#it also goes to haring my interests in general. every time i just think back to how im probably just super annoying.

[venelona]

Something that happened when I was a kid

I think back to those words every time I want to reblog something, do reblog something, or see one of those 'you should reblog more!!' posts

Please remember that you expressing love for your interests is not annoying 💖

[fortunesfavours]

My gift for @casismymrdarcy as part of @starrynightdeancas wonderful gift exchange. I had so much fun writing this! Definitely going to try AUs like this more. A short and sweet one-shot featuring Dean as a camp counselor, ghost summoning, and the cute counselor from Cabin Three getting caught in the rain. I hope you enjoy!

Word Count: 1189

Continued below the cut, will be up on AO3 once I decide on a title.

CW: slight mention of John Winchester/rough family life

Generally, in all of Dean’s sum 25 years of life experience, letting a pack of eight-year-olds that were already positively intoxicated on sugar near candles, a lighter, and his co-counselor’s Ouija board was a truly horrific idea. Yet, here he was, weary head in his hands, attempting to supervise the most hare-brained idea of the week. His co-counselor, an energetic woman named Clara he had first met at the staff meeting a few days before, was on her break, leaving him alone with their cabin. She had pulled him aside in the dinner line and told him that she had “stuff to let the kids experiment with” in a box under her bunk. He had (foolishly) assumed this would probably be art supplies, perhaps some glitter glue and cardstock, or maybe pony beads and string, but alas, here he was.

He had opened the box that had once apparently held Kirkland-brand orange juice to find an intricately-carved wooden plank, detailed with curling vines and celestial objects, as well as the alphabet, numbers, and a small selection of words engraved in a rather medieval-looking font. On top was an equally-ornate planchette, a pack of tea lights, a lighter painted with a spiderweb, and a sticky-note addressed to him.

“Dean,

Have fun ;) Break ends at 1 am, going into town. Don’t burn down the cabin.”

Dean had sighed, rolling his eyes and mourning his choice of summer job. Charlie had sung the praises of her childhood camp to him when he had mentioned his search, leading Dean to sign up as a counselor.

One of the kids, a little girl named Ella, was calling for Dean. He shook himself back to focus to see her frustratedly trying to work the lighter. The kids had set up a wobbly circle of candles around the board, and were clustered around it. Ella’s nose is scrunched up with concentration, and Dean pushes himself out of his chair to light the candles for them. He deftly sets the tea lights alight, and the room starts to smell of beeswax. One of the kids has scrambled over to the lightswitch, and with a flick of a switch, the cabin is filled with warm, flickering candlelight.

The kids promptly start an eager discussion of the proper way to summon a ghost, and Dean so desperately wants to just go to bed. Sure, his dad had been a little over-interested in these sorts of things, but that sure as hell didn’t mean he was going to pull out his childhood familiarity with the paranormal. He can almost see himself as a young child in their faces, bright with eager curiosity and uninhibited trust in the world around them. His chest twinges a bit at the thought, but he catches himself before he can start to dwell on his family issues. He and Sam are out now, out and living their lives. He can be a camp counselor now, he can think about the cute guy in charge of Cabin Three with the blue eyes and not hate himself for it. Dean chuckles, leaning back in his chair, and jokingly calls out, “You should try Latin.”

Charlie, a tall, gangly kid with serious eyes and a way of walking that vaguely reminded Dean of a bird, bounces in their seat at this suggestion. “I know Pig Latin! My cousin taught me!”

This new addition is eagerly accepted by the children, who clearly have decided that this is quite a good substitute for proper Latin. Dean closes his eyes and yawns, mind drifting to thoughts of rest and the chocolate bar he had stashed in his backpack. He could almost fall asleep here, listening to the crackle of the candles and the pounding of the rain outside. Reluctantly keeping himself awake, he tuned back in to hear the group chanting something that with translation was most definitely “ghosts of Lakeside Camp, we summon you” interspersed with humming of what might have been the camp theme song, and which also may have been some pop song Dean can’t conjure the name of. Their voices start to crescendo, getting more discordant but also more eager. All at once, there’s a pounding knock on the door combined with a boom of thunder, then a flash of lighting. One voice lets out a quickly-muffled scream as a gust blows through the cabin and extinguishes the candles. The cabin goes silent but for the rain, full of wide eyes and scared faces.

Dean looks around and as he opens his mouth to comfort his campers, is interrupted by another knock. He silently moves to the door, opening it a crack so as to not startle the campers. When he locks eyes with Cabin Three’s counselor, dripping wet and wiping rain off his face, Dean decides that this is either his lucky day or the gods cursing him. Only one way to find out, he thinks.

“Man, you’re drenched.” he says, and immediately curses internally. What an introduction. The man blinks a few times, and responds entirely genuinely, “My umbrella broke. May I come in?”

“Oh- yeah, yeah, of course. I’ll grab you a towel.” Dean swings the door open, and the man steps in, only to be greeted by twelve terrified faces.

“Yeah, um, sorry about that everyone. This is just… uh-” he glances over at the man, who realizes after a moment what Dean is asking for. “Castiel. I’m Cabin Three’s counselor.” The kids murmur amongst themselves before one speaks up.

“You’re not a ghost, right?”

Castiel squints, and Dean can’t help but find it adorable. “Not as far as I know.”

Hurrying off to grab a towel, Dean rifles through his suitcase before returning with his pool towel and handing it to Castiel. He gladly accepts it, and promptly wanders off to stand in a corner and attempt to dry his rain-drenched hair.

Dean spends the next hour herding campers through the process of getting ready for bed, sneaking conversation with Castiel in between. However, all this does is further send Dean absolutely further into his developing crush. With every sentence exchanged, Cas is nothing but clever, kind, and utterly unlike anyone Dean has ever met. By the time the kids are all asleep and the cabin is tidied up, the rain has subsided into a light drizzle. Cas, though, makes no mention of leaving. Instead, he and Dean wander out onto the porch to continue talking. By the time Dean’s co-counselor returns, Cas has to excuse himself back to his cabin. As Dean turns to go inside, Cas calls out and offers a folded piece of paper. Before Dean can open it, he smiles a beautifully soft smile, turns on his heel, and vanishes into the foggy night.

When Dean opens the paper later that night, he can’t contain the smile that breaks out over his face.

“Dean,

Go out with me tomorrow? I know a place I think you’d like.

Cas <3”

When they get ice cream the next day, they share a kiss over a sundae and Dean decides that taking this job was the best decision he’s made yet.

[hekatekun]

The metanarrative’s grand narrative: Osomatsu-san’s characterization throughout the franchise

The growing cynicism throughout the entire Osomatsu-san franchise shows itself in season 3 with more prominence than anything prior. I think that’s pretty common amongst any “long-running” gag comedy - replacing a plot with spiteful commentary that’s admittedly pretty hit or miss at times. However, it invariably creates a negative but pretty funny character growth, and I love the way the show (I’m including the movie too as “canon” material considering season 3 has referenced it way too many times for me to disregard) has set up this metanarrative across seasons. Long post ahead.

Obviously, Osomatsu-san is self-aware and has a casual relationship with itself. No linear plot (though S3 seems to be trying it out and I’ve enjoyed it - I love that they’re willing to experiment), rather a collection of unrelated skits; and so it points out its own metanarrative because of this “lack of consequences.” With comedy comes impermancy and Ososan AND -kun will always bounce back from that week’s insanity. From the Oxford Dictionary, a metanarrative is “a narrative account that experiments with or explores the idea of storytelling, often by drawing attention to its own artificiality.” Basically: a story about stories.

On top of this, is what I’m calling the “grand narrative,” which is often used interchangeably with metanarrative, but here I’m making a distinction to make it less confusing. Of course, Ososan is a story about stories, but with that comes a story it’s not directly telling, which is where most of the (little) character development is taking place. This is what I’m going to call the grand narrative of a show whose premise is being a meta-aware comedy. I’ll admit I’m by no means an expert on these subjects, but storytelling methods are something I enjoy trying to analyze. As a media format, Ososan really utilizes the fact that it’s a tv show.

Right off the bat S1E1 makes it clear what to expect: Nothing. Not a damn thing. But, the show had already been cleared for this first season, so it has to be produced. This same episode’s preview is done by Osomatsu, which I’m just gonna quote instead screenshot because there’s too many.

“...we plan on properly starting the anime the next episode.” “...you ended up with an extra minute, so you need me to do something to fill it?! Actually, is this anime going to be okay with episode one being like this? I’m getting worried about how the rest of this is going to be...” “There, I used up a minute! [EPISODE ENDS]”

Episode one is not only batshit referential, but downright mocking the state of anime in 2015. Which, truthfully, I don’t have much to comment on in that regard, as I’m not an avid anime fan. However, it does this under the premise of being indecisive about what kind of anime they wanted the Osokun reboot to be. 

They’ll do just about anything to stay popular and relevant considering that is, quite literally, all they have going for them as characters in the series and just being characters in general. They may be pieces of shit, but they’re likeable pieces of shit. The dynamics they’ve built upon to be entertaining is encouraged, and they’re basically just roleplaying different skits and fucking around.

All the AUs! All the skits! They’re just playing! They’re just fuckin’ around!! They couldn’t come up with any interesting plot nor could they “graduate” from being anime protagonists and join the real world, so they just fuck around and make a gag anime!

Even if we follow both as the audience, the show makes a difference between the what’s them in their “normal life” (crazy begets crazy, no?) and what’s their “show.” But, really, that’s just one way to look at it, as they don’t really follow any rules as a show. I could say the Joshimatsus are separate characters from the sextuplets, and it’d be a “correct” interpretation. It doesn’t really matter - I’m choosing to examine it all as being the six of them just running around and playing, because being entertaining and having fun is all they know as characters. Besides, having it blended together beyond recognition reinforces how it prioritizes entertaining us, the audience, above logic. Storytelling doesn’t need to make absolute spatial-temporal sense for it to be enjoyable to fans.

In any case, that mentality really seems to be what pushes their character development negative, as they look to reinforce habits and rituals despite them being really detrimental for them in the long run. They know they’re popular characters as is, and with really everyone from staff to fans encouraging this behavior further, so they see no point in fixing what isn’t really broken.

I found this 4 year old article from Manga.Tokyo discussing the Ososan phenomenon in Japan because while the craze died off pretty quickly in American anime circles (which deserves a whole other post), Japanese fans went fuckin’ nuts.

This portion caught my attention, as it makes sense that entitled and enabled asshole children would grow up to be entitled and enabled asshole adults. The article also goes on to compare them to idols (even beyond the F6 spoof) and that they are rooted in being comfort characters above all else. 

It’s worth a read, especially because Japanese fan response is what drives majority of the content post-S1, and, inevitably, ties into their character development. 

They know that they’re Characters, particularly Protagonists. You know what happens to protagonists? Everything works out. Just about every single story created has stuff working out for protagonists. In fact, we have a whole genre made that separates stories with bad tragic endings from our Normal Stories. Ososan is a comedy, not a tragedy, so surely there’s gonna be some payoff somewhere along the road, especially as the seasons and other content are still being pumped out. To a self-aware, entitled, enabled protagonist, assuming everything is just gonna work out for you isn’t that far off from your narrative truth.

However, Ososan is a gag anime, and a lot of gag content (like 4koma mangas) is dropped for other projects before any emotional cathartic ending is provided for characters and fans alike. So, three seasons and a movie later, nothing has happened. It’s a great idol cash cow with a Family Guy filter, and the characters (and writers) don’t even bother to hide it anymore. And I know I’m being hypocritical concerning my definition of “canon material” but I think this portion from one of the drama cds “Choroplex” basically summarizes my point:

CHOROMATSU: Wait, don’t make this into a gag! You don’t even care about becoming employed, right? KARAMATSU: There’s no way that could happen... CHOROMATSU: What kind of future are you imagining? Is it nothing but this? [HUGE PAUSE BEFORE THEY MOVE ONTO SOMETHING ELSE]

They’re parodies of themselves and are running out of ideas. Stagnation and decay is normal, if not unavoidable, at this point in time for them. They’re just 20 somethings who’ve hit a wall but they’re too scared and insecure to bring about permanent positive change. It’s easier for them to fall back into normal patterns and joke off the rest.

They have an antagonistic relationship with expectations. They can’t handle a single iota of expectations, or responsibilities. They’ve never needed to worry before, so why bother now? Once the biggest hits on the block, now they’re just guppies in the ocean, and there’s nothing they believe themselves to be able to accomplish to keep up with this big brave new world. This is epitomized in S3E15, where old man Osomatsu tells a bastardized version of the Tortoise and the Hare, blatantly projecting his feelings onto it. Again, too many screenshots so let me pull more quotes (bolding for my own reference):

“The place that the tortoise thought was the goal was not actually the goal. His journey down the road of life still continued on. The tortoise was quite tired, but he continued running anyway.” “No one actually knew who was in front anymore. There are too many people above you.” “After the tortoise found out how society worked, he thought, ‘So this is the difference in talent? No amount of hard work is going to fix this. All right. I’m done competing with others.’”

S3 has left more questionable endings than its counterparts. The last 2 skits I referenced don’t even a gag to them, and the marriage skit doesn’t play music for the entire second half of S3E5. There’s more involved too. I haven’t even brought up the rice ball twins becoming actual entertainers in their universe, or how they introduced this whole AI subplot only to reject it because All Six Of Them aren’t interested in expanding their little corner of the world. Here’s a transcript of the ending preview from S3E1:

“Hey, hey, Osomatsu here. I thought we were saved from being replaced, but I guess we get new characters next week. Man, we’re busy. New encounters, changing surroundings... We’re NEETs to begin with because all that is a pain. I guess a lot can happen after three seasons. [EPISODE ENDS]”

The sextuplets’ mindsets are extremely self-centered, which is also an environmental thing (the parents don’t even really care that they’re NEETs, for one) and an understanding of what they ought to be (epic successful protagonists). They also have a very black and white mentality, all or nothing. They’re extremely sheltered, and once they realized where they stood in society at large, they just gave up. To them the world is divided between winners and losers, and somehow, “inexplicably,” they found themselves to have fallen from grace. But they’re protagonists, that has to count for something! Everything’s gonna end up okay, right? Well... what this show has told them: No, not at all. They are consistently compared and warned of Iyami, and are perfectly aware of this fact, and have come to internalize it as a truth rather than a reversible self-fulfilling prophecy.

Too many screencaps, taken from the S3S5 marriage discussion:

JYUSHIMATSU: I wonder if we’re gonna get married someday, too. CHOROMATSU: Well, I mean... probably? I’m not exactly sure, but... TODOMATSU: What? You’re gonna get married, Choromatsu-niisan? CHOROMATSU: Huh? Well, yeah... someday.

Surprise! They have commitment issues! The same group that couldn’t commit to a fucking plot! Though their personality issues have several factors involved, I can’t overlook the theater motifs abound. Life’s a stage, and they’re performing entirely unscripted and it shows.

Do I think all of this is 100% intentional on the writers’ part? No, probably not. There’s also an extra layer here regarding contemporary Japanese commentary that I’m not familiar with, so I just ended up focusing on the characters. I can’t be in the writers’ heads, but whatever decisions are being made by executives regarding censorship and “compliance” are reflected in these character changes that result in being significantly more bitter and defeatist.

In the all or nothing, winner-take-all mentality, the only way to save face at this point, in their minds, is to own up to it - act like it’s what they wanted all along. And, hey, it’s funny to watch, right?

“Why is Osomatsu all my examples”, you might be asking. Well, he’s the damn blueprint for it all. The leader of the bunch, the first personality to grab your attention, has had all his issues projected and ricocheted in their echo chamber.

Ultimately, my point here is that you could think their “canon characterizations” (though canon means nothing in a show like this) as being intertwined with the nature of their self-aware existence. They’ve shown you all their tricks, the smoke and mirrors are getting boring, and they’re stalling long enough the story seems to be moving on without them - in spite of them. And when something genuinely threatens their way of life, they don’t know how to respond.

You can play it all straight, of course. Remove the meta jokes and all the same plot points can be hit, but, as a slapstick comedy, it’s able to easily add this additional layer in that I appreciate. I’ve said it in my last post and I’ll probably say it in more, but with comedy comes sincerity - the caveat of all the cartoon violence is that, on some level somewhere, this is how they really feel.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Fault”

Hello, everyone! We’re not even bothering with an introduction today, let’s just get straight to the only thing that matters.

HERE HE IS, THE MVP OF THIS EPISODE, OF THE WHOLE VOLUME, THE SERIES, THE ONLY ONE I CARE ABOUT RIGHT NOW

I’m joking… but only a little. In all seriousness we will get to Ren, but you all want to hear a funny story first? I somehow got it into my head that there was no RWBY episode this week—the holiday and all—so I poured all my meta time and energy into a ridiculous Ironwood analysis as a placeholder, only to wake up this morning and find the strongest (and most complicated!) episode this year waiting for a recap. Like some sort of grimm nosing into my inbox. 

Okay, so it’s not a funny story, but if RT would just do a better job with their website my life would be a whole lot easier.

So here we are, taking a look at the episode “Fault.” Quick question, is every episode this volume going to have a one-word title? It’s not a criticism, I’ve got nothing against a punchy name, I’m just curious since RWBY has never done that before. If anything, they’ve gone more for symbolically significant phrases like “A Brawl in the Family,” “Players and Pieces,” and “The Lady in the Shoe.” I wonder what sparked the change.

Anyway, we open on Robyn laughing about some story she’s told, something about Joanna losing a fair fight for the first time, presumably to her. This is what we’ve learned about Robyn since this volume started: she refuses to acknowledge that she had a hand in Clover’s death; she was asked by Blake and Yang to keep the Amity secret but, according to May, couldn’t keep her mouth shut about it; and she tries to cheer Qrow up by bragging about her own skill.

Alrighty then.

Obviously, this little story fails to land. “Tough crowd tonight.” Robyn looks to Jacques as well as Qrow when she says this and since she clearly doesn’t care about cheering him up, she must want to get a rise out of him. Create something, as she says at the end of the scene, that’s exciting. Robyn just really loves to start fights. Against Ironwood, Clover, bickering matches with Jacques—stories told about winning them! If she’s not fighting someone she’s not interested.

Qrow does eventually give the smallest smile though and Robyn cheers. “Did I win?” They both quickly grow serious again though and Robyn says she’s “sorry for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.” Her apology would mean more if she was apologizing for her actions, not providing a generic ‘Sorry for your loss’ like she had no hand in this.

Qrow then insists it was his fault… but, of course, not for the reasons why he’s actually responsible (also, didn’t we do this two weeks ago?). For starters, Qrow blames his semblance for everything that went down, despite the fact that his semblance is not responsible for him breaking Clover’s aura, or Tyrian stabbing him. The most we’ve seen his semblance do is cause minor mischief, which in and of itself is absurd considering we’re meant to believe that it has kept him from his family most of his life, and informs choices like whether he’ll travel with the group in Volume 4. Still, it’s not unexpected that he would blame his semblance and think that having friends is a “childish dream”—depression is one hell of a liar—but rather, it’s frustrating that no one is helping Qrow see the truth of the situation, both the good and the bad. He certainly doesn’t need Robyn providing generic platitudes that absolve them both of their choices.

You know what the worst part is? The two kind, level-headed adults with enough distance to help Qrow acknowledge his mistakes while also correcting him about his misconceptions… are Ozpin and Clover. The former is still ignored by the cast, the latter barely got to be a character before he was killed.  

Qrow goes on to say that he “made a deal with the darkness and [Clover] paid the price.” I’m sorry, what does that mean?? Outside of referencing his team-up with Tyrian, that’s the most dramatic, nonsensical thing he could have said. Qrow doesn’t admit to the team-up though, rather he starts blaming Clover for his own death.

Precisely like a good chunk of the fandom has done 🙃

He says that Clover just “wouldn’t let up” (translation: he wouldn’t agree to let me go when I was under arrest) and that they could have “worked together against Tyrian if Clover had just—”

There’s a lot to cover this episode, so I’m not going to dive into another explanation of all the justified reasons why Clover didn’t trust Qrow in that moment and why Qrow was the one who “wouldn’t let up.” If you’re interested in that rundown, head here.

Side note: can RWBY please stop with the weird mouth closeups? I’m begging the animators. Especially when so much else in this episode is gorgeous.

Yes: 

No: 

Robyn’s response is to make it all about her. I say, as a hypocrite, because my instinctual response in comforting someone is to also bring up a way that I might, sort of, know what they’re going through. It’s something to work on and, as always, I’d be more receptive to Robyn’s attempts if she weren’t failing so spectacularly in every other aspect of her characterization. Case in point: she says that having a truth semblance tends to make people push her away, but we’ve never once seen that. We’re introduced to Robyn as she’s adored by Fiona. The people celebrate her. Yang and Blake trust her immediately, for no reason, and comment on how useful her semblance is—they’re not concerned with it. Ironwood likewise works with her and allows her to use her semblance on him in public, at least for a time. May spoke fondly of Robyn last episode. She just finished a story about Joanna… where is this pushing away you speak of, Robyn? I really wish RWBY would consider things ahead of time and actually show them to us, rather than just having characters announce that they’re (supposedly) there.

Nice symbolism though with Robyn touching the electric bars and pulling her hand back. You reach out, you get hurt, curl in on yourself, blah, blah, blah. Too bad it’s not a moment attached to an actual struggle of hers.

Qrow buys it though, saying he’s never thought about it that way before. 

You know, I get why a lot of people in the fandom hate Clover. I can’t even claim I’m much interested in him as an individual. I’m sick of straight, white, able-bodied men getting the spotlight, which is one of the things that drew me to RWBY in the first place… so theoretically Robyn should be the better choice for Qrow’s BFF, right? Especially in a world where FairGame only existed in RT’s social media queerbaiting. Give us the badass gender-bent Robin Hood instead of the boring military man!

On paper it sounds great… which is why it’s astounding that RT bungled that so badly.  

Qrow never finishes his thought about Clover because the Ace Ops come in to return Watts to his cell. Interesting. The writing has definitely made Ironwood stupid, but perhaps not as stupid as he could have been? If he got Watts to hack Penny (we don’t yet know what’s going on with her during all this) and then promptly shut him away again, that’s just about the best way you can follow up on your worst decision.

Harriet spots Clover’s pin and tells Qrow “You don’t get to keep that,” but then doesn’t take it from him. See, that right there is a better motivation for potentially opening the cell. Qrow says he didn’t kill Clover, Harriet shoots back that his blood was on Qrow’s blade (again, focusing on the wrong way that he’s guilty), Robyn challenges her to get the truth via her semblance… and Harriet considers it? Why? She’s not the one struggling with her loyalty here, that’s Marrow, yet he’s the one who has to pull Harriet back with “What are you doing?” when she looks at the keypad. Have Marrow almost be swayed by Robyn’s taunting, or have Harriet almost open the door because she’s furious and desperate to get Clover’s pin back. Either one of those would make more sense than this.

Also, no one checked Qrow during his arrest/before he was thrown into his cell?

Also, note that Marrow uses a nickname here—“Hare”—so I’m continually unpersuaded by the ‘They’re not friends’ claim. Yes, Harriet hits his shoulder on her way out… and Ren will later scream at Jaune about cheating. Harriet being in a bad mood because their leader was just murdered isn’t evidence that they’re not close, no more than Ren responding to Everything Traumatic Ever is evidence that he doesn’t care for his friends.

Also (x3), Robyn calls Harriet “mohawk”?? Can’t this woman come up with a single good insult?

As the Ace Ops leave Robyn lays back down on her bunk, exactly as she was before, and says, “Well, that was almost exciting.” Kind of like this scene! Luckily, the episode is about to get a whole lot better.

The music immediately picks up as we segue to Ren, Jaune, and Yang chasing after Oscar. On the whole I really enjoyed this scene, largely because it shows the group doing their best—in a way that feels persuasive. I’ll admit that others have a point about them just standing around while the Hound changes form—yet still failing because, you know, our villain is actually powerful! However, there are, as always, some nitpicks.

One of the first bits of dialogue we get is Ren noticing that the bikes can’t stand being in the cold for very long. It bugs me that bikes suffer more from the cold than the civilians do. To say nothing of the fact that it once again doesn’t amount to anything. Their bikes carry them through the whole battle and Jaune looses his because of a grimm. Then Yang manages to fix the totaled bike with a single part, despite the continued cold. Why bother introducing this as a problem when it’s meaningless each and every time?

The three do demonstrate some great teamwork though. When Yang yells that she wishes one of them could fly, Jaune uses his shield to launch Ren at the Hound… so that he can get dragged through the air, hitting rocks. This poor guy. I like that though because no, these teens shouldn’t be perfect, strategic masterminds and yes, they’re in the kind of situation where they just have to try something and see if it works. Jaune can’t think ahead to what Ren will do once he grabs the Hound, they just have to get him to that point and go from there. Which they do. Ren snags a boulder to slow them down further (that’s smart) and Yang goes higher to fire at the Hound’s face (don’t hit Oscar he doesn’t have aura!!). They’re at a crazy disadvantage here and still trying their best to get our boy back.

The overall tone is… fine? Again, love supportive Yang—that high five with Jaune was wholesome—but it continually feels weird to get that when Oscar is in the literal jaws of death here. On the whole though the scene keeps to the action and seriousness of the situation, which I appreciate. We’ll talk more about tone during the outpost scene.

It's looking like they might be making some sort of headway when the Hound lets out a roar that, as Yang puts it, calls for backup. 1. Yay giving this grimm even more power to mess with the cast, 2. Holy shit there are so many grimm around. See, scenes like this is why I’m side-eyeing the anti-army rhetoric in the show (a stance I’d otherwise agree with 100%). Because do you see how many there are? That’s not Salem’s army, that’s just the normal grimm hanging out around Atlas. The cast is screwed if anyone were to, say, order them to attack the kingdom…

Kudos to RT for bringing back the centipede grimm though. I honestly thought they’d just be a one-off action sequence in Volume 7.

While everything is falling apart Ren catches a glimpse of Oscar, complete with rosy cheeks to make him look super young, and the sight fills him with 

He starts climbing towards the Hound and we cut away. 

Meanwhile, Jaune’s bike is hit with some of the centinel’s acid (again, not the cold causing problems) and he takes a tumble, managing to keep his feet before Yang snags him. Moments like that really do show how far he’s come and I’m glad we got to see such a moment in an episode where his cheating was brought up. Jaune then uses his shield to fly over one of the dragon-y grim, but... wait. The shield is flexible?

Literally what is the point of that? As a shield, I mean (it clearly works fine as  a ramp). If you can just tip it over like that then so can the grimm or another fighter. Forget how tiny the shield is, all a monster would have to do is boop it and it would fall over. In fact, it probably should have with the grimm scratching at it before. Seems rather useless, unless you’ve got writers crafting convenient situations. Also, does Jaune have multiples of this thing? He picked it up before, but there’s no way he found that one again. Idk, I’m really not feeling this addition to Jaune’s arsenal. Better to give him a range option so he’s more versatile.

Still, they fly over the grimm and the two let out a sigh in synch. Whatever else we might have to say about this volume, RT is definitely giving us different interactions and team-ups. Well done there. Why, Jaune and Yang have managed to survive all that together!

Oh wait, never mind. They’ve gone off a cliff.

Honestly, I’m shocked they actually went over. I thought Yang would stop in time, or we’d have a classic moment of them tumbling off the bike and ending an inch from the edge, maybe going off slow with time for one to hang on. But nope, they plummet and it was done with such confidence by the camera that for a split second (the illogic of killing them both off aside) I thought that was it. They’re done for. Lucky for them, Ren catches them at the last second, managing to snag Jaune’s sword and them and immediately use his semblance so the grimm doesn’t eat them. That’s skill, baby!!

But you can see why he’s pissed, beyond just the fact that his semblance is holding this group together. It’s not Jaune and Yang’s fault that there was suddenly a cliff, but last we saw Ren he was heading towards Oscar. He had a plan. Granted, not one that was likely to lead anywhere given the Hound’s power (and the plot needing Oscar to reach Salem), but that’s not the point. He was pulling himself towards their kidnapped friend and then at the last second had to cut himself loose to save two others. This moment wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it would take someone with no emotions at all not to be frustrated by it. 

So we leave the trio literally hanging out and return to Ruby’s group who is threatening kids! 

Seriously though WTF, Weiss? Look, I haven’t always been kind to Whitley. In fact, I think there’s a Volume 7 recap where I really laid into him for his attitude and for supporting Jacques. But then—with the help of some friends and other anon perspectives—I thought about it for a hot second and considered how little power this child has. I was wrong to blame him for so much given the various circumstances here. It took, like… five minutes of thinking, and that’s for a fictional character, not a real life brother. Weiss clearly hasn’t given her brother five seconds of thought. He’s in the same abusive household that she was. He wasn’t blessed with combat abilities and a semblance to easily escape. He didn’t have Weiss there to guide him like Winter guided her. He had to watch BOTH his sisters abandon him to Jacques… so when exactly was he supposed to learn to be better? Why would he be inclined to? Weiss was an entitled racist when she got to school and needed new friends to show her a new path. She admitted as much last volume! Yet the fact that Whitley is completely alone in this house while their mom locks herself in her room to drink doesn’t register at all? This woman, an adult out to save the world as we’re frequently told, never once considered what it took to get her here and realize that Whitley has had none of the resources she did? 

I want to emphasize that Weiss threatens him with her weapon. It’s not just that she’s dismissive of him and his plight, she’s also happy to use violence if Whitley doesn’t do exactly as he’s told. Violence… against her brother… who is a child… without any training. Again: WTF, Weiss? You know how I was praising RWBY last episode for not having the group beat up the Atlas personnel? Yeah, we get this instead.

Then she tells him to go to his room??

Speculation is that Whitley is about 2-3 years younger than Weiss. Or, to put it another way, roughly the same age as Weiss’ leader, Ruby. She’ll follow Ruby unquestioningly into world-changing decisions, but sends her brother to his room like a toddler? Which is it, RWBY? Are 17 year-olds leaders you should listen to, or babies who must leave the room while the grownups talk? He certainly can’t be any younger than Oscar, so again, she’ll fight beside him, but treat Whitley like this? Whitley isn’t exactly going to offer help in a respectful, eager manner, but that “Fine. What do you expect me to do?” was incredibly open given his situation. He was willing to help and that was the perfect opportunity to have him, you know, do something. Something small and innocuous that wouldn’t threaten the team if he betrayed them, but kept him around so he could talk to someone. But nope. Weiss just sends him to his room after criticizing him for not understanding that they’re “busy trying to save Atlas.” Weiss, what does Whitley know about all that? He’s locked up in this manor after your father was arrested and the one news clip we’ve seen said that no one knows why Ironwood recalled his forces, or what’s up with those grimm overhead. She’s acting like he should have any idea what’s happening right now.

Also, all of this is coming on the heels of Willow begging Weiss not to forget her brother, so that’s just great. RWBY has the rest of their time in the manor to fix this, because if Weiss comes out of that scene having only been handed the means of arresting Jacques… that’s just bad all around.

Finally, should we talk about how strange this choice is? Last episode we saw the group flying away and I assumed it was them leaving Atlas to go back to Mantle. It certainly looked that way, but now they’ve decided to stay until Nora is awake. Why? Isn’t it more dangerous here? I mean, they didn’t know the staff was gone and there are still arrest warrants out. Was Weiss just going to threaten anyone who dared report her? Where are these shields Ironwood spoke of? Have they gotten through them somehow, or are they currently trapped in Atlas?

This is “Oscar is in the slums, leaves the slums, learns they’re going to the crater, but the slums are actually the crater, so we’re heading back now” all over again. 

The one good thing about this scene is that Blake and Ruby talk! …for about two seconds lol. Eh, better than nothing. Blake says that if Ruby is worried about Yang she could try calling her. Ruby has, and Yang isn’t picking up.

Does Ruby think she’s in danger or ignoring her? Unclear. We, however, know that Yang is now lost in the middle of nowhere with no reception and no transportation back to Mantle. The three of them start trudging towards an outpost Ren spotted, needing to find shelter “before this weather drops our aura levels completely.” So what about everyone without aura?? I wish that I could check off the bingo space again because this is ridiculous.

Ren, once again, isn’t in the mood to talk, but unlike Jaune, Yang can’t leave something alone. So she coaxes him to tell him what’s wrong and you know what? She does a real good job at first. She’s encouraging, but her voice is level and she doesn’t come across as accusing. Well done, Yang.

Things quickly fall apart though as Ren says EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED TO SAY TO THIS GROUP. Holy shit, everyone, let’s count ‘em up:

Nothing is going smoothly so let’s stop pretending it’s all fine

Oscar has been horrifically kidnapped that’s #bad

This is not a normal part of being a huntsmen

We don’t know the first thing about being huntsmen!

Every time we’ve had to make real decisions we got them all wrong, yay us

We’re trapping a city here for Salem to destroy whenever she feels like it, yay us x2

Our leader is barely more than a kid and one of us cheated our way here

People are going to die because of us

“I’m just saying what nobody else wants to”

Yang’s response? Incredibly weak imo. Just as weak as the fandom’s has been since this conflict started in Volume 7. Her argument against letting Atlas go is that Salem won’t just let it fly away with her whale… but no one knows that. She’s certainly just letting it sit right now! Assuming that something won’t work because you expect the worst is not a compelling reason not to try.

Her argument against their ineptitude? They saved Haven, took down a leviathan, and got the lamp to Atlas. Let’s break that down a little more.

Did they fight well at Haven? Yes… overlooking that Weiss would have died if not for a timely semblance reveal. But the real point here is that they “saved” the school by getting the Relic. Problem is, they never won the relic, it was handed to them. Literally. They retrieved it not because they were capable of overpowering Salem’s forces and a Maiden, but because Raven decided she’d rather her daughter be a target than her. That doesn’t tell us anything about the group’s skill, only about Raven’s flaws.

They took down a leviathan… after drawing it to Argus in the first place. That’s kind of an important detail when Ren is trying to make the point that their decisions suck. Also, how did they take it down? Using Ruby’s silver eyes, which only worked because Jinn randomly decided to let her stop time. Oh, and also using the rest of Cordovin’s mech that they hadn’t yet destroyed. Again, nothing about that fight demonstrates their skill, only others’ abilities, resources, and the strange favoritism they benefit from.

Getting the lamp to Atlas. Well, you drove Ozpin away who was your ticket across the border. Then Maria told Ruby how to save you all from the Apathy (and Ruby herself was the only one able to resist long enough to demand you get the Relic back in the first place). You started that leviathan fight and ended it surrounded by Cordovin’s fleet. So how did you get to Atlas? Because she let you cross. How did you reach Ironwood? Because he dropped your arrest. Yang stopped Adam, yes, but that was its own, separate fight. Regarding the “getting to Atlas” point they botched that up completely. 

Basically, this resume of victories is unpersuasive, to say the least. Yang highlights the end goal rather than acknowledging Ren’s point: have we, as individuals, actually made things better lately?

They absolutely have not. 

Note how, in contrast, Ren includes himself in this criticism. He doesn’t just lay responsibility at Ruby and Jaune’s feet, he’s second on the list for being underprepared. For messing up. He’s just an “orphan from nowhere” and this tells us that, unlike Qrow, Ren is actually concerned with this problem and his own place in it. He’s not just blowing off steam and running from his responsibility. Rather, he’s making important points here yet, as he says, no one else wants to listen.

And that’s why the scene ultimately sucks. “But, Clyde! It’s a speech straight out of your metas!” Yes it was and it was beautiful to witness, but the problem is that Ren’s supposed to be wrong. Jaune glares at him before leaving. Yang clenches her fists and asks if he just wants to push everyone away. He’s left hanging his head. Then later they talk about how “broody” he is and provide advice about how to stop doing that. The takeaway here is not, ‘Holy shit, Ren is right and we should rethink our choices,’ but rather that Ren is wrong and needs to come over to their ‘correct’ perspective.

I love that this was laid out. I love that the group is actually fighting for once (way better than Ruby and Yang’s ‘fight’). I also love that we finally see what’s bothering Ren… but we all know this isn’t leading anywhere. The scene ends with Jaune dismissing everything by stating that if Ren doesn’t want to be a huntsmen, fine, but he has a job to do. Ren is supposed to feel guilty here for… telling the truth? Jaune is supposed to look like the hero for soldiering on with his responsibility while moody Ren drags behind. The scene is great, but the purpose of the scene sucks.

Actually, I’d like to talk about a portion of the outpost scene real quick. Skipping ahead, because we really see here how little RT believes the words that they’ve put in Ren’s mouth. Jaune admits that he’s right about cheating into Beacon… but nothing else. Indeed, that “mistake” is swept away because he’s earned his right to be here now. You shouldn’t care about that anymore! Ignoring the point Ren was making about how much they’re in over their heads. Yang apologizes to Jaune on Ren’s behalf, making it clear that she cares more about his potentially hurt feelings than any of the points Ren made. Remind you of anything? Like oh, say, that time Yang cared more about Jaune’s feelings than whether he’d hurt Oscar after slamming him against a wall? All of this despite the fact that Yang JUST accused Ruby of the horrible situation they’re in. Now Ren acknowledges that they’re in a horrible situation and Yang… doesn’t care?? Again, RT is good at giving us the pieces we want, the surface level stuff, but is rarely able to combine it into something fulfilling. If anyone actually takes Ren’s stance seriously, changing their ways rather than talking him out of it, I’ll be shocked.

Especially since the real nail in the coffin of this scene is Jaune telling him that “The more you hide from what you’re feeling, the more alone you’re going to feel.”

Jaune………..buddy……….pal…………were you asleep during that scene? Ren DID tell you what he was feeling. For the first time he did come clean about everything he was experiencing and you both rejected him for it! He’s not pulling away because he’s hiding from what he’s feeling, he’s pulling away because he did show it and both his friends reduced it to “pushing [them] away.” Which is it, Jaune? Should Ren be more open, or should he stop saying things you don’t want to hear? It’s a more complicated version of telling your parents about your interests, them mocking those interests, and then they’re surprised when you don’t share things with them again. I mean, the gall of Jaune to reject everything Ren said in the moment, ignore it after he’s calmed down, and then lecture him about being hiding his emotions.

Jaune and Yang (and the story) don’t want Ren to say what he really thinks, they want him to say what they think. Ren should speak up, but only if he’s going to agree with them.

So Ren sits out in the snow because potentially dying from cold is better than staying in a room with Yang and Jaune. I can’t really blame him lol.

One last thing about the fight scene. Remember how May was put in her place last episode for not using Penny’s name? Well, Yang doesn’t either. Granted, “the Maiden” isn’t as overtly insulting as “tin can” (or whatever it is May said), but it amounts to the same thing: both are replacing Penny’s individual identity with her status as a tool they can use. May sees Penny as the cool tech girl who can get them into the military base. Yang sees Penny as the cool magic girl who is the answer to all their ‘How do we win this?’ problems. Everyone is using Penny. Ruby to launch Amity, Ironwood to open the vault, but you know RWBY will never have a scene where Penny corrects Yang about her name and Ruby looks on, smug. Because the group can continually make the same mistakes as the adults/antagonists around them, but aren’t called out on it in the same way. Ren calls them out and he’s told he’s wrong. 

Anyway, the tl;dr of this scene is that Ren is the best. Too bad the story doesn’t realize that.

We then move to my poor Oscar who wakes up looking at his own feet, Ozpin’s voice is as reassuring as it can be under the circumstances. “Oscar? Don’t panic. We’re going to be okay.” I mentioned two weeks back that I hoped the show would explain why we didn’t see Ozpin try to take control during the Hound fight and we still don’t have an explanation, so that’s disappointing. This line is all we get from Ozpin because that’s the norm now. We moved from him being written out of the story entirely to having one or two lines an episode (excluding a speech meant more for the audience than the characters). So, improvement? But a lackluster one, I think. Especially given that he is the focal point of this entire situation with Salem. 

I’m avoiding the elephant in the room though. Oscar’s torture is horrifying. In the sense that it should be horrifying. Salem might still inexplicably not be attacking Atlas—and what she’s after at any given time might be getting more and more muddled—but she’s absolutely terrifying here, which is what we needed. The mix of assault with that nurturing tone is just skin crawling. “My long lost Ozma. Found at last” while she (I think?) shows images of their daughters. Honestly, I only heard that from friends, didn’t catch it myself, but then my eyes are shit to begin with. I couldn’t see a thing in this shadowed shot.

(It’s like watching Game of Thrones all over again.)

Oscar tries to pretend to be Ozpin and he does a damn good job with “I’m sorry the reunion isn’t living up to your expectations.” It’s not enough to fool Salem though. She says he’s “not him” yet and I’m again reminded that the show continually references this merge without showing us any change. They’re apparently closer to one person now, but they still speak as individuals. Oscar has Ozpin’s magic, but hasn’t used it, even when his life was on the line. The closest we get to evidence that the merge is underway is that Oscar attempts to lie about knowing Jinn’s name… but what the hell else is he supposed to do here? I suppose he could go the action hero route and shout that she’ll never get the answer out of him, but trying to lie is by far the safer option. That doesn’t tell us that he’s becoming like Ozpin, or even that they’re truly “like-minded souls” as Salem claims. It just tells us that Oscar has two braincells to rub together and can say a short sentence without totally giving himself away. Maybe the kid played a few rounds of Remnant’s Among Us.

This moment highlights another justification for Ozpin’s secrets though. He lives an existence where he is not in control of his own (“own”) body. At any point the host he’s with could falter, fail, turn on him, and in doing so give crucial, world ending information to the enemy. It’s already happened on a small scale, with Oscar successfully taking control, stealing the Jinn information, and giving it to the group. Now here he’s being tortured. How long can he last? Will Oscar give up Jinn’s name? If Ozpin didn’t have the location of the Relic locked up tight in his own consciousness, would that information be lost too? I’m not looking to blame Oscar for anything here—I don’t want to imply that this situation is karma for him taking Jinn’s name, or some such nonsense—I just want to acknowledge that this is the sort of stuff Ozpin has to worry about. If he shares these secrets then that’s more fallible people who are capable of giving that information to Salem. If he keeps them…well, he’s the only one who has to keep his mouth shut during a torture session. His host might want information about the Relics, there’s an argument to be made that they’re entitled to them, but if I were Ozpin I wouldn’t want to take that risk either. The question has essentially become, “Would I trust a 14 year old to keep quiet while tortured by a witch?” Maybe Oscar will! He’s enough of a BAMF to manage it… but that’s still not something I’d want to bet on. Better that Oscar simply doesn’t have that information to give Salem, period. 

So obviously this “working relationship” that Salem wants isn’t going well. When Oscar lies she jumps straight to torturing him.

This was legitimately hard to watch and I’m torn about that. On the one hand it’s what I wanted: a scary, powerful Salem who uses the tools at her disposal to get what she’s after. That’s great! Yet I’m still reminded of how far this show has gone to literally beat up the child of the group. Oscar is the one punched into a tree, attacked by a friend, shot by an ally, the star of the show’s most horrifying kidnapping, now the first to be outright tortured by Salem. I don’t really have a point here, I’m not looking to level any specific accusations at RT, I’m just commenting on the pattern and acknowledging that it makes me uncomfortable. There are parts of a story where you’re supposed to be uncomfortable—like the villain torturing a hero—and then there are parts where you’re uncomfortable because the writers seem overly focused on showing images of a specific kid suffering and that’s… weird.

I’m not sure what to make of that just yet. 

Anyway, Salem’s magic here is surprisingly pretty. Pretty and painful, but I expected more red and blacks, perhaps some spikey imagery, so the rainbow was an interesting surprise. Given the amount of pain Oscar is in, I suspect too much of that would kill him, so Salem calls in Hazel to continue the interrogation. The first few hits he deals are for Haven, the others for his sister.

See, this is why RWBY needs to actually embrace its “life isn’t a fairy tale” theme. You cannot show me child torture in one week and then move to Ruby “We’ll win because we’re the good guys ^_^” Rose the next. The whole reason why Ironwood (and Ren now) was right is because this is the shit reality they’re dealing with. You didn’t run when you had the chance and now Oscar (and Ozpin) is being tortured. You keep talking about saving Mantle, but the only reason why they’re not already dead is because the writing randomly turns the cold danger on and off. This mix of horrific, real world danger and unjustified confidence doesn’t work.

…also, I officially don’t want any redemption arc for Hazel. This guy is beating on a child because he’s convinced that he’s Ozpin, blaming Ozpin for his sister’s decision, all while forwarding a genocidal maniac’s plans. Hazel and his ridiculous shirts can just get on out of here, thanks.

Finally, I just want to say... this is the woman a lot of the fandom defended. This is the woman you wanted raising those girls and blamed Ozpin for trying to escape with them.

This is how Salem treats children.

Oh, and all of this is without his aura because it just broke. So Oscar is in serious, non-fantasy trouble here. 

Someone please rescue him soon 😭

We finish up with some frankly boring stuff with the rest of the villain cast. We learn that the Hound is an “experiment” and a new one given that Cinder has never seen it before. Salem’s dialogue is admittedly great—“Do you hear that, my pet? She thinks. She wants.”—but Cinder just rehashes everything we’ve heard from her before. She wants the Winter Maiden power. She has trouble remembering that she’s playing at Salem’s slave. She even rehashes the exact same line, “Without you, I am nothing.” Why are we wasting time on this when we had that tantalizing backstory before? 

Bleh. 

Salem tells her in no uncertain terms to stay put.

So Cinder immediately leaves LOL.

She just wants to “check on” Amity tower because she “knows those kids” in ways Salem doesn’t. I’m admittedly slightly confused as to how Cinder knows to go there? Did she believe Ironwood’s lie that it was finished even though it apparently IS finished now? Has she overheard something? I’m not sure. Frankly, keeping track of that stuff in RWBY is headache inducing, so let’s just roll with it.

Neo, the only one with a brain around here, makes it clear she thinks Cinder is an idiot for going. Emerald, always the Cinder fan, offers to go in her stead. She’s been working on her semblance, so I expect we’ll see something cool with that soon. They head off, apparently not worried about what Salem will do to them when they get back.

Which is when we move to the outpost for our final scene, most of which I’ve covered. I only have two more things I want to bring up here.

The first is the tone. As said earlier, the tone of the Hound chase wasn’t horrible, but I find myself disappointed in the overall attitude of Jaune and Yang. Yang is making jokes about how they can’t fly, high-fiving Jaune, and they’re both shrugging off Ren’s concerns. Jaune says he won’t be able to sleep due to worrying about Oscar, but neither of them act particularly worried. Which isn’t to say they need to be sobbing the whole time or whatever, just that Ren is the only one who feels real here. They may not agree with his stance about everything else, but they’ve all experienced the same event: watching a grimm that can morph, talk, and think horrifically kidnap a teammate. Shouldn’t there be more emotion attached to that? Things have gotten better with Oscar than they’ve been in the past, largely due to details like Nora’s hug at the beginning of the volume, but let’s be real, they’re still not perfect. Do we think Jaune and Yang would be this nonchalant if Ruby were kidnapped that way? Say all you want about Ruby being her sister, or others being teammates for longer, but the fact remains that Oscar has been taken to Salem herself and the only one reacting to that in any meaningful way is Ren. 

Who they say will “brood himself to death.” That right there. The one guy freaking out about your kidnapped friend should not be described as “brooding.”

All of which segues into my second point, namely that Yang doesn’t seem to care about Ruby anymore either! She asks Jaune, “Do you think she thinks less of me?” for not going to Amity and when Jaune reassures her that Ruby will always love her, Yang’s response is, “Yeah… Ruby.”

She was thinking about Blake.

The kicker? I thought she was talking about Ruby too. Because Ruby is her sister. Because she and Ruby had the fight (“fight”). Because Ruby was trying to call her to check in. Because Blake and Yang didn’t even acknowledge that they went on different missions here. I thought Blake was like Jaune, not really taking a side and just heading with Ruby because the team is splitting down the middle. Where did this worry come from?

And I want to praise RT here (I really do) because I can see the effort. I said Blake and Yang needed to spend time apart, they have. I said they needed to work through their co-dependent identities, now Blake is reminding Nora (and theoretically herself too) that someone you love is just a part of you. I said that the group couldn’t be a hive-mind, now there’s disagreement. I said the show needs to make Blake/Yang canon at some point and you can’t do that if they don’t talk about and to each other. So I fully admit that this is everything I asked for… so why does it feel so badly done? No matter how many boxes it checks off, it’s still a moment where we thought Yang was finally worrying about her sister again—like she used—and then it’s ‘Sike! It was really just about Blake! Again. Yang is worried about a problem that was never even introduced.’

I suppose that’s why it doesn’t work for me. Yang and Ruby had the falling out, but Yang and Blake, somehow, become the focus. Is it really so hard to write Yang as a sister and a potential love interest? Yang apparently can’t care for Ruby and Blake, Weiss can’t care for her team and her brother, Ruby can’t care for Mantle and Ironwood… it’s like each character gets one (1) thing to put their emotional energy towards at any given time and that’s it. That’s all they get.

On the flip side, this is why Ren feels like a person this episode. He cares about Mantle, and the future fight, and their past mistakes, and his place here, and the problems within the team, and Nora… He feels like a well-rounded person! vs. Yang and Jaune who don’t even consider his perspective, vs. Yang having a fight with her sister but only cares about Blake. They’re one-dimensional in comparison.

It is, as always, disappointing. 

As the group “broods” then the camera shows us a piece of the ice nearby, slowly cracking as Jaune says that “Things always seem to get worse before they get better.” Well, that’s unexpected. I didn’t think our opening would be literal. I’ve been worried about Atlas falling on everyone, not everyone falling… to whatever is underneath the kingdom as a whole. Is the kingdom falling apart? Or is something waking up and moving towards the surface? If RWBY can reproduce the characterization we got with the Hound, I wouldn’t be opposed to another leviathan grimm rising from the snowy deep to assist Salem…

Though how the fuck group will survive everything and that, who knows lol.

And that’s our episode! Issues aside—most of which have been ongoing issues. We knew they were there—I think this was our strongest episode so far this volume. Well done! There are still problems, no doubt, but at least I was only bored for a small portion of that 20 minutes. Let’s just keep heading in that direction.  

Exciting Saturday, huh?

Regarding bingo updates:

RWBY actually re-used a grimm I thought they’d abandoned, so well done there.

No civilians around for the giant grimm army to attack, so that was fine. Kind of strange though that they completely disappeared after the Hound left.

The timeline is starting to get wonky. For example, what kind of stakes am I supposed to expect when Cinder decides to head to Amity? Is it currently empty? Is Pietro there? Has Penny made it yet? I said weeks ago that RWBY would need to follow multiple groups to fill out fourteen episodes in just two days—and they’re definitely doing that—but that means we don’t have a clear sense of what events are happening simultaneously and what are meant to be linear.

No Winter or Ironwood this episode.

Watts is back with Jacques! Potential for team-up 2.0? That will admittedly be hard with Qrow and Robyn there, unless those two escape.

(Oh yeah, I thought Qrow and the others would be held in the military base and Ruby would find him during her heist… but she doesn’t even care that Qrow is in jail.)

Maria is still a ghost. If we hit the halfway mark with her not doing anything I’m calling the space.

I definitely wouldn’t call this cliffhanger needless. That’s actually a cool way to end things, even if Jaune’s line was pretty on the nose.

Neo may be getting closer to backstabbing Cinder if those expressions are anything to go by. 

Still waiting to see if Amity works.

And finally, drumroll please! …

“More obvious Blake/Yang implications without confirming a relationship.” Yup, I’m marking that this week. After Blake’s ‘just a part of you’ comment and now Yang only being worried about her reaction? Definitely calling it. If RWBY confirms a relationship this volume I’ll eat my words—and some celebratory cake — but until then salt prevails. Especially after the fiasco that was Supernatural.

Still no bingo. Ah well, maybe next week lol.

Until then! 💜

[Ko-fi]

[zhongwen-lingblr]

Welcome to that Cultural Segment

With your host, Zhongwen-lingblr

Today we’ll be talking about Mulan, addressing some complaints about the up-coming movie, and introducing you to 500 AD Chinese Poetry.

Mulan is a verbal folktale retold hundreds of thousands of times before ever being written down and recorded. Folktales are unique to the region and time at which the story is told. So each retelling of Mulan is bound to be different because the audience to which it’s been told is also different.

The oldest known written version of Mulan comes from a 360-word poem by an anonymous writer. It was written sometime in between 386-534 AD in the northern Wei dynasty.

The Mulan we know today, is not even close to the Mulan of the Wei dynasty. In this first poem (for those of you who don’t want to read it below) includes Mulan, who notices the Khan’s draft posters, decides she is bored of weaving and goes off to war. Her parents have no inner struggle with this, there is no honor in it, no romance, and no disgrace. She is not discovered during her time served, and when she returns she reveals her gender to her fellow comrades, and they have no quarrels. She goes back to weaving.

The poem I’ve explained is the first written poem, and it doesn’t seem that interesting, does it? No family drama, no romance, no honor upon her family, no magic, no dragons or even names, no motive what’s-so-ever.

So when people tell me they want a more accurate Mulan, this is what I think about.

Mulan is a folktale meant to entertain and enthrall the audience at the period in time its being told. As an audience, we wouldn’t find this original and accurate version very interesting, so to us at least, the embellishing is totally fine.

If you are, however, looking for a more realistic version (where there are no witches or magical lizards) we would suggest Mulan : Rise of the Warrior (花木兰，2009). It’s realistic, but still not completely “accurate”.

Right, on with the actual poem 😛

木 兰 诗

唧唧复唧唧，木兰当户织。不闻机杼声，唯闻女叹息。

问女何所思？问女何所忆？“女亦无所思，女亦无所忆。

昨夜见军帖，可汗大点兵。军书十二卷，卷卷有爷名。

阿爷无大儿，木兰无长兄。愿为市鞍马，从此替爷征。”

东市买骏马，西市买鞍鞯，南市买辔头，北市买长鞭。

朝辞爷娘去，暮宿黄河边。不闻爷娘唤女声，但闻黄河流水鸣溅溅。

旦辞黄河去，暮至黑山头。不闻爷娘唤女声，但闻燕山胡骑声啾啾。

万里赴戎机，关山度若飞。朔气传金析，寒光照铁衣。将军百战死，壮士十年归。

归来见天子，天子坐明堂。策勋十二转，赏赐百千强。

可汗问所欲，“木兰不用尚书郎，愿借明驼千里足，送儿还故乡。”

爷娘闻女来，出郭相扶将；阿姊闻妹来，当户理红妆；

小弟闻姊来，磨刀霍霍向猪羊。开我东阁门，坐我西阁床

脱我战时袍，着我旧时裳；当窗理云鬓，对镜帖花黄。

出门看火伴，火伴皆惊惶。“同行十二年，不知木兰是女郎。”

雄兔脚扑朔，雌兔眼迷离。双兔傍地走，安能辩我是雄雌？

__

Mùlán shī

[ jījī fù jījī, mùlán dāng hù zhī. Bù wén jīzhù shēng, wéi wén nǚ tànxí.

Wèn nǚ hé suǒ sī? Wèn nǚ hé suǒ yì?“Nǚ yì wú suǒ sī, nǚ yì wú suǒ yì.

Zuóyè jiàn jūn tiě, kè hán dà diǎn bīng. Jūn shū shí'èr juǎn, juǎn juàn yǒu yé míng.

Ā yé wú dà er, mùlán wú cháng xiōng. Yuàn wéi shì ānmǎ, cóngcǐ tì yé zhēng.”

Dōng shì mǎi jùnmǎ, xī shì mǎi ān jiān, nán shì mǎi pèitóu, běishì mǎi zhǎng biān.

Cháo cí yé niáng qù, mù sù huánghé biān. Bù wén yé niáng huàn nǚshēng, dàn wén huánghé liúshuǐ míng jiān jiān.

Dàn cí huánghé qù, mù zhì hēishān tóu. Bù wén yé niáng huàn nǚshēng, dàn wén yànshān hú qí shēng jiūjiū.

Wànlǐ fù róng jī, guānshān dù ruò fēi. Shuò qì chuán jīn xī, hán guāngzhào tiě yī. Jiāngjūn bǎi zhàn sǐ, zhuàngshì shí nián guī.

Guīlái jiàn tiānzǐ, tiānzǐ zuò míngtáng. Cè xūn shí'èr zhuǎn, shǎngcì bǎi qiān qiáng.

Kè hán wèn suǒ yù,“mùlán bùyòng shàngshū láng, yuàn jiè míng tuó qiānlǐ zú, sòng er hái gùxiāng.”

Yé niáng wén nǚ lái, chū guō xiāng fú jiāng; ā zǐ wén mèi lái, dāng hù lǐ hóngzhuāng;

xiǎodì wén zǐ lái, mó dāo huòhuò xiàng zhū yáng. Kāi wǒ dōng gé mén, zuò wǒ xī gé chuáng;

tuō wǒ zhàn shí páo,zhe wǒ jiùshí shang; dāng chuāng lǐ yúnbìn, duì jìng tiē huā huáng.

Chūmén kàn huǒ bàn, huǒ bàn jiē jīnghuáng.“Tóngxíng shí'èr nián, bùzhī mùlán shì nǚláng.”

Xióng tù jiǎo pū shuò, cí tù yǎn mílí. Shuāng tù bàng de zǒu, ān néng biàn wǒ shì xióng cí? ]

And finally, the translation :

Mulan Poem

Tsiek tsiek and again tsiek tsiek,

Mu-lan weaves, facing the door.

You don't hear the shuttle's sound,

You only hear Daughter's sighs.

They ask Daughter who's in her heart,

They ask Daughter who's on her mind.

"No one is on Daughter's heart,

No one is on Daughter's mind.

Last night I saw the draft posters,

The Khan is calling many troops,

The army list is in twelve scrolls,

On every scroll there's Father's name.

Father has no grown-up son,

Mu-lan has no elder brother.

I want to buy a saddle and horse,

And serve in the army in Father's place."

In the East Market she buys a spirited horse,

In the West Market she buys a saddle,

In the South Market she buys a bridle,

In the North Market she buys a long whip.

At dawn she takes leave of Father and Mother,

In the evening camps on the Yellow River's bank.

She doesn't hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,

She only hears the Yellow River's flowing water cry tsien tsien.

At dawn she takes leave of the Yellow River,

In the evening she arrives at Black Mountain.

She doesn't hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,

She only hears Mount Yen's nomad horses cry tsiu tsiu.

She goes ten thousand miles on the business of war,

She crosses passes and mountains like flying.

Northern gusts carry the rattle of army pots,

Chilly light shines on iron armor.

Generals die in a hundred battles,

Stout soldiers return after ten years.

On her return she sees the Son of Heaven,

The Son of Heaven sits in the Splendid Hall.

He gives out promotions in twelve ranks

And prizes of a hundred thousand and more.

The Khan asks her what she desires.

"Mu-lan has no use for a minister's post.

I wish to ride a swift mount

To take me back to my home."

When Father and Mother hear Daughter is coming

They go outside the wall to meet her, leaning on each other.

When Elder Sister hears Younger Sister is coming

She fixes her rouge, facing the door.

When Little Brother hears Elder Sister is coming

He whets the knife, quick quick, for pig and sheep.

"I open the door to my east chamber,

I sit on my couch in the west room,

I take off my wartime gown

And put on my old-time clothes."

Facing the window she fixes her cloudlike hair,

Hanging up a mirror she dabs on yellow flower powder

She goes out the door and sees her comrades.

Her comrades are all amazed and perplexed.

Traveling together for twelve years

They didn't know Mu-lan was a girl.

"The he-hare's feet go hop and skip,

The she-hare's eyes are muddled and fuddled.

Two hares running side by side close to the ground,

How can they tell if I am he or she?"

<<Translation taken from : Han H. Frankel, The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady: Interpretations of Chinese Poetry Yale University Press, 1976.>>

***

I would suggest, if your practicing your Mandarin, to read the Chinese characters first. Even if your brain is just jumping to the next “木兰” because it’s the only thing you recognize, it still helps.

<<Also, I’m currently memorizing this poem for a read-aloud contest next month. Kmn😫>>

Anyway, we hope this was interesting for you all!!

[magaprima]

Part 2 Episode 6 Analysis (Part 1/?)

“You look like the cat that ate the canary” Lilith says while Adam is sat there just watching her. This is totally a reference to sex, in my honest and frank opinion. It’s just such a look-who-got-some thing to say, and especially when we consider the added canon fro Part 3 where we learned Mary never consummated her relationship with Adam, and we presume this was Mary’s choice and Adam was simply respecting her wishes (’I thought you wanted us to get married’, ‘marriage doesn’t matter to me’), the fact they finally consummated their relationship and then she agreed to get married after they slept together, meaning a double whammy....yeah he’s gonna look like the cat that ate the canary. 

Also, the way Lilith says this, not judging, not even mocking or sarcastic, it’s just an observation, made gently, said affectionately, and she has a genuine smile on her face as she says it. Also, she is doing work. As in Baxter High work. She has brought work home. Lilith brought mortal work things home and is actually doing them. Let’s just appreciate this for a moment. The first woman, the first witch, the rightful Queen of Hell, who is several thousand years old, is actually doing the job of Principal properly, and seems to also be marking papers. And having not done the at work, she has brought them home to finish. She is doing her job not just professionally, but thoroughly. She has work at the table (also the way she’s doing the work at the table and the pile of papers and the pen is paralleled in the Hare Moon episode where she’s at the table, doing all of Sabrina’s regal admin).’

And how domestic is this scene? There’s tea between her and Adam, there’s jam toast (interesting side note, jam is considered something Lilith loves and can be an offering you make to her in worship or plea to her), and he’s just sat comfortably opposite her while she works, and gentle piano music plays on the record player. It’s so very domestic, and there’s such contentedness to it. There’s relaxation and comfort here and we’re seeing Lilith relaxed and at ease, not on edge, which is very rare for her, as she’s always got a guard up in one way or the other, but she seems totally relaxed here. Even when Adam makes his suggestion she take a day off, she doesn’t jump in shock, she doesn’t even stumble, she just smiles at him again, even as she says she has too many responsibilities as Principal to do that (which, considering she does eventually agree, and enjoys herself, so clearly did want to take the day off, the fact she initially refuses because of work is further proof Lilith did end up taking her job at Baxter High quite seriously. So silver lining for Mary, that in the four months she doesn’t ‘remember’, no one can claim she was shoddy at her job).

“You’re underappreciated at that school of yours” Adam says this in a way that suggests he’s said it before and/or he’s thought it for a long time, which I think is really sweet, because that means he’s seen how good a teacher Mary was, how dedicated she was to her students, and how much that was ignored by the likes of Hawthorne and others at the school. Also, it’s tragic to think Mary probably was heavily underappreciated, and probably not very much noticed, because she was just a quiet teacher, who was dedicated to her students and not gossip.

“Mm-hmm, well that’s more true than you know. I have been giving that girl-- uh, that school my all, for some time now and the rewards have been less than I expected”

The fact she gives him a truly honest reply, mentioning Sabrina, and has to stop herself as she realises what she’s saying, shows just how relaxed, confident and comfortable and at ease she is with Adam. She didn’t even think to lie to him, to give her cover story, she just answers him honestly ‘that’s more true than you know, I have been giving that girl--’ and then she snaps herself out of it and we see the mask forced back on, though it’s not to the usual degree we see. Also, we’re seeing more glimpses of Lilith admitting to herself how little the Dark Lord is giving her, how little she’s being repaid, which is a big step for her, considering her fearful and long term dedication to him in Part 1. 

And another important development; when Adam reaches out and grabs her hand, she no longer jumps at the touch. When she first met him, she was tense, wide-eyed and on guard, she jumped at him coming even slightly near her without warning and she looked shocked and bewildered through every kiss and affectionate touch. Now, when he reaches out, she doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t stare at in shock, she doesn’t even look at it in amazement or surprise. She doesn’t look at all. It’s natural for her. Adam reaching out to her has become the norm, Lilith being touch in a gentle, non abusive way has become the norm for her. And she’s smiling at him again. This scene is literally the most we have ever seen Lilith smile in the entire series, and it’s such peaceful, quiet smiling. And it’s all because she’s in a dynamic, a relationship, where she’s being respected and treated well. All she asked for from the very beginning of her creation, and I think this is just a good way to confirm to us, the audience, that Lilith was very much not in the wrong with Adam 1.0,  that when she says he was cruel and speaks of him with horror, with can trust she’s telling the truth, because we see how gentle and happy she is when she does have equality and respect in a relationship. 

And the way her hand goes to her mouth, trying to hold back from the temptation when Adam says enticingly ‘just this once, it’s a day’. Lilith has spent millennia being dedicated to the Dark Lord’s every request, she’s he’s right hand, his foot soldier, his concubine, his supposed Queen, she has answered his every request, and the entire reason she’s in Greendale is to do his bidding. And yet here is someone asking her to do something entirely for herself, something that would be utterly unrelated to the Dark Lord and I think she’s almost shocked by how tempted she is, how much she wants to do something, for the first time in forever, that isn’t related to Lucifer. And that is a long, long habit, a long time to have live a life dedicated to one person, which is why we see her debating, why even in the temptation, she almost resists, but then...she gives in.

And the fucking delight on Adam’s face when she agrees. He is so happy that she’s agreeing to take a day off work and spend the day with him. He’s so pure. He’s utterly in love, and I do mean in love with Lilith, as I’ve said in my other analysis about the way this dynamic worked, and how things changed from Adam’s perspective. Regardless this boy is like a puppy with his head over heels love vibe.

“I’ll be all yours for the rest of the day” Her choice of words is so purposeful here. I said above how everything she does in Greendale is for Lucifer, and now she’s choosing to do something for herself, and it’s important to note that in choosing for herself, she is choosing to be with Adam. It’s not just about the day off, the day away from everything, it’s very much about the company. And that smile is so bright as she said it. This entire scene is her basically smiling from beginning to end and that means so much. And, I know I went on about her hair and the style changes reflecting her level of ‘being herself’ on that long post, but here her hair is getting less ‘Mary’ and more ‘Lilith’, again showing comfortable she is. 

Also she has the red pen throughout. Could be a visual reference to her favouring red in general and her links to Hell. Or it means Lilith may be marking, but she marks a hell of a lot with the red pen...i.e telling all the students they’re wrong, wrong, wrong. 

[iguessishouldbethankful]

How would Peppy and the rest of the Star Fox Team react to finding out Falco and Lucy have a thing going on? Does Peppy go all protective Papa Bun? Does Fox get concerned considering a teammate is dating someone who might as well be his sister?

Now this is an interesting question since the reaction would really depend when and why they got together--yes I have other ideas on how they would get together and I would love to explore them eventually. But I’ll be going off this whole post since it’s the one I work with the most.

Consider two very important things: Peppy is now General Hare. One of the highest figures in Corneria’s military. And Fox is now a retired, experienced mercenary and war veteran, wildly recognized by elitist military circles (popularly, not as famous as the common celebrity but he does hold some kind of fame).

Consider another thing: Falco goes back to his old ways, just barely staying out of trouble because it’s Falco. He won’t stay still for one second. So that criminal record might be looking kinda stained. Again.

Consider one more thing: Falco does not have a steady job or even a house to his name. Don’t ask him about his bank account, there’s cash in there but he will not tell you how much it’s not your damn business. Is it legal cash? Well it was legally deposited in his account if that’s what you want to know. Don’t give me that look, I’m clean. Leave me the fuck alone Fox, I know what I’m doing!!

So imagine a responsible Lucy Hare indeed hooking up with Falco after everything that was said and done, keeping it only between the two because, honestly, they have no idea what’s happening just that... something is happening. The escapes from formal military gatherings, or secret little get aways they do together because Falco likes the look of pure excitement in Lucy’s eyes when she finally gets to be--DO--what she always wanted to.

Lucy had diamonds in her eyes every time.

How Peppy would find out, I’m not entirely sure but after so many sneak aways and cancellations with Falco being present in Corneria and also making frequent visits and stays in Fichina, surely he’d suspect.

One night, Falco and Lucy do sneak away from a formal gathering. Lucy actually meets Falco’s old gang. Has incredible fun speaking with Katt and Kool. Gets a little too drunk and our avian boy needs to take her home, make sure she’d be fine and not throw up.

You’re not used to drinking this much huh?

I held on for longer than you assumed I would!

But you’re still pretty drunk, ma’am.

Don’t ma’am me you--

Lays sits her down on her bed in her home. No, not Peppy’s home. This was her childhood home she inherited from her mother. Peppy had the keys but did not live there anymore. Her room was still the same. Twin bed, rockets and space ships and pinks and stars on the ceiling. Lucy apologizes for being such a horrid pain for the team. Falco mentions that it’s fine. She’s fine.

I took your place. I get why you were mad at me.

She kisses him. He kisses back before pulling away. No, not good. Go to bed. You need to sleep. I’ll be here in the morning. And Falco just crashes on her coach in the living room. He snores a little. Not loud. But enough for a pair of grey ears to hear when the door is unlocked. Then slammed shut.

Falco wakes up with a start and aims his blaster at the intruder who was, in fact, Peppy. Silent realization and... Yeah. Falco knew what would come next. Get dressed, get up, don’t wake her up. Leave the home with the old man. There was a level of respect still between the two. Peppy had been the fatherly figure of the team. But something felt different when Peppy closed the door behind them once in the General’s office. Take a seat. No questions of intentions, not even a good morning or a greeting. Peppy was not happy. A warning instead popped out of the rabbit’s mouth.

Do not come close to my daughter again.

Falco was very aware at that point that... Peppy was not seeing him as a teammate anymore. Much less a son-like figure. Merely... Eyes glanced down to files and files, all on him and his past activities and... Oh. I get it. ...I get it.

Do you understand?

Yes, sir.

But understanding did not mean he’d comply. You see, I headcanon Falco was brought into the team under very special circumstances. He was blackmailed when he was caught by Fox. Either join the team and be our pilot for the war, or go to jail and live out your sentence. Of course Falco took the first option. Now... Falco was face to face with a silent threat again. General Pepper was willing to expunge crimes for quality pilots as long as they fought for the Cornerian forces. Peppy would easily make Falco’s life a living hell if he did not comply.

Would Peppy go through with it. Falco didn’t believe so, but there was a level of threat he didn’t want to fully ignore. So for a while, he did stay away. Didn’t answer Lucy’s texts or calls. Until he had time to carefully think about what he really wanted to do.

And honestly, Peppy only fueled the fire to Falco’s motivation to, finally, pursue.

Lucy wakes up to a message, asking if she’d like to hang out again.

And one night it goes somewhere. They don’t stop it. Why stop something they both wanted. Follow their instincts, right? And yes, Falco knew he was in deep trouble the next day. He knew deep down to the marrow of his bones. It’s not like Lucy wouldn’t realize that she was also stepping into something unstable. So her worries increased as well. And it was no real secret that Peppy was looming over them somehow.

An over protective father that only had her left...

But he was also an absent father in Lucy’s opinion.

Fuck it.

Don’t stop.

[ahkaraii]

Rarepair generator: Itachi & Gai (1252 words)

“You can use a transformation technique.” Captain Hound said. “He won’t be able to tell the difference.” He paused. “Probably.”

Itachi blinked. “Understood,” he said.

“Senpai!” Lieutenant Cat yelped. “Stop hazing our new members with that!” Clearly he was speaking from experience.

“I am not,” Captain Hound said. “Challenges with Gai are extremely important to me.” He very clearly winked behind his mask. “So do your best, Weasel-kun!”

Itachi was eleven years old, not an idiot. He’d played enough pranks on his baby brother Sasuke to know when someone was messing with him. But that was all right. Father had been proud of his admittance into ANBU not only because of the prestige it had brought the Uchiha clan, but also because it was a perfect opportunity to gather intelligence on the village and its villagers.

With a flick of his wrist and a pulse of chakra, he transformed into a flawless copy of Hatake Kakashi-san wearing his civilian attire. Time to meet his opponent.

Maito Gai was...kind of hard to miss. Dressed in a violently bright green jumpsuit and wearing orange legwarmers, he was going through a series of slow, smooth stretches. It was not a form Itachi could immediately recognize, which was not entirely unexpected. This was a man well-known for employing an extremely varied amount of martial arts, after all, and Itachi was not a taijutsu specialist.

The stretches were almost hypnotic. Maito Gai was stretching every muscle in his body one by one, Itachi realized. His mouth felt a little dry. Itachi cleared his throat after a few minutes.

“Rival!” Maito Gai’s teeth were far too white. “You’re on time!”

Oh. Itachi had never known Captain Hound to be late to missions...then again, it was highly likely Hatake Kakashi did not act the same off-duty. Too late to take it back. “Let’s get this over with,” Itachi said, striving to equal Captain Hound’s tone.

“Yosh! I’m all fired up by your youthful excitement!” Maito Gai inexplicably relaxed. “How about rock, paper, scissors?”

Itachi paused for a microsecond. Was that the name of a secret martial arts technique he didn’t know? 

“I’d rather jiujitsu,” he said smoothly. “First to a submission hold wins.”

“Now you’re talking!” Maito Gai said enthusiastically, and disappeared.

Wha--

Itachi regained consciousness a scant few seconds later, black fading away from his vision. There was a thick arm encircling his neck and a stone-warm body behind him, holding him up.

“I’m disappointed, Kakashi,” Maito Gai said quietly near his ear.

All of the hairs on Itachi’s arms rose.

“That was too easy, haha!” Maito Gai pushed him away and Itachi stumbled forward, shaking off his shock. “I refuse to include it to our tally, rival! You better fight properly, next time.” Gai turned around and resumed his odd stretching routine, entirely ignoring Itachi.

Itachi only then realized his transformation technique had failed sometime during the scuffle. There was absolutely no way Maito Gai hadn’t noticed. Itachi turned tail and fled before the jonin could decide to properly pummel him for the deception.

That speed! Even his cousin Shisui would have trouble following it, Itachi thought, heart pounding in his chest. He must have channelled some chakra to his muscles during those stretches, otherwise, it should be impossible--

“Mission failed, huh, rookie?” Sargeant Hare said sympathetically. “At least you’re not hurt. When Cat-senpai was a newbie, Captain’s prank got him hospitalized!”

"He broke my JAW!”

Captain Hound cackled. “With his acorn dick?!”

The members of Team Ro rorared with laughter.  “What?! No!” Lieutenant Cat was beetroot red, incoherent with rage. “A-And how do you know the size of his dick, huh?! Senpai!”

“Maa, well,” Captain Hound said, basking in the sudden, interested silence, “we were young, and there was Icha Icha...” The whole room became loud with jeers and hoots. ANBU were an odd lot, Itachi thought primly. They were impeccable soldiers on duty, to be sure, but off it they were as rowdy as Academy students during an unsupervised lunch break.

“Hey, guys, let’s tone it down some.” Hare gesticulated emphatically. "Think of the kid!”

Kid? Ah, they were talking about him. “I am not a child.” Itachi frowned. “I am an ANBU soldier, same as all of you.” Why did people keep bringing up his age?

“Heh...” Captain Hound’s jokester personality suddenly melted away, and his voice was cold, and playtime was over. “You’re a child until Gai finally hits you for real. Until then, you’re the team newbie, and you get to do all the shit jobs none of us want to do. Understand?”

“Understood,” Itachi said tightly.

“Job number one,” Captain Hound said. “Don’t die, no matter what.”

Itachi blinked. That was a job no one wanted?

“Job number two,” Captain Hound continued. “The mission is always the priority, no matter what.”

Itachi nodded. That made sense. “Of course, sir.”

“Only adults have a higher priority mission,” Captain Hound said. “One that goes above job one and job two.”

Itachi stood straight to attention.

“The most important mission adults have is...” Captain Hound had never sounded so serious. “‘Protect your comrades, no matter what!’”

Huh? “But that’s a priority even a genin may have! Sir,” Itachi said.

“It’s not just a priority to me,” Captain Hound said solemnly. “It’s an unbreakable rule.” He patted Itachi’s head like he would a dog. “Until then, worry about yourself first, Weasel-chan.”

Itachi fought the urge to grimace and inadvertently prove he was still a child by throwing a tantrum. He felt a little bad for playing pranks on Sasuke, now, if this was how it felt to be on the receiving end. “Yes, sir,” he said instead.

--

Shisui found it all hilarious, of course. “You lost against Maito-san? You?!”

“He’s very fast,” Itachi said defensively.

“I’m fast, and you can keep up with me!” Shisui poked his forehead. “You have a sharingan, don’t you?”

Itachi frowned. He hadn’t activated it. He hadn’t had the time.

"Aww...are you pouting, baby cousin?”

“I am not,” Itachi said. “And I’m not a baby. I’m only four years younger than you.”

“That’s nearly half your lifetime,” Shisui reminded him.

Sasuke chose that moment to interrupt. “Brother! Brother! You’re not looking!” He flung a kunai at a target and missed by a meter. “No! Wait! I can do better!”

“That was very well done, Sasuke,” Itachi said indulgently.

“Yeah, if you were aiming for someone’s balls.” Shisui snorted. He rolled his eyes when Itachi subtly performed a wind jutsu to help Sasuke hit the target on his next swing.

“I DID IT! I DID IT! Did you see it brother? Did you?!”

“I did,” Itachi said. “Congratulations, little brother.”

Sasuke was so excited he tripped and chipped a tooth.

--

“RIVAL!”

Kakashi gave an exaggerated sigh and stopped in his tracks. If he didn’t, Gai would just run until he caught up to him, and make a bigger fuss. Best get it over with.

“I want a proper match against you!” Gai was very loud and very green.

“Didn’t we just have a match yesterday?”

“That wasn’t true and you know it!”

Kakashi chuckled. “Wasn’t my cute kohai a challenge enough for you?”

Gai put his hands on his hips and looked very severe. “Stop using our challenges to test your new subordinates.”

“But you’re such a great teacher,” Kakashi said.

“I won’t be swayed to compliance by your flattery, rival!” Gai stomped his foot. “Fight me properly!”

“Fine,” Kakashi said. “Eating contest?”

Gai beamed. “Thought you’d never ask!”

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Oh my gosh you just discovered mash? It's such a good show. It has some really serious episodes, end of season 3 comes to mind. I always imagined the animorphs watching mash or like somehow finding solace in it.

OH BOY BUT HAVE I MENTIONED THE MASH AU OF ANIMORPHS THAT I LITERALLY JUST THOUGHT OF TONIGHT THOUGH?

No, obviously not, I literally just thought of it tonight, but buckle in for it anyway because I’m SUPER in love with this show!!!!!

Now, keeping in mind that I am NOT EVEN three seasons in, here are my current castings, ft. the 4077th being known as The One Full Of Babies Fresh Out Of Med School (these kids are like 27 tops, they’re practically infants in terms of the medical field).

Colonel Elfangor Shamtul, The Local Adult, who’s actually in his late 40′s and is a real actual grown up surgeon with a practice and everything, now the boss of a MASH unit in Korea and discovering that his talent for commanding a surgical theater actually translates really well into commanding a military unit.  Most everyone under his command thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread.  All his superiors are basically looking for an opportunity to get his ass court martialed when they’re not handing down commendations for his weirdly effective slant-wise thinking.  His old buddy Arbron keeps them stocked then the supply lines are cut and if anyone asks Arbron and the Mountaineers are running a completely legitimate shipping enterprise.  Elfangor goes by first names with the entire populace unless a general’s there and has never enforced a dress code in his entire life because it would require him to give up his blue jacket.  He was transferred to command of the babiest MASH unit as a punishment after the first time his buddy’s legitimate shipping enterprise got tapped for being probably black market.

Corporal Aximili Isthill, the babiest baby, who is 25 and oh my God Elfangor is adopting this boy he loves him so much.  They’re not blood relatives but Elfangor got handed a gangly excitable kid as an aide and was basically like “that one’s mine thanks” and never looked back.  Ax is actually seven kinds of genius but none of them are medical--he has a stellar memory for medications but no head for anatomy--so he’s more or less single-handedly keeping the base running.  He’s apparently some kind of psychic, if his gift for knowing exactly what’s going on where and when at any given time is any indication, and he's discovered a frankly inhuman talent for electrical engineering since he got drafted out of his blossoming career as a perpetual student.  Elfangor is making this child get a doctorate if it kills them both, and since it turns out they actually live within an hour of each other in the States, there’s a non-zero chance that Ax will be moving in with him afterward.

Captain Jake Berenson, who is chief surgeon but not second in command and who just wants everyone to cooperate for five fucking minutes please.  He is begging.  And everyone knows that even though Big Jake (his army nickname within 0.3 seconds because he’s the tallest guy in the unit and built like a Mack truck) isn’t legitimately second in command, he’s the guy you go to if you want to get anything done.  He specialized in cranial trauma, which isn’t as useful as you’d think when half the head wound cases die before they reach the hospital, but Jake thought the brain was interesting and made his specialty decision while kinda drunk, so.  Leave him alone.  The reason he’s chief surgeon isn’t because of any particular medical brilliance--Jake is a good surgeon mostly through sheer pigheadedness, not because he’s a sparkling medical mind--but rather because when Jake starts barking orders, people listen.  

Captain Rachel Berenson, who is a surgeon because I don’t care about historical accuracy and because she fought tooth and nail to go to medical school and then signed up for the war when they wouldn’t draft her.  She’s at least 60% of the reason Jake is begging people to cooperate, because Rachel has made nine doctors, four nurses, and six patients cry since getting her white coat.  He’s not saying she didn’t have her reasons, okay, she has the right to defend her position as a doctor, but also please stop.  She knows more about chest injuries than probably anyone else in Korea and she likes to remind people that it means she’d be just as good at inflicting them as patching them up.  Marco labels her the Warrior Princess after two days of knowing her and it sticks hard even though she threatened to open him up with a rusty scalpel when she first heard it.

Major Cassie Day, head nurse, who everyone knows is the best at making sure that, once the surgeons have yanked someone back, they stay back.  Cassie is an angel, probably, or at least so goes common theory based on the sheer miracles she’s pulled off in her time.  As long as someone’s done bleeding to death when they get to her, she’ll probably drag them through--whether they like it or not.  She and Rachel are bunkmates because no one knew what to do with a lady surgeon and Cassie offered, and they’ve been best friends ever since, complete with Cassie occasionally helping Rachel’s more hare-brained schemes come together.  Everyone and their cousin, including Elfangor, knows that Cassie and the chief surgeon make out in the supply tent, but also the one time Cassie left for a week leave the entire unit broke down so no, they will not be reporting them for breaking frat regs.  No matter how much Elfangor’s second-in-command wants to.  One time someone talked shit about her skin color and was drummed out of the unit on mysteriously appearing court martial charges two days later.  Contrary to popular opinion, it was not Rachel who started the brawl that got him brought up on charges, nor was the guy actually murdered straight up.  Arm broken, yes.  Murdered, no.  Turns out Big Jake hits as hard as he looks like he does.

Captain Marco Reilly, who is the unit psychologist and also Rachel’s top enabler.  She spends 80% of her time defending herself as a woman and a surgeon, he spends 80% of his time defending himself either based on his race or based on his career, and they are responsible for 80% of Jake’s ulcer because they get in a huge amount of trouble together.  Psychology hasn’t really entered the generally accepted medical field, but Marco specializes in treating trauma and combat fatigue and he gets soldiers back on their feet better than anyone else.  He decided on his career when he was a kid and his mom was a nurse in WWII who wrote home about how she saw boys without a mark on them ruined worse than those who would walk with a limp for the rest of their lives, and Marco doesn’t believe in regret.  It’s also this mentality that generally leads to him and Rachel being a Problem for Jake.  That doesn’t stop Jake from accepting the offer of gin from Marco’s personal still, or from more than occasionally getting swept up in the shenanigans himself.

Corporal Tobias Williams, who is in charge of triage and about 80% trained as a nurse in addition to his other duties.  (I know MASH doesn’t formally have someone in charge of triage but they SHOULD okay, listen, they SHOULD.)  He’s a decent chopper pilot, too, but the unit tends to contrive reasons to keep him around.  Rachel likes to have him assist her in surgery because he has an uncanny talent for spotting things that have the potential to kill her patients almost before she does, and isn’t afraid to mention it.  Tobias and Ax fall in together as inseparable besties within about a month, and Tobias learns not to wait for the announcement that wounded are coming in not long after--he just watches Ax tilt his head in that particular way and sprints off to the staging area without missing a beat.  For a bit a lot of the unit talked shit behind Tobias’ back, claiming that triage was slacker work, but then there was a day where Tobias spent nineteen hours on the staging area directing choppers and ambulances, stopped for twenty minutes to eat and chug an entire pot of coffee, and turned back out for another twenty hours, and went to assist in OR once the wounded stopped pouring in.  Then folks stopped talking shit.  Tobias is nervous and jumpy and generally quiet enough that no one ever thinks to suspect him of being trouble, which is why people are always shocked when it turns out that, say, it was his idea to smuggle in a dozen kegs of beer for New Year’s.

(Elfangor spends three months getting really attached to Tobias before he finds out some relevant information and has about a six month crisis about how to approach it.  His ultimate solution is TBD.)

Major David Pence, aka That Rat, who is Elfangor’s second in command and a screeching pain in everyone’s ass.  Everyone except David knows that his dad bought his way into med school and leveraged his rank in the army to force Elfangor to take the kid on as his second.  David’s under the impression that he’s great shakes at surgery and command both, and he straight up tried to report Elfangor when Jake was appointed chief surgeon over his head.  That was not a major event, because David tries to report someone about twice a week.  About half those attempted reports are either Rachel or Tobias or Ax--Tobias and Ax because he thinks they’re getting above their station, Rachel apparently for the crime of being herself.  He cannot be trusted to keep a level head in a crisis and Cassie has had to swoop in and save his patients more than once.  

Ji-Min “James” Song is a civilian doctor, their primary contact at a long-term recovery facility in Seoul where they send patients who are destined for a discharge.  Every time James rolls up to collect a patient, it is heavily implied that very similar chicanery is going on at his place, and he and Jake get drunk together to commiserate a lot.

Elfangor gets drunk with them too, sometimes.

[our-mrlangdon]

will you please answer all the ahs questions? thanks ✨✨

damn ok!

1. What is your favoriteseason?

Asylum!

2. What is your leastfavorite season?

Hotel.

3. All time favoritecharacter?

Dad Tristan Duffy for looks, .

4. All time least favoritecharacter?

The Countess. She’s the typical “Bella Swan” character.

5. Favorite Murder Housecharacter?

Hayden McClaine and Tate Langdon, legit the most interesting characters in that season.

6. Favorite Asylumcharacter?

Oliver Thredson and Sister Mary Eunice.

7. Favorite Covencharacter?

Fiona Goode and Madison Montgomery.

8. Favorite Freak Showcharacter?

Dandy Mott.

9. Favorite Hotelcharacter?

Tristan Duffy and Will Drake.

10. Favorite Roanokecharacter?

Audrey Tindall and Sidney Aaron James.

11. Favorite Cultcharacter?

The Andersons. All three of them.

12. Favorite Apocalypsecharacter?

Michael Langdon, Wilhemina Venable and John Henry Moore.

13. If you could choose aseason theme, what would you choose? (Ex: Ghost Town, Brothel, etc.)

Cruise or Space. Orphanage would be cool, but it’d be a lot like Asylum in terms of plot and it’d be repetitive.

14. If you could give oneseason a sequel, which season would it be?

Answered here.

15. If you could bring onecharacter back to life, who would it be?

Answered here.

16. Favorite quote?

I’ve got one for each season so here it goes:1- “The Devil is real and he's not a little red man with horns and a tail. He can be beautiful because he's a fallen angel and he used to be God's favourite.” (Leah)2- “You were a very naughty girl last night. You tried to fly away, so I had to clip your wings.” (Dr. Arden)3- “I am a millennial. Generation Y. Born between the birth of AIDS and 9/11, give or take. They call us the Global Generation. We are known for our entitlement and narcissism. Some say it's because we're the first generation where a kid gets a trophy just for showing up. Others think it's because social media allows us to post every time we fart or have a sandwich for all the world to see. But it seems that our one defining trait is a numbness to the world, an indifference to suffering.” (Madison Montgomery)4- “I was destined to be the greatest actor of all time.Monty Clift? If I had been in A Place in the Sun, George Stevens would have had me do the walk to the electric chair shirtless.I mailed away for one of those Charles Atlas exercise routines they advertise in the back of the Superman comics.And I practiced acting faces in front of the mirror-- sad, happy, moody.But mother wouldn't let me.I hate her! But she can't keep my greatness in the slips.One door closes, another opens.And this body is America, strong, violent and full of limitless potential.My arms will hold them down when they struggle.My legs will run them down when they flee.I will be the U.S.Steel of murder.My body holds a heart that cannot love.When Dora died, she looked right into my eyes, and I felt nothing.The clown was put on earth to show me the way.To introduce me to the sweet language of murder.But I am no clown.I am perfection.I am greatness.I am the future, and the future starts tonight.” (Dandy Mott)5- “Darling... even my blood is high fashion. Cut me and I bleed Dior.” (Liz Taylor)6- “Oh, leave me alone! I’m not American, I’m not used to all this carnage!” (Audrey Tindall)7- “There’s nothing more dangerous in this world than a humilliated man.” (Kai Anderson)8- “I've been assigned to evaluate the people here and select the ones most worthy of survival. I could take all of you, or none of you. Those who make it live. Those who don't, end up like my horses.” (Michael Langdon)

17. Favorite characterdeath?

Sister Mary Eunice and Dr. Arden’s. Also Monsignor Timothy’s.

18. Favorite Sarah Paulsoncharacter?

Billie Dean Howard and Wilhemina Venable.

19. Favorite Evan Peterscharacter?

Kai Anderson.

20. Favorite Lily Rabecharacter?

Sister Mary Eunice.

21. Favorite Denis O’ Harecharacter?

My heart forever beats for Stanley and Liz Taylor.

22. If you could haveanyone guest star on AHS, who would it be?

Oh Christ. Zachary Quinto and Kate Mara.

23. Favorite ship?

All AHS ships are either problematic or DUMB. Well, except Liz x Tristan.

24. Tate Langdon or MichaelLangdon?

LOL as if. Michael, obviously.

25. Who is the bestSupreme? Fiona or Cordelia?

Fiona will always be better than Cordelia. Everything Cordelia does is impulsive and causes unnecessary deaths.

26. If you could be in anyseason, which season would you be in?

I would be in Hotel, so I could tell Liz Taylor to fuck oFF and let me have Tristan all to myself. Better yet: I’d just join their relationship.

27. Favorite villain?

Oliver Thredson.

28. Favorite musicalnumber?

The Name Game.

29. Favorite episode?

Answered here.

30. Favorite scene?

Lana and Oliver’s r*pe scene.

[goprandall]

DC MASTERPOST >3

It’s no secret the DC universe is something of a DCpointment. There’s no cohesion in sotrylines, films are released at odd and illogical times and I decided to rewatch and give proper reviews.

MAN OF STEEL 2013 7/10

This film is something of an outlier on the DCEU, because it is not terrible.

The strengths of this film are defiantly the first act, I feel it was a clear and concise way to create backstory without the stereotypes of following him through childhood into adulthood, they did a great job of creating krypton and establishing an antagonist with a clear motive. I liked the jump straight into adult with flashbacks when confronted with items from his past, it allowed us to understand his past without saturating his journey all at once. Arguably the first arc of this film is completed here with Clark/kal discovering who he is and why he is here. The second arc of General Zod trying to bring back his people is still very well done, providing us more relevant backstory and shows logical actions from both sides of the fight nearing the end of the film. The biggest weakness of the film in my opinion is that it is 20 minutes too long. When superman destroys Zods ship killing the artificial children of krypton, I feel this arc was complete, although the after fight solely fought between SM and Zod does show us the struggle superman goes through becoming the last kryptonite in exaistance, this does not outweigh the pointless mass destruction this causes, on top of a already destroyed city. In my cut this would be disregarded.

Final thoughts of the film; my favourite part was the shot of ‘ALERT’ that slowly turns to ‘Toner empty’, a good transition and piece of direction. I’m giving this film 7/10, in my classification would make it a good Netflix film, one I’d be happy to watch but not pay money to solely see. It was a hard choice to not make it a 6 however, I rank wonder women as a 7, and this is more than equally as good, the only things preventing me from giving it a higher rank is it’s rewatchability. Personally I rarely would due to its lack of joy and humour, and overall darkness, not just in plot but also in cinematography and colour grading.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN 2016 6/10

Batman v superman had all the the ingredients to be the summer blockbuster, but as predicted it followed every DC film and tanked.

Their are some aspects of this film that are genuinely good, giving it a 6, one of those things is the first act of the film where we are introduced to Batman, although I didn’t personally feel the need for another origin story, the way this scene is directed especially with the earl sequence is fantastic, adding depth and differing from older versions of the same story. The other good thing about this film is the Batman fight scene, it is so well articulated and choreographed, i struggle to see how it fits within the wider film which is strangely badly directed, edited and in-cohesive.

Continuing from this idea, I feel the dream sequences are one of the leading problems for the in-cohesion of the film, the issue with these sequences is, if they are not well done it stops the audience trusting more daring scenes, ultimately taking you out of the story. Next, I feel another reason this doesn’t live up to its hype is, again, DCs continuous frenzy of oversaturating it’s film with characters. Here I argue Wonder women is not needed in the end fight, the fight could just have easily gone on sitbout her, or, if they had released wonder women before this film so we felt more engrossed in the character it wouldn’t been fine. However her and all the other justice league promo clips, should not have been in the film in the context they were as they’re a corporate shoehorn, promoting further projects. The other character I feel is unneeded is ‘Doomsday’, he’s quickly thrown in at the end of the film, and honesty an antigunist shown to us at the end of the film will never give the depth and fear of a hero fight, as a villain shown throughout the movie.

To me, Batman V Superman is a movie. Not a film, crafted and worked on to create a narrative for the audience, but a summer movie to get the kids out the house. The idea of having two meta humans as important as Batman and superman battling each other should boggle the mind, as the first avengers did for me or civil war for a closer comparison. But the difference with the MCU spectaculars is, they earned their right to blow people’s minds, DC is playing catch up and trying to get praise and awe without the hard work.

SUICIDE SQUAD 2016 3/10

Wow. This review has been hard to create and will most likely feature ideas from other reviews via podcasts and YouTube due to the fact this movie boggled my head in the sheer awfullness that ensued.

As always, I begin with the strengths of the film. In this instance it’s slight. I loved the aesthetics of the branding for the film, the colours, the neon animations, I loved it all. The mini descriptions in the film were funny and added to the VeRy little personalities of the characters. It is important to point out this clearly wasn’t present in the first edits of the film, but due to good feedback of later trailers that were released they were added, which is why this element of humour is the only of its kind that lands in the film.

Next I normally look into the storyline and the character arcs of the film, arguably my second favourite aspect to look for in a film. In suicide squad there is none, and there aren’t any. That sounds harsh, but the reality is there is no cohesive storyline, it follows no one character individually and the film darts back and fourth between every character, no matter the timeframe. Dean Dobbs (from adventures with dean and Bertie’s podcast) best describes this as ‘like playing a video game where someone is skipping every cutscene’ and this is absolutly true, especially when looking at the relationship of the joker and Harley Quinn. This film is so badly edited, As jack Howard describes, this film contains no scenes, it is obvious the whole film was rehashed and re-edited after the release of BVS (which crashed at the box office) and the final trailer was released, which was very different from the first few as it showed humour and action, and it is evident they cut out almost everything apart from these things. I would best describe it as many GoPrandall videos I have scrapped as I tend to forget to film opening sequencers and filler clips to show the progression of the story told apart from the action, and this is exactly how I felt about the editing of this film, they did the best with what they got but it wasn’t enough.

Although there was a lack of character arcs, this film had an ABUNDANT amount of characters to fill its shoes. This film crams as many famous faces in as many characters

As it can, because for some reason DC refuses to create stand alone films due to the catch up to the MCU that’s going on. We’ll start with the joker, or more exactly the 10 minuets of joker we got. Many scenes with the joker were so heavily edited, and deleted, it is hard to judge Jared Letos performance, because he didn’t have chance to give one. But, as a side note the hand on the mouth laugh is one of the WORST cinema moments I’ve experienced only closely beaten by ‘were bad guys it’s what we do’. Yuck. But we’ll finally look at the ‘suicide squad’, although looking at them it’s hard to identify why they are in this squad. We’ll start with reason no one on the team seems to have a reason to be there, aprt from deadshot, who had his daughters arc to think about. All the others just seem to around and don’t want to die and get out of prison. VERY good motives DC, you’ve outdone yourself this time. Next we can look at the abilities of this so called ‘meta human’ squad and how under utilised they really are, which could show why this film failed so badly. Firstly deadshot- ‘never misses a bullet- amazing at trick shots.’ Who in the film performs close quarter headshots, the same as the Seal team next to him, and in the film performs 1 trick shot. 1. That was in establishing scene right at the beginning, but he isn’t the only victim, we can look at Boomerang, my favourite character by far, with one the coolest abilities, who throws a total of:5 boomerangs and catches: 2. Let’s be honest Harely is there as the jokers Love Interest and to keep him in the film. We can also look at el deablo, the man that can shoot fire but refuses until he’s bullied for a whole minute. The worlds worst archaeologist who starts the entire battle, after BREAKING AN ANTIQUE immediatly after finding it (bravo) who if wasn’t attempted to be weaponised, would’ve skipped this whole mess. Slipknot, a man who could climb any wall or anything, who immediatly dies after climbing a wall, but don’t worry because they don’t even want you to worry about this due to the fact they don’t even intro him before he magically appears on the squad, hoping the audience will react ‘oh he’s going to be important!!! What a mystery man!!’. This is almost as bad as Katana, who adds nothing the story apart from a short intro and when she cries to her dead husband, at which point I began to cut my toenails, something I gave more of a shit about.

But, it is obvious I’m a teenage marvel fanboy just shitting on DC,and I hate when people complain without offering another viewpoint, therefore, to fix this, I would dedicate this film to the viewpoint of deadshot, giving him the character arc of changing with the goal of seeing his daughter- eliminate the extra characters- slipknot/katana and either dedicate more time to the joker and harley sub plot or eliminate entirely, NOT BOTH. With this, better editing around these eliminated plot points could make a more coherent story with more empathetic story arcs. I have a full idea for a plot but this is too long as it is.

WONDER WOMEN 2017 7/10

Wonder women is a refreshing instalment into the DCEU, showing they seem to e learning, but are still falling behind on some of the most basic hurdles.

Firstly, as always we’ll start off with the strengths of his film, firstly it is vividly important to recognise that this is the first major Superhero film to be directed, and sustain a heavy female cast. It does so fantastically and leaves me more excited for the next instalment now knowing female directors and stars now have evidence for an accomplished superhero movie, which arguably has outdone the past 2 major films. With this we see a brilliantly refreshing opening act with a subtle and bright, vibrant origin story.

However, this film slowly returns to madness throughout the film when major plot holes appear, and the film making quality slowly deteriorates. Firstly, the iggest plot hole that has been so easily overlooked is the WW1 aspect. Given a World War Two film, having the Germans be the sole enemy is obvious and logical, however WW1 is not as simple as this and the use of Germans as the enemies is vaguely lazy. Also, as DC loves to do, it adds in extra characters and neglects to give them logical and coherent backstory and arcs. We only need to look at the ‘best marksman in the war’ who doesn’t fire a single shot, and continues not too all the way to the end of the film, showing no growth. The final plot hole is what draws it into the wider EU. The entirety of this film is showing Diana that the human race is bad and should be left alone, although when she defeats arias, this is meant to break this curse and peace seems to be restored. But, in BVS she claims to have stopped helping mankind because of their evils, neglecting Stalin, WW2 and the Vietnam war to name a few, but making a reappearance for- lex Luther. Wow.

Although in almost most of its entirety this was a pleasant watch, my personal issue stopped this at the third act when the final fight begins. To me the film returns to DCs favourite colour scheme of dark and clouded, and uses quite frankly some of the worst CGI I’ve seen recently, making me wonder why they didn’t at least try to incorporate real elements, such as Marvel, but this is still the best DC film after man of steel and I’m excited to see more female led and directed films come to screen.

JUSTICE LEAUGE 2016 5/10

This will be the shortest of the DC reviews, this is the film I’ve seen least of the lot and I feel I’ll need at least another viewing to get a full understanding. To premise this I fully understand Zack Snyder had personal issues leading him to leave and Joss take over, and this is in no way mocking him.

But I’ll dive in, maybe the fact I’m struggling to write this review tells me a lot about the movie. Wonder women was one of the only saving graces of this move, she was well understood and I feel her likeness as a character was well transferred from WW to JL. Contrary to this, I’m struggling to write about cyborg and flash, we were given next to no backstorys, although the flash’s was hinted at at least twice that I recall and what we were given were quite chaotic. Batman was a major letdown for me, coming down from BVS where he was a certified badass taking on superman, he turns into a wimp and hides for a majority of the film, quite evidently showing Ben affleck Clearly does not want to be there. I feel the overall plot of the film was almost underatsnvle, but had the taken the time to set up this storyline in previous films it would’ve been much better, this movie lacked the right to have all these characters on screen together. The characters had adequate screen time each, but contrary to its biggest rival ‘the avengers’ this really wasn’t that special, most of the characters had the same abilities, barring the flash, and the way the avengers films have shown all the characters working together simultaneously in cinematic mastery, you can see hints of Joss attempting this, but with a bad set up it’s an impossible task.

I conclude, not going into the issue with the CGi because I don’t have that much time.

[pepperstrawberry]

Closer shot on the wip of out fits of the mains.

Yes, this is a part of my ‘Remix’ project (current working title “Break X Drive” cause i’m a dork).

So, yes, each of these are kinda loosely based off the Gatewatch. The naming convention is going to be based off of first letter color combo of their current most likely pairing (Gid-alike ‘WR’, Jace-alike: “UB”, Lili-alike: “BW”, Chan-alike: “RG”, Niss-alike: “GU”)... The only name I’m kinda sure of is RG’s first name being ‘Rinslet’... it’s an old fave of mine. It works as a wip name at least. Calling GU’s first name ‘Gally’ for the moment, but very likely not to stay.

In order across:

WR: an old soilder, a bit disenfrancized in the military state he once served. Master of many weapons, but more so tactics, he tries to maybe do some good in the world by helping this group of younger people as they find their place in the world. He is based mostly off a combo of Gideon and Ajani, he will not be invicibie though. too on the nose. I want these characters to show their origins and be homages, not ripoffs.

UB: An illusionist and trickster. Generally can be trusted with most things... if you are a dear friend or a trust-worthy business associate. and even then, his word only goes so far. He has a heart of gold, but has lived on the streets of a large hub city for so long that there are some habits that are hard to break. No mind powers, think of him as a combo of Jace and Aladdin. Strongly considering making him a trans man.

Rinslet G: Figher and pyromancer, she adventures the world mostly to find where she can do the most good. She loves bringing smiles to people and will fight to protect those smiles. She is the closest to her ‘origin’ character. Her skin is going to be darker, family (at least at the start of the story) are all alive. Debating on giving her a large sword that she can charge her fire through or just keep her a brawler...

Gally U: A traveler trying to unreveal the mystery buried in her homeland. But to unlock that mystery, she must travel to find clues in all corners of the world. She earth shapes and tends to prefer to attack at distance with her bow, creating arrows from the ground to effectively give her unlimited ammo. She will also have some connection with water, but still trying to figure that out at the moment. She is the second closest to her ‘origin’ self.

BW: A demon that was sleeping for ages (and will be the third to appear in the story proper) While she can glamour her demonic looks away to travel by her friends, she loves it best when she doesn’t have to hide. Think of her as a combo of Liliana and Dark Schneider from “Bastard!”

The first ‘Issue’ is going to be similar to ‘Record of Lodoss War’ in that it will be a skip ahead in the overall plot to see these five working together on a (relatively) non-main plot ‘quest’ of sorts. This is where the Tortoise and hare come in as two very large threats. 

After they are defeated, the story will bounce back in time to when Rinslet leaves for adventure.

The plan is to release each issue like a normal comic. Once a month if I can. Once every 2 if need be. During the time of folks waiting for each issue, I’ll be doing the mini comics as things to keep peoples interest and as a way to warm up before working on pages. XD

or... at least that is the plan at the moment.

[tweetadvise]

8 Digital Marketing Mistakes Many Businesses Make

For lots of companies, contending in the Digital Marketing game is difficult. It includes a large commitment of your time and also money. You have to be certain of your return on investment. And you have to know that it's working for you.

From encounter, I know there are some predictable mistakes businesses make when it pertains to electronic marketing.

But forewarned is forearmed, and there are practical steps as a magnate that you could require to maximise your chances for electronic success.

1. Not Working to a Business Plan

There are so many various elements of digital marketing to think about, with more showing up on basically a day-to-day basis, and also you could intend to attempt them all. You've obtained an internet site, you're doing email advertising and marketing, socializing on Twitter, writing a blog, advertising and marketing on AdWords - as well as that's before you mention all the basic online search engine optimisation job that you've been doing.

Be sincere though, do you have a company plan directing all your efforts? Have you identified your key marketing objectives and just how they are visiting help you to fulfill your company objectives? It's difficult to discover time for all the various points that you might be doing, and if you typically aren't clear concerning what you're trying to accomplish, you could locate that your interest for everything blows over very fast.

It's far much better for you to pick one aspect to work with as well as to do it truly well than to spread on your own as well thinly. For many businesses this could something as straightforward as lead generation and also because situation it can simply be basic SEO - yes, social media might be attractive, yet for some companies it might be much more likely that you'll obtain top quality leads from Google. Or possibly your strategy should be to extract lifetime customer value from your existing customer base. There is a great deal of earnings to be had from making certain all your consumers understand every little thing you have to provide, as well as by talking so they understand exactly how much you value their business.

2. Looking for a Quick Fix

I'm likelying to allow you in on a key: there is no fast and easy means to obtain excellent arise from digital marketing.

Yes, individuals will certainly say that social networks is totally free, and also that email advertising and marketing is free, as well as that sites are cheap.

But whether you are working on SEO, social network sites or PPC you need to put time and also effort right into any kind of digital marketing technique. It's everything about effort and brain power as well as elbow joint grease. Yes, it is harder in this manner, yet you stay clear of potential fines related to the 'quick fix' strategies that Google views as spam. Or hare brained social network sites ideas that will just serve to damage your brand.

3. Not Giving Your Digital Advertising Campaigns Sufficient Time

You've taken the advice to stay with ethical electronic advertising methods and you're doing every little thing by the publication. So, why is it taking as long for you to take pride of location at the top of Google? Why aren't even more people engaging with you on your social media sites? Have not you done sufficient? Don't you should have it?

Unfortunately, these things do take some time, and also anything that you could do to 'rush things along' is most likely to be penalised for spam. (See my comments regarding fast solutions over). It could be irritating when it takes months to satisfy your goals, but you need to hold your horses and also maintain functioning at it.

The long term benefits are worth it. As well as the advantages are called 'long-term' for a reason - as soon as you begin to obtain traction you'll continuously acquire benefit on a continuous basis.

4. Worrying Way too much About Your Competition

It is healthy and balanced to keep a watchful eye on your rivals, yet it doesn't make great company sense to stress over what they're up to. If they are rating greater than you, do some rival evaluation to see if you could learn anything from them and move on.

We can aid you with competitor research, to assist you understand exactly what keyword phrases your competitors are bidding for. Just what their social networks projects are doing. That they are connecting to in the social world.

But regularly asking yourself how you can get one over on them is a waste of your time that is better invested in your personal electronic advertising and marketing efforts.

5. Obsessively Examining Your Rankings

Or examining AdWords position every couple of minutes, or the variety of followers on Facebook, number of hits to your website ... It isn't a smart idea to concentrate excessive on these details, due to the fact that the basic reality is that in the grand system of points they don't matter.

Think back to your company strategy: was your goal to obtain to number 1 in Google or was it actually to create even more leads? Did you just desire 1,000 site visitors a day to your site or is it a lot more crucial to concentrate on the number of queries coming with the door?

You should determine your success against your business objectives, not vanity metrics that don't give your company money on the barrel benefits.

6. Not Analysing Your Data

You had 1,000 site visitors to your website last week, you've obtained a conversion rate of 2.1% on your site, you have a typical price per acquisition of ₤ 36 for every certified lead that you obtain with your website.

Do you know your businesses' key performance indicators? Do you recognize how you withstand your competition?

There is obviously the danger of drowning in all the day. I need to claim this 'paperless firm' thing is all a myth. Like it or not, electronic advertising and marketing is a numbers game, and in order to be successful you require to analyse your data. What have learned? Just what are you likelying to in a different way as a result?

7. Starving the Budget

The Web is incredible - anybody could gain a site, send out marketing emails therefore far more - and it's all free!

Sorry to dissatisfy, but that just isn't really true.

You can get a complimentary summer trainee to run your social media marketing projects, yet there is a likelihood that there will certainly be splits prior to bedtime. You could scrimp as well as minimize the advancement of your internet site, however a properly made website is most likely to have better influence and to help you to attain your advertising dreams. Not making use of a proper email advertising package could potentially create troubles with taking care of clients as well as data security worries. Also if you have paid out for an AdWords account you need to remember that you can just do so much with a limited budget.

There are numerous inexpensive methods to use the Internet, however none are totally free, and also as with anything in life you get what you pay for.

8. Not Thinking Regarding Your Online Reputation

If you can just do 1 trait to enhance your websites visibility, think of your online reputation. It's not just what you state concerning yourself that is very important, it's just what other individuals state concerning you.

Your on the internet reputation takes several roles:

the examines customers discuss you

the press protection and states your company gets on various other websites

and the links coming from those internet sites to yours

your social media profile

your mentions on social media

and social media interactions

Your online credibility goes to the heart of your digital technique, as well as is directly pertaining to all digital task. Don't take your eye off one of the most vital ball.

Need some help?

If this list of 8 typical errors has given you stop briefly for idea, after that feel free to obtain in contact. I would certainly more than happy to talk more regarding exactly how your personal company can be utilizing the power of electronic advertising and marketing, and also exactly how we could make you a lot more effective on the Internet.

[nettlestonenell]

@nettlestonenell:  And the truth is, if I'm being 100% real and honest is that: there is no fill-in fic. B/C Han and Leia never broke up. I mean, I don't see WHY the writers felt they had to break them up (other than they wanted a reunion scene). TFA's story can still function well without having blown all three of the trio apart in the intervening years. Certainly, Han's death can be just as resonant w/o his having to be estranged from Leia. Everything is crap in Leia's life in TFA; she's lost Luke, her son, Han, and she's still fighting the same war. It's more weight than her character should bear. So, in truth, there is no fill-in fic in my mind. B/C that break-up didn't happen.

BUT, if you've got a gun to my head, I reckon a fill-in fic that would upset me less would be: Han and Leia had it rough in the beginning following RotJedi. Han had trouble adjusting (not to being second to Leia in most people's eyes, but to State dinners and pomp and deportment, and, like trying not to flinch every time someone called him General Solo, and being expected to stay put in one place).

After decades of being on his own, at the beck and call of no one, joining the Rebel Alliance was a rough transition. He worried that more seasoned Rebels were snickering about him behind his back. He worried that he wasn't being sent on missions b/c someone was trying to protect him for Leia's sake. He flinched at being sent away from her (when he wanted to be close) and being assigned to tasks near her (when he wanted to get away)… His life of smuggling still dogged him on the rougher planets. Past scores and broken deals caused trouble he couldn't always get out of without a scuffle or a fire fight--that would have nothing to do with re-joining the galaxy under the Rebel Alliance, and banishing what was left of the Empire. He knew the upper echelon of the Alliance was having secret meetings about how to “deal” with him. He knew the meetings were secret, even from Leia.

He hated to feel like he was a burden on her, on her leadership, her effectiveness. He said none of this aloud.

Leia simply had no time. Like any new president in her first 100 (or first 1,000) days, she barely slept. She traveled extensively. She studied studied studied to learn things about all the new worlds they were trying to bring into the Alliance. She was one of the few left alive that had any background in, or affinity for, diplomacy. And on many worlds the cultural importance of a consort (and the fact her side was often vacant) was not to be underestimated. When he was there, Han made gaffes. Sometimes he was found to be wanted on the world they had traveled to treat with. It was rough and bumpy, but not impossible. And then came the baby. They were overjoyed. Excited, terrified. Chewbacca seemed like the only one who felt pretty chill about the whole thing. Then again, Wookies simply take turns wearing their young more or less for the first two years of life. But Leia was torn between her considerable duties and the baby, and Han was simply unsure what sort of parent he had the capacity to be (he recalled little enough of his own parents).

NN:  And then the baby showed signs of being, well, gifted. And Leia became convinced giving the child into Luke's care was the only way to avoid, to hedge against creating a second Vader.

NN:  Han didn't like it--not because of Luke, but--he liked being around the kid. It made him feel different, in a good way. A fresh way. But Leia was so sure it was the right thing to do, and he--well, he'd never been very good at figuring out the right things to do. So, he agreed.

NN:  When everything happened, they were still together. The Rebel Alliance had been disbanded, or nearly so. Leia's responsibilities had diminished. No one was complaining or strategizing about Han’s proclivities toward adventure and smuggling anymore. Han had started to feel something like comfortable.

NN: Ben's actions, his kidnapping/turning away from the Light, savaged them, though. They hung on each other. Sleepless nights were shared.

Luke disappeared.

Even more light and spark vanished from Leia's eyes.

NN: And Han...well, Han went back to what he knew. Except now, instead of chasing illegal cargo, he flew and bargained, and shook trees like the old days, no longer to locate valuable, illegal freight, but to try and find their son.

He always returned, but for months he'd be absent--radio silence--chasing leads with Chewie. Taking on dangerous cargo to finance his hunt.

NN: And then one day he came back and asked for Leia, and a new staffer of hers told him she was in a meeting, and could not be disturbed. And he spied something of the meeting, how elegant and perfect Leia looked in it. She laughed (his own perception too skewed to realize it was polite, not genuine, laughter), she parlayed.

I'm not needed here, he thought. I carry with me the shadow of my son, and all that has occurred, and all that has been lost. Because of me coming into her and Luke's life.

And he found Chewie, without explaining why, and determined he would not be back until he'd found both Luke and Ben, and she could laugh like that at him again.

Leia exited the meeting feel tense and drained. It was a masque, after all, this variety of diplomacy. A play without a script.

Did I see General Solo? she asked the new aide.

No, I don't think so, Ma'am, the aide replied, having been instructed by several of Leia's advisors that they would just as soon chase the smuggler off as have to keep putting up with his stubborn, backward ways.

@reblogginhood: ok, so you are obviously 100% correct that they never needed to break up Han and Leia, and it was dumb to do so, because he could have been out there and found Rey and Finn without having to be estranged (but...not even really estranged???) from Leia

and honestly, that was the most frustrating part--they didn't even give Han and Leia ANY kind of story

there didn't appear to be anything to reconcile; there was no story to their reunion; it was just there, it seemed for the Kylo backstory

RBHOOD: but ANYWAY

all that said

HOW DARE YOU GIVE ME THESE FEELINGS WITH THAT FILL-IN

and also THANK YOU FOR THESE FEELINGS

and of course, on the other side, Leia assumes Han just couldn't be happy tied down to the life she has to live

and assumes he's happier wherever he is out there without her

(mutual pining is my fave trope)

NN: Like, being royal and the dramatic irony of your staff keeping you in the dark about things/decisions/actions is certainly a jam of mine.

NN: But, you know, the loss of Han is also (importantly) the loss of Chewbacca for Leia. And for every time Han put a foot wrong, on so many planets the presence of a Wookie in the Alliance's retinue put a foot just *right*, lent an air of nobility to the proceedings.

NN: And he gave the best hugs, Chewbacca. Leia misses him.

NN: When she can't sleep (which is often), and she can't stare at another diplomatic briefing (which happens sometime after 2am), she lies down on the smallest, narrowest thing she can find; a chair, a couch, a cramped window seat--and imagines she's in a bunk on the Falcon with Han, his arm laced around her back as they sleep—as they always slept--to make sure she doesn't fall off the rack.

NN: Han, who would rather no one knew how sentimental he is (he pretends they don't notice that he treats a way-too-old ship like his own maiden auntie), takes to stopping by the O2 masks on the Falcon, hanging ever-in-the-ready. Sometimes he pulls one down, takes a hard, unnecessary drag on it.

Tells himself maybe that was it--that was the one, the one Leia always used. That in doing so he can once again share breath with her, be close.

NN: Chewbacca? Chewbacca worries. He doesn't mention it, but about six months after Luke goes missing he starts to shed, even though it's unseasonal, not the right time.

NN: He follows Han, they smuggle to finance their search, but the jobs seem more dangerous now, and Han gets less joy out of the danger than before. Solo is become a man driven, weary and almost spent, even from the moment he wakes. Chewbacca begins to feel too old for this life.

Chewbacca misses Luke. Luke was good for a laugh. Luke made them all smile, or worry in concert. That was his job, his function in this family. But the worrying before was never so laced with fear, with loss.

Chewbacca thinks: it is the difference between worrying over whether a stew might be burned, and whether your planet's deathly drought will ever end.

It is oppressive.

NN: The two of them chase the slightest whispers of Ben's whereabouts, surely the last people in the galaxy interested in finding the boy after what he did. They run after hare-brained, wild goose chase information they know to be nothing more than that about Luke’s location. Still, they carry on.

Occasionally, they find themselves learning news of what the Alliance is becoming: the Resistance.

Occasionally, a news transmission includes an image of Leia.

After seeing it, Han does not sleep for three solar days.

NN: Leia comes down with a migraine so rough nothing the medical droids can offer her short of sedation can take the edge off it.

But she has a meeting with a group that can help finance new weaponry her Resistance desperately needs.

NN: She insists on attending, knowing her inclusion in the talks is found to be inspirational, an essential stamp of approval, by many.

Traveling back to base in the shuttle, she retches long and hard into the nearest receptacle. I'm sorry, she apologizes to the pilot and the flight crew for the mess.

As they disembark back at base camp she realizes; it's Han's birthday.

RBHOOD: OH GOD NOW I'M CRYING AGAIN

just imagining the musical montage of leia and han thinking about each other at the same time as they can't sleep, thousands of light years apart

RBHOOD: ..........and of course, you know, diplomacy sometimes requires a bit of flirtation

and Han catches a video clip by accident on a news feed on a distant station

and after a moment of paralysis he thinks, this is good, this is good, this is where she always ought to have been, and I want her to be happy

and he almost makes himself believe it

NN: And then, off in the distance, Luke occasionally feels Leia's emotions, and he can't bear it.

NN: This is a 1000% pining-ready situation.

And then the montage starts with them a younger age, and then ends with some time lapse where they've aged into their TFA years.

RBHOOD: yesssssssssssss

they have become accustomed to the pain of loss and loneliness, but it hasn't lessened

NN: but their moment of reconciliation definitely occurs prior to the events of TFA. It actually happens when he loses the Falcon.

Chewbacca brings him back, finds where Leia & Co. are hiding. Han's been roughed up, he needs some rest and some light medical intervention. The two of them are on the run, so why not hunker down with some other people also on the run?

NN: No one tells Leia that Chewie has signaled their arrival. In fact, there are so many new people in the Resistance that most of them don’t quite recall the fact that Leia and Han were together, or the shape their lives took. It’s as though the textbooks of the day elide over Han, and his missing son—whom many come to incorrectly believe (as General Organa’s son) perished in the massacre of the rest of Skywalker’s students. It is a persistent misinformation.

But something brings Leia to the hanger that day, and though Chewie is not flying the Falcon, she runs up the lowered ramp of the unfamiliar ship he pilots into their hidden base, and finds her way to Han's side. Han's so in and out of it he doesn't know what year it is or how long (or if) he's been gone.

He speaks to her and holds on to her like no time has passed at all.

She recognizes it as the gift it is. Because in a short time he will recall it all; the pain, the loss, the distance.

But for those hours that it takes for medical to get him stabilized, he's thinks he's somewhere between just having been awoken from Carbonite, and being tortured by Vader in the Bespin system.

She memorizes every word he says, answers his every question in kind.

The human medical staff try to keep their blushes to themselves, unfamiliar with encountering their General in this form.

They have forgotten how very small of stature General Princess Leia Organa really is, how she has for decades shouldered the burdens of the movement without having anyone to shoulder her burdens.

They have forgotten, or never understood, that she loved a smuggler; the father of her lost child. That her brother, the mythical figure, was just a farmboy on a backwater planet.

That underneath General, beyond diplomat, around Princess--she is Leia, a soul distant from all those she loves.

RBHOOD: nell, that LAST LINE

that's GORGEOUS

it's a crime this is all in DM, tbh

NN: Stop tempting me to collect it.

I know I'm gonna wanna read it all again one day

RBHOOD: No you SHOULD collect it and post it

[acealistair]

Heyhey, so what are some of your favorite dating sims? I've only played Mystic Messenger and I don't know any others that measure up to it.

Oohhh I’ll be happy to share what I play! I don’t play any that aren’t free, so that’s probably good news, but that also means there are probably a lot of quality ones I’m missing out on. 

It’s worth noting that Mystic Messenger is my all-time favorite, though. I don’t know if any of these will truly measure up to it, mostly because MM is just so unique in its concept as well as the depth of characters and story. I think we are truly blessed to have access to MM’s level of quality for free. (thank u cheritz for my life)

Anyways! I’ll list these from my most favorite to least favorite (however, I do like all of them to some degree because I regularly play all of them). Under the cut because I talk too much :’D

Midnight Cinderella

This one was my top favorite before Mystic Messenger came along! The premise is that in the country of Wysteria, if the ruling monarch(s) grow to a certain age and there is no heir, a “princess elect” is chosen from the common people. Of course, your character is chosen, despite not being interested in the position at first. Also of course, the princess is expected to find a “prince consort” along the way. (I’m kind of a sucker for a “commoner thrust into the world of the rich” story, myself. >v>)

Each character has a distinct personality and each route has a significantly different story. The main character has a decent amount of development, as well! It’s also very well-translated, and the art is lovely. I’ve played through every character’s route at least once and have just started going back for round two for everyone – each character has two different endings that are each good in their own way, rather than the standard good and bad endings. Louis is my favorite, by far. i’ve played his route four times no joke ha The app is regularly updated with fun side-story events, and they’re also coming out with after-story routes for all the characters!

Guard Me, Sherlock!

…listen. The stuff you start reading/watching/playing as a joke are always the ones you end up loving the most, right.

I thought this one was going to be utterly ridiculous and horrendously out of character. I WAS WRONG. Pretty sure it’s based a lot on BBC Sherlock, because the personalities of the characters are spot-on. Sherlock is just as rude and insufferable and weird as he should be. The most ridiculous part about the whole thing is just the aging-down of all the characters to be young and hot and anime, pffft. Each character’s route is centered around a case, which is pretty fun. 

So far I’ve just played Watson’s route, and am about halfway through Sherlock’s. I feel like I haven’t played enough routes yet to pick a definite favorite character yet, but both routes have successfully given me the doki-dokis, haha. There are four routes out so far (Sherlock, Watson, Moriarty, and Mycroft), and three of them have a “season 2″ sequel to their routes. So lots of content!

The Niflheim

This one’s fun because it has a pretty unique concept (it’s the land of the dead; essentially the afterlife, though apparently some people come back as zombies, mummies, and other types of undead, while others just look like normal people? It’s never really explained lol), and the art is really gorgeous! It’s also just a bit silly in general; definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously. The characters have a surprising amount of depth, though. Unfortunately, I think the developers have pretty much abandoned it, though. You can still play it, but there aren’t anymore events and I don’t think they’re coming out with anymore characters/routes.

If nothing else convinces you, you can romance a skeleton. ;D

Wizardess Heart

This was my first dating sim I ever played! At first glance it looks like a wannabe Harry Potter knock-off. And it is… to a mild extent. They’ve managed to put their own spin on things to keep it comfortably out of the “painfully blatant” zone, so that’s what matters in my book. Anyways, the gist is you’re a new student at a wizard academy. There’s a thing called the “Buddy system” (lol) where two students’ fates are connected, and they’re supposed to help each other succeed at the school. So of course it’s just used as a plot excuse for you to be connected to whoever’s route you’re doing.

I’ve played seven routes (currently on my eighth) out of twelve, and they’ve promised at least three more characters in the future, which honestly shocked me because that’s a ton. The guys are grouped by threes and are called “series”, where their plots, while all different, all deal with the same antagonist/threat/mystery. My favorite character is Klaus… compare him to Louis from above, Gill from Harvest Moon, and Jumin Han and you’ll see why lmao

Modern Cinderella

This one’s so far down on the list only because I literally started playing it a couple days ago. I think it’ll get way higher up once I’m more familiar with it, and if this first route I’m playing doesn’t disappoint! The story for this one is self-described as a “reverse Cinderella”, where the main character is rich and has led a lavish lifestyle until she runs away from her overbearing and controlling mother to start a completely new life. I think that’s pretty interesting itself, but what I really like is that the main character ends up with a different profession based on the route chosen. With the three routes that are out right now, the career options are singer, patissier, and writer. At least two more routes are promised (I’m hoping there’ll be even more).

I wasn’t too sure about the art style at first – the main character starts out with a really ugly dress and makeup, but they make a point of changing her clothes and essentially going “that’s much better” after the prologue. The guy that helps out the main character by giving her a place to stay is explicitly gay and doesn’t seem to feed into any bad stereotypes, so that’s a cool side note! So far my overall impression is that it’s cute.

Lost Alice

An Alice in Wonderland one, yeah. >_> However, it has a somewhat unique twist on the story? Some of the mystery was revealed in the Hatter’s route, but that’s the only one I’ve played so far and I feel there’s more to discover about… the lore, for lack of a better term? If more stuff is revealed then I might get a little more invested, otherwise I’ll probably be a bit miffed, because as it stands I have a lot of unanswered questions about what’s going on.

The art style is nice, and there are currently five routes out with a sixth (and probably more) on the way. Most of the characters are directly out of the original story (Hatter, Cheshire Cat, March Hare), but others are harder to recognize (there’s a dude named Joker who I’m still not entirely sure is supposed to be…?). Haven’t played enough to pinpoint a favorite character yet, but the Hatter was cute.

Oz

My general attitude towards this one is “LMAO”. XD

Wizard of Oz. The premise is that Dorothy comes back to the land of Oz for her seventeenth birthday! And suddenly the scarecrow, tin man, and lion are human (that’s right, they acknowledge that they weren’t human to begin with)! And in this version, there were never any witches – they’re all hot romanceable wizards! including the wizard of the west because of course hgkrhsgnks Every single character’s name is a pun based off who they are! And then, the real kicker is that as soon as Dorothy arrives, she’s told she has to pick a boyfriend out of them all. Because reasons. And she just goes along with it.

So, uh, yeah, the story’s flimsy. And it doesn’t get much better in any of the routes lol… I’ve done three routes and am almost done with the fourth. I play it because it’s funny and… it has a few good moments bahaha. my favorite is heartmann Also worth noting that this one’s dead, like Niflheim is. They stopped having events and updates after they came out with all the characters.

Honorable mention: Notice Me, Senpai!

I don’t really consider this one a true dating sim, but it’s definitely meant for people who like dating sims! This app is one of my favorites ever omg, it’s so great honestly. It’s literally Neko Atsume… except instead of entertaining and collecting cats in your yard, you, the only girl at an all-boys school, run a cafe for personified anime boy tropes!

Instead of just leaving you a gift after a number of visits, each senpai has an affection level and you get CGs as they fall in love with you. At three hearts they leave a personal note, then at four and/or five hearts you get a CG where they confess to you. Then you can get additional CGs for each of their birthdays as well as for visiting a certain number of times after they’ve gotten five hearts. You can dress them up in tons of different outfits, and there are events for all the major holidays and seasons. Now I think they’ve settled into an event and new senpais every other month (so they’ll be coming out with stuff in May). Right now there are 34 senpais and I fear that the devs are going to burn out by releasing more, but hey if they think they can do it I won’t complain hgdgfsgvfsvgg

tl;dr it fulfills my lifelong fantasy of being the protagonist of a reverse harm anime and i love it so much

[fbwzoo]

Bindi’s diet - hedgehog raw diet

So I thought I’d post a description of what I feed Bindi! Hedgehogs are a relatively new exotic pet and there isn’t much research done on them for various reasons. In captivity, they’re typically fed kibble, either for hedgehogs, cats, or dogs. Hedgehog kibble is generally no good as the ingredients are awful. Dog kibble usually needs to be crushed, but is otherwise fine. Cat kibble is the most commonly fed.

I’m a huge fan of raw & natural diets (when properly balanced!!!) for animals, so when I brought Bindi home, I was really interested in trying to switch her to a raw diet. She turned out to be the perfect hedgie for this - most hedgehogs are very picky about new foods, but Bindi is weird and eats almost anything I give her! This has earned her the nickname Goathog. I’m gonna put the specifics of her diet under a cut, as this may get long!

Based on what we know about a wild hedgehog’s natural diet, I decided to feed Bindi a variety of whole meat grinds (sold from a website selling raw food for dogs/cats/ferrets), insects, veggies, and fruit. Her diet is roughly 40% insects, 30% meat grinds, 20% veggies, and 10% fruit. I decided on these ratios as insects & invertebrates are the bulk of a wild hedgehog’s diet, but they will also eat the young of small mammals & birds, eggs, and other small prey. They will also eat mushrooms, some roots, and berries & fruit they find, but plant matter is a relatively small portion of their diet. 

When I started changing her diet, I first switched her to a wet food, with a higher, more natural moisture level. I also figured that’d be easier to mix meat grinds & such into if necessary. I slowly introduced one insect at a time to make sure she’d eat enough variety to make me comfortable with the diet. I also introduced meat grinds, veggies, and fruit, all one at a time. She gave me very few problems, but I wouldn’t expect most people to have the success I did with her.

Bindi’s meat grinds are ordered from Hare Today. She started out with getting chicken, duck, salmon, and rabbit. Currently she’s getting duck, salmon, rabbit, and turkey. I’m going to be switching the turkey back to chicken soon here, and I may be trying goat out instead of duck for a while - she’s put on a bit of weight recently & goat is lower fat. The meat grinds are the full animal & have organs and bone included, so they’re considered balanced or mostly so - I do have some issues with the bird grinds as they only have liver for organ (which isn’t 100% balanced - they should have other organs as well). But since Bindi gets other foods along with the meat grinds, I don’t mind it as much.

Her insects are mealworms, mealworm pupae, mealworm beetles, dubia roaches, crickets, superworms, maggots, waxworms, hornworms, snails, grasshoppers, silkworm pupae, silkworms, earthworms, and phoenix worms. She gets at least 4 different types each night, sometimes up to 6 types. Phoenix worms are usually a daily thing - everything else gets rotated, and mealworms are only a couple times a week right now due to weight. I’m currently a little low on the insect variety, but will be fixing that soon. I also just ordered some dried insects from a site that sells for human consumption, though I have no clue how long they’ll take to get here. I plan to try rehydrating them prior to offering them to her & see if she likes them. Those insects include silkworm pupae (cheaper than ordering the cans), mole crickets, june beetles, shield bugs, and termites.

Her veggie portion is a mix of parsley, turnip greens, collard greens, kale, parsnips, broccoli, red bell pepper, and sweet potato, all put through a food processor until finely chopped. This last time I made her Chop mix, I added her fruit in as well - strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. She doesn’t like berries that much, but they’re so nutritious that I decided to see if she’d eat them better mixed with the veggies. So far, not horrible results.

She also gets whole prey options once a week on weekends - those include pinky mice, pinky rats, and day-old quail chicks. She has no problem handling any of the whole prey options & eats all of them. (Okay, well, she left the head of a pinky rat for me once...but just the once so far!)

She pretty much always eats all of her insects & meat. When fruit & veggies were fed separately & I was feeding fruits she liked (apple, banana, mango), she ate all of her fruit most of the time. Both separately & with the fruit mixed in, she eats her veggies about half the time? She goes through spurts of eating all of it, eating some of it, and not really touching it, so IMO, it feels like she’s self-regulating. 

She seems to be doing fantastic on this diet! She eats well. Her poops are great, and not messy at all. Much the same as raw fed cats/dogs/ferrets, her poop is smaller & more compact than kibble-fed hedgies. Every once in a while I’ll find one with a bit of undigested insect exo in it, but rarely. I never really find undigested veggie matter, so that seems to go through fine. Her skin isn’t excessively dry, and she’s a muscle-y little beast!

Because this is something never really done with hedgehogs & I’m paranoid, I’ve had blood tests done at each of her wellness visits since we started the full raw diet, so that’s two so far (1 year & 1.5 year). I want to be sure we’re not missing anything in her diet & she’s not developing any deficiencies or other issues due to it. Both blood panels have come back with no concerns - the vet said that her protein & calcium levels were slightly higher than normal both times, but not a concerning amount & the lab said it made sense with her raw diet.

Speaking of the deficiencies - I do NOT add any vitamin mixes to her diet, as I don’t think they’re necessary with the variety she gets, and I don’t want to overdose her. She DOES get calcium powder sprinkled over her insects 3x/week, which seems to be working fine, as shown by her bloodwork. Occasionally I sprinkle a calcium powder with added Vitamin D, but not more than once a week - she already gets Vitamin D from her diet from her salmon & the liver in the meat grinds (and possibly from some of the insects - there aren’t really a lot of extensive analyses done on insect nutrients). VitD is one that can be overdosed, especially when manually supplemented, so I don’t want to overdo it.

So that’s it! :) Please feel free to ask questions you may have about Bindi’s diet, raw feeding hedgehogs, or hedgehog feeding in general. I love to talk about animal nutrition, especially for hedgehogs, and will try to help to the best of my ability.