#it also fits Joshua well imo

[littledragonkana]

Evermore from Beauty and the Beast is such a KartisLord song

[arolesbianism]

Y'know I was thinking abt how I like to bully alone dupes in oni when they enter the socializing state alone but then I realized... When they're socializing they go to the printing pod. They're talking with their deadbeat mom that's so cute 🥺

[mysteriesofmilo]

#7: First Impressions

Longtime followers of this blog will remember that this one was voted the best episode of the entire show. I think we can agree to disagree on this one, since I totally understand.

While I'm not normally too big a fan of backstory episodes, this one really turned the cuteness up to 11. Plus it was vintage Milo Murphy's Law, with the focus on Milo and Melissa with and minimal Doof Interference, which is always a win.

I liked how this episode sort of paralleled Going the Extra Milo (in that it was about Milo taking another kid to school in his own unique way), but made it about Melissa instead of Zack. I guess that's also kind of a two-edged sword though, because it showed that to be best friends with Milo, you have to go through a life threatening experience with him always protecting you. And I have to feel for Bradley too. He got totally shafted, so it's understandable why he would hold a grudge against Milo. (Although he did end up stealing the spotlight back with PnF's revival and MML's... well...)

Anyway. I'm getting off topic. The younger versions of Cavendish and Dakota were fun too. I gotta wonder though, how did Dakota know that the burrito he was about to eat was so good, it only exists at that particular time and place? Unless, of course, he was just saying that to sweet talk Rita into making it happen. And knowingly risking his own life for an amazing burrito? AND admitting that it was risky, but pointing out how it was worth it? That just fits Dakota's character too well.

And I can't forget the best screenshot of the entire episode:

A few things here:

Zack is pushing Melissa off the platform while Milo is just hiding out, employing the "wait for everybody else to take each other out before joining the fight" strategy. I don't know why, but that's hilarious to me.

M.Square is Agent P. Makes sense to me, since Milo was the only one of the trio to work directly with him during the episode.

MC.Master is a pistachion. This is actually a reference to an idea from writer Joshua Pruett, where Melissa would have remained a pistachion after The PnF Effect. He said this would "show that not all 'chions are evil" and "advance her relationship with Zack in a sweet way." Eventually this was changed to just her arm, and eventually THAT was changed to just Bradley's arm. (I'm also pretty sure this is why that one giant pistachion went rogue and started a soup kitchen.)

And Zack is the most interesting IMO. He's a llama (or an alpaca, I'm not sure). I mean, he wasn't at The Llama Incident, but he was at the Llama Relief Fund charity race and the Forget the Llamas, Save the Alpacas benefit concert. But Melissa and Milo were both at both of those events too, so... not sure why that would be Zack's avatar.

But his username. Obviously this is after he goes through his character growth. It's exactly the same as when Candace and Stacy were playing that Ducky Momo game. Zack is extremely comfortable with this and I love it.

[fairyhaos]

joshua flower shop au, how does it sound?

PS: this is not a request, just a question :)

it sounds beautiful omg!! i was thinking about flower shop aus ever since that one moot game that @blue-jisungs did haha and imo the idea fits dokyeom soooo well but also shua... it could work for shua too

[justkpopjokes]

SEVENTEEN as Alternative/Indie/Rock Songs

Several years ago, I started making this list of all the alt/indie/rock songs I associate with Seventeen! It’s my favourite genre of music, so I’ll be doing these for a few groups.

This was originally going to be a GFX series, so Jeonghan and Jun have links to my GFX posts. Otherwise, links are to the songs on YouTube!

S.COUPS

King — Zayde Wølf

Seungcheol is King, what else needs to be said?????

Mr. Wølf has got a full(?)/clean voice that I think matches well with Cheol's vibe

JEONGHAN

This is Gospel — Panic! At the Disco

((Check out the GFX here!))

Thought of Hannie when listening to the piano version actually

I think the fact there’s 2 official versions with different vibes kinda show Jeonghan’s softness vs the fact he’s cool af

(Like ALL HIS HIDDEN TALENTS?? ok Jeonghan I see u)

JOSHUA

Heart of Gold — Foreign Figures

The warmth this song radiates reminds me of Shua

I think it fits his vibe and he could sing it!

It’s not exactly his style, but he could rock it

JUN

Top of the World — Greek Fire

I feel like Junhui could sing a ver. of this where the tune is the same but has different instruments and less of shouting

Like the verses definitely fit!!

BONUS ! JUN

Let Me Down Slowly - Alec Benjamin

((Check out the GFX here!))

Bonus bc it’s technically indie pop not rock (though someone did make an alt rock cover!!!)

On that note, it’s also kind of like a ballad which wbk junhui slays

Junhui’s softness matched with Alec’s!! They both got soft voices like cotton candy

I still think Junhui’s voice is very purple and fits this song

HOSHI

Kung Fu — IAMCOUCHSURF

This song is definitely more of a fun/silly vibe than the others, which gives me Hoshi vibes!

I had another song for Hoshi that he could dance to, whereas this one is more of just a song to jam to than one he’d dance to

Though the singing style sounds kind of like Hoshi (in a rock context)

WONWOO

Man or a Monster — Sam Tinnesz ft. Zayde Wølf

Ngl if Wonu sang this... I would cry

The vibe of this song fits him really well imo

And the lyrics are smth I could write a fic abt w/him!! The point is it’s very vibey

WOOZI

Way Down We Go — KALEO

The piano is an immediate tie in to Jihoon's vibe

Soft indie rock!! Maybe not something he could sing himself, but it reminds me of him

THE8

Call Me Fighter — Matt Beilis

THINKING OF AN FMV WITH MINGHAO OOOH

This has soft verses but then the chorus really ramps it up

It’s like... such epic vibes and I feel like Hao could cover it if it was a little different? (like what I said abt Jun’s)

He could pull off the verses in Chinese for sure

MINGYU

Monster — Willyecho

I FEEL LIKE A *beat drop* *guitar riff* MONSTER

If you don't see Gyu playing electric guitar to that then idk what to say

I really love Mingyu as this song lol, he could really rock parts of it!!

DK

Hell No! — Mel Senese

I think Dokyeom could sing this

But also I picked it because the vibe is definitely DK’s vibe (maybe even BooSeokSoon)

Like the hook and chorus give DK energy

SEUNGKWAN

Birds — Imagine Dragons

Originally I had this one for DK but I think Seungkwan’s voice fits the entire song better rather than DK who fits just the chorus/bridge

Like Seungkwan could sing this!! Maybe it’s not entirely his vibe but he could!!

I think this being more vocal-driven than other Imagine Dragons songs also lends to the Seungkwan vibes

VERNON

Dreamin' — The Score ft. Blackbear

Sorry can I get a cover of this from Vernon pls thanks Mr. Chwe 👉👈

Lyrics kind of fit him too; if you told me he wrote this song I would believe you

The lyrics are abt pursuing your dreams despite what other people say & that could be tied into his own issues, while having a vibe that fits him imo

"Listen to me now as I wash away my fears" YOU CAN’T TELL ME THAT’S NOT A VERNON LYRIC

DINO

Play with Fire — Sam Tinnesz

I would be lying if said I didn’t imagine myself w/Chan dancing to a choreo I made of this LMFAO

I think Chan could rock this song sO HARD if he made choreo

((ALSO I made this post literal years ago; SKZ Hyunjin did a dance for this song which is exactly what I was thinking of at the time))

WHOLE GROUP

Citizen of Heaven — Tauren Wells

This is gospel rock lol but I think this fits like a very specific early era of SVT

Like Shining Diamonds era and around that time!!

BONUS ! LEADER LINE

Can’t Stop Me Now — Oh The Larceny

Ok I don’t think this actually fits them vibe-wise, but nothing can stop these 3 like cmon now

So this is more of a theme song for them rather than smth they’d sing themselves

BONUS ! PERFORMANCE UNIT

Revenge, And A Little Bit More — Unlike Pluto

Pluto himself calls his style electronic rock so I’m including it lol

SVT could make a choreo to this and I would cry

I’m not sure why I thought of perf. unit but somehow it works??

[mosviqu]

fml review 💎

f*ck my life is such a good song its so vibey 10/10. super-- oh lord i said this once before but im gonna say it again it reminds me of the songs that used to be popular here in 2011 like the bara bara song and stuff,,, mingyu ate the darumdarimda part oh lord fuck it up bestie. now fire :DDDD if u see me enter another vernon brainrot because of this song no you dont LMAO his part made me curl my toes and grip the sheets im on my knees thE LYRICS ?????? killed it slayed it murdered it. i dont understand but i love you--- soonyoungs voice is so soft and pretty here i love it so much also the whole song sounds so majestic and pretty!!!!!!!!!!!! the beginning of dust is so pretty it sounds like the beginning of may when your depression magically disappears for a sec w the sunlight. jeonghans vocals are truly angelic here and so are seungkwans mwah mwah my fav vocal right there. also joshua????? the whole song is very vibey 10/10 would sway my arms in the air to it. april shower-- opening w cheols vocals is a very good choice im hooked instantly. im live reacting rn btw OH MINGYU but anyways this song is very seventeen. fits very well w them, also very sweet and vibey

also the album art is very pretty imo. my inner graphic design sucker is salivating its so sleek and elegant and simple chefs kiss

[wooahaes]

layton anon again ^-^

pls don't feel to pressured about quick updates or anything and take your time with writing!! It's supposed to be a fun hobby to you and I don't mind waiting for updates at all ☺️

I totally understand the anxiety thing about taking the meds; seems like a good choice to do it when family is around :)

fjdhfjh shigure's voice actor was so good omg i agree 👀 omg i totally do the drafting too. ngl i have a bunch of small notes about which pairings i wanna go to and which classes they have to be to gain which skills etc. but all the re-classing is just a little exhausting gjfdhd i think i can count the games i've actually played through on one hand and the ones i've sorta abandoned... not so much

no matter what kinda fire emblem au it is, hoshi's love for tigers needs to have a place in it (makes me think a tiger shapeshifting class would be really cool for him too👀)

(totally a gree on the rally skills!!) also war cleric for joshua feels so perfect. like that's literally The class for him, after you said it I can't see anything else fdfhdjsh thief/trickster would also work so well for hannie!! maybe even assassin

I love cavalier vernon that's such a good fit! I think Dino would also have a pretty physical class, though maybe more offensive and less defensive...I think i'd like to see him wield an axe hfjdhf

For Seungkwan I think he might not be a close combat class. I can see him using magic, also things like silence staffs and so on...

As always I hope you have a good day!! <3 -layton anon

omg hi layton anon!! sorry for not responding sooner :( i hope u are doing well!!

i think, thankfully for me, i don't really feel pressured to write something just to get it out? if i have stuff posted, i'm happy to share it, but i like to feel content w my work when i post it. stuff like UtS will get finished in due time, and i don't intend on ever forcing myself to post a part if im not satisfied w it. they're big projects for a reason. i might feel bad that im not writing fast enough, but sometimes i just need to sit back and chill and then come back to writing with a fresh mind.

ive honestly been feeling better? only shit thing today was the fact i was sniffly as hell but ive got year-round allergies so its normal lol

ooo fun!! my drafting is usually just what pairings i want to do and i'll figure stuff out in the moment. some characters i always end up changing (like mozu in fates!! shes SO good as an archer imo). i feel that tho re-classing is such a pain but its worth it

oh big big big mood. rip to the video games i abandoned to replay other games lmao

yess <3 honestly shapeshifting tiger class for hoshi would be super fun >:3

shua just has the "im a healer, but..." vibes to him. i cannot help it. gentle man who can heal u but also ive seen his arms and he could kill.

axe wielding dino omg... im honestly thinkin maybe mercenary -> hero dino? im going off fates rn but sword/axe dino... clenches fist. yes.

troubadour kwannie is a thought? going off fates again but troubadour -> strategist kwannie was where i was going. give him a horse.

thank u layton anon ily <3 take care!!

[dirtyhancls]

some predictions for the next episode, spoilers ahead:

i really don't think diamond is ms. shot. it just doesn't follow to me from the way juno talks about diamond; if she had truly been that crooked, i think we would see a lot more resentment/anger/disappointment on juno's side, but it sounds like he doesn't blame her for what fell apart between them that day- "it's hard to blame someone for being the most honest version of themself no matter how ugly the truth," he says about it, and I don't believe that corrupt criminal is diamond's most honest self.

if anything, i think the most likely thing to happen is that juno is going to walk out on diamond in some way shape or form, ie he decides in his head this is too much/too dangerous for diamond and leaves her behind - he's already told us himself that they have a thing about him walking out and that line has to be deliberate. moreover, diamond explicitly tells him not to leave her behind as they're splitting up, which was such an innocuous line originally but really caught my attention the second time around. and if this is the case this is probably feasible cause for the falling apart of their relationship. i can't imagine diamond would take kindly to it considering how relevant this whole thing is to her life. she probably goes off and we've already been warned about this by her mother already - don't listen to her when she turns on you, her mother says to juno, and it sounds like juno's never been on the recieving end when diamond's going on a tear. i'd imagine a lot of harsh things get said and juno doesn't take any of it well and things slide downhill from there and it would add up to me, because this would be the both of themselves, young and stupid and their honest selves. b/c come on, we all know that juno is still walking out on people years later. i think it would give that scene at the end of season one more meaning to compare and contrast the two situations.

[joshuas]

you are one of my fave blogs! so i like to send random asks to my fave blogs sometimes. if you have a chance out of your mutuals/friends do you see as seventeen members or who do you see best suited for each member? you don’t have to reply to this! it’s very random!

hi anon!! <3 thank you so much for the compliment hehe and i'm really sorry for the late reply </3

these are who is best suited for my mutuals!

@leech4ns x lee chan: i mean it's pretty obvious - she biases him but that isn't the point. sol has a very, very loving and caring personality but i could totally see her teasing chan (affectionately) from time to time all the while just being a complete simp for him. also... chanwife <3 other than that, i just think their personalities work well together and that they'd pretty much be an it couple, thank you v much <3

@seungcy x mingyu: lucy is super chaotic whjkhdjksdjn and mingyu is just the type of guy who would be able to handle her level of chaos (which we love obvi). he'd kinda be the peaceful one like idk the otp trope that's like "chaotic w a soft spot" = lucy and the "normal and peace-maker" = mingyu. mingyu's also got a really flirty personality and i just think it'd be really cute how flustered he'd be able to make her <3

@hannietonin x jeonghan: they just make sense. in an ideal world, they’d embody the trope of e2l in a lawyer au bc <3 jeonghana <3 also their personalities just would work well together - jeonghan would “annoy” hana and she’d get brainrot but be a tsundere wbk she likes him and he knows it too. she’s also the only person i could see being able to handle his personality lol hewjfhdjk and his bull <3

@ohoshi x hoshi: not to be cliche and list everyone w their biases but.... IDK i think cora’s just v welcoming of chaos and w her taurus alignments and hoshi’s gemini alignments, they’d work v well together <3  they’d be a chaotic duo but they’d also just be a very fun duo and i love that for them <3 idk it just makes sense :) 

@woozi​ x jihoon: at this point i’m just putting people w their biases but there’s honestly a reason why they bias them bc i feel like they just work well together <3 as for yza, she’s really talented and has a similar work ethic to woozi who is also incredibly talented so i feel like their personalities would work quite well together. just an it couple imo <3

@kimsmingyu​ x dk: YOU GUYS JUST HAVE SIMILAR VIBES WHJEHEJ you’re both super fun to be around and lich rally would have so much fun and cause so much chaos together that it’d just be a crime to not match you w dk <3 funnyman chaos duo couple methinks <3

@soonhoonsol x vernon: you guys would just work really well together <3 i think you’re both quite chill but also driven and v v talented so you would just be that super cool and v well fitted together duo hehe <3

@000png x jun: i just think you two have a v similar vibe and that spontaneous sense of humour. also v friendly and v well loved by your friends <3 you’re just very personable which is contrast to jun’s shyness but that’s what makes you two work so well :)

@koishua x minghao: to me, you both give me v aesthetic and calm vibes <3 i don’t know you very well yet but imo you’re both trendsetters hehe and very level-headed and can come off as intimidating but really soft and funny once you get to know you both, which is why i think you guys would work really well <3

@husbandhoshi x joshua: i think we all expected this ngl HJHEHJKEHHW but you’re both really domestic and super kind with a little bit of a chaotic streak (him... moreso). but i just think you guys would be a really cute and sweet duo who sometimes make fun of each other affectionately wjhejdhsjs but it’s super cute anyway <3

@januarystars x wonwoo: i don’t think any explanation is necessary bc i’ve told you about this lots but you’d be a quiet but really sweet duo <3

@h6ngs x seungkwan: okay but i just think you guys would be so much fun ngl. you’re both funny and quite personable and i just think that would make you so iconic and hilarious <333 

@decembermoonskz x seungcheol: it may just be the fact that he reminds me of chan but <3333 i just think it Works <3

[jeongwife]

do u listen to taylor swift? if you do,, which taylor swift song do u think the members suit the most?

i do!! was literally crying over all too well yesterday too whisjss ;-; this is such a cute ask and it was fun to think about so ty for sending this 💗 i’m sorry if this isn’t the most accurate T^T miss taylor has a lot of songs and it’s been a while since i’ve listened to her older songs </3

seungcheol: cornelia street!! idk if this has to do with me wanting to write an angsty breakup fic with cheol but i really like this song so </3

jeonghan: i’m gonna say begin again for jeonghan :( his gentle, soothing nature makes me think this song really suits him

joshua: cardigan hands down, the song just gives off so many cozy and comforting vibes </3 ran this decision through with miss ryu aka our favourite joshushu and she agrees hehe <3 (run is a close second teehee) edit: I FORGOT LOVER

jun: i can 120% picture jun playing new year’s day on the piano tell me i’m wrong :(((

hoshi: i feel like starlight suits soonie well <33 it’s so whimsical and full of hope and yeah it gives me hoshi vibes </3

wonwoo: when i first listened to the folklore album i thought of slow-dancing with wonwoo at a masquerade ball the second i got to mirrorball 🤧

woozi: evermore!! i can’t explain it but it feels like a song he would like y’know? ;-;

seokmin: everything has changed is such a seokmin song imo bc it’s so nostalgic and bittersweet :(

mingyu: fearless feels so right to me </3 the passionate, comforting love it conveys is just <///3

minghao: the lakes for haohao!! i can’t explain it well but it feels like a song someone would sing to their muse so to me it screams minghao <3

seungkwan: i thought of delicate almost immediately </3 it just feels like him :(

vernon: cruel summer!! this song makes me feel like i’m the protagonist in those movies that take place in a small beach town and i’m going on a late night drive with my friend who i’m secretly in love in wghsjwjs

chan: i’m tempted to say gold rush bc i saw an edit of it on twitter and i cried to it aghshwjs but i also think the very first night fits him so well </3 idk it gives me first love vibes and oh no i made myself sad ;;;;;

— lily who loves better man and is very happy it’s on taylor’s version

[turtlegirlave]

So this has a ton of opinions which I usually stray away from but i really let all my opinions out here. Also there is definitely fact mistakes, probably name mistakes and some incorrect singing terms in here, I wrote this at 2 A.M. with a limited knowledge of theater I’m just trying to get a point across.

Why s2 of hsm the series should have been newsies instead of beauty and the beast:

They say straight up in the show “we need a real Alan Menkhen musical” and they pick beauty and the beast instead of newsies, a literal Broadway stage production???

At first I assumed it was because the cast was primarily male, but that isn’t even a reasonable argument. 1)as shown by s1 when a boy played sharpay, gender doesn’t matter when being considered for a role. 2), a cast with multiple male leads would give the gay men in the show a chance to shine, instead of shoving them to background roles like Chip. Not to mention Carlos is a dancer, and newsies is a musical driven by choreography. 3), since nini moved there are only like 2 lead females anyway, which works for the 2 female roles in newsies.

Casting Wise, the play works SO MUCH better!

Ricky: jack kelley is a much better role for him than the beast for many reasons. First, their personalities are very similar with the mischievous main teen vibe, so the role would be like Troy where Ricky can slip into it easier. Second, it fits him better vocally. It is very clear from listening to Joshua basset sing that he has a relatively high vocal range, and singing low notes or in a deep voice doesn’t come as naturally to him. Jeremy Jordan has a similar vocal range, where he stays in higher octaves and more rarely uses a deep, monotone voice (at least never to the beast’s extent). Ricky would sound perfect singing in Jack’s vocal range. The beast, however, sings almost exclusively in an extremely deep, monotone voice that Joshua cannot easily perform.

Ashlyn: not only does she look quite similar to Katherine, but they have similar personalities as well. Also, katherine’s high and bubbly singing voice would sound lovely with Ash’s, which is also high and bubbly but often softer. This would allow her to push herself to sing louder and more confidently. And she still gets to play a smart bookworm lead female role.

Kourtney: she was born to play miss medda larken. Mrs. Potts’ debut song “beauty and the beast” is a soft romance ballad, which does not match kourt’s stadium reach, strong, powerful voice. “That’s rich” not only shows off her vocals better, but matches her personality and voice much better with the grit and power behind it. Also, Mrs Potts as a character is the soft, motherly type. Miss medda is a rambunctious, empowered, “I got men if I want em but I don’t need em” kinda woman. Which role better fits the girl power, loud, activist, personal cheer squad type person that Kourtney is?

Carlos and Sebastian: not only would this stop shoving the gays and only interesting men other than Ricky to background roles (sorry big red), but it would show off their talents. Seb would make a wonderful crutchy, with his innocent nature and likeness to the character. It would also give him a chance to flex his vocals and sing a duet with Ricky in Santa Fe, further developing the friendships in the show. Carlos could play really any of the main boys, I mostly think he would kill in this due to his dance and choreography skills, which newsies really emphasizes.

Big red: PLEASE this boy would be perfect as Ben Cook’s role (can’t remember the newsie’s name). They’re both the kinda dumb but endearing friend type, and he leads “king of New York”, a song with a killer tap dancing break, which is the whole reason big red wanted to try out! His chemistry with Ricky as crutchy would make that a fine role for him too, but since Sebastian has stronger vocals I think it’s better for him to take a more prominent role while big red relies on his dancing skills over singing.

Gina: though there’s no more lead girl roles, I think she would kill it as mr. Pulitzer. They could add some spice to the character through her insane dance skills, and she would play a great “cunning yet intelligent buisinesswoman” type. This dude also gets 2 or 3 songs, and honestly I don’t remember who she plays in Beauty and the beast so idk.

EJ: I admit Gaston is a perfect role for him and I can’t fit him into newsies well. He would play a good spot conlin, though it is a significantly smaller role. No one really cares about ej though so small loss.

Plot valuability:

doing newsies makes literally way more sense. Firstly, they are kinda planning entering this show last-minute compared to the competition, so to pick a show already written and choreographed for stage production would really save time. (Even though it would still need work to be condensed for a high school production). Second, miss Jen is so determined to stand out from the crowd and win the contest so she picks... beauty and the beast? One of the most popular Disney movies (and honestly with one of Alan’s weaker soundtracks compared to tangled, Aladdin, and the little mermaid imo). Having them do newsies, especially when switching up gender roles like casting Gina as Pulitzer, would actually make them stand apart from the dozens of schools performing Disney movies. It would also give a significantly more impressive vocal and dance performance, since the songs were written for Broadway singers rather than actors. The set is also more cheap and condensed, while still looking professional, which would help with their “we’re too poor and late to afford a straight-up aquarium so let’s do the most with what we’ve got.” Putting the characters in these roles would also not alter their development or main story plots much, besides strengthening certain friendships and pushing aside less popular characters (ej). It would also give more rep for the gays as well as switching up gender roles. Imagine, the gay guys get actual things to do in the show and aren’t defined by the sole plot of “my boyfriend rich” relationship drama! (I love these two but I am a tired ace). Also jerjor performs in both this and tangled the series, so it’s a double whammy for Alan menkhen representation.

Marketability: I know the musical has to be widely known and appealing to viewers. People watched s1 because they love hsm. People also love beauty and the beast, so viewership may raise with fans of the movie. Newsies doesn’t die here, though. It is a very widely popular play among theatre people, and existed first as a movie musical so it isn’t exclusive to theater kids. Also, fans of Newsies are generally between their tweens and early twenties, the exact age demographic for the show. Beauty and the beast is a classic and more widely known, but also doesn’t draw in large numbers of the exact age group you want. Also, the fact that newsies is a little less mainstream only helps the plot point of them choosing it to still have something well known while also standing out from the competition. Doing beauty and the beast is not only an awful choice for casting that limits the actors vocals or is completely out of their range, but it also makes them blend in with the crowd.

Final notes: beauty and the beast was IMO the worst choice for the play this season. Movies like Aladdin and tangled both have very energetic and loud soundtracks that allow these characters to belt their hearts out. Beauty and the beast has a very folksy, quiet, ballad type of track that limits the actors. The only actor that I think sings ballads better than big booming tracks is Nini, who isn’t even in the play this year. Ricky also sings great ballads, which is why ballads that are still slow but also emotional and powerful like “Santa fe” or “something to believe in” (which would sound AMAZING in his and Ashlyn’s voices) fit much better than the deep voice of the beast that he can not comfortably sing in. Also, the beast has very few songs whereas newsies would allow him to belt his heart out in nearly every song with that lovely voice he has. The age range of the newsies cast (that characters are supposed to be 17) fits better with these very teen actors than a movie about old fashioned French young adults. Really newsies was the best musical choice for this season, but I also believe beauty and the beast was the last one they should have chosen.

(After reading comments I rescind my statement that beauty and the beast was the worst choice, but it’s still second to newsies imo)

Feel free to debate me in the comments or point out my mistakes, I’m very open to other points of view

[olivemeister]

OKAY NEO THOUGHTS NOW THAT I’VE BEATEN IT AND HAD TIME TO MARINATE. no spoilers for another day bc i haven’t finished it yet, but i did go “no, why shan’t i? i have the internet” and watched the secret endings on youtube so those and the secret reports will be discussed. yeah. so here’s some thoughts. i’m going to talk a lot about the more contentious things, i think. and again i haven’t finished another day so nothing to do with that, but of course major ending spoilers for the main scenario.

these are my opinions both as a writer and a media consumer, so there’s kinda two levels here. it is very freeform “as i think of it” structurally so my sincerest apologies if it’s all over the place. i am trying to keep specific topics confined rather than splattering the same plot point/whatever all through the post, but it’s not like i’m posting a peer-revied academic essay here. it’s also fucking enormous and i would say sorry but that would be a lie.

the majority of the game, i actually really enjoyed. the localization was excellent and i can’t praise it enough. i know people threw fits over the “horrible overstep” of... teenagers using slang. but did you know, in real life, teenagers use slang? even in japan, there’s slang? wild but true! the dialogue was great, and while i can’t say much re: the jp cast since i played in english, the newcomers for the english cast were spectacular. i actually think the newcomers were, in some cases, stronger than the returning cast. even in characters where i didn’t like the voice (nagi had to grow on me, i admit it), they were a fantastic match for the character’s personality.

the emotional beats re: character deaths, typically, landed the way i think the writers wanted; kanon’s death in week 3 had me devastated even though i could see it coming a mile away. i think that’s a testament to the best parts of the writing; as soon as i understood how the current game was being run, i knew it was fairly inevitable that every other team would eventually lose. odds would be that, barring something like someone changing teams or a team merger, the majority of the other teams would be completely wiped out. i knew far in advance that kanon would likely not make it to the end of the story, but it still fucked me up when it finally happened not just because i cared about kanon, but also because of how much the other characters cared about her. some character deaths affected me far less, of course. i think kanon was the epitome of “this hit exactly as hard as the writers wanted it to”, but i do feel they fell short with others. ayano’s lack of development really hurt my ability to be saddened by her death, especially when it was so clear that she set up her own possession as a trap for shoka. it undermined things for shoka in general, because while she was devastated to lose ayano, the game did a poor job at making their relationship tangible and meaningful. i felt worse (not necessarily sadder, just worse) about motoi’s death, and i didn’t like motoi. speaking of him...

the biggest issue i have with the game is a chronic square enix issue. kubo is the Man Pulling The Strings, whatever, this is fine. the problem is that he, minamimoto, motoi, and arguably susukichi are the only characters in the game with dark skin. they are all morally grey at best. i don’t think i need to elaborate on why this is an issue. we’re not going to pretend that racism and colorism don’t exist in japan. i’m just going to say that all of the dark-skinned characters are either totally evil, excessively violent, and/or morally dubious. this is my biggest qualm, but i don’t feel it needs more elaboration. yes, i know motoi turns it around in the end. yes, i know susukichi ultimately changes sides as well, and he’s ultimately portrayed as sympathetic. minamimoto is........ his own beast. but the fact remains that we don’t get a single major character who’s darker and unambiguously heroic.

second big issue is that while i understand the decision to keep shiki off camera until the very end for emotional impact, i feel like this was to the detriment of the story and to the detriment of said impact. she was mentioned, sure, and she was briefly seen from the shoulders down in a cutscene long before her introduction, but i feel that this was ultimately for the worse. her absence in the plot made her a borderline non-entity that can easily leave the audience going “why should i care about this?” on what’s supposed to be a huge emotional cathartic moment. yes, people should know this is a sequel and neku and shiki’s friendship was a crucial part of the original game, and much of the endgame of neo makes no sense if you’re unfamiliar with the original, but their interactions in the ending felt incredibly shallow. and i think this is because of how little shiki appears and how isolated she is from her other friends. eri is unseen and unmentioned. she doesn’t interact with rhyme. she hardly interacts with beat, using him as a translator at best. her other relationships are just... stagnant at best, ignored at worst, and despite having had just as vital of a role in the first game as beat did, she does nothing of import onscreen. her only narrative actions are “fix mr mew (mentioned but not seen)” and “be sad about neku”. so, functionally...

for some reason (we know why) the story decided that the only thing that was important to shiki was seeing neku. but by holding off on this reveal of her, we lost the impact that their meeting could have had. because the game refused to show her it didn’t show how much his absence was affecting her, which leaves their reunion feeling incredibly hollow. shiki was gone for upwards of 90% of the game. if not for the first game, this reunion would mean nothing; the narrative does a terrible job of reminding the audience that neku and shiki have a strong relationship and i don’t know if it’s that they expected the first game to have done the heavy lifting, or they thought that what neo gave us was good rather than “good enough”. imo this was an enormous failure and i wish we had gotten more for her both as part of the plot and as a character.

this was an issue present with rhyme as well imo, though to a lesser degree. i think they should have given up the ghost much sooner on confirming that the shadowed figure was rhyme; it was obvious by the time they showed us her silhouette, so i don’t know why the narrative held off on showing her. they didn’t have to introduce her to rindo (or give her the name splash screen) yet, but people who played the first game and are paying attention know it’s rhyme, so why bother hiding her? most of what rhyme accomplishes in this game is off-camera as well, but she has double the screen time that shiki gets.

the shiki thing is another symptom of a common squeenix problem these days, which is poorly-handled implied romantic interests. and i think that was also present with how the end of the game treated shoka. rindo and shoka as an implied romance in general did not bother me; more than a lot of squeenix protags, and perhaps primarily because of the excellent job the english cast did, i actually was unbothered by the suggestion of budding romantic feelings because it felt genuine. they actually felt like a pair of teenagers who were starting to be interested in each other, trying to play it cool and prioritize. this, and shoka’s characterization in general, is really helped by the reveal of swallow’s identity; it retroactively heightens her closeness to rindo specifically and offers enormous insight into her decision to help the team covertly. however, i think this budding implied romance was severely undermined by having other characters comment on it, especially because it felt so out of place timing-wise whenever someone commented. it was never warranted; there are times where they seem to be... not flirting, but not doing a good job of pretending there isn’t an interest. this is not when comments come. the comments come when they are having a totally normal interaction that does not suggest any non-platonic feelings whatsoever.

up until the final day, i had fairly ambivalent feelings about the idea of them as the designated hetero pairing. i felt it was a vast improvement from recent shoehorned romances in squeenix properties. the ending made things much more contentious to me, specifically how shoka is vanished by joshua. the audience should at least have the suspicion that he’s reviving her, but the circumstances surrounding it are the problem more than joshua being a deus ex machina. it’s not the first time joshua was a troll re: reviving someone, but the context of why shoka’s revival is necessary is, well... unnecessary.

they barely foreshadow the shinjuku rules re: reapers, and i will freely admit it’s not remotely ooc for shoka to hide something like that until she can’t any more. but they seem to be just a contrived excuse for shoka to be taken away... and from the framing of it, not from the player, but from rindo. which, i don’t know that i need elaborate on why i wasn’t fond of that. and i won’t lie - i know everybody beefed it in those cutscenes, including beat and neku. but when the dissonance noise grabbed shoka it gave me the exact same vibe as the demon tide grabbing kairi in kh3, and i don’t think i need to elaborate more on why that would put a bad taste in my mouth and make me fearful for shoka’s future treatment in the game. i was worried that the narrative was going to yank her away from rindo like a prize being snatched from him, and it did! while i do also think it’s ic for joshua to fuck around the way he did when reviving her, it also seems contrived and brings up a major question.

if shoka is still playing by shinjuku rules, why does shibuya’s composer have the ability to overturn her erasure? yes, i know, shinjuku is gone, but its composer is still active. surely joshua having the authority to do what he did indicates that on a cosmic bureaucracy level, shoka is a shibuya reaper. the secret reports offer a potential that joshua exploited a loophole by waiting until the second after the shinjuku rules resulted in shoka’s soul being dissolved in order to snatch it up, so perhaps the explanation is that her erasure meant she was technically no longer a shinjuku reaper and no longer beholden to its rules. but that doesn’t answer a different question that honestly bothers me more than the admittedly sorta insignificant question of whether or not joshua overstepped in reviving shoka.

shinjuku’s game has ended because shinjuku has ended; why are its rules still in play for former shinjuku reapers? i am aware that shiba is the conductor “legally” and he has made changes to shibuya’s game, but they’re careful to specify that the “ex-reapers are erased at the end of the game” rules are from shinjuku and do not apply to shibuya reapers. is she considered by the higher plane to be joshua’s underling and not hazuki’s? the secret reports confirm that the transfer of personnel from the destroyed shinjuku to shibuya was authorized by the acting conductor (uzuki) and this is standard procedure, everything was done properly. so “legally” the formerly-shinjuku reapers are shibuya reapers, right? hanekoma notes in particular that it’s a culture clash leading to the shinjuku reapers being designated as such and that they’re only nominally shinjuku reapers. why are a defunct game’s rules still active?

the biggest issue is that shoka’s threat of erasure was unnecessary from a narrative perspective, especially given how quickly it’s introduced and resolved. what was the point of putting this in the story if five minutes later the issue is just dealt with, no effort, minimal tension, by a (narratively speaking, don’t come after me joshua fans) minor character who doesn’t even appear until after the plot is resolved? i honestly wonder if it was just the writers deciding joshua needed to do something so that his appearance in the ending wasn’t just shallow fanservice for people who wanted to see the original gang. joshua’s lack of action is also presumably going to be contentious with fans; i’ve read the secret reports, and i don’t feel that they sufficiently justify why he doesn’t make any moves to protect his city despite being positioned both in his own dialogue and the secret reports as someone opposing shibuya’s purification. i will talk about this a little later re: kubo’s motivations though.

i also think it’s kind of stupid that joshua sets up “find her and you win” and then... rindo doesn’t do anything in that regard. he just bumps into her in the scramble. i know i already said i hate the idea of her being a prize to be won in a game but if they’re going to set it up, why make it pointless in that regard? it feels so unnecessary. joshua portrays shoka’s revival/return as something to be earned, and unlike the ending of twewy there’s no recognition that he was actually just fucking with them.

this is similar to my mixed feelings about kubo’s defeat. on one hand, i wanted to smash his face in personally, i have hated him the entire game. on the other hand, having him jesus beamed and rewritten out of existence without any warning or chance to resist was fucking hilarious and i actually laughed out loud. my speculation as to why he didn’t get a boss fight is that developers worried about people having trouble suspending disbelief over the party being able to defeat an angel. ultimately i think the only way this could have been done was to have it be a boss battle where your victory doesn’t matter, like the week 1 fight with susukichi, and have hazuki curbstomp kubo in the post-battle cutscenes. ultimately, i feel like this was a lesser of two evils; i don’t think the “you lose in the cutscene” approach would have necessarily been significantly better than what we got, i recognize that “the battle didn’t matter and you lose in the cutscene after” is a contentious game trope. and i would understand people struggling to accept the cast defeating a being from a higher plane without intervention from said higher plane. the only benefit would be the catharsis of getting to slap kubo around, which admittedly i kind of miss. having him as a secret boss was an option i guess but i think it would bring more questions than it was worth.

kubo’s motivation is also just bizarre; i understand that it’s given as him getting overzealous after carrying out his orders to purify shinjuku, but why? i feel like this could have easily been fixed/rationalized by “shinjuku’s surviving reapers fled to shibuya, leading kubo to consider shibuya to be an extension of shinjuku”, but that’s solely speculation. i do not know why kubo decided to also start an inversion in shibuya. they didn’t give me enough information. his conflict with joshua is inexplicable and almost entirely offscreen via the secret reports. i do not feel like i have a grasp on why the plot of the game even happened. hazuki’s involvement is iffy; i can’t say whether he initially approved of kubo’s overstep and changed his mind, or if he just took his time collecting his errant underling. the secret reports suggest the former, and hanekoma noting that the contentious nature of the previous game’s events gives a speculative explanation for why no action was taken if hazuki was actually making moves against shibuya rather than kubo being out of line. hazuki could damn well have been lying, there’s a precedent for composers being full of shit and telling bold-faced lies to protagonists, though in the previous game these lies were all eventually uncovered. this leaves me to believe that ultimately, hazuki’s statements regarding kubo acting outside of his given authority were mostly honest. but what i don’t understand is why joshua took such a hands-off approach.

yes, he says he figured the main cast had it under control and would have stepped in had things gotten worse, but this appearance and statement comes long after rindo fails and shibuya is destroyed in multiple timelines. why did he not step in in the first timeline? i can speculate, but the game and secret reports do not do a great job in explaining why the proxy vs. proxy game even happened in the first place. kubo is hazuki’s underling, which makes joshua higher in the pecking order than kubo. if hazuki was capable of exorcising kubo instantaneously, why didn’t joshua just flick him off the board like a flea before he even got started trying to cause an inversion in shibuya? in the epilogue of a new day joshua is seen in conversation with hanekoma, who’s taking shinjuku’s inversion seriously, which seems at odds with how easily his fellow composer ends the problem.

retroactively, i guess i could rationalize this as him realizing that either shinjuku’s composer must be responsible for said inversion or that potentially shinjuku’s composer has been compromised in some way. and i can rationalize him failing to immediately jesus beam kubo as well - it’s possible that, as kubo was initially acting under the orders of another composer (assuming hazuki is still technically “legally” one/at the bureaucratic level of one), joshua’s hands were somewhat tied re: what actions he could take without potential consequences. it could be that joshua would get in big trouble if he took disciplinary action against another composer’s underling, but 1. the legal transfer of personnel should mean kubo is joshua’s underling, not hazuki’s, see the shoka problem 2. hazuki’s status as a composer is questionable given that his territory is now purified and its game is defunct 3. given that kubo was acting outside of his original composer’s turf and outside of his initial orders (purify shinjuku) at this point i feel like that isn’t likely. it could be that he was trying to avoid a conflict with hazuki himself. it may be that he considered it hazuki’s responsibility to retrieve kubo, but that’s at odds with him choosing a proxy to combat kubo’s and his claims that he totally would have done something, really, he swears. they don’t give us much info at all as to why joshua entered a game with kubo in the first place. i have reason to believe that something’s fishy in the secret reports, and i would like to see the japanese text, which i’ll mention again in a few paragraphs.

i know the absence of shibuya’s composer is partially, and perhaps primarily, “there wouldn’t be a plot if joshua fixed it”. but it really feels like they just kinda tucked joshua in the corner and hoped fans wouldn’t be like “hey where is shibuya’s composer and why is no one mentioning them?” that part is probably for the same reason we don’t see shiki until the very ending, teasing the audience by holding off on revealing him until the last second, but it’s jarring to me that shiki is mentioned but neither neku, beat, nor any of the reapers (!) think “we should contact the composer”. even if just to say “we can’t contact the composer, he is unreachable”! i guess it’s to avoid people remembering how significant joshua is and thinking too hard about it, because joshua is simply too powerful of a character to be running around freely. the plot falls apart when you have a character who’s so strong and, in his own words, kind of omnipotent, who could trivialize the conflict in an instant if he took action.

i feel like they surely could have given a more explicit reason for him to not be involved in the story, even if it’s a reason like “he’s in trouble with the higher plane”. which could have easily been set up! hanekoma is clear in his reports that shibuya’s impurification is highly contentious in the higher plane; people are big mad about it, potentially people higher in the chain of command than a composer. this could have been easily utilized as an explanation for why joshua is hands-off; he’s on a shit list and needs to step carefully as a result. but it’s just not addressed. hanekoma is unreachable according to his reports, and he notes that people are trying to contact him for help. are we just to assume that people have looked for joshua to ask for help in the past but it was so long ago that it isn’t even worth mentioning now to the newcomers? according to other reports, the higher ups are pissed with joshua about his game with kitaniji and are turning a blind eye to what’s happening with kubo in shibuya as a result. but this doesn’t explain why the members of the shibuya UG never discuss the composer. hanekoma’s reports have him confused as to joshua’s lack of action as well; he knows the context of what’s going on in shibuya but doesn’t understand why joshua is staying silent.

that said! the fact that hazuki’s motive for the destruction of shinjuku is never stated does not bother me too much. he’s placed in a position very parallel to joshua in the first game, and he even says he felt like he was following in josh’s footsteps. when you add his seemingly-genuine inability to understand why people care about shibuya, i feel there’s enough evidence to... not dismiss, but nudge this aside as “He Too is a misanthropic bastard”; shinjuku’s destruction is a parallel to the intended destruction of shibuya in the first game. hazuki just carried on where joshua had a change of heart. the secret reports complicate this; it might be that someone fucked up in transcribing, but the reports i read online state that shibuya’s composer, i.e. joshua, was responsible for the destruction of shinjuku due to a game with kubo. this does not make sense given everything else, including hazuki’s own statements and later reports, so i’m setting that aside for the moment as either an uncaught mistake either in translation or transcription online (most likely) or hanekoma not knowing the actual truth until receiving the post-purification shinjuku reports. hanekoma also suggests that hazuki’s goal was also the purification of shibuya, but as he’s not shibuya’s composer this is certainly not his jurisdiction so i’m curious as to what exactly happened there.

EDIT: i’ve been informed by a helpful anon that this is not a mistranslation, the japanese secret reports do state that it was a game involving joshua that resulted in shinjuku’s inversion. with that in mind, i have figured out how to rationalize this and it solves a lot of problems: if it was a proxy game between joshua and kubo, then joshua must have been the opposition to shinjuku’s inversion. though you could argue that joshua is responsible for the end result, he didn’t destroy shinjuku; his proxy lost, probably because kubo’s had the support of shinjuku’s composer. kubo’s overconfidence in running rampant in shibuya is now explicable and he may have been trying to rub it in that joshua lost.

if hazuki was still backing kubo post-shinjuku, this could explain why hazuki felt he could make decisions about shibuya’s fate and wander around it; joshua had already overstepped onto his turf to meddle in purification, so he was returning the favor. at this point in time, i figure that joshua’s proxy was either tsugumi’s brother (shinjuku’s conductor) or coco (she’s noted to have inexplicable powers for a rank-and-file reaper, but joshua’s opposition to her killing of neku throws this into question), and if we truly had a scrapped “shinjuku’s final game” plot then joshua’s proxy could also have been neku. kubo’s proxy was presumably shiba. this actually answers a few questions that i couldn’t rationalize when i assumed joshua was uninvolved (why would shinjuku’s composer be running a game against kubo when they wanted the same thing?), so i’m gonna chalk it up as an absolute win.

i think hishima as a character was... sort of nothing. he was just there. yeah, it was kinda funny how he dressed shiba down, but i don’t know that the plot needed him. his role in the endgame could have easily been given to tsugumi without much fuss, and i feel tsugumi deserved a much bigger part in the narrative given how much she was hyped up by solo and final remix. she was so prominent and anticipated that the fans called her hype-chan for years before we had a name for her. this could also be folded into the problem with hiding shiki until the very end; it feels like we missed a whole sequence with both of these characters simply because the narrative refused to show us shiki. instead, we’re told that shiki showed up and fixed mr. mew, and somehow this freed tsugumi. i think the fact that they don’t even give a flashback of this crucial event after shiki’s proper introduction is just a questionable decision. the story tells us that tsugumi’s release from the plushie is of the utmost importance and shiba can’t be swayed without her, setting it up as a vital event, but it happens offscreen with no real interaction with the main cast. it also only happens after multiple failed loops, even though rindo’s interference is what prevents the meeting between coco and shiki to repair the plushie. i don’t understand this from a logistical standpoint; if coco isn’t pulled to escort rhyme, she must have met with shiki and released tsugumi in timely manner, but tsugumi does not appear until after you replay to get coco back to her original schedule. you could wave it off as “she didn’t get there fast enough”, but i can’t accept that as a reason given the circumstances; it’s not like she would have to look hard to find shiba. this one’s flawed writing; i know in a meta sense why she didn’t appear, it was to build tension etc etc, but in-universe it’s a plot hole.

coco being so absent from the plot is also somewhat conspicuous. i wonder what reception of her was like in japan and if that influenced her lack of presence in the story. i honestly don’t even know if she was received well by the english audience, all i know is that i did not like her at all in final remix. not from an “i don’t like the villain because they’re doing bad things” perspective, from an “i don’t find this character compelling and i think they’re annoying” perspective. also curious as to whether or not her speech patterns changed in the japanese dialogue since final remix; i found her far less jarring and obnoxious in neo and i think it’s enormously because she stopped talking verbally in internet shorthand. overall, coco’s retool was imo a change for the better, but she’s barely there for me to appreciate how much of an improvement she was. it feels like there’s an entire narrative we were set up for by a new day, yet it’s almost completely missing. the ending of a new day laid out this framework for neku and minamimoto to be forced allies in an unseen future game. i had mixed feelings about this conceptually, but the narrative setup was fairly transparent. not only does this not happen, coco’s motivation in a new day and what ultimately happened were so lacking to me.

i feel like something got lost and we were originally going to actually see and perhaps play the shinjuku game that ended in disaster instead of just getting a summation and brief flashbacks of the survivors fleeing. this kinda ties in with my complaints about how hyped tsugumi was by solo and final remix, and then she turned out to have a very small (albeit crucial, via her trailer ability) and mostly unseen role in neo’s story. retroactively we learn that rindo’s visions are from tsugumi, but this is something she does entirely off-screen. all of coco’s scheming was for nothing, because joshua was a deus ex machina and whisked neku away the second he died. this feels to me like cut content or rewrites; there’s a whole game’s worth of story that just happened off-camera and we got to hear a little bit about it. it wasn’t enough, imo. i think doing it as a midquel is still possible, but it’s a hard sell to create a video game with a downer ending and we know shinjuku’s fate is already set in stone... even though a new day ended on the tragic cliffhanger of neku’s death, it’s a little different since it’s coming as an optional postgame sequel hook after victory rather than the entire narrative you fought through ending in failure. i suppose it could be done with a Distant Epilogue now that we know shiba and most of his surviving reapers will return to rebuild shinjuku. ultimately i really think that if not for the concern about neku overshadowing the new cast, shinjuku’s purification could and should have been the prologue to neo. it would be a tough balancing act, but i do think it could have been done right and it would have done a lot for narrative tension with his absence if we had a prologue following him that ends in a cliffhanger re: shinjuku’s purification. neku’s role in the story was done decently i think re: how big said role was, but a lot of circumstances surrounding his absence, legendary status, and reappearance leave much to be desired.

frankly, i just don’t like how much they glossed over neku’s three year absence. we’re given a vague explanation of what he was doing, but it isn’t actually an explanation. definitely again feels like a plot rewrite situation; there’s this huge blank space of neku doing nothing because there used to be a story that we were going to play through and it got scrapped for whatever reason. overall i feel neku’s characterization was very odd and perhaps a little inconsistent in this game; he didn’t have much of a personality at all, which i struggle to reconcile with the original game. we don’t see how he reconciled with coco, it’s just dismissed entirely as “no we’re good now”. how are we good? why did you forgive her for playing murder games instead of just explaining shit? i know he forgave joshua for his gatekeep gaslight girlboss behavior in the first game, but we had context as to why he made that decision. also what the fuck was keeping him from coming back to shibuya, i don’t feel like that was sufficiently explained either? for someone who was so hyped up by the narrative, i was a little let down by how insignificant neku ended up being to the plot as a whole. and again, his personality seemed very watered down and neutral despite the seriousness of the situation. why was he so mellow? the circumstances of his return i did really like, because... well, we’ll talk about character relationships i guess.

i already summed up my feelings on rindo and shoka and i think i’ll leave them on the note of “unnecessary elements dampened my potential for overt enthusiasm, but overall i feel neutral-positive about the suggestion of romantic interest” which is a lot more than i can say about a lot of (semi-)official pairings. on a broader and more platonic scale? generally i have positive feelings about the new cast and their interactions; i feel like their development is more understated than neku’s in the first game, his character arc is very in your face and the neo cast is not nearly as overt, but you can see the difference in how the team interacts across the three weeks. rindo and fret’s established friendship, not to be dismissive of it, does exactly what it needs to. i mean this in a completely positive way. it’s an established friendship, they feel like friends, and they serve initially as anchors to one another in the beginning of the game as a “you’re the only person i know in this chaos” setup. this contrasts neku in the first game in an excellent way because of how it highlights their biggest character flaws, which i’ll talk about later; it’s important to rindo’s fatal flaw that he has someone to fall back and rely on in the beginning of the game in the same way that it’s crucial for neku’s development that he’s surrounded by strangers who he must learn to trust and rely on in order to survive. rindo and fret can lean on each other in the beginning of the game, and as people who have known each other for some time, are able to recognize and appreciate each others’ positive changes.

i do love the development of nagi’s friendship with fret, particularly how it’s sometimes but not always remarked on when she shelves her initial aloof attitude with him. i prefer when a narrative is more subtle on that kind of thing; pointing it out every once in a while is okay, but i don’t want it shoved down my throat via dialogue that characters are developing an emotional bond. we can see that nagi is slowly becoming more receptive to fret and less likely to dismiss or disparage him. it seems like their initial relationship is that of two people who have opposite struggles; nagi is notably closed off in the beginning, but fret immediately approaches her with an unearned and offputting level of familiarity. their slow and understated (more noticeable with nagi than fret) development towards accepting each other as friends is mutually beneficial to them even outside of the context of their personal relationship; nagi opens up a little with everyone, not just fret. placing two people with very different perspectives on how to interact with new people in close proximity helped both of them grow. i’m sure other people have different perspectives, but i do not feel like they were being teased as a pairing which i enormously appreciate, i am tired of “pair the spares” shit. (minor note: i also appreciate how while fret’s crush on kanon was very overt and strong, she was also fairly clear that she considered him a kid and his feelings were never going to be reciprocated because of that age gap. i know, the bar is low, but thank god.)

i love how, despite nagi now having been confirmed as older than beat, as soon as beat joins the narrative he takes this hard stance of “i’m the one who’s already been in this hellscape so it’s my responsibility to help the newbies”. he really embodies the big brother role so well in this game; he knows a little more about what’s going on, this isn’t his first rodeo even if it’s not exactly the same, so he considers himself to have an obligation to protect the others. he serves as sort of a physical and emotional rock for the team from the second he joins, becoming an excellent support for them both as a combatant and an older brother figure. he has experience in being both of these things, and i think beat’s writing is some of the best in the game.

despite his position as a former player who’s back in the UG, he meshes with the newbies perfectly. he doesn’t overshadow the rest of the team despite having more lived (ha) experience in the reaper’s game, he doesn’t feel like he’s on a different level from them or anything like that. he fits in while serving an important unique role that he can only fill because of his prior time in the UG. it’s completely understandable and reasonable why rindo remains the team leader despite beat’s presence. he’s had a three year gap since his last game and doesn’t even understand how he returned to the UG. he’s not a fish out of water, he knows the UG and the game. but he’s really truly gotta shake the dust off, and he’s trying to figure out what happened to him in the first place because he knows he shouldn’t be in the UG at all. he didn’t have a huge bump in intelligence since the first game, but it’s hard to dismiss him as a complete idiot. he has both large and small perceptive moments where another narrative might have chosen to keep him as the dumb muscle. in fact, his firm convictions serve an important role for the others - beat knows he didn’t die and can’t be convinced otherwise, and his confidence that he’s a living player is part of how rindo and gang realize they also aren’t dead. he’s clearly not simply a comic relief character. another story might have positioned him as more of a mentor figure, but he plays to his strengths and serves to ground the team instead. beat is honestly a highlight of this ensemble cast to me. i’m unsure as to how much of that is simply because he was one of my favorites from the first game, but i really truly love beat in this game.

shoka and neku’s late introductions to the team mean they have far less “we are now firmly allies and friends” interactions with the rest of the ensemble for unavoidable reasons. i will say that the excellent casting and localization for the english version, particularly shoka, has done a lot to mitigate that issue; yes, the plot doesn’t develop her relationships with the team as a whole as thoroughly as some of the others, but the combat interactions with her are so genuine that i found myself shocked when writing this because, well, those combat lines did so much legwork making her role in the party seem earned and cohesive. i had such a strong sense of her place in the team that just isn’t reflected in the cutscenes, and i find that very interesting but i’m unsure as to whether it’s good or bad; i think it’s incredible that the combat dialogue did such a good job fostering this air of “we are a unit” for these characters and it really is a testament to the skill of these actors, but i do wish it was more prevalent in the cutscenes itself. beat’s established relationship with neku and their relaxed nature with one another does a lot to ease neku’s entry into the group; he has an “in” with a firmly established member and a well-written dynamic with him that helps him out here.

as a nekubeat appreciator i feel very fed and i hope there’s an uptick in interest for the pairing following neo. i love how beat, who throughout the game is constantly forgetting who people from 3 years ago are (doesn’t recognize his former superior bc she’s wearing a suit now and can’t even remember her name), immediately recognizes coco despite her changing her entire aesthetic specifically because he’s so angry with her for killing neku. he’s ready to throw down the second he sees her, which gives this feeling of “he’s been waiting for this moment for 3 years”. because the narrative never addresses beat’s change in style, particularly that he wears his hair like neku now, i choose to believe it’s because the last time he saw neku was immediately after coco shot and killed him. it could be that this shit’s been haunting him ever since neku died. my city now, if you don’t talk about it in the game i make shit up. both their cutscene interactions and combat quotes do an excellent job of maintaining the sense that these two have been close friends for a long time and distance hasn’t changed that. they fall right back into old ways with one another immediately.

even outside of the context of me being a nekubeat shipper, their relationship and continued partnership (UG game context partnership) feels very genuine. neku and joshua call each other partner, but it rings hollow. i’m sure it’s partially the lack of screentime that makes it so they don’t feel like partners any more than neku and shiki do, but the game doesn’t even try to push closeness the way it does for shiki - more on that in a minute. beat is the only one of neku’s partners that seems to have retained the same strength in their bond with him despite the three years; shiki and joshua are super absent in the plot, which really undermines their relationships with neku. i’ve already talked about my problems with shiki’s lack of focus and how i feel it harms her relationship with neku, but as for neku’s relationship with joshua, i think neo has taken an interesting approach that i feel will have a mixed reception.

it actually feels like neku and joshua ended this game on worse terms than the first one even though joshua was a far more benevolent figure this time around. neku is very clear about wanting to return to the RG despite this meaning he will have no access to the UG (outside of potentially text-based communication since rhyme paved the way for RG residents to bust into the RNS and... however it was that shoka’s fanGO account worked, since she and rindo were fanGO friends long before his entry to the UG) and doesn’t show any hesitation or reluctance in stating this desire. he seems quite content with not having joshua be a part of his life, as opposed to the first game’s ending where he extends an open offer to joshua to join his friend group. i understand how this would (and will) let a lot of people down, but i actually think it’s for the best. i have no real opinion on neku’s capacity for forgiving joshua after the first game, good or bad, but i think putting distance between them in this game is the correct move.

i take this viewpoint especially given that after the first game, joshua did in fact choose this distance - neku invited him in, and he did not take the offer. it was his decision to not join neku’s group in the first game’s ending and he continued to remain separate from it in the three year gap; he may have masqueraded as a fellow player and peer in age, but joshua is not and has never been an actual peer to neku, shiki, and beat. his life experiences are so different from theirs that i would struggle to suspend disbelief that they have enough in common to maintain a close friendship. he intervened when neku was killed by coco and placed him in a safe area and gave moral support in the ending, and i think this is the most we should expect of a reforming (not reformed but in-progress) misanthrope like joshua. he’s an enigmatic figure sure and largely benevolent if inactive in this game, but he isn’t a good person and he clearly considers himself to be on a different level from neku and his peers. hanekoma notes that joshua’s somewhat reluctant to continue to remain separate from neku’s group, but i think the narrative places him both objectively and in his own mind as someone who is just... from a different world. joshua chose distance, he chose to cut contact, and this is the consequence of that decision. i think that’s a good lesson to teach; it may not be a given, but it’s natural that sometimes a friendship you ignore will fade. it doesn’t necessarily mean the time you spent didn’t matter, but you shouldn’t be shocked if a plant you don’t water wilts away.

i feel like that wasn’t the intended takeaway, that it was just questionable writing that i’m reading too deep into, but that’s how i feel about the situation.

i’m also incredibly grateful that hazuki was introduced as an age-appropriate option for joshua and i hope they’ll draw attention as a bastard boyfriends ship, both because i think it’s very funny and because i have opinions about shipping joshua with the teens. i know it’s contentious and i’m not going too deep into it, so what i’m going to say is this. the secret reports state in plain objective text that joshua downtuning his vibes aged him down and his true appearance is older. neither the narrative nor supplementary info state anything about how old josh was when he died or how long he’s been a reaper/the composer (reapers ageing is ??? as well, we don’t know if it’s not a thing or if it’s optional or what). however, it is firmly canon that he is older than 15. if that canon upsets you then that’s your problem to either work through or ignore indefinitely. suffice to say, joshua and hazuki do not have the schrodinger’s pedophile issue and i wholly support and strongly encourage that over the alternative for this reason and again because i find it funny and think they deserve each other. i hate to say hazuki is a healthy choice for joshua because i think both of them are just walking messes, but they are actual peers on the same tier of the higher plane pecking order and more importantly the disaster they could be as a couple has infinite potential.

on the girls side of things, i am still mad about eri’s absence not just because it’s a relationship shiki had that just got ignored. i know the story wants us to believe that neku and shiki have something but shiki and eri had more. i’m sorry writers you made a more compelling f/f ship by accident in the first game and i am not invested in the one you weakly suggested between neku and shiki here. if you made shiki have more of a role in neo maybe i’d feel differently, or maybe you would have screwed it up worse. we’ll never know. i think it’s a shame that they couldn’t make me care about neku and shiki as a pairing, but it is what it is.

i was briefly worried that the game would try to suggest something between kaie and rhyme because sometimes people lose their minds when a boy and girl stand next to each other, but i was quickly set at ease with that one. they felt like two people who are starting to straddle that line of acquaintance/friend in a believable way despite how little interaction between them we see, and i appreciate that. i was also briefly worried that fret would develop a crush on rhyme based on his initial reaction at being introduced to her, but again quickly dismissed. can you tell i’m a little gun shy about strangled “him boy her girl” romances in fiction these days? yeah. i’ve been let down too much recently by bad writing.

i think all of the party members could have benefited from more development with one another outside of combat lines - i would like to see more interaction between nagi and shoka, or neku and fret, etc - but that would come at the expense of the narrative’s pacing. i think it could have been done by tweaking certain details, but ultimately i can accept this as a sacrifice made in the interest of keeping the narrative from getting bloated.

i wanna talk briefly about the new main cast a little.

rindo’s ups and downs re: development are much more subtle than neku’s were, but with the secret reports in mind i feel his arc is actually pretty excellent. i think we could have done with a little less of fret pointing out rindo’s increased confidence and how he becomes more assertive, i think the audience is smart enough to notice that on their own. but i’m a huge fan of how the narrative quietly places rindo in this position of a leader who fears that responsibility, but nonetheless has to grow and accept it. hanekoma’s reports may spell it out in plain text postgame, but the narrative already told us in our own way that rindo’s development stalled when someone else entered the cast who could take over for him and this is demonstrative of a(n understandable) lack of maturity and failure to grow. neku’s fatal flaw was his rejection of others, and so he was forced by the narrative into a position where he had to learn to trust them; rindo’s is that he relies too much on them and the narrative forces him to stand on his own.

while i think this is a little muddled (he was right in some instances to not make hard solo decisions; thinking specifically of ayano, it was absolutely the right call to ease shoka into this inevitable loss rather than forcing her into the situation unilaterally) and i wish we saw more consequences of his initial waffling behavior, rindo’s indecisiveness is an actual flaw that i think a lot of people can relate to and i think it contrasts him wonderfully with neku without being heavy-handed. rindo working through it from “relying on others to make choices for him -> still valuing the input of others but not wholly dependent on them -> capable of making difficult calls without anyone else to support him” was subdued and while it had realistic hitches in the form of other characters who he could consider authority figures, it was steady and imo very good. he’s a teenager coming into his own, stepping out of this world where others in his life - motoi as an0ther, shoka as swallow, presumably his parents, teachers, etc - have made the big, scary decisions for him or guided him through them, and into a place where there aren’t these people to guide him. he’s surrounded by people who either don’t know anything more than he does, or don’t care about his best interests; he’s clashing and changing and it forces him to grasp and accept his own autonomy rather than falling back and relying on someone else to fix things when it’s too frightening or difficult.

we can talk cultural differences re: the level of autonomy and responsibility that’s right for teenagers but i’m not really interested in drawing hard lines there. this is a coming of age story; as he approaches maturity, rindo is learning how to be an adult. i think that’s a classic and important narrative concept and it’s done well here.

fret, interestingly, is imo a case where the subtlety didn’t work out. to me, there wasn’t a huge distinction between flippant “telling you what i think you want to hear” fret and “genuine” fret. his initial interactions with kanon don’t seem different from their last conversation; maybe he comes off as less initally honest in the jp version, or maybe this one was a writing fumble. maybe it’s just me, and other people don’t feel the same way! he seems to be a far more static character in a strange way; the narrative tells us that he’s developing via other characters’ dialogue, but it doesn’t seem to support that. to me it’s a failure of “show, don’t tell” - i don’t take a hard stance on “show, don’t tell” as some kind of holy rule of writing, there are plenty of situations in a narrative where telling is perfectly acceptable and i think rigid adherence to showing and not telling can result in a bloated narrative, but in this case i feel like that’s where the narrative failed. it failed to support fret’s development outside of other people telling him he’s changed. i like fret, but i feel like in this ensemble cast fret and nagi kinda serve more as nominal protagonists and are more strong supporting characters than true leads.

as for nagi, i love how, despite it being low-hanging fruit, not only are there no real digs at nagi for being a vocal fangirl of a visual novel dating sim, it actually ties perfectly into her character as someone who understands people. dating sims are about people and relationships. how people interact, the importance of conveying your feelings, the consequences of bad communication; that’s what nagi is obsessed with. and rather than this being a detriment and making her avoid others, it ends up priming her to have healthy friendships because her gaming taught her to value knowing other people. it takes her time to actually open up, but rather than the video games closing her off to others they actually set her up to be an excellent friend. elestra in general could have been a subject of enormous mockery, but instead it’s viewed in a very neutral way and is given the implication of universal appeal by fret picking it up in the epilogue. nagi’s not in the spotlight for most of the game, but the payoff of her monologue to fret about being human was immense and was one of the best bits of dialogue in the entire game to me. it’s not going to be as iconic as hanekoma’s “open up your world” and “enjoy the moment”, but i truly think it’s one of the only parts of neo’s dialogue that approaches its level.

shoka is a character that i think is better on the replay, and i say this as someone who was very fond of shoka the first time around. i thought she had a lot of personality in her mannerisms alone, and i firmly appreciate how she wasn’t a one-note tsundere character. she had some of those minor elements, but subdued and with a reasonable context - she’s hot and cold with rindo and his team because she’s supposed to be working this rigged game to erase them, but she’s already rindo’s friend in a different context and is struggling to reconcile these two parts of her life. knowing her motivation as swallow gives so much retroactive depth to her actions; she was circumventing the game itself not just because she was exhausted by it or unease with shiba like some of the other turncoat reapers, but because rindo was her friend from before the story even began.

i will say that i didn’t actually fully call swallow being shoka simply because at first i had the impression that it would be rhyme (before rhyme’s role in the story became clearer), and admittedly by the time the climax hit the mystery of who swallow was had kind of dropped out of my mind completely, but i think it does a lot to develop shoka. whether this development being retroactive is strictly good or bad as an issue is subjective; neo is a game that has a built-in chapter select, so replaying the game and rewatching the cutscenes with the full narrative context is incredibly easy. however, for a lot of players, if you’re replaying the game it’s with a specific goal of getting something you missed earlier in-game, so you’re rushing through those cutscenes trying to get to that completionist bit. i think a line could have been walked re: giving more of a hint that shoka was swallow before the very end without fully giving it away, but i definitely think the rewatch value is more subjective and based on how you specifically play the game. if you’re here looking to watch all the cutscenes again now that you know everything, shoka being swallow is a huge treat regarding changing the context of her behavior - if you’re fast-forwarding trying to find a pig, it’s totally wasted.

i would have liked to see more of shoka’s backstory and interaction with the other shinjuku reapers for sure, and i wonder if this is another thing along the lines of “we were supposed to see more of shinjuku’s final game than we did”; if we’d gotten more of shinjuku, we certainly would have seen more of its reapers. i talked briefly about how i feel like ayano’s death didn’t hit the way i think it was intended to, but if the game had let us see more of her as a shinjuku reaper i feel like the entire plot would have benefited. it would have benefited shiba as well honestly; they tried to have him as a repentant “now i shall fix what i destroyed” character at the very end, but i don’t feel like they did a good enough job portraying that he had changed and he was brainwashed so it fell flat. if we’d seen more of shiba as the compassionate leader who deserved the loyalty of his reapers that they say he was, the contrast would have done a lot to help define the tragedy of his backstory. overall i think this is another “we lost a chunk of the plot in rewrites or something” issue, which i admit is not based in anything like interviews. it’s just my speculation because it feels like something that was supposed to be here got left behind - i can’t say if i’m right, or why it happened if so. it just feels to me like the shinjuku reapers besides shoka went fairly undeveloped not because of writing/lack of screentime alone but because we lost big pieces of shinjuku content entirely. it’s insane that we only learn in the secret reports how tsugumi became trapped in the mr. mew plush to begin with; to me, this screams “we had to cut something”, and the more i think about it the more convinced i am that we were originally meant to see more of shinjuku’s inversion. hell, the secret reports just flippantly inform us that tsugumi’s brother was shinjuku’s conductor and he’s why she survived - but he goes unnamed and unseen, mentioned only in a piece of postgame content that many players may never unlock.

shinjuku’s final game is just left as this incredible story that was never told, with a cast who we barely see. again, it doesn’t bother me that they never explained to us why hazuki purified shinjuku. but i do wish we could have connected with its reapers to see how they reacted to its impending fate; who was on kubo’s side, who was trying to protect shinjuku? who knew what was happening, and who was just swept up in the chaos? how did the purification affect them emotionally after their escape to shibuya? just from the secret reports we see that tsugumi’s brother is this tragic hero of another story, the conductor opposing the executor and fighting to save his city before ultimately sacrificing himself to keep his sister alive. this is enough content that it could have easily been a standalone, but it wasn’t. i think that’s a damn shame. i’m sure there are people who are already chomping at the bit to write about shinjuku’s tragic final game and it’ll make a stunning fanfic in the right hands, but this is a big gap for fanfiction authors to be filling in.

this was mostly a narrative thoughts dump, but i wanna say just a couple of things about the combat: overall i liked it! i was significantly overleveled for the vast majority of the game partially because i was having fun with the combat, i feel gameplay was very intrinsically motivating. because of how the food system worked, being overleveled didn’t mean too much since it only affects HP, but i also was eating constantly so i was in fact just OP for much of the game. so i suppose, take my gameplay commentary with a grain of salt because i was busted quickly. if i hadn’t been such a powerhouse from early on, i expect my gameplay experience would have been much different.

my biggest complaint: there were some significant issues in enemy design related to battles being timed and the timer having consequences. some enemies were a reasonable/intuitive pain, say, elephants being bullet sponges and chameleons having an invisibility mechanic. these things made them challenging, but in a sensible way. like, of course a big honkin’ elephant has a ton of HP. i think that chameleons in particular could have been tweaked; you have to be very close to them when they’re invisible in order to lock on, and i think this could distance could have been extended a bit to minimize frustration. likewise, it felt like party members that get grabbed by a t.rex were trapped for ages; i feel this could have been tweaked as well. i know a lot of people had issues with wolves for this same reason, but their comparative frailty and my pin choices meant that i quickly overcame wolves and they became a minor nuisance at best until endgame introduced a beefier wolf. even then, i found t.rex noise to be much more of an issue because of their sturdier nature and higher damage output. these are minor gripes; i didn’t like seeing these enemies, but i didn’t hate seeing them. no, here’s what i hate: rhinos and pufferfish.

to me, these are the most annoying enemies in the entire game outside of maybe a handful of bosses. i feel they were poorly thought out in general. the tendency for rhinos to put themselves against the arena walls and the delay on pufferfish exploding after their HP hits zero do not mesh well with that battle timer. i find myself very frustrated by these enemies because it feels like i’m being punished not for a lack of skill or bad decisions choosing weak pins, but simply bad luck. very few pins can circumvent the rhino’s front guard and the hitbox for their guard feels enormous, so i can’t imagine i’m the only player having difficulty herding them out of corners to actually damage them or get beat drops. there’s a postgame dive with a big noise rhino, and it was my worst experience with the entire game because it just kept backing into a corner. i quit that dive multiple times because of how much time i wasted with the rhino; i changed my pins like crazy trying to take advantage of elemental weaknesses or use pins that could circumvent the guard. but it wasn’t about what pins i was using, it was just bad luck with hitboxes. when i finally got the gold rank on that dive it wasn’t that i did anything significantly different, the rhino just didn’t park its ass in the corner that time.

as far as i know, and i hope i’m missing something that someone can enlighten me on, there is no way to prevent pufferfish from inflating and exploding outside of a killer remix. i have not discovered any way to make them explode faster. the amount of time it takes for them to blow up seems to vary not by species but by individual, i’m not sure if it’s being triggered by proximity to a party member or what but i know sometimes one of those little shits will inflate and chase me across the entire arena before finally exploding. in a chain battle, that wasted time adds up. the pufferfish issue could have been severely mitigated, if not entirely fixed, if the gap between HP hitting zero and explosion was just the time it took for them to inflate. that would have basically eliminated my needless frustration with them. but instead i just... don’t know how to make them pop faster.

in normal combat, your post-battle score is primarily just bragging rights/making yourself feel good to have gotten a good grade. but when it comes to dives, where the timer directly decides how many of the finite friendship points you get, the appearance of a rhino or pufferfish specifically is something i approached with dread and disappointment. i already mentioned the postgame dive giant rhino specifically being a nightmare, but this was a reoccurring element for me through the entire game with just normal rhinos. i know rhinos are a returning enemy and kept their front-guard schtick, but the shift to a 3D environment has made them a much more (imo needlessly) difficult opponent.

regarding the pin system itself, i was enormously disappointed to learn how the multi-pin input worked. it turns out that you can only have multiple pins using a single input no matter how many multi-pin wields you unlock; gone were my dreams of having 2 Y-input pins and two ZL input pins (i played on switch). the inability to multi-pin wield uber pins regardless of how many uber slots you have filled is also a huge bummer. i feel like in the postgame i should be able to be an absolute god of destruction, but this didn’t pan out.

this seems to be a switch issue, but autosave was the MVP of the game because i had a few cutscenes crash or freeze (the one with kubo’s reveal seems to be a common source of a crash on the switch version as it fails to load the 3D cutscene); this was annoying and needs fixing, but it was slightly mitigated by autosave kicking in immediately after boss battles. i was crushed thinking i was gonna have to go through the shiba fight again after kubo crashed my game, so the relief i felt upon loading up again and going right into the cutscene was immense. don’t get me wrong: cutscene freezes and particularly crashes are a big problem that a game like this shouldn’t have launched with, but at the very least i didn’t lose my progress on that crash. related, i appreciate the ability to speed through cutscenes you’ve already seen, but i do wish we had the option to skip them entirely because that would have saved me from the freezes that i had to manually close the game and lose progress for.

a more minor complaint that i admittedly am unsure as to how to fix (maybe utilizing the d-pad instead of having it be camera/target select alongside the right stick?) is that i do not seem to have much control over which character my camera centers on in combat. typically selecting the pin that’s equipped to them will focus the camera to them, but every once in a while i’ll be locked to someone whose pin is rebooting while my other party members are actively attacking on the complete opposite end of the arena. i have no idea why this happens. if i’m missing something please let me know. the static nature of the overworld camera took some adjusting to, at first i was offput but i got used to it quickly. if camera was fixed position in combat it would have been a nightmare, but it being fixed in the overworld isn’t the same beast.

this has gotten obscenely long, so props and condolences to everyone who has made it this far. i wanna end on a high note because i want to reiterate something: i have so many criticisms here and that’s actually praise. i enjoyed so much of this game that i’m critical of where it fell short specifically because it’s such a strong contrast to how much i felt it did right. the main story was pretty strong in general, though some character interactions were lacking. the plot itself i didn’t talk a lot about because i thought it was good. there wasn’t much to say, they did a good job! the dissonance noise being created from deleted timelines was great, i loved that. i don’t feel like predictability makes a narrative bad, so it’s not like i was upset when it turned out replay was (gasp) part of a dastardly scheme. for me, foreshadowing is an excellent thing even if sometimes i wish it was handled a little differently.

i vastly prefer this game’s vague sequel hook with minamimoto over how final remix ended a new day; that sequel hook i hated and it had me so worried about neo. thankfully a lot of my fears didn’t come true, and i am very happy overall with the game we got. if another game is greenlit, i would hope it progresses with a mostly new cast; as long as we stay in shibuya some supporting characters can and should be staples imo, like kariya and uzuki, and i hope to see more of what’s being set up with minamimoto even if not necessarily with him as a protagonist. but overall i think twewy’s worldbuilding lends itself much more to a rotating cast if it develops into a full franchise; that’s just the nature of the UG, and i would like to see further installments taking advantage of that and allowing characters to have a complete arc and then retire from the narrative naturally.

i’ve got some pigs to erase and some bosses to slap the pins out of, which i’m sure will take me some time. another day certainly has a secret boss and/or time trial boss rush, so i’ll take a look at that sucker soon as well. i’m looking forward to continuing my playthrough, and i expect to sink quite a few more hours into this game. i really truly enjoyed neo despite my qualms, and i’m leaving the main storyline behind for postgame stuff with almost entirely positive feelings and a hopeful stance on the potential future of the series. i know this was a long-ass post, which is why it’s beneath a readmore, but to anyone who cared enough about my thoughts to keep reading the whole thing... thanks for the time you spent, hope you got something positive out of it!

[coffeeshoptalkks]

nct 127 kibbe types

key: (D) dramatic, (SD) soft dramatic, (FN) flamboyant natural, (N) natural, (SN) soft natural, (DC) dramatic classic, (C) classic, (SC) soft classic, (FG) flamboyant gamine, (G) gamine, (SG) soft gamine, (TR) theatrical romantic, (R) romantic

the boyss ! ! ! 

taeil: SG? little unsure about this one... i considered R but his limbs are longer than an Rs would be but i would probably say he has a R essence as flowier fabrics like this look good on him

relatively large head in comparison to body

isnt delicate the way a TR would be

also TR lines don’t look great on him

im so sorry i always use ten for TR but like, TRs are freaking hard to type and hes non ambiguous so whoops

you can really see the contrast here

i feel like they always style him as a FG? and he just doesn’t have the yang to handle it 

think all the hair colors, excess excess amount of details that ty wears a lot

johnny: SD - sliGht C undertone 

long and lanky ass balloon man

thats all i got... jk. kinda

not a D, too much yin.

i’ve seen FN but really, hes not frame dominant, just looks tallish with a little squish in him

handles details decently well - oversized isn’t the best look

the reason i said a tiny c essence/undertone is because i prefer him in more minimalist SD clothing, more detail does start to look a little ridiculous (i promise i mean that in the nicest way possible lol, don’t come for my entp ass)

the classic comes in cause he looks PHENOMENAL in traditionally classic lines with a little umph and also looser classic lines (the yin in SD)

i needed to include this masterpiece

taeyong: FG. ah yes, the debate about ty... some argue D but he just doesn’t have the vertical line

(sitting somewhere btween D and FG, but FG fits better)

obviously a yang type

but you immediately remove any sort of natural and SD cause he isn’t wide and he isn’t squishy

doesn’t have the vertical line for a D, even from a lower angle you don’t look at him and go “yes, hes really tall” and thats what Ds are really about

it doesn’t matter how tall someone actually is, its how tall they appear to be, and taeyong just looks his height

think about how well ty carries every concept

thats a FG thing. (i can’t find the exact quote but a staff member said that its really interesting to style ty because u can put so many elements on him without it overpowering him

yuta: FG. if taeyong is a FG then so is Yuta

somewhere on the spectrum between FG and D but has to be put in FG just cause a dramatic’s first and foremost trait is vertical line

my next guess would be SD but really he doesnt have enough yin in him, hes all sharp

but because hes sitting somewhere in between he’s not gonna carry as much detail as a “purer(?)” FG

hes 100% yang based but doesn’t have the vertical line of a pure D

this looks phenomenal

he looks like a friggin anime character excUse me sir

i’m fine no i’m not

doyoung (dongyoung): SD. i’ve seen DC, and i do get the argument, but he isn’t as sharp as a DC would be.

you take a look at this and he just isn’t sharp in the way that seonghwa or vernon are

hes definitely a yang type but hes got an undercurrent of yin 

how do i explain this

SDs actually have a lot more yin than DCs despite them being placed closer to dramatic in a lot of graphs. (you know the ones i’m talking about)

even if you could make an argument for vertical line (as i think doyoung has a moderate to long one)

kai (a DC/C) is over 180 and yes he has a vertical line, but he has more yang than doyoung - hes just more boxy and has less yin

when i’m having trouble typing an idol i start looking really heavily at outfits and how they suit each style

doyoung just doesn’t make classic suits pop in the way a DC would

he looks restricted and needs a little extra yin detail to match 

the neck scarf with the draping absolutely ties this look together and he absolutely rocks it

he just doesn’t give me DC vibes and i really do think that SD fits him better

jaehyun: SC. leaning on pure classic with some sort of yin essence

okay, ngl i had problems with this one

I saw somewhere (probably reddit lmao) that jaehyun has a SD head on a not SD body... and i couldn’t agree more

my first instinct was to go to SD but really, he doesn’t have the vertical line and details don’t feel right

idk if its just how he’s styled but i really can’t find an era where i lOve what jaehyun is in

i genuinely think he’s just a larger boned SC with some SD mixed in with a weird combo of essences

a good example of a SC ish look is this where you can see the moderate vertical line (despite being 5′11/180)

it might be my personal bias coming in but i really do like him in more minimal and somewhat looser clothing opposed to him drowning in details

this confuses me cause it feels like it should work but it doesn’t...

this looks awesome this is pretty darn decent but i still feel like something is missing 

i compared jae’s vertical line to the SC poster boy joshua (svt 5th from the left) and kai (DC/C) and felt they josh’s was pretty similar but really, i wouldn’t rule out any of the classics or SD

idk if its just how he’s styled but i really can’t find an era where i lOve what jaehyun is in

tldr: big boned SC and thats as close as i’m gonna get lol

mark: FG. pretty self explanatory lol

leaning yang but obviously not a natural or (S) dramatic or classic

leaves you with FG

very sharp facial features

sharp sharp sharp

and a decent vertical line (looks his height ish)

rocks pretty much every hair color on the planet

if you asked me to nail down an essence i wouldn’t be able to hes just a FG lol

jungwoo: FN. classic essence

heres my problem with jungwoo... like jaehyun his type gets really ambiguous cause of essences not matching his actual body type (classic essence, FN type in this case)

because really, hes just too tall to be a DC,

too box like for SD

and his skin is much too yin to be a pure D (he is very squish, a true D - wonwoo svt is taught and yang through and through)

and once you rule out DC cause of height you’re kinda left with??

but his vertical line is just too prominent to be a DC, but hes not as shoulder heavy as most FNs and just?

*insert clown face*

a DC wouldn’t carry an oversized outfit like this

i actually like him in stuff like this, if not a little less oversized, he just looks so cozy

this gets close-ish but he looks a tad bit constricted

the reason i finally just gave in to FN is cause its as close as i think i can get. SD and D aren’t right, hes not a SN or pure N (jun svt) and in this pic (and others) you can kinda start to see that he IS actually more frame dominant than you first expect. (think like yanan pentagon, - minus the shoulders - super long limbs, lanky but still relatively squarish)

so FN it is

tldr: FN with a classic essence cause really thats (imo) the closest and best option you have and confused kpop fan 

haechan (donghyuck): G. right now i would put him in pure G but he might hit FG at some point in the future cause he isn’t 21 in international age and his type is still settling

boom vs resonance

okay its not that different but i sWEar hes picked up more yang somewhere

not a SG because his isn’t absolutely massive in comparison to the rest of his body 

chenle i’m looking at you (fifth from the left)

moderate to short-ish vertical line

sharp jawline vs squish face but he doesn’t have the sharp yang of a FG (mark)

just still got some squish on him 

[jesstielle]

okay i have Feelings about NEO: TWEWY and nobody to shout them at because literally nobody else I know plays it which is truly a crime; the original twewy remains one of my favourite games to this day.  but anyway.  massive NEO TWEWY spoilers inbound:

First of all it truly is a miracle that this game even exists.  I never once actually believed we’d get a sequel.  Let alone one this good!! It is really, really good!!!

Things I Enjoyed:

- The gameplay.  Whoo boy.  Up to about 4 team members, anyway.  It’s fast paced, button mashing satisfaction, that manages to keep elements from the original game while still being fresh and fun, if not entirely chaotic, which is why after 4 characters, it was a bit like, ‘okay, chill, let us switch out or something’ lmao

- The new characters.  Although I feel like we leave the game not knowing as much about them as I would like, the new team are really great, and Nagi in particular really shone in terms of character grown.  Rindo.. I feel like I know as little about him now as I did at the start :|a Maybe I just missed something.

I honestly found the teams and their leaders kinda forgettable >>;; Although the heel-face turn on Motoi was pretty great.  I needed more from Kanon to feel anything when she, yknow.

The new reapers were... a mixed bunch. Shoka was fantastic, Susukichi was... a bit much in English, great in Japanese, Tsugumi was great but didn’t get enough screen time (unless she gets more post game, I dunno yet) Shiba annoyed the fuck outta me, Kaie was alright.. the others... meh.  They don’t hold up to Kariya and Uzuki. And obviously Kubo sucks ass pfft

- The reappearing characters.  of course i loved them.  i got a hit of serotonin every time one appeared on my screen. neku my son. josh  the reapers.  i was never a huge minamimoto stan lmao but he was fun. even curry don. but some were DIRELY underutilised which i WILL COME BACK TO

- THE MUSIC.  twewy cannot fail on its music, it’s amazing, it’s glorious, it’s multi faceted, it goes hard. and adding in Beat’s psyche, a rhythm mini game acting as the fast walk button???? yes. yes yes yes yes.  yessssssss. 

- The graphics.  Mostly.  Everything looked beautiful, and HD, and the character designs were great - not toooooooooo Nomura but Nomura enough, yknow? And the occasional chibi faces were great lol.  The chaotic battles sometimes caused lag which... I mean, they coulda given us the option to turn off some of the animations or damage graphics lmao but hey.  the forced perspective on shibuya was a bit off occasionally but it was how the original game did it and it’s all for the ~aesthetic~ so hey.  And it was great seeing some of the original locations looking so much more fleshed out

- The Localisation.  Personally, I think the translators struck a perfect balance that made the kids seem like they’d fit right into today’s culture.  It wasn’t forced, it wasn’t ‘look at us we are Teenagers’, it was right on the mark.  And it was really, really interesting hearing just how different the Japanese VA lines were compared to the English translations.  They really went all out and it paid off, imo.

Dislikes: (i haven’t read the secret reports yet tho)

- UNDERUTILISATION OF THE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS - now, look, okay, I’m biased.  I admit it.  I’m a Josh and Neku stan lmao, so I was looking forward to seeing them the whole game.  And as it went on and on and I realised I wouldn’t be until much later, it bummed me out.  The bait n’ switch with Beat was funny at first, and I enjoyed it a lot, until I realised that yeah, that’s what they’re going with.  Beat’s probably my least favourite partner from the original (sorry) but even disregarding that, it annoys me that they gave him like 10,000x more screen time than even Neku. 

Not to mention Shiki and Joshua!  Josh in particular I could write a whole essay on how pissed I am.  The lost potential.  Nobody mentioning him, ever, once.  Until he just sorta shows up and says a few things.  It makes NO SENSE, he’s the fucking composer, Neku and Beat worked with him, why aren’t they questioning his whereabouts when Shibuya’s turning to shit??????’  I just?????? I had low hopes for Josh content tbf but I am still disappointed :( And naught but one singular Hanekoma mention, as well.  Sigh.

Shiki, it’s a shame she doesn’t appear more, she certainly could have - I can think of like 5 ways off the top of my head - having her as a partner would have also been extremely good.

Neku at least we got..... half a week with. and as a PC.  And like, I know it’s not supposed to be about them, but throw us a bit more than cheap fanservice, yknow. And Kariya and Uzuki were great too.

- why, oh why, was every single team lackey male????  they couldn’t be arsed to make female designs????? it baffled me.

- SO. MUCH. SHIBUYA. TRAVERSING.  I don’t remember if it was that bad in the original?! But oh my god lol.  I think a lot of it was padding.  Sure felt like it.  Paired with the slightly hand hold-y mission progression cutscenes, they coulda cut a bunch of those out.

Other Stuff:

- The voice acting - fantastic in Japanese, okay in English, except for the returning characters?? didn’t sound great??? in english??? I was hyped to turn English back on for Beat but.... nah. Nahhh.  Nagi’s English VA was absolutely the best imo.

- They nailed the feel of the old game without totally copying it - the food, clothes, general aesthetic, music.  That said, it still felt a little too tied to the original.  Ironic considering the rant above I know lmao but... yeah.  The player psyches were a nice touch but I feel like it needed something to set it apart a lil more from its predecessor. 

- I didn’t realise A New Day existed until literally today and I wish I had seen it before I played Neo.  Now I know who Coco is lmao.  And Shinjuku’s erasure was part of that too! arghhhh. Nomura stop burying plot points in other things.  I’m a DS OG dont do this to me

- Rindo’s time travel power was cool but jumping back to the same point like 3 or 4 times in some cases got old

- You could really feel the KH3 energy of ‘play 30 hours until something or someone pivotal finally appears’ lol.  Nomuraaaaa. 

... anyway.

TL;DR good game, needed more Josh, also needs more fans please

[hoshees]

Could you please do Seventeen as Shinee songs? For a fellow Caratshawol! -- 💎🎄🥕

omg i’m LIVING for this question i love it so much…. apologies for taking so long to answer! i wanted to answer well :)

s.coups: hold you - try to contain yourself while u imagine cheol rocking key’s opening rap and then minho’s rap in the second verse…. spoiler: u can’t. this song is sexy and so is cheol. considering he’s one of my bias wreckers are we shocked by this development??? probably not. 

jeonghan: odd eye - mostly i’m thinking abt that jeonghan solo stage… u know the one…. all i gotta say is: neck tat… like that artistic and sensual but somewhat sinister vibe that jeonghan can pull off so well when he performs? yes. i also think his voice would sound beautiful singing it–especially taem and jjong’s parts.

joshua: tonight - this song sounds like shua and u can’t change my mind. the lyrics are romantic but they’re also really natural? and i feel like his voice would fit perfectly with it too… imagine… rocket pt.2… joshua singing the vocal parts and vernon doing the raps……… ur welcome

jun: shift - ok ok ok so i was listening to this and laughing bc there’s a lyric that says “i saw you from the beginning” and it’s POIGNANT bc jun was the first member that caught my eye and i thought abt maybe biasing him but then hoshi opened his mouth and started talking abt shinee (a shift occurred… get it? hahahaha ok) so… that ship sailed but!! this song is one of my favorites and it’s kinda funky but still really elegant and i think that fits jun? also he could rly sing it well and i feel like him dancing to this would be *chefs kiss*

hoshi: juliette - picking this for two sentimental reasons: 1) it’s his favorite shinee song and he’s talked abt how it inspired him to be an idol and 2) listening to it makes me happy and soonyoung makes me happy so… :) + honorable mention to lucky star bc that’s what he is for me

wonwoo: undercover - alright where do i START. maybe with lyrics. “my feet paddle so quickly underwater / but my face is peaceful, you don’t know / even though i’m always so busy before the curtains go up / in front of you, i’m acting cool / […] just like the dark shadows / seep into the night / i’m digging into your consciousness / inside you, undercover” huh?? huhhhhhh????? this is so wonu. like that cool demeanor he has when he’s performing but also that versatility he possesses? and the TALENT. amazing. also for some reason the whistling in this makes me think of him i’m not sure why but it works somehow

woozi: beautiful life - this song was written by jinki and i feel like he and jihoon would share similar sentiments regarding this song. it makes me think of jihoon’s fancafe post after an ode broke their sales record and he talked about how grateful he is and how much work he put into the album and how “it’s a thankful life.” also the piano and guitar combo is so magical and makes me think abt jihoon and the kind of music he writes and how beautiful it is… and how he makes my life more beautiful too :) @ jihoon pls sing this one day 

dk: i’m with you - when i think of seokmin i think of comfort and that was this song is for me. it’s one of the most beautiful shinee songs ever imo, which… FITTING. it’s definitely in my favorites and i would LOVE to hear him sing it. 

mingyu: your number - this is one of my favorite shinee songs ever (it’s the first video i showed my best friend when i was trying to get her into them) falling in love at first sight in a bookstore while it’s raining outside? yes please. and i just feel like this song is so wholesome and clever just like mingyu. also i think he could really cover minho’s parts in this so well (the rapping and singing) and picturing him doing this choreography is making me smile so BIG wow ok i’ll stop now

the8: picasso - ok first i thought of this bc i was being cheesy since hao paints and appreciates art (and IS art) but the more i think abt it the more it just FITS… the vibe of the song in general mixed w the lyrics and the power of the performance…… very minghao i must say

seungkwan: sunny side - nothing elicits an emotional reaction in me quite like this song. do yourself a favor and listen to it while you read the translation (unless u know japanese? don’t want to assume lol) because you will be HEALED. this is how i feel abt seungkwan tbh like his voice is so soothing and his demeanor is so lovely and i can’t help but feel better when i see him :’)

vernon: get it - firstly, i feel like this is a very vernon thing to say. secondly… rapping. but in all seriousness the percussive aspect of this song reminds me of vernon like it’s got RHYTHM and so does he. the 3:00 minute mark especially has vernon written ALL OVER IT. it’s an older song so parts of it are a little cringe and the lyrics are a bit questionable but he could rly do something with it ya know. vernon rewrite get it and perform it pls and thank u

dino: why so serious? - LISTEN this song gives me chan vibes i can’t quite describe it but i can see him covering it VIVIDLY in my head when i listen to it and it seems like something he could rly make his own… powerful (that guitar!!) and kinda cheeky w raps that remind me of his style a bit 

thank u again i rly loved doing this! caratshawols UNITE

[irenerei]

OMEGAVERSE HOSHI AND DINO

• It all started when i saw Healing MV. The part when SoonYoung back hug Lee Chan got me screaming. Also performance team double cheoreo creating main gun yo.

• I am not gonna lie I have a hard time to place them on either pure blood ALPHA (AA) x Less dominant ALPHA (AO) or AlphaxBeta , or even both being Beta would be interesting. Which is why title I wrote it differently compared to previous ideas without specifying which Omegaverse gender they will be .

• Putting Chan as OMEGA is a cliche funny thing to do and I wanna avoid too much cliches but putting SoonYoung as OMEGA seems the same as well. As the both fits the bill of being the twist (look omega but actually alpha or vice versa cliche)

• And since I already wrote Alpha Jeonghan x Omega Joshua, Alpha Vernon x Omega Seungkwan, Alpha Wonwoo x Omega Jun and Alpha Mingyu x Omega Woozi. I felt there are already too much AlphaxOmega chemistry so i decided to try something different .Ok that's about it sorry for the long prologue-ish.

• So this two I could they are less affected with their alpha omega surroundings. Cos they both have their own agendas ( if they are betas)

• We all know Soon Young dotes on Chan alot. Hell everyone loves their maknae. But this two got closer due to being in performance team and also exchanging experience and tips in choreography.

• Both appreciate each other so much that they do kinda see each other as comrades. Later to be Supportive boyfriends

• Another slow burn pair but not as long as Mingyu x Jihoon pair. They are faster to realise their feelings maybe due to they both tend to rely on each other alot hence more communication to accelerate the chemistry.

• Very Close to each other and loads of affections. SOONYOUNG SQUISHING HIS CHEEKS ON CHAN'S CHEEKS IS ON POINT. All was neutral affectionate but slowly realised and developed feelings into romantical mutual

• Soon Young and performance team even whole other 17 hyungs when watching Highlight and 13 month dance all in awe that their baby grown up. Soon Young is dragged into Chan's smiles. He like it when Chan is smiling with confident while dancing.

• Lee Chan probably : AH HOSHI HYUNG WHY ARE U TOPPING ME?! (Eventually get used to it)

• But will still try to runs away, probably shouting : KWON SOON YOUNG BACK OFF AND STAY DOWN!!!!!

• Possibly their argument goes like on who tops who

• Chan : You were never a tiger you hamster! Stop topping me! It's unfair!!!

• SoonYoung: shut up maknae stop being cute

• Chan : At least I am a Hyung at home! You are not!

• Soon Young : But you are still my maknae

• Chan : (loss at words) I better run

• I swear to god it's a very good flip that Soon Young dominates and tops Lee Chan even though Soon Young is being the affectionate aegyo elder brother. Which is a good twist imo

• Chan get affected by Soon Young alpha Pheromones even though he is not an omega. Cue in a happy hamster when he finds out.

• SoonYoung is not the rough aggressive type. The type that suit him is gently aggressive while doing aegyo. Making you really cannot go mad at him entirely. I can see he is patient. Will persuade with aegyo and talks slowly then strikes back when you let your guard down. But it's not offensively And its not guilt trip consent so it's ok. He understands if Chan really hates it he would stop.

• The scene from Healing MV got me thinking how things could unfold tho. It could start like a pillow fight and then SoonYoung tops Chan just to get a better angle to smash a pillow him and then they paused at eye contact. THAT WAS THE MOMENT THEY BOTH REALISED THEY WENT INTO THE ROMANTIC SIDE.

• A LOT OF BACK HUGS. SOON YOUNG LOVE BACK HUGS. NO ARGUMENT IN ALLOWED

• Even though they are surrounded by some alpha x omega fated pairs, SoonYoung and Chan was never bothered by the fact there might be a fated pair (if they are both alphas) somewhere. Not blind confidence but they just sure about it because they realised that they are not that affected by the omegas in the group, or even when meeting up with fans.

• During rut Soon Young will have tendency to bite. It shook Chan for a bit but eventually get used to it also cos he understands that they are different (This happens if Hoshi is alpha and Chan is either another less dom alpha or beta)

• Them two are one of the most helpful members when anyone in heat or in rut

• SoonYoung probably will one of the members Mingyu passes reminders to take care of Jihoon. Chan will help out of he is there.

• I swear to god this two worries on Jun the most. They also face palm the most when Jun is being oblivious on Wonwoo (during the early stage when Jun still not yet realised WONWOO'S feelings)

• Them face palm at Seungkwan when he denies Vernon in a drama queen way lol. Tries to calm him down but not persuade him to accept fate blindly but just to calm the pouting Seungkwan.

• They face palm at them cos they clicked very fast so they sometiems just felt weird at the slowburn-ness of other members lok

• Very probably a scene to happen is when them both open up their relationship to the group. SoonYoung announced it confidently and everyone is like yeah we knew, PLEASE ITS OBVIOUS . Then you have a embarassed hamster hides behind Chan, leaving the poor maknae to get teased by members lol

• Even though he will tries to run but when intimate moments, Chan is not the timid type. He will tell how he feels to give SoonYoung security. I like how you hug me or how you hold my hand etc.

• His smiles will be his grand weapon to calm SoonYoung down

• I have a lot to say but i ran out of words cos my brain shortfused