the song just for Dean’s ears.

I know places we can go, babe/coming home, come unfold, babe/the high won’t fade here, babe/no, the high won’t hurt here, babe.

When Cas sings, everything else disappears. Dean loves magic, as long as Cas’s songs are for him every now and then.

for years i’ve had this idea fiddling in the back of my head based vaguely on the magic in holly black’s curseworker series (incidentally, the main character’s name is cassel lmao) and i finally put something together for it. (i hope to return to this kind of magic idea in the future.) writing this nb cas was also special to me. 

suddenly seeing - 3k

Cas stares at his own tentacle as he runs the tip up Dean’s neck, slides it along his jawline, traces the rise of his cheekbone. No one touches Dean like this.

“It’s strange,” Cas says. “Suddenly seeing something beautiful where you couldn’t in the past.”

i’ve always wanted to return to octos and here we are! another fun lil octo fic. it wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last!! 

when the wolf comes home - 11k

Daryl isn’t afraid to touch her. He’s afraid of what happens when it’s back to a dim cage and a wire mother. He’s afraid of when she leaves, runs, dies — his whole life, Daryl has watched people spin and burn out, sometimes just their soul and not their body. Life doesn’t treat his kind well and after Merle, he swore he’d never get close to someone again.

Despite all of that, Daryl reaches out and awkwardly slides an arm around Beth’s shoulders.

my first non-spn fic! i never thought i’d write a twd fic but i couldn’t stop thinking about ace daryl and beth in general. i also really liked some of the writing in this which is not something i manage to say very often. 

[plainvanillapotato]

the 100 diaries S1 E12

quarantine diaries: may 26 2020

season 1 episode 12: “We Are Grounders: Part I”

🎶“we are [grounders] bum ba dum bum bum bum bum”🎶...i cant be the only one. don’t lie to me like that. you thought it too huh?

“look inside. find your peace” - jaha (1:45) spittin some uncle iroh wise talk here. while also being like YOLO. live it up bitches cuz we all gone die. 

wait did he say commander. so anya isn’t top dog. please tell me my killmonger theory is right. cuz if so this will officially become the best show ever!

haha they really expect me to believe that they killed finn off screen. bitch i think not

what is this star wars? with this chain? clarke is no princess leia.

murphy. big yikes. he’s killing more of the 100 than the grounders. and jasper is just like cool. cool. cool. cool. trying to pretend that he didn’t just see murphy straight up murder that guy

there is no way that these smucks are going to win against the grounders. with this internal conflict. i think not.

this really just turned into a hostage situation. how would have thought. not me. this show constantly just throws in these random situations and i love it. but murphys character just keeps getting worse the more i watch. murphy just stop. just fucking stop it.

waht the hell is that hose clarke is riding. it kinda looks like a thestral to me just minus the wings

plot armor is strong with finn. but i shouldnt be surprised considering that its apparently going to be a wild ride with finns character development

licoln!!! how do these grounders still trust lincoln? also i wish we saw from licolns POV trying to save finn cuz that had to have been epic. did he really all do this for octavia tho? man is whipped for octavia. but is she worth it tho. what does she bring to the table? ***yeah yeah yeah i know that he doing because “what his people are doing to there people is wrong” or whatever but really tho we know this is all for octavia’s pussy.

a mine or is this the cave to two lovers. because i really here for it.

wow is there a slight hint of a romance between abby and jackson. ok cougar. if anyone is questioning me on they’re little heart to heart scene starts on 14:40 and by the end of if jackson is really up in abby’s personal space. plus they might as well because yolo

jasper is not worth trading in prettyboy bellamy.  

“you people are so soft”- lincoln (20:50) and i agree these spacers are gonna get absolutely destroyed by the grounders. like they can’t even keep the peace within their own people. fucking murphy.

honestly bellamy has a lot of faith in raven and jasper to save him during this hostage situation. i could never. 

without bellamy or clakre. the 100 are dead cuz they really didn’t give any characteristics to any of the the other kids in the 100

“we can make bomb.” jasper has its priorities straight. nooo save bellamy first then we can talk bombs.

aaw murphy just wants empathy. **gag** murphy is emo boi went wrong

that cute little family video with clark and wells. giving jaha nostalgia and ideas of how to save his people. but imagine if these to be in modern times. ppl would really be rewatching old vines and tiktoks

headcanon for murphy: murphy is definitely into BDSM. he is waaay too into hanging bellamy to convince me otherwise.

reapers?! bro y’all better get outta there. they look like straight up savages. yeah dont fuck with them

i dont know lincoln that well but this seem a little OOC for him. like really all this is for octavia??? she really that good in bed that youre willing to help her friends against these terrifying motherfucking savages and your girl isn’t even here to see this all happen. hmmmm.. also lets all remember the time that lincoln stabbed finn. now they’re best buds i guess. but at the same time clarke and finn are a little too okay with sending lincoln to his death 

mario cart with a dead but also alive body...this better be important and not just some random plot point that they just threw in here for the ‘wtf is happening’ asthestic but that is never explained

ooo kill’em finn. really resourceful with that rock. no gun. no problem. honestly tho. this show talks a lot about guns but then majority of the deaths we see are not gun related at all. im thinking rn and i cannot come with a single character that has died by a gun shot yet.....

bellamy nooo.. i know he as plot armor but i really don’t wanna see my boy be hanging like that

these guns running out of bullets is a big trope in the show. and im tried of it. 

“i swear to god, the more we learn about this place, the less we know”- clarke (33:57) gurl same. literally when i think i know where his show is going bam! explosion. bam! weird plot point. bam! you thought this character was dead.. sike bam! bam! bam!

finn said “i love you im in love with you.” (34:42) what a time to proclaim your love right after killing a reaper. also its been what less than a month? 90 day fiance who? big ed who? im sorry i keep linking finn with big ed but  the two really be sharing similar hair cuts

the hug between bellamy and jasper my heart. the bromance!! but lets go find monty please!! bring my boy home!!

i just love how during bellamy’s big speech finn was like im thirsty and just grabbed some water. (you don’t believe me do you. timestamp is 37:30. yep i got the receipts) but dude same. i truly wonder tho if that was written in the script of if finn’s actor just took creative freedom. maybe it was done to parallel the fact that finn is thirsty boi wanting raven and clarke at the same time.

reminder: stay hydrated. this is a psa to if you are reading this you are obligated to drink some water. **Cheers to our thirsty boi finn!!

Clarke really be here overriding bellamy’s little speech i love how she started on the high note pretending to agree with bellamy then was like actually tho i disagree. we need to go

these adults/parents are really as chaotic as their kids with this plan of using the ark. 

[profoundnet]

Profound Member Post - August 2019

Header by @cryptomoon​​​ and is available on merch from her redbubble store. You can use all those fancy emojis (and more!) on our Discord server!

The Masterpost is open for all creations by ProfoundBond members which are posted in their entirety during that month.

MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS FOR AUGUST 2019!

Masterpost below the cut.

goldenraeofsun - @goldenraeofsun - goldenraeofsun

Don’t Look Back (E, 36k)

While Mary was alive, she would tell Dean that soulmates were chosen by angels. When the right time came, he would hear his soulmate’s voice in his head, and he would know, wherever they were, they were singing just for him.

But Dean never heard a damn thing. Not at 12, when most people heard their first soul song. Not at 15, when Sammy heard his. Not at 17, when only two-percent of the population heard their first.

And definitely not at 28, when Sam leaves to be with the love of his life, and Castiel, deaf professor of rock music history at KU, moves in.

Tags: Soulmates AU, Deaf Cas, Professor Cas, Mutual Pining, They Were Roommates, Dean has self worth issues, Slow Burn

nickelkeep - @nickelkeep - nickelkeep

Some Pacific Wind (E, 11k)

When a storm comes through and tears away the roof of Dean's beloved night club, Nereid, he believes all is lost. But can the anonymous donations and the attractive new guy, Castiel repair all the things that have been broken?

Tags: AU - Modern Setting, Strangers to Lovers, Bartender!Dean, Businessman!Cas, Dom/Sub Play, Body Worship, Sub drop, Angst/Hurt and Comfort with a Happy Ending

Edge of Paradise (E, 3k)

Cas started to fold the panties when a thought crossed his mind. Dean always put the panties on himself, but had he ever wanted to see Cas put them on? Would that be something that turned on Dean? For a moment, Cas unfolded Dean's panties and held them out in front of himself. He looked at them, imagined the feel of the fabric wrapped around his skin instead of Dean's.

Tags: Canon Compliant, Established Destiel, Panty Kink, Dom/Sub Play, Porn w/ a little Plot

Faithfully (E, 7k)

"I have an idea!" Charlie giggled as she stood up. She stumbled a little, but Dorothy shot her hand up and helped steady her. "I saw a new game in the closet. It's a game we all know, but they put it on cards."

Dean shot a look at Cas who shrugged in return.

Charlie opened the closet. "I know I saw it. Oooh! Here!" She picked up the game and held it over her head triumphantly. "Never Have I Ever!"

"No, no, no, no." Dean stood up and intercepted Charlie. "Red, no one wants to know everything about everyone."

"You're a spoilsport, Winchester." Charlie pouted. A few other people agreed with her, causing Dean to roll his eyes.

"Do you all seriously think any of you are sober enough to play this?" He looked around and saw a mixture of heads nodding yes and heads shaking no.

Tags: AU - Modern Setting, They Were Roommates!, Idiots to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Love Confessions, Platonic Cuddles, Ensemble Cast, Alcohol Use, Minor Drug Mention

Nothing You Confess (E, 5k)

Slowly, Cas opened his eyes and looked at Dean. "Dammit, Cas. I told you to not go dying me on again. Don't scare me like that." Dean hugged Cas tightly before helping him sit up. "Are you ok?"

Cas nodded and attempted to speak. When no sound came out, he squinted and looked at Dean. He pointed at his lips and then his ears while trying to speak.

"Cas, are you saying something?" Dean leaned in close, getting his ear closer to Cas' mouth. "There's nothing come out." Surprise and fear flashed across Dean's face. "Cas, did that spell do something to your voice?"

Cas' lips moved some more without sound before he resigned himself to the fact that he couldn't speak. He nodded at Dean.

Tags: Canon Compliant, Witches and Curses, Cursed Castiel, Mutual Pining, Love Confessions, Sammy Ships It, Cas/Dean First Kiss

Wargurl83 - Wargurl83

Call My Name (And Save Me From The Dark) (M, 31k)

Wardens and Vargar have long existed in sync with each other. Each Pack has an Alpha and a Warden that are bound together that makes the other stronger. The Novak pack was the first Vargar pack in Kansas, and remains the largest in the state- but that may not hold true for much longer. The Pack’s Warden was ripped away from them by murder, and her son stolen in the night before he could complete the ritual to formally become the Pack’s Warden. Now, the Novak Pack is being ground down by Demons and a rival Pack, one who’s Warden uses dark magic. Now, Castiel, the Alpha’s son, strikes out on a desperate search for his Warden- Dean Winchester. Can he find the man he’s loved since childhood? And even if he can, will it be enough?

Tags: Graphic depictions of violence, magic users, creature Cas, Destiel harlequin challenge

rauko-is-a-free-elf - @rauko-is-a-free-elf - FeaRauko

The God of Laundry and Hipbones (T, 1.8k)

This is a drabble for the prompt: Destiel - I’m sorry you caught me moving your clothes out of the dryer but in my defense I’ve been waiting for one to open up for about an hour now

Or...

That one where Dean catches Cas moving his laundry, gawks at him like an idiot until he leaves, and then spends the next several months not being able to find him

Tags: College!au, fic with art, dorm life, Dean's pink panties

MaggieMaybe160 - @maggiemaybe160 - MaggieMaybe160

Forget Me Not (T, 2k)

The angels aren't a fan of Dean and Cas having a relationship. They find a way to sabotage the relationship.

Tags: Major Character Death, torture. 

andimeantittosting - @andimeantittosting - andimeantittosting

The Winchester Affair (E, 34k)

Castiel Shurley has emerged from self-imposed exile to help see his sister safely wed. But when Hael discovers a priceless diamond brooch at the LaCroix ball, a villain finds the opening he needs, and Castiel finds himself in a nightmare.

Blackmailed by the odious Zachariah Adler, he is given one mission: to spy upon Dean, the handsome Marquess of Winchester, or see his entire family ruined. As he’s running out of time, Castiel has to make a choice—save his family, or risk it all to protect the man he has loved in secret since childhood.

Tags: Regency AU, Friends to Lovers, Friends with Benefits, Mutual Pining, Blackmail, Harlequin Challenge

Jemariel - @jemariel - jemariel

Witness Protection (E, 5.5k)

At first, it was an inconvenience. Now, it's their lifeline.

True mates from rival Families, Dean and Castiel fight to escape with their lives.

Tags: Mafia AU, Background Dean/Abaddon, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Dean, Alpha Castiel, No mpreg, Knotting, True Mates, star-crossed lovers, Dialogue Heavy, Clothed Sex, Little bit of graphic injuries

Head Over Feet (E, 9.5k)

Castiel's brother is getting married, and Cas's ex boyfriend is in the wedding party.

Putting an ad on Craigslist for a wedding date seems like a terrible idea at the time, but one of the responses is... very intriguing...

Sparks fly, boys dance, and everybody lives happily ever after.

Tags: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Past Castiel/Inias, Strangers to Lovers, First Kiss, Slow Dancing, Frottage, Clothed Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Fluff and Smut

insominia - @a-insominia​ - insominia

In The Air Tonight (E, 3.5k)

It had been sixteen days since Dean Winchester had last made headlines. Not that Castiel was counting. Not that he had given it any thought at all.

Tags: Graphic Description of Violence, Murder Husbands, AU - Serial Killers, Blood and Gore, Masturbation, Psychopaths in Love

P.Cas. I Love You (G, 2.5k)

Dean Winchester is not a man of words and declarations of love do not come easy to him. Castiel is an angel and is so assured of his place in Dean's life that he does not need such affirmations. This is what Castiel understands to be true. Until Dean goes away.

Tags: Canon-verse, Established Relationship, Fluff, Domestic fluff, Dean Winchester needs to use his words

shealynn88 - @shealynn88​ - shealynn88

Another Day, Another Demon (T, 800 words)

Dean gets called in to handle a demon problem. The demon is…not what he expected.  (endverse!Cas as a demon, meet-cute. Or at least a meet.)

Tags: humor, fluff, meet-cute

Make a Deal With the Bad Wolf (M, 1k)

Dean is bitten and becomes something new. If only he knew what, exactly, that something new was.

Tags: A/B/O, alpha Dean, monster Dean, canon-level violence

MalMuses - @malmuses​ - MalMuses

The Shadow in the Corner (E, 48k)

As a high-ranking member of the Men of Letters, Lord Dean Winchester is overqualified to be investigating strange phenomena at a seaside photography studio. But since the photographer is related to the organization’s most powerful sorcerer, Dean reluctantly boards a steam dirigible to Brighton.

Castiel Novak is haunted by a shadow that appears in some of his recent portraits. In each case, the subject died within days of the sitting. Does he have his grandfather’s gift of foresight, or has he somehow caused the deaths?

As Dean and Cas search for answers, their investigation draws them together in a most improper way—but it seems the evil presence in the studio may not be their only enemy…

Tags: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Period-Typical Homophobia, Crossdressing Castiel, Strangers to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Lovecraftian Monster, Panky kink, A Ridiculous Amount of Sexual Tension.

Down to Suck (E, 5.5k)

Castiel and his vampire boyfriend Dean have been together for a couple of months, and Castiel is very happy with their relationship. But there is a little something else he'd like to add to their dynamic...and he has a sneaky, fluffy plan to get his way.

A timestamp in the Bat Dean 'Verse.

Tags: Bat Dean, Anxious Castiel, Vampire Dean Winchester, Miggles the Cat - Freeform, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, First Time Bottoming, Love Confessions, Established Relationship, Fluff and Crack, Additional Timestamp

Usarechan - @usarechan

Sunset

Postcard for Profoundzine Vol. 1 (SFW)

Angel Baby

My submission for the Profoundzine Vol. 1 (SFW)

[slothcritic]

Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 9 Review

Consistently funny. The weak points do not drag this episode down.

The Set Up begins with a great cold open. Piccolo is drop-dead unconscious on the ground, Gohan is desperately trying to wake him up, and Krillin is anxiously awaiting for Goku to show up. After all, he’s their friend who would never let them down right? Meanwhile... Goku is busy eating at Jadoshin's palace. Even as a departure from the original series, I like the idea that the two of them made up and are friends now. Jadoshin, however, has to remind Goku about the Saiyans. Goku then runs out in a panic.

[Title Sequence]

Piccolo isn't getting up and Nappa needs a new toy. He chooses Gohan seemingly at random from the two remaining, and floors him in one kick.

"Wooo! Not me!"

When Krillin isn't being the resident Milhouse, he's the rimshot comedian. The joy doesn't last for much longer though, as Gohan stays down.

Nappa is about to tear Krillin a new one, when the bald monk suddenly screams out that it's his turn. And for some glorious reason, this actually works on Nappa. This is some straight up Looney Tunes, "Duck Season, Fire!" type tomfoolery.

Vegeta does not handle Nappa's stupidity very well, and in his anger does a fourth wall break where he references a timestamp in the video. This is kind of clever and a bit of a break from the other fourth wall jokes that they've done so far, but I feel like it could lose its charm if it's done more than once. As for the timestamp itself, which is at 9:18 in the video... we'll get to that later.

Krillin decides to use the Destructo-Kienzan, and Vegeta shouts a warning to Nappa that it's a trick.

"But Vegeta... tricks are for kids."

The tense background music just completely stops here, but you can still hear the vibrations of the kienzan in the background. Great sound design. The long pause afterwards is also well timed, and Vegeta takes up the "fuck it, you wanna die, then die." mentality with Nappa. This skit is succinct, well paced and well editied.

Nappa receives a deep cut to the face for his troubles, as it just nearly takes his head off. Nappa laments his modeling career, and the scene cuts to a photoshopped rendition of Nappa on Vogue magazine. The bald, beautiful Saiyan, and his 10 tips on being a better lover!

This might have been a joke before its time, or perhaps the intention was different while writing this in 2009, but Nappa shows us all what a "nice guy" he was trying to be during all of this, and now decides "okay, full ultra-violence it is!" and fades Krillin with a white sparkly angel dust attack. I'm sure it has an actual cool sounding name (Like "Galaxy Breaker" or something) but I'm going to keep calling it the white sparkly angel dust attack. The owned counter ticks up to 8 here, but it doesn't feel deserved.

Piccolo jumps up with an "I'm back" and shoots Nappa... in the back. He sees what you did there. Just as Piccolo and Nappa are about to throw down, Gohan appears out of nowhere and roundhouse kicks him through a boulder. More indication that Gohan has some incredible hidden power inside of him. This surprises Piccolo, and Gohan is initially apologetic, but Piccolo begs for him to stay angry before Nappa just as quickly hops back to his feet.

It turns out Gohan hit Nappa so hard that he turned Italian. Seems a little out of left field, but why not. The "I'm a firing my laser" reference is perhaps the most dated thing I've seen since Episode 1. Would this even count as a meme? Wasn't "Firin Mah Laser" something that came out before the word meme even became popular as a way of describing internet fads, jokes, templates and trends? Back when Demotivational Posters and I Can Haz Cheeseburger ruled the internet? Truthfully, I loved this joke when it came out, but now all it does is remind me of the proto-internet days. And part of me feels weird for being nostalgic about that, because I just know someone in their 30's is going to read this and roll their eyes saying "Oh God, I'm getting old", in much the same way I'll feel horrified when people start to become nostalgic for Fortnite in the next 10 or 20 years.

Back to the episode, Piccolo's sacrifice happens right about here, and the scene does a good job of pointing out a plot contrivance in the source material. Piccolo could have just grabbed Gohan and moved out of the way. Though the scene plays up the amount of time Piccolo had to work with, there was still nothing stopping him from just grabbing him and chucking him like a bag of potatoes out of the way, even in the original. However, if Piccolo doesn't die, there's no real reason to go to Namek. What I think might be a more practical reason is that, this is a turning point for Piccolo as a character where he starts thinking emotionally. It's no real secret across both the canon and the abridged material that Piccolo is actually a pretty decent parent. So this right here is the idea of Piccolo more or less abandoning rational thought and considered only protecting Gohan. That contrasts a little with the ruthless, methodical, cunning, intelligent character he's been shown to be, just to throw that all away to save him, but the contrivance definitely becomes less egregious when you consider these factors.

However you want to address it, then end result is that Piccolo sacrifices himself to protect Gohan. In the original this is capped off with Piccolo comparing Gohan to his son, which is what Gohan begins to explain before Piccolo calls him a nerd. In this series however, Piccolo laments one final time:

"Why... didn't you... DODGE!!!"

Bleh. And with Piccolo's death, Kami is soon to follow. He explains the Namekian Dragon Balls to Mr Popo, and the long (very long) journey that must be undertook in order to revive everyone, but Mr Popo outright refuses and simply reminds Kami of the pecking order. Kami dies, and thus the Dragon Balls become inert.

Back at the battlefield, Vegeta was busy reading an issue of that very same Vogue magazine with Nappa on the cover and thus didn't see him kill Piccolo, like a mother three sangria's deep at her kid's soccer practice.

I've never much cared for Gohan's exasperated expletives in this or any scene in DBZA. This one in particular doesn't sit well with me simply because they went to the effort of being purposefully verbose but then still chose to use the word "condom" over "contraceptive" - A condom is made of latex, whereas a contraceptive is any kind of device at all that prevents pregnancy. As an example, some of the first contraceptives in history were made from linen and animal intestines, while the condom itself wasn't invented until 1855. Gohan specifically saying he's going to use Nappa's intestines as a condom serves the same purpose either way, but “contraceptive” would’ve been more technically accurate, in a bit of dialogue that is purposefully trying to be technically accurate. I wouldn't be picking on the semantics so much if that weren't the express purpose of this entire scene. Also it has more syllables and therefore sounds more smarterer.

Nappa gives this scene the backhand and the "bitch please" it deserves and we're done with that.

"Everyone important to you is dead." "Hey I'm still alive--" "EVERYONE important." "...Damn it."

See, this is where the Krillin Owned count should have gone up.

After Nappa doesn't smash, Goku appears on the battlefield. His reaction to showing up too late and everyone being dead is uncharacteristically deadpan, and it's hilarious. He asks where Chiaotzu is, and Krillin gives him the Achmed the Dead Terrorist explanation. Over there, over there, and up there. I'm not actually sure if this episode predates Jeff Dunham or not, but I enjoy both, both used the same joke at least once, and both make me laugh so I'm drawing the comparison anyways.

Goku asks why everyone is dead and Nappa immediately and without hesitation calls dibs. This leads into one of most famous and iconic scenes, if only for meme reasons, in all of DBZ.

"Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?" "It's... 1006." "Wha-- Really?" "Yeah. Kick his ass, Nappa!"

Not gonna lie, this genuinely made me burst into laughter the first time I saw it. I don't know if it was just shock value or what, but it doesn't have the same effect now that I know it's coming every time I rewatch this episode. I just love the idea of the scouter being upside-down and Vegeta not questioning it. An even better headcanon is that the scouter was never upside-down, Vegeta was just getting tired of Nappa's bullshit and just decided to send him into an ass-kicking anyways.

We're treated to a solid 15 seconds of Nappa getting completely curbstomped while the various characters look on in shock and awe, until Nappa gets dumped at Vegeta's feet.

It's also here that Vegeta finally learns that Piccolo's life is directly intertwined with the Dragon Balls. I believe this was already established in the original series, but no such conversation ever occurred here. Vegeta has quite simply lost his chance at immortality and it’s all because of Nappa.

I actually wonder how an immortal Saiyan would work. They receive a Zenkai boost, which makes them stronger when they almost die, but if you can't ever die, you can't ever “almost” die either, so you wouldn't get the Zenkai boost and your power wouldn't increase that way. Then again, most expectations of logic or consistency within Dragon Ball are pretty much always doomed.

Speaking of doomed, remember that timestamp at 9:18 that Vegeta referenced earlier? Because Vegeta certainly does, and with both the camel’s and Nappa's back having officially been broken, Nappa is sent to the shadow realm in a blinding flash of light and a massive explosion.

Vegeta's smirk is all we needed to close out this episode. There is no stinger.

Conclusion

Really good episode, actually. I wouldn't consider it as strong as Episode 7, but it definitely holds the same energy throughout. There are more high quality comedic moments in this episode than I could count on both hands. At worst some of the dialogue was uninteresting, pointless or overproduced, but the average pace of this episode rests rather highly compared to its valleys.

Microphone quality and sound mixing on some pieces of dialogue is still meh. Krillin's first line in this episode peaks the audio or something similar, because it takes me out for a hot second just because it's so sudden and emphatic.

We also see a slight evolution in the dynamic between Vegeta and Nappa which keeps things fresh. This is becoming less of a deadpan snarker and over the top clown, treads more into the ticking time bomb territory which is great for slowly building tension, and not unjustly as it has a satisfying payoff.

Plot holes in the original are addressed and lampooned here, creative jokes such as the Vogue Nappa and “1006″ are present and accounted for, and on the whole there's a lot of very on the mark humor, and only some of it is overdone. The story for this episode also holds significant weight and momentum, and it all blends together quite well with an above-average script and some great visual and audio edits.

Score: 77

Passing Thoughts

"Riiiiiicola!" - Oh hey, it's this again.

"Oh and I totally killed that guy. Oh well, at least we still had fun getting here, right Vegeta? Vegeta? Remember the bug planet? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vegeta? Vege-- AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!"

[permian-tropos]

Tbch, I really love Rose's anti capitalistic ways of yelling RÉVOLUTION! left and right and wrecking all the shit, I really do. But. The way she treated Finn was constantly having me be like ???lady. DAFUQ. is. your. problème??? I mean. What the fuck is Finn really to her? Hero? Traitor? Coward? At first she practically worships him. But then she constantly belittles him and side-eyes him as if he's going to sell them out to the FO (plot-twist, it was the shady cynical dude, what a subversion)

And I really think that, didn’t she actually deserve better? Why was her arc so… inconsistent? Is that even the right word? I mean. What was her purpose in the end, really? Telling Finn how bad war is? AKA what he literally realizes 10 minutes into the previous movie? (I don’t know the actual timestamp, but I guess you catch my drift) REALLY? Oh, boy, is a soldier who had been looking at nothing but dark grey and black walls for basically his entire life not permitted to express wonder over a richly glowing city, not exactly something a stormtrooper sees every day. But after all the shit goes down and they are back to the others on Crait and *suddenly* Finn jumps in to risk his life for his new friends he barely knows (aka what he did in TFA already) suddenly she’s “in love” with him? (Unless that kiss was purely platonic, but I doubt that) I put that under quotations because it looked as fake as all the het rom coms where there’s literally no chemistry between the romantic leads. I dunno. Maybe I should have messaged you privately, you don’t even have to hop in onto all this mess. I’m sorry for going off like that, but I have kinda a conflicted relationship with the portrayal of Rose. Especially since Kelly-Marie Tran is such a sweetheart and a good person and I wish that she gets many cool roles in the future. I’m just so pissed that she felt to me like a half baked pizza that got wet because the delivery guy was sent through the rain by his boss? Does that make sense?

It’s okay! I’m going to defend Rose as best I can cause I do really like her, and I think people would be less disappointed in her if they gave her a second chance. We all would prefer it if we liked her, surely? 

I just made a post about how the way she treats Finn reminds me so much of how I wrote a self-insert OC to treat my fictional crush. Like despite not having much IRL attraction I remember the feeling of wanting to fight the object of affection because gah they’re just so hhdshj.

But I also want people to see Rose like an ordinary person. A really ordinary person, except she’s been through so much. Imagine yourself in her shoes, actually dropped in the middle of this big drama and not comfortably spectating it. Cause I have a twin sibling, and if they died, I wouldn’t expect to act rational on the very day it happened. KMT sells Rose’s anguish so well for me in her first scene, that everything she does with Finn that’s antagonistic feels like she’s just lashing out at the world. That’s not bad writing, it’s really realistic. It doesn’t make Rose a bad person. Her pain is real. 

Paige wasn’t just Rose’s family, she was Rose’s only family and last connection to her home. I don’t think that many people from the Otomok System made it out. So now on top of imagining the death of your closest family, imagine losing the only person left who remembers your childhood, who remembers the home you lost. That’s why Rose is so upset. 

On Canto Bight, Rose doesn’t just tell Finn how bad “war” is. Rose tells Finn that rich assholes are responsible. And not everyone knows this. Not everyone realizes that war is run by the rich assholes, and that they basically do not face significant consequences for any of it. Not everyone knows that the corporate board member who designed a significant part of Auschwitz got out of jail within seven years and got back onto the board of his old company (Bayer) and onto several other boards of several other companies. I just found that out really recently and boy does it fuck me up.

I think Rose is clearly falling for Finn throughout the movie, too, and her frustration with him isn’t a sign she hates him. She just really loathes Canto Bight because of what she personally went through, and doesn’t want him to admire it. Maybe you think he should be allowed to, but Rose has her reasons for feeling strongly about it and it’s good to write a character who acts on internal logic. Her anger isn’t supposed to be 100% fair or rational, it’s just supposed to make sense for her. It’s supposed to be sensible for her to feel these things, given her situation. That’s character writing. 

Additionally, I don’t think there needed to be chemistry between them. Nothing’s confirmed about Finn’s feelings for Rose, as far as I know. He respects her and cares about her, but I don’t think he was falling for her quite as much as she was for him in this film. Rose is not only a bit shy and awkward, but she notes over and over that Finn is thinking about Rey. She only makes a move when it seems she might never get the chance – up until then she’s not actually trying to attract his attention because she doesn’t expect anything to happen between them. Chemistry is about showing mutual attraction being subtly communicated. Rose likes Finn but she doesn’t think she’s going to get to date him and she doesn’t try flirt at all, so he has nothing to respond to for there to be any chemistry at all. 

[trinuviel]

Winterfell’s Daughter. On Sansa Stark (part 2)

This is the second part of my analysis of the character of Sansa Stark on Game of Thrones. Part 1 can be found here.

THE ROMANTIC ILLUSION UNDERMINED

Sansa approaches her betrothal with Joffrey as a fantasy come true – she is now the heroine in a “romance”, just like in the stories she loves so much. However, this illusion is quickly undermined by Joffrey himself when he gets into a conflict with Arya on the road back to King’s Landing.

This is the first time that Sansa gets to witness Joffrey’s sadistic nature. It all starts so well. Sansa is out walking in the camp. 

She meets the creepy Illyn Payne and is frightened, then the Hound whom she also finds intimidating. At this point Joffrey inserts himself into the conversation and “saves” Sansa from the scary men.

He employs the conventions of Courtly Love; flatteringly calling her his lady and caressing her face. They go walking and he plies her with wine as if it is a grand gesture. Sansa is essentially living out her little fairy tale. Then they come across Arya and Mycha (the butcher’s boy) playing at swords. Because he’s a sadistic little shit, Joffrey seizes the moment to torment Mycha, knowing that he can get away with it because he’s the Crown Prince and Mycha is lowborn. It is, however, worth noting that once again Joffrey employs the conventions of Chivalric Romance, casting himself as Arya’s “rescuer” like he did with Sansa’s encounter with Illyn Payn and the Hound.

Joffrey: That’s my lady’s sister you were hitting. Do you know that?

Language like this is probably figures in the songs and stories that Sansa loves so much, where the knight/hero intervenes to defend a helpless maid. Joffrey, of course, doesn’t care about Arya – he just wants to do some bullying. This is where the whole situation turns into a twisted version of the narrative pattern that Joffrey is trying to appropriate. As the situation plays out, Joffrey isn’t the knight – he’s the villain. Mycha is the helpless person and Arya intervenes as the knightly rescuer.

This incident is not one of Sansa’s finest moments. She stands passively in the background as Joffrey hurts Mycha and as he argues with Arya. When Arya attacks Joffrey, Sansa starts yelling:

Sansa: No, no, stop it, both of you. You’re spoiling it. You’re spoiling everything!

Interestingly enough, Sansa berates both Arya and Joffrey. They are spoiling her lovely little fantasy. After Arya has left Joffrey cowering on the ground, Sansa quickly reverts to the script of Courtly Love and both laments Joffrey’s injuries and offers to get help - probably because she has no idea of to react otherwise:

Sansa: My prince, my poor prince, look at what they did to you.

She fusses over him like a lady would fuss over her wounded knight in one of her stories. Joffrey, however, doesn’t revert back to script but instead hisses at her not to touch him. He’s angry and humiliated and lashes out at her. This is probably the reason why Joffrey comes to hate Sansa so much. She witnessed his cowardice and weakness – and he never forgives her for it.

The conflict between the children is followed by a confrontation before King Robert. Arya is dragged in front of the king to where Cersei offers up a complete fabrication about how Joffrey was attacked unprovoked by Arya and Mycha. It devolves into a “he said, she said” scenario and Robert is visibly frustrated. He wants this resolved.

Robert: Where’s your other daughter, Ned?

Ned: In bed, asleep.

Cersei: She’s not. Sansa, come here, darling.

Then Sansa comes before Robert. There’s an important detail here that it is easy to overlook: Sansa is escorted into the presence of the king by a Lannister guard in full armour! [video, timestamp: 1:49]

Let’s ponder this for a moment. While Ned was out searching for Arya, Cersei had Sansa isolated and put under armed guard! That must have been quite an intimidating experience for Sansa and I don’t think that it is far-fetched that Sansa may have been pressured to present Cersei’s version of events. It is quite clear that Cersei expects Sansa to confirm Joffrey’s story. It isn’t stated outright but there is a subtext at play that indicates that Cersei has put pressure on Sansa when she was isolated and vulnerable.

This is another of Sansa’s less than stellar moments. However, I also think that she is often judged more harshly than she deserves. She is put in quite a bind. Cersei wants her to lie to the king – the same king who tells her that it is a great crime to lie to a king.

Robert: Now child, tell me what happened. Tell it all and tell it true. It is a great crime to lie to a king.

Sansa does lie to Robert but she doesn’t tell the lie that Cersei has been pushing. She doesn’t want to incriminate Arya but neither does she want to take sides against the boy she’ll be bound to for the rest of her life. So she tells another lie: that she doesn’t remember – and alienates both of them in the process.

The whole situation is a mess and neither Sansa nor Arya are equipped to handle this – and Ned is utterly useless. Neither Sansa nor Arya is to blame why this situation ends in such a nasty way. They are children who are completely unequipped to handle a pair of vicious persons who are acting in bad faith. The people to blame are the adults – primarily Cersei and Robert. Interestingly enough, this scenario is a notable deviation from the book, probably because Ned really does not acquits himself very well in the book. It is Ned who calls Sansa before the king. He knows the truth (because Sansa told him everything) but puts his daughter in a difficult situation where he expects her to testify against the boy who she’s to marry. He throws his eldest daughter to the lions without giving her any kind of support. The show, however, rewrites the incident to gloss over Ned’s failure as a parent.

Did Sansa do wrong here? Yes and no. It was wrong of her not to support her sister but, on the other hand, Arya did in fact commit a crime by attacking a member of the royal family. The punishment for this is very harsh. Sansa’s lie keeps the conflict at the “he said, she said” level and the only reason why Lady was killed was because Cersei was vindictive and Robert didn’t want to fight with her anymore. Sansa is generally judged very hard by the audience and that isn’t quite fair because the feudal world of Westeros doesn’t operate in the same way as our modern, democratic world. Yes, Sansa acted cowardly but her actions also prevented the situation from escalating if she had told the truth. Sansa is put between a rock and a hard place – and she was always going to be the loser in this scenario. If she had taken sides, she’d either betrayed Arya by confirming Joffrey’s lie or she’d have incriminated her sister, which could have had severe consequences for Arya. Then there’s the fact that she’s betrothed to Joffrey and a woman publically going against her betrothed/husband was not done. Ned actually explains this to Arya later (ep03).

The real tragedy is Mycha’s death – and the sad part is that he was already dead when Arya and Sansa was dragged before King Robert. Even if Sansa had told the truth, Mycha would still have been dead because the common born almost always loose when the rich and powerful clash - that is one of the overriding themes of the books.

DEATH OF A DIREWOLF

Lady’s death can be seen as a narrative punishment for Sansa lying about the incident at the Trident but that is, imo, a simplistic way to approach this. Lady dies because Cersei is a petty, vindictive woman and because Robert doesn’t want to argue anymore. Even Ned doesn’t press the issue beyond saying: “Is this your command, Your Grace?” In Sansa’s eyes, his lack of defense for Lady can certainly be construed as him failing her as a parent – the fact that he himself kills Lady can not be easy to Sansa to accept (Ned might think he’s doing the wolf a mercy but in his daughter’s eyes, he’ll always be the one that killed her beloved pet. I doubt Sansa can distinguish between the two in her anguish. Dead is dead and it was her father who wielded the blade). Lady is just another innocent victim in all this.

Within the fandom there’s been a lot of theories about what Lady’s death signifies – if it even signifies anything special at all. Many readers take her death to be a foreshadowing of Sansa dying, probably because the direwolves’ dead mother (killed by a stag) can be interpreted as a death omen for Ned: killed by a “Baratheon” king whose sigil is a stag. However, when reading a text symbolically, context is key and I’d like to advance another interpretation. Let’s have a look at what the text says about Ned killing Lady:

He left the room with his eyes burning and his daughter’s wails echoing in his ears, and found the direwolf pup where they chained her. Ned sat beside her for a while. “Lady”, he said, tasting the name. He had never paid much attention to the names the children had picked, but looking at her now he knew that Sansa had chosen well. She was the smallest of the litter, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. She looked at him with bright golden eyes, and he ruffled her thick grey fur. Shortly, Jory brought him Ice. (A Game of Thrones, Eddard III) 

Trust and the betrayal of trust is such a huge part of Sansa’s narrative arc, so I think that it is no coincidence that Lady is described as the most trusting of the wolves. If we read the text metaphorically, then Ned’s killing of Lady can be interpreted as the first blow against Sansa’s innocent and trusting nature. Thus, Ned kills a little bit of Sansa’s trust in him when he executes Lady, which is just so incredibly sad. I’ve always thought that her going to Cersei, begging to be allowed to stay in King’s Landing (thus unwittingly betraying her father’s plan) wasn’t just a matter of Sansa being a selfish, spoiled child, but also that she no longer completely trusted that her father had her best interests in mind. I know it is easy to say that his hand was forced - and it was - but for a child it is difficult to see past the hand that wielded the blade. However, that one rebellious action on Sansa’s part actually lead to an even greater betrayal of her trust by Cersei. 

Interestingly enough, the show makes a direct connection between Lady’s death and Bran waking up from his long coma through the editing. In the books, the chapter where Bran wakes up (after a tense vision/dream sequence where he’s close to crashing into spires of ice and thus dying) follows the chapter where Ned kills Lady. In the show, Lady’s death is closely intercut with the scene where Bran wakes up – not just once but several times. [Video, timestamp: 5:00]

Thus Lady’s death whimper (off-screen) is immediately followed by Bran opening his eyes, which is the last shot of the episode. What does this mean? Well, it strongly suggests that Lady’s death pays for Bran’s life! It is her death that releases him from his coma.

[sleepymarmot]

MEA liveblog #7

Spoilers!

Multiplayer

This interface is a mess. I move my mouse onto "exit lobby" and it turns into "kick player". Buttons just jump around and transform all the time.

And the APEX mission shit needs to be fixed. When you select a mission to play, don't direct me to lobbies who play the same enemy/map/difficulty but not as the mission! Join lobby, see "custom", exit lobby, select "custom game", re-select mission, join, end up in the same lobby, rinse, repeat...

At least I can end up second when I join on wave 5 as a human vanguard lol

F Human Vanguard card!

Tempest

Non-custom weapons of different rank shouldn't exist as separate items in the inventory! Unlocking a higher rank should upgrade the old item like in ME3! This stupid inventory system exists solely because of crafting! If you need inventory limits so much, let them apply only to the crafted items! I've already complained about rewards being lost with no warning if the inventory is full and it's still bullshit! 

I crafted the N7 chestpiece! 25% shield on kill (of course), 5% damage resistance, 2% shield restoration, 2% health&shield regen speed, 2% max shield. I called it "N7 Slayer X". And turns out, it was dad's armor...

Oh right, it needs a new color scheme!

Havarl

I like this ex-STG, he's talking properly.

I don't like the sound effect from Annihilation -- it's like water in my ears!

Hey Peebs, how do you immediately know where the next piece is as soon as we pick the current one?

Kadara

Here's the bar fight. Animation is not bad but has no energy.

Told the asari dancer that I'm done here and she needs to talk to the dude herself, but the quest still sends me back to him -_-

Tempest

So, Kesh was adopted?

Okay, Kalinda is 100% Marjolaine. Peebee's personal storyline is even more copy-pasted from Leliana than Drack's is copypasted from Wrex.

Aya

So many sidequests again!

The Moshae's words about the definition of victory! That's the smartest thing I've heard in this game in hours.

It's really weird to hear her talk so sweetly to me... When we first met she didn’t seem to like me.

When Vetra said people were staring at her, I couldn't resist suggesting they're just all in love...

I suggested taking people who sold their Aya slots onto the Nexus. That's not even charity -- the same ambassador gave me a task to convince angara to come there anyway! So this would kill two birds with one stone.

For the visitor who wanted contact with his family, I had to reload. The options didn't even seem too different... Got it right for the other two: gave an honest professional answer about health issues, and a confident casual answer about finding work.

Great, now I have to head back into the city to buy stuff... This is literally a fetch quest lol

Eos

Omg, the Architect is in orbit now!

The Roekaar fight in an old settlement was very chaotic and fun with Flamethrower/ED/Lance, though it'd probably be easier to just charge

Tempest

Aaaand Jaal gives me his loyalty mission. It's funny that I'm going to do my own love interest's mission last...

Jaal's LM

I continue to be unimpressed with the Roekaar being pure antagonists. :/

Didn't shoot the guy, told Jaal he was badass.

Why are loyalty missions so short?

BTW Ryder just looks wrong in N7 armor... She's not Shepard, that's not her allegiance or her story.

Tempest

Jaal, just as we're leaving Havarl you decided to invite me for a visit down there?

Turian ark

Avitus has very stylish armor

For fuck's sake, Bioware, why do you hate gay men so much?

I convinced Avitus to take the mantle. It was a very sentimental decision for Ryder -- because her situation is very similar. Her SAM and the connection he had with her father are unique, but she didn't think of that in that moment.

Nexus

"Better to find your wings as you fly" Easy for you to say, Sarissa, your predecessor wasn't a loved one

Tempest

I'd agree with Peebee about relationship and baggage, but of course I felt obligated to take the romantic option

(I don’t think there’s an option to agree with her, though, so it’s only for the best)

Voeld

Liam, Vetra, don't fight!

Whoops, sorry for leaving you to die in the purification field, Vetra

...I liked the old color scheme better. Green light looks more alien, but less pretty.

Nexus

Final memory -- here we go!

My theory was that the Archon was somehow Ellen, but that made so little sense I didn't even write it down :D This is simpler.

BTW there's finally Shepard's gender we had to select in the beginning -- in translated subtitles :D Didn't hear it even once in the audio -- could it be Bioware actually took their foreign audience into consideration? :O

Honestly, it's weird that the Reapers info is so secret... From the OT I got the impression that Shepard was yelling about it to everyone at every opportunity...

Fine, fine, you made me emotional with Liara's message.

Shit, I was expecting this decision...

I feel pretty sad now. That's all?

Peebee's LM

Oh, so that's why she lives in an escape pod :D I thought this was only a characterization thing, not a Chekhov's gun!

I said I wasn't mad, though I was a bit. But I mean Ryder *is* mad but also having the time of her life so...

Shit I just shot Kalinda instinctively lmao

Ok I replayed the entire sequence and Idk. This is really the hardest choice in the game...

I'm tempted to say "Yes, literally" :D

Since it's so hard to reaload, it's fair game to watch videos before deciding for myself. Okay, "Yes, literally" is way too harsh.

Alright, this Ryder is not going to make Peebee sad, but I've already planned a Renegade-ish playthrough with a Ryder who values knowledge over everything, so... :D

(Btw, I love that MEA's brand of a more ruthless protagonist is not "uncontrollable brute" but "intellectual snob". As tedious as this game is, I'm already super eager to play character who has those values & takes urgency of tasks seriously.)

This mission is enjoyable and the choice feels maybe the most meaningful... But it has all the classic Mass Effect problems. Kalinda sends a shitload of people to murder us, we murder them, but when she's helpless and we have a finger on the trigger all of that suddenly doesn't matter. Sidonis all over again. Sure, murdering people begging for help is bad in a lot of ways, but she did just try to kill us, a lot of times... Plus, why the fuck can't Ryder jump over and catch the Remnant thing?! That needed to be a second, Paragon interrupt after the Renegade "shoot her." And Ryder is a goddamn biotic, as is Peebee, as is Kalinda! Peebee, Pull is your first goddamn skill! It'd actually be completely plausible if the artifact had shields and/or armor and therefore immune to Pull or Singularity -- but not giving the characters even an idea to try is just stupid!

Tempest

Inviting Peebee to live with together made me revisit my room and inspired me to make some changes. You know what, I'm going to play music in my quarters and change into the short-sleeved pajamas. It's my own ship, why do I walk around it in street clothes? The jacket is stylish but too much to wear at home. I wish we had a "formal" outift for Nexus/Aya/other hubs in addition to the "casual" clothes we wear on the ship.

Shit I went to read someone's post about Peebee's LM and caught a spoilers about the romance post-LM

Addison is right, getting pregnant in that situation was irresponsible

Ah the continuity in this game. "Found more outposts"? I have every possible outpost and all planets at 100%!

"On hold: Place an outpost" bitch where

Voeld

What, there's still a cold hazard?! What was the point of the vault, then?!

Whoa, so the angara believe exaltation not just kills their people but destroys their immortal souls? Wow! That should have been said by a major character during the main story, not by an easily missed NPC!

Oh great, I died and the game refuses to load the last autosave

Dear game. Why did you create four autosaves for the same second. All glitched. Half hour of gameplay lost... God please let the last manual save work. I was sure I saved in between, but just now my PC decided that we still have daylight savings clock change when we do not, and the timestamps on all recent saves are messed up. This especially sucks because I'm trying to rush Peebee's romance because I don't know when the sex scene comes up but I want to make sure it's not when my mom is home while I play it on her PC lol

Tempest

Fuck, that was cute! And Peebee did tackle Ryder, as promised! :D I wonder what she says through Zap in the platonic version...

Addison please don't say the baby screams "like a banshee". I fucking jumped.

"Before you say anything: no PDAs" :D

Level 50! Time to craft myself a powerful new Dhan. I've been running with rank three all this time...

I love that whenever you ask about Kalinda and then return to the general dialogue tree you say "Let's talk about something else" and Peebee responds "YES. Please."

Voeld

Alright, so: the kett leaders are dissatisfied with the Archon because he hasn't reported to them recently, the communication with the kett homeworld(?) might be disrupted in general and the Scourge might be to blame.

Tempest

Damn, SAM has a pretty insightful speech about death! The only thing that can't be rationalized after experiencing it, which is why it fascinates. I actually haven't heard it explained this way before.

My movie night quest hasn't progressed since I brought Jaal his device...

Eos

Ryder watching and playing football with two giant guns floating near her hips... omg

Elaaden/Kadara

What? I'm completely confused by all these identical salarians.

I don't understand this choice. He promises to give us the intel if we let him go... what proof do we have besides his word? And how would arresting him stop us from getting intel from his computer etc?

Reloaded to see both options, chose to arrest him

Havarl

I'm not hugging Jaal's mother wtf

Ryder has surprisingly good facial animation when Jaal shows his mementos

In theory Ryder should like Jaal for being such a nerd but the only thing he makes me feel is mild irritation. His interest in "taking things apart" is an informed quality just like his supposed emotional openness. It's not reflected in his dialogue or storyline at all.

And now I'm finished with all quests in the ally category. I wanted to finish the game asap, but now that we know the patch is coming on Thursday, I'll wait for it.

Multiplayer

Extracted from Silver for the first time as Human Vanguard (level 8, rank IV)! It was against Remnant, so Observers and Destroyers were the only problem. Nullifiers are ridiculously easy for a melee character -- like Ravagers, but without acid.

Got Krogan Vanguard from a pack. Will I have to tolerate the Rage overlay?

The first game with Kroguard was going well, he's got a stong melee even though he's slow... and then wave 6/upload/Kett killed us all :(

Completely unrelated to anything, but I just realized that if you pick the romantic option in the escape pod with Peebee, they don't actually have sex. Call me stupid because that's what Peebee's initial condition is, but I thought Ryder's response changed her mind! When Ryder said "Let's not rush things" I interpreted and meant it in the emotional sense, as "It'd be dishonest to hide that I have a crush on you, but you don't owe me anything, and if you don't ready for a Serious Relationship and Grand Romance yet that's fine because I'm not either, so let's just hook up and leave reflection for later" -- which I thought was pretty sweet and interesting? Because this whole relationship to me was built on the fascinating contrast between Peebee's emotional reservations and casual/flirty attitude, and conversely, on Ryder very consciously respecting Peebee's emotional space. Maybe I just fundamentally don't understand sex and romance lmao. But if character A propositions character B, character B says they have feelings for character A, and the scene promptly fades to black, I assume they do the do because that's how these things are filmed? Only in comparison with the other option, which is actually pretty explicit, it became obvious to me that's not what the director meant. I'm pretty disappointed because I thought it was a good subversion of Jack's "either sex or romance" thing in ME2. And it messes with my headcanon/characterization... I guess I'll have to retcon it into one of the two options. I'll probably go with casual, not romantic in that case. But I just read that Peebee will tell you she's glad you said no, so... :/

Multiplayer

Failed a Silver APEX mission agains the Remnant as a human vanguard :(

Got an asari sentinel!

The patch is here, but I can't launch the game now :( This needs some work.

Ugh, I stop playing for two days and have no motivation to pick the game up again...

[hydrus]

Version 284

windows

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exe

os x

app

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linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had a great week. There are a bunch of different fixes and improvements, and one new thing for advanced users to play with.

subscription fixes

I fixed the 'new-queries-initialising-as-dead' issue! As well as fixing the problem for the future, any queries you have that died due to this will be reattempted.

Subscriptions now also consume bandwidth on a per-query basis, so subs with a lot of queries won't get throttled so easily.

misc stuff

The thumbnail 'select' menu now lists the number of files to be selected for the simpler selection types. This is small, but it is neat for inbox/archive.

Import folders will now catch if you put in an invalid path in the dialog, and they'll let you know if you try to manually run them while import folders are globally paused.

The weird issue where drag and drop events were sometimes not working if dropped on the top-left area of the main gui window is also fixed!

I added an experimental 'thumbnail fill' mode under options->gui. This takes the existing thumb and zooms it until it fills the whole thumbnail 'window'. It looks ugly at the moment due to the zoom (rather than generating larger clipped thumbnails), but it gives a decent idea of how thumbs appear under this fit style. If you are interested in this stuff, give it a go and let me know what you think. I am open to adding good options for this with higher quality thumbnails sometime in the future, but I suspect 100% fill is not desirable, and that we really want a compromise for extreme cases so that very tall or wide images produce thumbs that fill say 75% of the available space.

url class

This is only for advanced users who are interested in the new parsing system.

After making several small tools for the new parsing system, I now have a first version of a medium-sized tool--the 'url class'. This object defines a type of URL, like 'gelbooru post url', and how the client can recognise them. It will be used in the final downloader engine to connect URLs to appropriate parsers.

It can also do URL 'normalisation', which will let the client strip off redundant URL data and hence collapse URL dupes. For instance, e621 and some other boorus put user-managed metadata in the URL, which means the file post URL can change from time to time (and result in the client downloading it again, thinking it could be a new file). For example, the URLMatch can collapse this:

https://e621.net/post/show/1389870/-absurd_res-ambiguous_gender-bow-cheek_tuft-clothe

Down to this:

https://e621.net/post/show/1389870

Which is still valid!

I have thrown together a simple listctrl in the services->manage network rules dialog to hold a list of these for now. It doesn't do anything except editing atm. I expect to add a larger layer of options here to handle misc settings like 'show/hide these urls on the media viewer' and some stuff for retroactively collapsing duplicates at the db level, but please do play with this stuff and let me know if there are any types of URL this object cannot handle and normalise.

I also made some Hentai Foundry url classes as an example--just hit the button on the dialog to load them and see how it all works. If you need any more help, please send me a message or grab me on the discord.

full list

fixed subscription queries turning dead on the initial sync

all dead subscription queries have been set to check again in case they can revive

added query file velocity to edit subscription panel

subscription network contexts now reflect the new multiple subscription query system, and are named "sub_name: query_text". as every query now counts as its own separate subscription network context, this will stop query-heavy subscriptions from throttling so much on bandwidth limits

finished URLMatch object, which matches and normalises URLs into certain 'classes' like 'gelbooru post url'

expanded some URLMatch subdomain options

fixed some test logic in URLMatch

finished the last of the EditURLMatchPanel

split the 'manage network rules' dialog into two panels--it now has a 'url classes' tab

wrote a panel for managing url matches

added export/import/duplicate buttons to EditURLMatchesPanel

wrote some URLMatches for hentai-foundry as an initial test of the system and added a temp button to add them--please check them out to see how it all works

all, invert, inbox, and archive (and none, lol) thumbnail 'select' menu items now have counts

invert is now at the bottom

the thumbnail select menu now has local/remote entries if applicable (this typically is only true in 'all known files' file domain)

added png/clipboard export/import/duplicate code to the generic new listctrl button wrapper panel, which will save a bunch of time as the png/clipboard sharing system expands

added a human-facing serialisable name to all objects on the new serialisation system and tied the new import/export code into it for png presentation

the edit import folder dialog will now complain (but not veto) on an ok event if any of the entered paths do not exist

if you attempt to manually run an import folder while import folders are globally paused, you'll get a little popup telling you so

added an experimental 'thumbnail fill' setting to options->gui. it zooms the existing thumbnails so they fill the whole thumb space. feedback on this from those who would be interested in a prettier system would be appreciated

added 'paste tags' buttons to filename tagging options panel

the paths/urls in the file import cache are now their own object that holds the creation/modified/source times and current status and note. this object can also hold prospective urls, tags, and hashes for future use

a bunch of file import actions are faster

all the different importers now use this new file import object

fixed a screen position calculation in the new drag and drop filtering code that was accidentally including too many possible drop candidates on drops in the top-left corner of the main gui (if you had trouble moving tabs to the left, this should be it fixed!)

fixed a problem display volume/chapter/page tags that included unicode characters in thumbnail banners and media viewers

fixed a rare media display bug in the dupe filter

fixed some 'C++ part of panel has been deleted' bugs in review services if the frame is shut down before delayed db info is fetched

cleaned up some more 'C++ deleted' errors in import files selection dialog

fixed the network context custom header panel 'add' action, which wasn't saving the value of the panel

fixed a bunch of bugs in the newish QueueListBox class

SynchroniseRepositories daemon will be better about quitting early on application shutdown

cleaned up some pending pretty timestamp grammar

when the client cannot clean up a temporary file, it will print more error information

added pylzma to the 'running from source' library recommendations. this is not required, but if available it adds ZWS flash support

next week

Domain manager stuff to handle these new url classes, and maybe some parsing engine improvements.