#like as somebody who already liked the characters and story the play wasn't good

[estrangedandwayward]

God it's so sad that lestat the musical suck because vampire chronicals would work SO well as a musical. The melodrama, dances and songs to show the bonds between the characters, it doesn't matter if the actors look like the characters or not, you can actually do Claudia and Armand, which visual mediums generally can't, the costumes can be gorgeously tacky but change in subtle ways so show the passage of time (like everyone keeps the same base costume but changes hats and coats), you can give lestat and Nicky a big golden moment number, the theater de vampire's would be CRAZY, you can have lestat play the piano (maybe that's a way to do the narrating), it's longer so you can include more than a movie, Louis could be a great narrator too, you can have in-between scenes of back and forth between him and Daniel, louis can have a melancholy walking in the rain but isnt new orleans so beautiful song, and you can give lestat and Louis a dance number, Maybe with singing, maybe not, that shows their relationship through the years, the two of them pulling eachother around the stage, sometimes switching hats and coats, lestat can swing his walking stick around, Claudia can come in to join them half way through, they should totally recreate that hand holding spin from the show that the three of them do cause it would be Adorable, the music and style of dance can change, they go between passionate, violent, playful, confrontational and everything in between beautifully capturing the complex violently domestic relationship between these two compelling, emotional characters. Too bad Lestat: The musical genuinely sucks.

[mosspace]

Dear PTJ, please develope your female characters

Someone complaining abt the way PTJ writes his female characters (truly, a never seen before concept); 1st Afilliate Arc and Cheongliang Arc spoilers (at this point, I think most people are up to date w/ the story, but I'm still gonna put this warning just in case)

Look, I don't take Lookism super seriously. In fact, I think I never did that, mainly thanks to the outlandish concepts it had since the beginning. I'm just here to have fun at this point, and to finally learn the truth about Daniel's 2nd body (omg, it's been 400+ chapters-).

I definitely wasn't expecting to find super well written female characters (even though I definitely should, it's 2024, for God's sake-), something a good number of fighting-related webtoons seem to struggle with. But damn, does Lookism waste its female characters in a way not many have done before.

Since the focus of the story has shifted primarly towards fighting and taking down the Four Crews and Charles Choi, I'm gonna focus on two of the characters most connected to these aspects: Mary Kim and Crystal Choi (ik Lua and Sally are also connected in this way, but I don't really have a lot to say about them and, besides, they've already been covered by another user here on Tumblr)

Mary Kim

The perfect opportunity to get her more involved came up not so long ago, in the ep just before the Allied vs 1st Afilliate fight properly started. We see Mary's reaction upon hearing Vin Jin tell her that Taejin Cheon is alive; we can see her anger asclear as day both in her expression and her words. She literally expresses how much she wants to kill this guy.

And yet, PTJ doesn't make her go and get her revenge. Instead, we have Vin Jin basically saying that he will do it for her because 'his hands are already dirty" (i heavily paraphrased his words, but you get it), which to me, at least, doesn't make sense.

Time and time again we see how close the two of them are in spite of the many jabs they throw at each other. Even without knowing the details of their shared past in Cheongliang (which comes up a couple episodes later), it's very strange that she would let Vin jin go to face him just like that.

By this point, it's already stablished that he murdered somebody, an act that even if deserved by the deceased person, takes a mental toll on the one who does it. Taking this into account, I don't see why Mary would just let who's basically her best friend go through the same thing again, alone. And I especially don't see why she would obey him and stay behind. Her, Mary, the person who never takes Vin Jin's bullshit and always calls him out.

Why not have them both go together? It would be a great opportunity to 1) deal with the last negative reminder of their past, and gain a little bit of closure once and for all, and 2) have Mary finally fight seriously and be able to demonstrate why she's called 'The Empress of Two Seconds' and why she's considered so strong.

We've only seen her take down minor opponents a very, very small number of times, all of which are altercations that don't ever last too long (i guess this last thing is to back up her nickname but, eh)

TLDR: Let Mary dirty her hands as much as Vin. Let them take down together one of the people who has brought them so much pain as the pair of strong besties they are. Stop telling us how strong she is and actually commit to showing it.

__

Crystal Choi

Oh boy, this character-

Like, you mean to tell me that the sole offspring/child of the Big Bad Guy tm the protagonist and his friends are meant to take down, who also happens to be friends with said protagonist, doesn't play a major role on the story? Absolutely insane

And that isn't even taking into account that she also has 2 bodies, which is something only one other character (Daniel, the PROTAGONIST), has and is a major plot point

I'd like to see her be more aware of her privilege as a rich person. Yeah, she was relentlesstly bullied and undermined for her appeareance (which is a horrible thing for anybody to go through) but at least she wasn't poor, too. Does she actually use her money or her status as the daughter of one of the richest men in Korea to change things or solve problems?

Jay literally bought an ambulance of the same type used by the 1st Afilliate so that Allied could sneak in, so why can't Crystal do something similar to help them, too? She helped them during the Gambling Arc by bringing Kouji

I'd like to see her realize and come to terms with the fact that her father's a horrible person. I don't think she knows everything that's going on behind closed doors, but she's definitely smart enough to have noticed that there's something shady going on with his bussiness.

Let her discover the truth. Let her pick either her father's or Daniel's side (the latter which I believe is the most plausible, since she doesn't seem the type to excuse murder, extorsion, etc.). She could act as an informant, helping Allied from the inside.

Heck, you could have her fight, too, if you wanted to. She trained with Gun, after all. And yeah, maybe she's not as strong as the other characters, but we know that she can hold her own against most people. We've seen it.

TLDR: how the hell do you set up a character with so much potential and don't do anything with it. Also, think abt the angst potential!

________________________________________________

Final thoughts, I guess:

I think that Crystal siding with Allied has a higher chance of happening than PTJ letting Mary fight. There's still a good chunk of the story yet to be told, so anything could happen.

I'm actually considering believing that the reason we rarely see the female characters is that they, also, are working secretly to take down the Four Crews and it's gonna get revealed in the last arc for the sake of my sanity

[duhragonball]

Neon Genesis Evangelion 21

NERV Origins: The Clownshoes Abduction

Okay, so this one is kind of confusing, because it flashes back and forth a lot. Let's go over the present-day stuff first and then we'll cover the scenes from the past.

Admiral Clownshoes gets abducted right under NERV's nose. I gave him a silly name because I couldn't be bothered to look up his actual name, but to be clear, he's the second-in-command of NERV, after Gendo Ikari himself. So it's kind of amazing that he could get kidnapped like this, although it's also kind of stupid, because this guy has done fuck-all since the story started. Gendo's the mastermind of NERV and the Evangelions and everything else that goes on here. Misato and Ritsuko pretty much handle all of the logistics and combat stuff. All the "Vice Commander" ever does is stand beside Gendo and make wry observations to him. I don't get the sense that he has any real purpose in the organization. I named him "Clownshoes" for a reason.

Anyway, NERV Intelligence suspects Kaji Ryoji, who was recently kicked out of NERV for being a double agent working for the Japanese Interior Department. Since Misato is known to be his lover, they hold her in a detention cell just in case she's an accomplice.

Regardless of Kaji's role in the abduction, the ones who wanted Clownshows are SEELE. I was starting to get the impression that SEELE was the name of the committee of grumpy old men who talk to Gendo Ikari whenever things go wrong. But apparently SEELE is another, even more mysterious group of dipshits behind the committee of grumpy old men. They wanted to talk to Clownshoes directly, without Gendo in the room, so they staged this abduction to make it happen.

Near the end of the episode, Kaji shows up to rescue Clownshoes. Clownshoes warns him that he might get killed for this, and Kaji says that he just wants to get closer to the truth. Uh... how does this help, exactly?

Like, I really don't get it. SEELE wanted something from Clownshoes, but we never actually find out what it is. They're mad about Eva Unit 01 absorbing an S2 from that Angel it ate a couple of episodes back. Now they think it's become a god, and they've lost confidence in Gendo. But what's Clownshoes supposed to do about that exactly?

And how is Kaji connected to any of this? I think the idea here is that NERV or SEELE set him up to take the fall for the kidnapping. The fact that he's rescuing Clownshoes seems to suggest that he wasn't the one who kidnapped him, except no, Kaji's been playing one side against the other the whole time. He's totally the kind of character who would kidnap a guy to spite NERV and then free him to spite SEELE. I'm not saying that's how it went down, but this episode doesn't really make it clear to me that he didn't abduct Clownshoes.

Somebody eventually catches up to Kaji near one of those slow-moving ventilation fans, like the one that stymied Goku in Dragon Ball GT. Yes, I'm still mad about that, by the way. He asks some unseen character what took so long, and then there's a gunshot sound and I guess that means he's dead. Well, good. Kaji sucked and I hated him. Rest in piss, you smug womanizing prick.

By now, Misato's been released, and she's pretty sure that means Kaji has already been killed, but then she gets a voicemail from him, and he says his goodbyes. Also he asks her to tend his watermelon garden for him. Man, fuck your watermelons, Kaji. Nobody's got time for that shit.

Misao breaks down and sobs over the dinner table, while Shinji hears her from the bedroom and covers his head with a pillow to drown out the crying. He doesn't know what to say to comfort her, but he does understand what she's going through.

All right, I think that does it for 2015, so let's look at the flashback stuff.

In 1999, Professor Clownshoes is tasked with mentoring a promising young student named Yui Ikari. She looks... familiar. Oh dammit...

Soon after, Clownshoes made the acquaintance of Gendo....... Rokubungi. He and Yui eventually start dating, and the next time Clownshoes meets him is after Second Impact, on a research mission in what's left of Antarctica. There, Gendo informs him that he and Yui have married, and he took her last name.

Eventually, a man named Keel, working for the SEELE organization starts the whole cover story about Second Impact being caused by a meteor strike. Clownshoes knows better, that it was caused by a "Giant Man", Adam, the First Angel. He eventually figures out that Gendo Ikari and SEELE knew Second Impact was going to happen. That's why Gendo left Antarctica right before it happened. He had been working with Misato's dad's research time, and I guess they discovered Adam and Gendo left them to take the fall.

Clownshoes threatened to expose the conspiracy, but Gendo showed him something first: An underground expanse, that "someone else" excavated. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but this is the space where the NERV base is located in 2015. SEELE and the Ikari's established a research facility here, and I guess that's what convinced Clownshoes to go along with their secrets? I don't get it.

One day in 2004, Yui was working on some sort of experiment, and she brought their son Shinji to work so he could see it. Over there on the left is Ritsuko Akagi's mother. We'll get to her in a moment.

Clownshoes didn't approve of Shinji's presence in the lab, but Yui wanted him to see her experiment, to show him how bright the future would be. Those were literally her last words, as she died shortly after saying them.

So this is where that rumor started about Gendo killing his wife. She died in an accident of some sort, but it's hard not to imagine Gendo being at least partially responsible, since he's the driving force behind everything that went on in this place.

But Gendo was cleared of any wrongdoing, and soon after her death he started working on the Human Instrumentality Project.

However, it's still possible that Gendo had something to do with it. Even if he didn't directly sabotage Yui's work, he might have manipulated Dr. Akagi into doing it for him. That's because Akagi had a thing for him, and when Yui died, she admits to herself that she had hoped it would happen. Not long after, she and Gendo make out in the lab...

And Akagi's daughter, Ritsuko sees them going at it. This is like her first day on the job, and she sees the director porking her mom. Wild.

Not long after, Gendo starts bringing some other kid to work, and he explains that he's decided to care for the daughter of some acquaintance, which is totally the sort of thing a genuine hyu-mon person with real organs would say out loud. He introduces her as Rei Ayanami and... oh fuck we're really doing this. Akagi even notices the resemblance right away, so it's not a coincidence.

One night, Akagi sees Rei wandering around by herself, and Rei calls her an old hag. Akagi warns her that she'll get in trouble with Gendo, and she says he's the one who always calls Akagi a useless old hag. Akagi snaps and murders Rei in a fit of rage. Uh... okay?

When Akagi comes to her senses, she apparently throws herself over the safety railing, dying among the three supercomputers she just finished building. Soon after this, Keel reorganizes this thing into the NERV Agency.

And yeah, I think that's everything.

So if Rei isn't some sort of clone of Shinji's dead mother, this show is working very hard to fool me into thinking so. I mean, the resemblence of Rei to Yui aside, we see Li'l Rei get strangled to death in the past. So how is Rei alive in the present? If she's a clone, it stands to reason Gendo has a few spares.

I don't know the why of it. Maybe he just desperately wants his wife back, so he's waiting for one of the clones to grow up so they can get married. Or he thinks he can resurrect Yui but he needs a Rei to serve as a vessel for her disembodied consciousness. Maybe Yui's mind is trapped inside Eva Unit 00 the way Shinji was stuck in Unit 01 recently. Or maybe Gendo just wanted a loyal follower, and he only used Yui's genes because he had a sample handy.

For my part, the Yui-Rei connection is the only part of this that actually matters to me in this episode. Kaji's death is irrelevant. I'm glad he's dead. All the stuff with Ritsuko and her mom was dumb. Like, aside from killing Rei and then herself, all Dr. Akagi did was talk about the supercomputers she named after the Three Wise Men, and how she modeled them after three aspects of her personality. It's just a callback to Episode 12, with nothing else added.

And the whole story seemed to be centered around Clownshoes, except he never actually said or did anything to justify all this attention. I don't know why he threw in with Gendo in the 2000s, or why he's in such a high position in NERV today, or what SEELE expects him to do, or what he's actually going to do instead. Kaji freed him like it was some bold play to tip the balance of this story, but I can't see how. Well, there's still five episodes to go, so maybe they're building up to that.

Oh, right, one other complaint: I was really hoping to find out about the Second Angel. Remember? Adam's the First Angel, the one who exploded and caused Second Impact. The first time we see an Angel in this show, it's called the Third Angel. So what happened to the Second Angel, who would have appeared somewhere in between? I just assumed a flashback episode would have touched on that. Oh well.

[some-pers0n]

Burned Strings

Fandom: WoF

Characters: Peril, Scarlet, Clay

CW: Character "death", gore, violence, disassociation, anxiety

Summary: After Peril stands up for Kestrel, she's forced to fight an opponent of Scarlet's choosing. For the first time in ages, she is scared to kill a dragon.

Word Count: 1.8k

A/N: Cracking out my good ol' "Peril is the one to disfigure Scarlet because I like THAT better than Glory doing it" AU. Here ya go. More or less just a rewrite of the Peril VS Clay scene in TDP, but from Peril's POV (plus Scarlet murder).

To Peril, fighting was a performance more than anything. The lead role in a play, her opponents being the side characters. The audience would look in horror and amazement, cheering and clapping once the show was over. Above, the director on high: Queen Scarlet. She was the one behind it all, dictating her actions. Though, very rarely did Peril get stage fright. Today? Well, today was different. 

It had been a while since she felt this way about going to fight someone. Usually, it was a pretty cut-and-dry. Go into the arena, chase down her opponent if they didn't already accept their fate, press her talons against their neck and watch the life drain from their eyes. Rinse and repeat over and over again. Maybe she would get some scratches or even the occasional cut from their talons, but she was invincible. Undefeatable.

It wasn't like she particularly cared about her victims either. Why would she? To her, they're yet another dragon to kill. Another life to take. She had done this so many times that their faces all blended together. Why would she remember somebody whose only meaning in her life was to die? Yet another tally mark on the kill count.

Not like they thought of her as any better either. To them, she was a monster. She always was. Some freakish puppet of Scarlet that's only kept around to be her killing machine. Everyone hates her. Why should she care about dragons who have nothing else to offer but hatred? Besides, if murdering is the only thing she was good at, why not follow through?

That's what she tried to convince herself at least. This time was different. She knew it. This wouldn't be a simple one-and-done battle like every other one. This fight was the result of her standing up for once. For rebelling against Scarlet. For wanting to save someone.

Yesterday, a prisoner was brought in for a trial. On the surface, it was yet another snooze-fest. Classic case of treason. Given an order, disobeyed, fled the kingdom for years, then was captured and brought back. However, it wasn't that simple. Osprey spoke up, revealing the true story. She was a loyal soldier to Scarlet, but when she had dragonets, her queen ordered her to kill one of them. These weren't any normal dragonets though. One, pale and dusty and without any fire. The other, a burning inferno that could melt through anything.

This prisoner, Kestrel, was her mother. She wasn't abandoned and left to die in the wilderness. She was loved. Scarlet lied to her.

She couldn't stand idly by. She enacted the Champion's Shield, an act where the current champion could fight to save a prisoner by winning a battle. Only once could she use this, and she chose her mother. But, it couldn't be that easy. As per the act, the queen would personally pick the opponent.

Peril had an idea as to who that dragon would be. The thought alone scared her. Fear: what an odd emotion to feel. She was hesitant. Afraid. She knew what would wait beyond the gate and in the arena. Yet, the battlefield beckoned to her. Crying her name. Cheering for death and blood.

She had to. She must. It was to save her mother, but at what cost?

The sound of chains rattling and metal scraping snapped her out of thought. The gate before her opened up, raising into the ceiling. The sun seeped into the tunnel, calling her forward. As she did, she heard the familiar sound of Vermilion.

"But, that's not all! Not only will this sorry sob of a prophecy dragon have to fight, but he will go up against the one, the only- come on everyone, you all know who it is! Give it up for our glorious Queen Scarlet's champion, Peril!"

An explosion of noise. Roaring and unorganized chanting, all happy and overjoyed. Rather than giving her the extra boost of motivation and courage, it made her feel smaller. Weaker. She flexed her claws anxiously before continuing on. The blood-stained sand sizzled and burned beneath her talons. 

The day was bright and the light temporarily blinded her. Once things cleared up, she noticed how full the stands were. Rows upon rows of dragons, yelling and hollering her name. All of her senses were overwhelmed. She could barely think, much less process her own surroundings.

That was until she looked up and saw who her opponent was. Across the arena, a MudWing. A fearful and terrified expression was painted upon his face. She recognized that face. She knew that look. The world grew a bit more clear but infinitely more daunting and cold.

That dragon was Clay.

"No..." she whispered.

"Yes, yes, there she is!" Queen Scarlet announced. Peril flinched, looking up to see her standing on the platform. "A fireproof dragon of prophecy versus the invincible flaming champion. A battle of the century!" 

Vermillion flapped his wings overhead. "You heard it here, folks! Now, let's get ready to fight! Claws up, fire ready, FIGHT!"

An animalistic urge took over Peril. A compulsion to instantly throw herself at Clay. To press her scales on him, tear out his throat, kill. She had to kill. That was the only thing she's ever meant to do. Everything around her didn't make sense. She couldn't comprehend her real mother being alive. She couldn't understand Scarlet lying to her. 

She only knew how to hurt. How to maim. How to kill.

Yet, she froze. She couldn't move. Paralyzed. She didn't want to do this. She didn't want to choose between her mother and Clay. She loved them both. Both of them...cared about her. They loved her. They did. They must. It's Kestrel's duty to and there's no other reason for Clay to say such nice and sweet things.

Surely enough, the noise died down as the crowd realized that nothing was happening. Eternity seemed to pass before Scarlet screeched once more. "Well? Get on with it! You heard him! FIGHT!" She crashed her talons against the platform.

Instantly that flicked a switch in Peril. She shook her head, digging her claws into the sand. With a sudden burst of speed, she charged Clay. Smoke poured from her nostrils as she lunged at him.

Then, the unthinkable: he leapt at her. He tackled her, pinning her to the ground. His claws burned, yet he didn't scream or show any signs of being in pain. The crowd gasped in delight.

"I'm sorry!" he said, "I hope I didn't hurt you..." 

Panic seized her by the throat. She couldn't move. Her immediate reaction was to flail around wildly. She opened her wings and wormed her way out of his grasp. She got up with a start, backing away.

"Wh- why aren't you doing anything?!" she yelled. "You're supposed to fight!"

"I don't want to fight you though!"

She opened her mouth to speak but swallowed her words. She tried once again to charge at him, only to get sand flung in her eyes. He threw it in her face. She stumbled back, scratching and hissing to try and get it out.

She screamed in anguish. "Augh! You can't just-" She sharply inhaled. "I don't want to fight you either! Is that what you want to hear? Is that what YOU want to hear?!" She turned towards Scarlet.

The queen shrugged half-heartedly. "It makes for good drama, doesn't it?"

Peril faced Clay once more, lowering her head. "I'm...sorry, okay? I didn't want to drag you into this. I should've just stayed quiet. But, no, no, no! Can't be that simple! I mean, it's me, Peril! Always has to say do and say something that makes things worse than if she just kept her bloody trap shut and tried to not kill everything she saw."

"You weren't trying to do anything though-"

"Doesn't stop the fact that I'm supposed to kill you now, does it?" she snapped back. She let out a weak chuckle. "I had a plan, you know. After I saved Kestrel, I would free you in the middle of the night. Then you'd think I'm some selfless and heroic dragon. You'd like me. You'd like me better than anybody else."

"Peril," Clay sighed. "I don't...I don't want to be saved if it means that the rest of my friends stay trapped here. I want them all to be free. I don't want to be the only one. That's what's important to me."

Friends... Peril thought. Her snout curled into a snarl. "I'm your friend! What have they done for you while you were here? Nothing! I'm your friend!"

"I- you are my friend, but I can't leave them all behind."

She grabbed a chunk of sand and tossed it at him. "It's not fair!" she yelled. "Why can't I be your only friend? Why do you care about them?!" 

"...I don't think that's how it works," he said, "they're my family. I love them."

"Why would you care about your family when you have me?" Peril was out of breath. A flurry of emotions swirled inside of her. Her heart was practically beating out of her chest. The countless eyes all staring at her were overwhelming. She was tiny. Helpless. Caught in a storm of fire and smoke, created all from her own mistakes.

Until a beacon of light distracted her. A voice. A shrill, snarled voice that screamed at her. "What are you waiting for?" it yelled. "Kill him! Kill the prophecy dragon!"

She knew that voice better than any other. Every moment of her existence, she was there. Taunting her. She forced her into this. She was the reason for her being a monster. Far too long was she in power. She's nothing. Peril is the one with power. She could wipe her out in an instant.

Everything would be better if Queen Scarlet was dead.

A surge of primal rage flowed through Peril. In one impulsive act, she opened her wings and raised herself into the air. She stared eye-to-eye with Scarlet. The look of confusion and bewilderment was enough to justify what she was going to do.

It was like being in a haze. Detaching from the world and letting her animalistic instincts take over. She didn't want to stop it. Her surroundings grew distant and foggy. The sounds meshed and melted together into one harmonious and droning hum. Long had it been since she'd felt this way. This disconnect from reality.

But, it was only when the dragon in front of her stopped resisting and flailing that was she pulled from it. Like a snap, all of her senses returned. Sharpened. 

Below her was Queen Scarlet. Her talons were pressed against the left side of her face. The scales bubbled and boiled, melting like wax and staining her claws. Countless deep claw marks and scratches were marked into her neck, the blood spilling from it hissing and steaming. Her face was twisted into a frozen scream of fear and agony. 

She did it. She was gone.

Yet, she felt hollow. Emptier than ever before. She was supposed to feel some sort of relief. Perhaps guilt or horror at her own actions. But, nothing. She merely stared at Scarlet.

The director was dead, but what now? A performer is nothing without them. 

[ystrike1]

I'm a Villainess. Can I Die? - By Hi My Dear (8/10)

Sniff. Sniff. Could it be? A reincarnation webtoon with some original ideas? Wow. It is still cheesy like every other Villainess reincarnation story, but it's got punch. Zazz. A yandere. Some psychological torture. A conflicted, redeemed yandere with a character arc? Yup. It's good.

Serena White is gorgeous, rich and her noble bloodline is ancient. Her parents love her. Her elder brother, the heir, adores her and doesn't want to compete with her. She could have chosen to live a charmed life, but the first version of Serena had a terrible inferiority complex. She hated her brother, and his loyal servants, because they were all special. She wasn't. She studied for years but she could never catch up to him. Every other member of her family is brilliant in some way. She is useless. A stain on the family name, but they love her anyway. Her mind starts to snap. She lashes out at her family. She cruelly chases her brothers loving fiance away just to hurt him, and that's the last straw. Her family finally gives up on her after she attacks a defenseless woman that only wanted to be her sister in law.

Serena dies alone, in a cell.

She begs for someone to come to her.

Anyone, but no one does.

It's too late.

Then she wakes up, before that terrible day when she broke her brother's perfect engagement. She wakes up before his beloved fiance leaves him because of her tyranny. She isn't Serena though. A nameless, suicidal woman from Korea has taken her body. That woman had a truly tragic past. Her family hated her, and they used her.

She was adopted. Then, her adopted mother gave birth to a sick and weak biological child. Her parents made the young child play with her termilly ill sister every day. She had to play the games her sister wanted to play. She had to buy the cake her sister wanted to eat. Her pitiful sister controlled every aspect of her life. When she tried to pursue hobbies and sports her parents abused her. They threatened to kick her out. They told her she existed for her sister. She was a toy that they only kept so her sister would have somebody to play with. So, she spends her entire childhood in a hospital room reading stories to her sister. One of those books was a fantasy novel with a stereotypical Villainess. When the suicidal woman wakes up the loving White family makes her uncomfortable. She doesn't understand why Serena hated her life, but she does pity the original Serena. She does still want to kill herself, but she watched Serena die in a vision. Serena's only wish in the end was to have someone by her side when she died. So, the nameless women decides to make some friends and repair her reputation before she jumps off a cliff.

She quickly realizes that she doesn't have to fix everything. Serena's family will cry for her. They don't see her as a responsibility or a tool. They do care, so the nameless woman walks up to the top of a bell tower, and she tries to jump. Her father's personal knight, Lucas, catches her. He becomes interested in her because she seems different. Then we find out the truth. Everyone hates Serena except her family. Including him. Lucas thinks Serena is stupid and unworthy. He wishes that the family would just expel her already, because she's dead weight.

That's why Serena really went insane. She tried to work hard to be a respectable noble like her parents, but everyone looked down on her. She wasn't smart or talented enough to succeed. When she said she wanted to be the heir instead of her brother everybody just rolled their eyes. Including her loving family. She was spoiled, but she didn't get any emotional support. Her dream was to be capable, not loved.

She was an ambitious woman who got spat on as soon as her family was out of earshot.

Serena wasn't a nice person, but her circumstances were very sad.

Everyone begins to dote on the new Serena even more, including Lucus. No one in this is a moron. They all know she tried to commit suicide. Lucas tells them because keeping it a secret would be idiotic. She'll try again if she's left unsupervised. Duke White tells Lucas to watch over his precious daughter, and he does. The new Serena isn't arrogant. She's quiet and reserved and she can see right through him. Lucas is loyal to the Duke, but he is not a kind man. He despises useless people, and he looks down on people who are not noble.

In the original novel he married Aaron White's fiancé after Serena chased her away. She cannot understand why anyone would choose Lucas over her brother. He clearly married that woman because she was a princess with a much higher status than him. In the novel his love for the princess was sincere, but it was also tied to his selfish desire for prestige. His interest in Serena is a bad sign. He will never love her, but he would be happy to marry "the mature and kind eldest daughter of the White Family".

One of the most important characters in this story is Serena's personal servant. His name is Eiden. Eiden is pretty scary. His entire life revolves around Serena, and his relationship with her was very toxic. He doesn't have a family, so he had to rely on her. He was happy to be her personal servant. He was willing to put up with her harsh treatment. But then her brother Aaron kept defeating her effortlessly, and she became more and more insane. She eventually started hitting him and ruining her room and making messes that took days to clean. He endured it all until the original Serena made him bleed. She threw a jewelry box at him and cut his head open. Then, he realized she was just like the thugs that beat him when he was homeless. His sudden burst of hatred for her awakens his magic. He's a very powerful magician.

So why is he still here? He's not a main character. He's a servant that belongs to a very weak noble. He could easily fly out the window, flip her off, and go to another country. He doesn't fly to the Magic Tower to learn about his powers because...well...she is his life. She took him in when he was a penniless homeless boy. Serena chose him because she wanted a handsome servant, but that decision saved his life. He was barely alive when she picked him up. He loves her, but she hurts him. She yells at him. She says terrible things about her wonderful family and her brothers generous fiance. She complains about her perfect life day and night while she whips him.

After she makes him bleed he wants to kill her, but he doesn't. Eiden is willing to wait, and wait, and wait until the last spark of kindness in Serena is gone. The White family and the other servants are always kind to him, but not Serena. He works hard. He waits for her to notice how hard he works. The old Serena almost apologizes to him after the bloody accident, but she doesn't, so in that life she dies alone. Eiden was more fanatically loyal to her than anyone else. His complex feelings for her made his magic dark and evil, forever.

That changes.

The new Serena tries to die again. She blesses her brothers engagement. She supports her family for the first time, and she welcomes his royal fiance. Aaron's fiance eagerly returns to him, and then Serena thinks her role is over. She has patched up all of the relationships the original Serena tore apart. Her parents will be happy without her. She doesn't want to ever tell the White family their daughter is gone. She doesn't ever want them to know that she's a fake with a different soul. So, after the fabulous engagement party she throws herself down a tall staircase.

Eiden uses his magic to catch her, and it turns gold. It's not dark and volatile anymore. It looks like holy light. All Eiden needed was one single moment of kindness from Serena. When the new version of her treats him with respect he slowly lets his resentment go. He no longer wants to kill her. He would never let her kill herself.

I think the new Serena will be able to empathize with him. The nameless woman had to serve her sick, spoiled sister. Eiden had to serve the spoiled and violent Serena.

They're similar and quite compatible.

Lucas wants her, but Eiden definitely isn't going to let him have her.

Eiden seems sane and stable now, but he wasn't for at least a decade.

I'm sure his conflict with Lucas will be dramatic.

[waywardmongergoopzine]

OK so idk if somebody feels the same but here we go. Something about ep 6 that caught me off guard

(KEEP IN MIND THAT I HAVE STARTED THIS SERIES THINKING THAT NUZI IS CANON BUT THEN AS THE SERIES PROGRESSED AND SAW HOW CLOSE N AND V ARE AND THE MOMENTS BETWEEN THEM AND HOW UZI HAS A LACK OF FRIENDS/SUPPORT I STARTED TO THINK THAT MAYBE V IS N'S LOVER AND THAT I SHOULD TAKE THIS INTO CONSIDERATION BEFORE SHIPPING THEM SO I ENDED UP NEUTRAL ON THE TOPIC SINCE EP 5) (ALSO I LOVED THE NEW EPISODE BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING THAT I DIDN'T PERSONALY LIKE)

So we all saw how NUzi is now canon right?

Well upon thinking about/rewatching the episode I concluded that the ship moments are kinda out of place (NOT THAT I HATE THEM)

While NUzi moments can be found in the previous episodes, I think they were idk a little short? vague? (Except in ep 5 and perhaps 3) and now in this episode they were MORE prominent (Basically I think that It was like really abrupt)

I think that Liam could've just left the episode without any ship moments and It would've been better.

I WAS SURPRISED WHEN UZI STARTED HOLDING HANDS WITH N BECAUSE IT JUST FELT SO WEIRD??

I feel like they have just like bombed us with that

You know?

Like there wasn't really enough build up for the reveal. (Ofc you can say that this is wrong and Its ok)

I feel like even though I knew about this possibility and It sounds good, it still caught me off guard and feels out of place.

I watched the previous episodes and thought more about Uzi's character and her behaviour and her relationships and like someone else on here said, I think that Uzi is like Cyn for N, a little sister. I THINK THAT UZI IS A PARALLEL TO CYN.

N, like with Cyn, seems to be the only one that understands her and wants to help her. THIS IS WHY I STARTED TO THINK THAT MAYBE IN THE FUTURE ENVY GETS CONFIRMED and this thing becames more evident.

OF COURCE THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY THAT THIS NOTION APPLIES ANYWAYS TO THE STORY BECAUSE N LOVES BOTH (AS A LOVER AND AS A BROTHER)

LET ME BE CLEAR I DON'T THINK THAT LIAM 'KILLING' V OFF WAS TO MAKE THE SHIP CANON

Also I do realise that V did drive N away because of trauma and that N has been (In my opinion) really hard to understand (like what he is thinking) in ship moments.

NUzi is cute and I love them and their dynamic very much BUT what about the PLOT?? WHAT ABOUT THE STORY?????! I'M AFRAID THAT THE STORY WAS TEMPERED IS SOME WAY

IS THIS LIAM'S DECISION FROM THE START? WAS HE ALWAYS PLAYING WITH THE SHIPERS AND LIKE ALWAYS INCLUDED 2 SHIPS IN AN EPISODE TO MESS WITH US?

DID NUZI GET CANONISED BECAUSE OF THE TOXICITY?

DID WE FORCE LIAM TO CHANGE HIS MIND?

IF THIS IS THE CASE THEN DID WE MESS UP AN IMPORTANT PART STORY COMPLETLY??

I ALSO REALISE THAT LIAM COULD'VE WANTED TO MAKE NUZI CANNON FROM THE START OR MAYBE HE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND LEFT A LOVE TRIANGLE AND WAITED TO SEE WHICH ONE IS MORE POPULAR AND THEN MAKE IT CANON!!!

(Though I doubt it since he knew the plot from the start)

Ofc maybe Liam will resolve this problem or maybe he already has everything under control. But who knows we'll just have to wait for the next episode!

It personally feels like a lot of things have happened in one episode and my mind is still blown away. So many answers. So many questions.

Maybe this post isn't the best in terms of explaining how I feel/think or you don't agree with what I just said but I want to know if you have something say

[mooifyourecows]

I love the humor of your fics! I've genuinely never read a story that does it's humor so well and even after multiple rereads I find myself laughing out loud reading Open Tab for example. What tips would you give for writers who are trying to incorporate humor into the story without it being corny?

Hey, sorry for the late reply, i've been really busy lately with the holidays, womp womp 🥲

My advice is: embrace the corny. Every joke I've made will someday (if not already) be corny to somebody. Some of them have become corny even to me. But that's okay. Corny is good. Corny is funny too. Life is too short to be embarrassed about your writing. Embrace corny.

And what makes you laugh the first time might not make you laugh the fifth time. That doesn't mean it wasn't funny the first four times, right? There are tons of jokes I read back on now and I'm like "oh GOD that's lame" but when i wrote it, and when people first read it, it was HILARIOUS. Humor just wears off a little the more you expect and remember it. I mean sure, there are always going to be those jokes that you think are ALWAYS funny, but they're probably not always funny to other people. They might not have been funny ever at all for some people.

All that matters is if YOU think it's funny. Make YOURSELF laugh and giggle and snort over your stupid, corny jokes. That's what I do. I write something, and if it makes me laugh, I know it'll make someone else laugh. Maybe only one other person, but hey, me and that person are the only people in the world with taste anyway so, bombs away. Don't play to an audience unless you're trying to sell something. Play to yourself and you'll attract like minded people and those are the BEST people to have as your readers. They'll love and support you more than your own dang mom.

And then of course the usual advice i give to people about writing comedy is to consume comedy. Watch some shows/movies or read some books/comics that you personally find hilarious. Really pay attention to why they're funny. If you have to, pause and really break a joke down. Even take notes if that's helpful. Basically treat it like you're about to write a deep dive essay on why you laughed. I know it might seem unfun, explaining the joke, but if you understand comedy, you'll have an easier time writing it. Pay attention to word usage, timing, physical gags, silence, etc. It's all important. But don't be afraid to play around! Comedy is like any art and is meant to be creative and unique to every individual. There are some things out there that people find funny that I can't even pretend to laugh at. And that's okay! It's about taste. Find what you like and try it on.

Personally, I like witty banter. I like humor that is a little surprising and over the top. I like when something is so dumb that you can't help but laugh about it. I like funny characters AND funny situations, but especially funny characters in funny situations. So these are the things I try to include in my writing.

But I also really enjoy contrast, so I like to pair humor with other stuff. Sweet romance, deep emotions, sad drama, etc. If you try to be funny and only funny all the time, you're gonna come off a little desperate and the jokes will fall flat. Ever watch a long running show and have to suffer watching it slowly get less and less funny as the seasons go by because all the nuance is gradually replaced with signature character traits recycled again and again and again until every character is a husk of their former selves? That's what it feels like when you focus too hard on making everything funny. You lose the soul of the writing.

Really pay attention to the things you find funny and try and emulate that same energy. Don't use the same jokes, of course, but try and capture the general vibe of the humor in a way that suits your story/writing style. A lot of the stuff I like to consume is witty banter/outlandish situations/crass euphemisms/puns so those are the things i like to put into my own stories. And hey, sometimes it doesn't work. I've written jokes that make me laugh until I cry but nobody seems to feel the same way and HEY, that's alright. I like it. And liking the stuff you're doing is the most important thing in the end.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful in some way. If you ever want any more advice, feel free to shoot me another ask! I'll try my best 👍

Good luck! Sending you good funny vibes for your adventures into comedic writing 🌈

[vannahmontannah]

REST OF STORY ON WATTPAD : vannahmontannah

"I'm hungry as hell," Ronnie said.

"I am too," Patricia said.

"Ya, we just ate," Dia said.

"Ya can go, ya know that right?" Duke said, rolling his eyes.

"We're here for you!" Ronnie said. "Where's Kai and Jawan at? They were only here for an hour compared to us!"

"I mean they niggas...what ya expect?"

"I'm gonna go across the street to get my food. When I come back, we're fighting. Real talk," Ronnie said, getting up from her seat.

"Oh, I'm not really hungry for real,"

"That's because you ate a big ass pizza earlier," Dia said.

"Do you have a problem with me or something?" Charity asked.

"I do, but I'm gonna keep quiet," Dia rolled her eyes and exited the room.

"What's her issue?" Patricia asked.

Everyone left the room leaving Charity and Duke alone. Charity shook her head and just scrolled on her phone.

"Why you let her punk you like that?" Duke asked.

Charity suddenly became disabled and couldn't speak. She shrugged her shoulders and looked back at her phone. She was so nervous, her fingers were shaking. Duke chuckled and sat up on the bed.

"You good?"

"I'm fine," she said softly.

"I can't hear you, mamas,"

Charity heart damn near busted inside her lungs. "Did he just call me mamas?" She thought.

"I said I'm fine,"

"If I were you, she wouldn't have gotten a mouthful,"

"I was with her all day and she chose now to say something. Real lame of her,"

"It is, no cap. But...I be seeing you in class...all alone and quiet,"

"Just a shy person unless I know someone,"

"I'm sorry to make you my slave, but may you please hand me my bag?"

"Yeah,"

Charity, got up and did as he asked. She got his bag and placed it on the bed.

"This is nice!"

"I appreciate it. Need to make sure Kai and 'em ain't trynna cheat on shit,"

"On the game?"

"Yup! That's why I wanted everybody gone so I can play in peace!"

"I would go, but Patricia is my ride,"

"Damn. It's all good though,"

Charity walked back to her seat and sat down and got back on her phone. Duke took a nice look at her body as she walked away analyzing her every move.

"You didn't have to move," he chuckled.

"I'm just giving you some privacy,"

"They already out the hospital. Women be walking fast as hell," he said, checking his phone. "So, what you like to do?"

"I like to draw a lot,"

"What you be drawing?"

"A lot of shit. I draw people, characters, object...just anything I find interesting at that moment,"

"Imma call you Picasso. That's my nickname for you,"

"I like that,"

~~~~~

"What's your deal with Charity?" Patricia asked.

"She's just weird. Something is off about her and I know it,"

"How?" Eisley asked.

"I just heard some things..."

"Like what?"

"I don't know if I should say,"

"You bought it up now so...might as well,"

"...we gotta sit down,"

All the girls got their food and sat in the back of the restaurant.

"Yesterday, I ran into Jacob on my way to see Kai..."

~~~~~~

I was texting Kai on my phone letting him know I was on my way. I wasn't looking where I was going and I bumped into him.

"I'm so sorry..."

"You good,"

"Jacob? What are you doing here?"

"I was seeing somebody,"

"Who you here to see? I don't see Kassy no where!"

"You talking too loud. Lower your damn voice,"

"So you weren't here to see Kassy?"

"Why do you care?"

"I was just asking,"

"And you're nosey as fuck! Damn..."

"You're trespassing and I can literally report you right now,"

"You don't have the power—"

"I know the night officers. Now why am I here? Because I got pass and I see you don't have one,"

"It could be in my pocket,"

"Spill or I'm snitching,"

"You won't—"

I pulled up my contacts and clicked on the night officers name. I evil smiled in his face while waiting for an answer.

"And if you don't answer, I'll just text Kassy myself and she won't like that,"

"Fuck...okay. I was just with my homegirl. We were talking some things out. That's all,"

"I don't believe that. You smell funny,"

"Why you doing allat? That's weird as fuck!"

"Who pussy was you fucking? You got five seconds,"

"What?"

"Five,"

"DiaMonté,"

"Four,"

"Bro, stop!"

"Three,"

"I already told you—"

"Two,"

"Bro—"

"One,"

I went to Kassy's profile, but Jacob snatched my phone and ran off.

"Give me my shit back!" I yelled.

"Jacob, you forgot your beanie—"

~~~~~~

I locked eyes with the girl he had just finished seeing. It was Charity. My eyes widened as she grew scared. She rushed back in her room and slammed the door. I ran after Jacob to retrieve my phone. I told him I know who it is...but he threatened to hurt me if I said anything.

"She's fucking Jacob?" Ronnie asked.

"I think so. He said he would hurt me if I said anything and he didn't sound like he was playing,"

"Hurt you how?"

"He just pushed me into the outside wall of the building, got in my face, and said if I say anything, he was gonna hurt me. I don't know what they were talking about or what they did in that room, but I'm assuming they were most definitely having sex the way he acted,"

"If she can fuck Kassy's man, then she can fuck mine! I'm going back to the room! Fuck that!" Eisley got up, grabbed her food, and rushed back to the room.

~~~~~~

Charity and Duke were laughing up a storm while Duke was playing on his laptop with Kai, Jawan and a few others.

"Bro, you ass!" Kai yelled.

"You just suck! You ain't bout shit!" Duke said.

"Gotta get to skills up," Jawan said.

"Jawan, fuck you man!" Kai yelled.

"Whatever, you just soft as fuck!" Jawan said.

"Aye, Kai it's just a game," Duke laughed.

"Man—whatever, imma see ya niggas later. This just pissed me off," he said, exiting the game.

Duke, turned his laptop off and put it back in his bag.

"Are ya always like this?"

"Yup! Always. Them my niggas though,"

"Okay..."

"You got a boyfriend or something? I don't ever see you with nobody. I mean, I seen you with Jawan, but..."

"I'm single. Me and Jawan are just friends,"

"I think Jawan likes you,"

"I know he does. I just don't like him back,"

"Why?"

"I just don't see him that way. He asked me to the dance and I said yes, but we're going as friends,"

"I think you should give him a try,"

"I really don't for real. I don't know...I just have different interests,"

"Like what?"

"For you to be in a relationship, you're sure is asking me the wrong questions," she giggled.

"Just trynna get to know you. I know all the other friends, but you,"

"I'm only Patricia's friend. I'm also friends with a girl named Miami. The others, I'm just around them because of Patricia. That's it,"

"Okay,"

Duke got up from the bed and stood up. He winced, but he managed to walk over to the couch. He stood in front of Charity and pulled her up on her feet. She was bursting with butterflies and her adrenaline was high.

"You wanna tell me what you like now?"

"What you wanna know?"

"What interest you, what you notice about a guy, what you look for..."

"Well...I like guys that are intelligent,"

"Okay,"

"Motivated,"

"Mhm,"

"Charming,"

"Like me," he smiled.

"Okay, Duke. What are you doing?"

Duke took one look at the door, wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her chin with his finger and proceeded to kiss Charity.

"Is this a dream? Am I dreaming? This cannot be real? I am missing the most popular student in the city right now? I see why Eisley is so in love!"

Duke pulled away, smiled and laughed. Charity nervously laughed and sat back on the couch in awe.

"I know you like me. I be seeing the way you look at me. I see the way you watch me. I be seeing it. I see your nervousness all over your face when you come around me or when I come around you. I see it. It's cute," he said, getting back in bed. "I should be leaving soon anyway, so I can go back to the dorm,"

"Did you have to kiss me?"

"No, but I wanted too. I'll see you in class tomorrow right?"

"Yeah..."

"Stay after,"

The door swung open and Eisley examined the room. Everything was normal. Charity was on her phone and Duke was on his phone laughing.

"I think it's time we all go," Eisley said.

"Am I getting discharged yet?" Duke asked.

"Let me go and check," she said as she backed out of the room while still watching them.

It's a good thing she wasn't in the room a couple minutes ago.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

2023 Movie Journey #17: Elemental

elemental. i watched this one earlier this week with my family...and i'm finally caught up on movie reviews! which means i can now post new ones right after i see the movies. yay.

this movie's cast has some actors who i know, probably most notably a guy i enjoyed in jurassic world dominion. but much, much more importantly, the star of this movie is leah lewis, so even if i hadn't liked the movie overall i still would have had a great time watching it.

i fell immediately in love with leah lewis's portrayal of george when i started watching nancy drew this year. and i mean immediately--i was watching with somebody who loved bess the most, and i had seen so much ace on my tumblr dash that i knew i'd like him too, but george was still my favorite character by the time i finished the pilot. without even knowing how great and rewarding her season 1 arc would be, or how much depth she would eventually have beyond her introduction as 'grudge-holding black sheep nancy's boss,' i could just tell she was my type of fave.

and even after watching the whole first season of nancy drew, it wasn't until i was rewatching it to show it to @actuallylukedanes that i accidentally learned george was played by leah lewis...and that i already knew her! she was in the half of it! which i watched and reviewed in 2020, and loved so much that i've wanted to get other people to watch it ever since. i didn't connect her performances at all, but even my review back then raved about how she was what made the movie good.

so when i realized she was starring in this, i was thrilled. and what i love about her is that she's consistently the kind of actor who has a real presence: she makes her characters engaging and stands out in a big way for somebody still young (though she started acting as a kid, so i know she's not new just cuz she's newish to me). she's signed on to the matlock reboot with kathy bates and i don't expect to love that cbs show, but i am very excited to try it anyway.

as for the movie though: i couldn't help but spend the first half just hearing george, in all her lines. not in a distracting or bad way, but a nice familiar feeling. i suspect the goal with animated disney heroines is to not make them too distinctive, because there's kind of a 'friendly normal' sound to the modern ones regardless of the actress that means even when i can recognize who's speaking, they all sound a little more similar than i would ever say they do in live action work. (either that or it's just me not being able to differentiate as well in animation, which is certainly possible.)

anyway, i loved everything about her work in this; she was the reason i cried a few times. in my opinion that's always a mark of good work, making an impressive amount of connection with viewers using just your voice.

i also really liked her parents and wade, despite the movie's core conflict revolving around all of them--this movie did a good job of explaining who everybody was as things went along, in a more than superficial way, so that it was much easier to still like people when the Bad Times came because they made more sense and were more sympathetic. as family conflicts go, compared to encanto and turning red, this one was my favorite because of that. no matter how angry or disappointed her father got, or how much that affected ember, i could still sympathize with him too and believe that his love for her was more important than anything else.

now, i know this movie got mixed reviews (or possibly worse? i only saw vague headlines) but i'm not really sure why! the metaphor they used to tell the story about immigration and a diverse society was maybe more blunt than usual, but i don't think that's a bad thing. and while it did center on themes that disney movies cover a lot (family expectations, parental disappointment, feeling like a failure, being an outsider, etc)...there are reasons those themes pop up so much!

especially when pixar movies are trying to appeal to both kids and adult audiences, i think it makes total sense to keep coming back to the 'classics.' again, there were a lot of thematic similarities between encanto and turning red and this movie (despite their differences in the details) and i watched those other two--encanto more than once--but still cried just as easily when ember confessed to her dad that she was a bad daughter, and when they bowed to each other before she left. the wounds between us and our parents never really heal, i think, at least not for everybody. so this movie tugged at me by just representing those feelings well, and making me care about the characters.

and when it comes to caring about the characters, probably my favorite thing about the movie besides the cast was the way the plot genuinely surprised me. i expected a happy ending, because it's a disney movie. but based on the trailer, i didn't know what to expect between ember and wade beyond 'they meet and things happen.' and the movie does such a good job of setting up the world they live in and the rules they live by that i believed them.

so in the beginning, i figured they were going to become unexpected friends, and navigating that alone would be a challenge. in that story, presumably the happy ending would've been something like, she learns that wade is right and she doesn't have to stay with fire people and never interact with the rest of the world, and they get to have further adventures.

but then! it turns out that this movie is going for romance. weirdly, i don't expect that from disney movies--you'd think i would when they're the home of princess culture and everything, but i wasn't a 'princess meets her prince for a happy ending' kid. i grew up with disney classics but didn't imprint on any of them.

instead, i was a don bluth kid! singing music from an american tail is literally one of my earliest memories, and my animated love story growing up was anastasia. if i squint, i can kind of see overlap between that animated romcom and this one, in terms of traumatic family history and a guarded, feisty female lead who gets what she thought she wanted all along just as she's also fallen in love with someone whose difference threatens her new fulfilled goal.

i'm not saying the two movies are very alike, lol...a zombie sorcerer belongs nowhere in elemental, obviously. but they both treat their romances with less sentimental sweetness, more sparkage and sincerity. the flirting in this is cute, and i loved them more the further along we went.

but of course, there's still that pesky plot-established problem that makes them a doomed romance. so once it was clear that their dynamic was about falling in love, not just befriending the 'other'...then i honestly expected a bittersweet ending where friends is all they can be. because this is disney, not pushing daisies, and in a world where nobody seems to have invented the elemental version of saran wrap for characters to safely kiss through, what kind of future could they have?

i did not expect them to give us this story where the characters are all believable in how firmly they believe (or don't, in wade's case) that different elements can't mix, and then for the story to show us those differences being overcome. i mean, that theme isn't exactly a new one, love conquering all, but the differences were so much more concrete here--it was life or death for them! when the parental disapproval alone was almost enough to ruin their chances!

i suppose you could flip my reaction to this movie and look at it the opposite way, and complain that their ability in the end to do what the story all along told us couldn't be done made it a waste of time, like the stakes were fake even if they didn't know that. maybe if you predicted the ending from the beginning, it could have felt that way.

but i didn't have expectations for the ending. so while i was really hoping ember and wade could be together, i was prepared for the alternative, a more modest 'crossing the aisles' journey of discovery for them both that opened her world and future and allowed him into her life from a safe distance going forward. instead, their whole story was wonderful and i love them and i'm so glad that they get to be the odd couple they are in a very divided world.

one last fun (if also slightly vexing) thing about this movie is that while it does end, it leaves a lot open, too. and i wanted to get to see ember start her internship; i wanted to learn about their new life and if it goes well for them once they're out in the broader world. i guess i wasn't ready to say goodbye to them, really, is all.

but that was fun at least on the level of seeing this with my family--it meant that after it ended, we were discussing what a sequel could be about, and that segued into a discussion about whether ember and wade could have kids or if they'd have to adopt--and how cool it would be if them having kids would create new elements or something. i love that idea a lot.

and i enjoyed this movie a lot. it was super pretty, i liked most of the characters, and it was unexpected romcom fun. i'm officially rooting for pixar to make more love stories now.

[james-stark-the-writer]

started playing Persona 5 Royal after finding out i accidentally bought Persona 5 regular (i was already about 4 hours into Persona 5 on merciless and had stopped at the shop where you buy stuff for the first time after the first dungeon when i found this out) instead of Royal and jesus fucking christ, i forgot how slow this game's opening is it's like two hours long before you actually even get into the game, just like an hour of (really well made!) animated scenes and cutscenes with minor (pretty pointless) sections of walking to locations before you even get to the actual school portion, which takes another fucking hour to really get going like, oh my god, this game does not understand what the word pacing means. every scene goes on for like 10 fucking minutes longer than it has to, it's a lot of pointless (attempts at) building intrigue which don't work because you're just being bombarded with them back to back and have no idea what the status quo is for any of it to have really any impact! i know it's like a 100-hour RPG or whatever but good god, just drop me into the school instead with a lore dump and let me PLAY THE FUCKING GAME ALREADY.

like it's truly nonstop, it's just going from establishing one thing after another like oh we're a stylish thief to oh we're fighting monsters to oh we have a friend to oh we were captured by pigs to oh we were betrayed to oh police brutality to oh we have a lawyer(?) to oh we stole someone's heart to oh someone's speaking to us from another realm(?) to oh we're back in time to oh cars keep crashing randomly to oh we were sued by somebody trying to SA someone to oh there's a weird app on my phone that somehow slowed down time to oh we were sent away by the courts and our family to oh we're living above a restaurant to oh we are talking to a guy in a dream who is talking about the world being ruined like it's NON FUCKING STOP. AND THE JOKE IS YOU CAN'T REMOVE ANYTHING WITHOUT A COMPLETE REWRITE OF THE OPENING OR A STRUCTURAL OVERHAUL OR 30 MINUTES OF NONSTOP TUTORIALS OR JUST AN ENDLESSLY LONG PARAGRAPH TYPING ALL THIS LORE OUT INSTEAD OF HAVING CHARACTERS SAY IT. like the casino scene is necessary to introduce you to context sensitive actions and what combat will look like, so you can't start in the interrogation room or start with you getting captured, the interrogation scene room is necessary to establish that it's a flashback and for you to select your name and shit and to establish that you're talking to someone and a lawyer and that you're a famous criminal and to establish that this larger spirit world exists and that your character has amnesia(?), you can't remove the going to the dude's house bc it's necessary to get you acquainted to the map and neighborhood and daily routine, you can't remove the scene with the app bc it becomes a running theme soon, like the opening HAS to be this way bc otherwise you'd overwhelm every player, even ones as diligent as me and as enthusiastic about playing in menus as outside of them, and you have to dole out the story in this way because there's so many concepts they don't expect you to know and that they have to effectively and efficiently introduce to you so that the rest of the game isn't constantly bogged down in pausing every ten seconds (though somehow i get the feeling it still will) to explain shit to you your character should already know like it's maddening bc it HAS to be this way but also it kinda doesn't.

anyway, i did enjoy the new fight in the opening that wasn't there in the original, definitely does a lot for building intrigue and making the identity of the person who apparently turned us in even more suspect since we have more of a connection with one of them because we fight next to her, which makes me think it's almost guaranteed to be that person whenever the reveal happens but anyway. i'm just like really exhausted at how slow this opening is, even though i know why it is this way. and how structurally they are fucking trying their best to be effective and efficient while setting and tone and a mood and an atmosphere instead of just having you read about it in a text box. i kinda can't stand all the vague shit in the dialogue tho, it's too much intrigue building crammed into a very small space and after a point you just start spacing out or ignoring the intrigue bc you know you're not gonna get answers for quite a while.

[grimvestige]

B) What inspired you to create them? (Tiarnan) ; C) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story? (Draper) ; What memory do they revisit the most often? (Wrath!Caedrinn) :3

Triple threat!!! :O

What inspired you to create them? (Tiarnan)

Tiarnan is actually an AU of an NPC I really love RPing from my own D&D setting, The Folly of Helios! (That NPC is just called 'The Owl'!) I ended up playing Tiarnan after talking over a few character ideas with the GM for Hadreon and deciding he would fit the best.

As far as how I changed him for the setting I basically went "What if his wife wasn't dead lol" (and also changed wife to spouse bc we need more big strong nonbinary sword wielders), and from there it was lots of putting puzzle pieces together with things I liked about Hadreon! He's an enchantment wizard because it's a great specialist school mechanically and I wanted to engage with the ethical conundrum of enchantment magic + diplomacy. He ended up a rebel sidhe because I liked Leon a bunch and just wanted my character to be friends with him, and his aspect ended up getting picked based around the choice of specialty magic school & profession!

Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story? (Draper)

A lot actually! I really love Draper now, but I very much was frustrated with her at one point because the party didn't end up relying on her for the two things she was good at: healing & poisoning stuff. Plus, anything else she was okay at, there was already somebody who specialized in it.

BUT by the end of the campaign, she ended up basically brute forcing her way in lmao - she got a level in magus so she could actually hit things herself, not to mention that it was her adoptive family that played key roles in helping the party.

She's the sort of character who's a completely unwilling adventurer but is unfortunately good at it and gets roped into things because of that, which is fun to play!

What memory do they revisit the most often? (Wrath!Caedrinn)

OOOO I GET TO TALK ABOUT MY KNIGHT COMMANDER! It's fun to talk about his internal feelings since there aren't a lot of methods to explore that in-game!

The memory that Caedrinn revisits most is confronting his own reflection in the mirror and the Aeons. He feels really conflicted about having these powers thrust upon him - on one hand, they give him the ability to undo horrific curses and rituals with the snap of his fingers. On the other, they urge him to force people to repent for understandable crimes like stealing supplies because they weren't getting enough.

Being calloused and lawful isn't in his nature, but the path set out before him demands it - both in terms of mythic power and in leading the fifth crusade. After some recent happenings involving companion quests (To not spoil things and to keep it brief, Regill's first quest, and a part of Sosiel's that involves interrogating a Hellknight), he's having a bit of an existential crisis. Is he the carefree drunken wanderer turned hero? Or is he becoming the heartless authority he despises?

(Bonus art of Caedrinn's reflection I wasn't sure I was gonna post but since it's relevant here ya go!)

Thank you for the asks!!! these were very fun to think about!!

If you want to throw more OC asks at me here ya go!

[eanul-rmbl]

I just watched the movie, so it's fresh in my mind, and these biased opinion of mine will be on the assumption that the reader has already seen it.

Some things I didn't like

||The first thing that hit me was that the pacing was really off. The movie felt really fast paced. There wasn't really much of any time to actually "breathe" during the first act of the story (first act being up until Zhen betrays Po). If it's not comedy, then it's action, and if neither, then it's exposition. A good amount of Zhen's backstory was explained through exposition. Though the truth of her backstory (bring the Chameleon's disciple) was explained better than when they explained her growing up an orphan. The Chameleon's backstory is a straight up joke. We get exposition (standard villain nonologue) during her fight with Po that she grew up with less status, wanted to learn kung-fu, but was denied because she was short, which is bull. Mantis, Master Chicken, and Shifu come to mind. Not to mention that Zhen and Po have known each other for only two or three days, which isn't nearly enough time needed to start caring for somebody with Zhen's character. She would have caved so much longer ago, should that have been the case. Tai Lung was actually very cool, here. Not really written well, but I appreciated him as a character. It seemed like he got some sort of spiritual enlightenment, or at least he calmed down, in the Spirit Realm. One other thing about the Sprit Realm is that it's directly related to Oogway, who doesn't appear at all in the movie and it mentioned two or three times, plus one "a wise old turtle (tortoise) told me...". I was actually hoping so much to see more or Tigress and Po's relationship. I thought, maybe some interaction at the start or end of the movie, hopefully both. Imagine my reaction when "The 5 might not be here, but that doesn't they're here as life-sized cardboard cutouts!!". Ahahahaha...... She appears at the very end, in her clothes from the 3rd movie, smiling (me being delusional says that she was happy to be back home w Po (I'm delusional)), but all she does it look cool and teach Zhen for 5ish seconds at the start of credits, as well as the other of the 5 doing so. She says nothing, she has no interaction with Tai Lung, nothinggg...... To add, Tai Lung added nothing to the movie at all. He was mostly there to be hot (understandable, but that can only go so much for an anthropomorphic big cat) for his (dying) fangirls (of which I am not). His entire thing is "comedic bits", "you're not worthy of being the dragon warror, Po", and then "I saw you defeat the Chameleon; you're worthy" and then everyone boys down to Po; Kai and the Peacock were up front and centre next to Tai Lung bowing too, which sort of contradicts their entire character, but maybe they gained some spiritual wisdom in the Spirit Realm like Tai Lung. The line "Violence makes my tummy tingle" makes me want to barf. Po's fathers played did nothing worthwile, but it was nice to see them, better than nothing, I guess. Maybe fujo bait? (I'm kidding). Seeing the trailer, I though Zhen looked like some thing from Animal Jam, but I got to like her throughout the story. Shifu was treated like a complete joke in the movie. One big thing, however, was how Shifu was so insistent in Po getting a successor. It took Oogway hundred of years (maybe close to a thousand, but my memory is spotty) to choose someone (Po) as the dragon warrier, and yet Po, still in his prime tip-top adult shape ready for kung-fu fighting action, needs to choose the next dragon warrior after being so for a few years.

Also, the powerscaling was off the charts. That's how they handled both the villain and Zhen (until the end, where she's given strengths and weaknesses and is learning kung-fu, which I appreciated)

Some things I liked.

Po's characterization, albeit spotty, is something I kind of like here. I sort of comprehended him as "silly, but serious when he needs to be (in a sort of "masking" way, in which he's not a silly or wack as he let's on; Gon from HunterxHunter comes to mind.)" which is honestly not bad. However, it was jarring at first, before I came to that conclusion, since it honestly felt like he was being reduced to how he was in the first movie. I do like the "not as airhead as he let's on" idea, though.

The foreshadowing was neat, too. Zhen's ear tag comes to mind. Throughout the movie we see Zhen with a green geometric (representing Chameleon) tag on her ear. To add, we're leading to think that the Armadillo raised her when we me him(?), but then why would the Armadillo and the rest of the underground group hate Zhen? Because she's with Chameleon. It was good foreshadowing that didn't just explicitly tell me she was working with the Chameleom. Too often I can guess plotlines and plot switches at the very story, but Zhen was a complete surprise, which is great.

The comic art bits were great, too, butoften felt out of place.

Honestly, the part I loved the most was when Tigress and the rest of the 5 appeared, but we all know how that went. it was also nice how Po and Zhen's relationship was portrayed. There's no romantic implication, and she seemed to be a good deal younger than him.

Extra bits

It's hard to judge how long the 4th movie is from the 1st. With Oogway's peach tree being just fine. Po's peach tree was around a meter-ish (maybe less). Zhen's being simply a sprout. Peach trees tend to grow pretty fast (someone's peach tree online grew to 3 meters in 10 years), so that puts it to 2 years of being dragon warrior (definetly not enough), or, if they pruned it in some style similar to bonsai pruning, around 10-20ish.

Overall.

It's definetly not a bad movie. It's definetly not terrible, either. Just severely middling. It's great for kids to watch (maybe not their parents), and it's entertaining, but it lacks depthness to it. Overall, I'd rate it (with my biased opinions) somewhere between 5/10 and 6/10.

[evelhak]

For the character ask game, could you do numbers 1, 10, 12, 16, 18, 20 and 26 for my favorite boy, Hayama? I am curious about every number possible, but most curious about these! 🌟

Sure! I'll just answer the numbers you gave me because I honestly haven't given Hayama a lot of thought and don't think I will be able to do him a lot of justice at the moment.

One reason I enjoyed reading your elaborate headcanons for him so much was basically because I have none. It's hard for me to enjoy reading about characters that I do have elaborate and fixed headcanons for... not because those headcanons are mine necessarily, it's just because my brain wants only one reality. It's the same when I find a canon-continuation fic for a story that is so satisfying I no longer want to read alternatives, in that situation I wouldn't want my own headcanons either, because then that somebody else's fic is canon to me. Sometimes I come up with the thing most satisfying to myself, and sometimes somebody else does, but in both cases my brain no longer accepts anything else. Haha... (It's not completely black and white, there are exceptions and loopholes, but I do lean this way.)

Hayama is still rather free for interpretation in my head though, and I do have plans for an Akashi-centric fic, so I am going to have to think about Hayama too, and this is certainly a good ask for that, so I will think about him now.

1. My first impression of them

Probably something like "Well, I guess we didn't have the acrobat yet."

10. Describe the character in one sentence

A surprising symbiosis of lightness and intensity.

12. Sexuality hc!

I have none, really. I would be inclined to assume he's straight because I don't want to write stories without straight people and the lack of female characters pretty much automatically causes most ships to be queer, so when I do ship characters it makes them queer most of the time, so if someone can be straight they most likely are in my stories, lol. However, this is not a real, fixed headcanon, so your opinions might still have time to affect mine. Remains to be seen.

16. A childhood headcanon

He probably drove his parents nuts by climbing and jumping absolutely everything, like, you couldn't get through a shopping trip with Kotaro without 20+ incidents of having to tell him to get down from that tree, or to stop playing Floor Is Lava on the street, or to stop treating the furniture section as an obstacle course.

18. How do you think they were as a kid?

I think he was a super curious explorer type of kid, who never actually got his fingers burned, so to speak, because of his superhuman abilities, so he never became as careful as most kids do pretty soon, because he didn't need to.

20. A weird headcanon

I don't know if this counts as weird, but I feel like he's one of those rare people who come really close to being exactly what it says on the tin, he's that open and honest, but he has exactly ONE little embarrassing secret that he thinks is way bigger than it actually is.

26. When do you think they were being "themselves" the most?

I guess the previous question kind of answers this already, but I think he's more honestly himself most of the time than most people are. Not that he doesn't have thoughts or feeling that are deeper than it would first seem, but he's simply not someone who spends a lot of time in his head, so what he doesn't show or say is mostly stuff he hasn't thought about.

I hope this wasn't too disappointing. I just don't know Hayama that well yet, and my process of getting to know characters is time-consuming, and I'm always looking for The One True headcanon for everything, the one that makes everything make sense and ties contradictory seeming parts from canon and sometimes even fanon together in a way that is just ultimately satisfying for me. I haven't gone through that process with Hayama. I hope it will happen when I write my Akashi fic!

character asks

[vonaegiremblem]

Now that Dragalia Lost's story is over and it cruises towards EOS, I would like to reflect a little on why it really did not succeed that much. I want to log why I, as someone who played the game every day from launch until the final chapter released, think it failed. You know, beyond just "it didn't make enough money." We all know it didn't make enough money. I want to dive a little bit into why it didn't make enough money, because it really wasn't just one thing. Dragalia Lost was a game slain not by a single fatal blow, but by a thousand smaller injuries. Also, fair warning: I'm going to be talking about FEH a lot since it has passed the one billion dollar revenue mark at this point, and because I think the reasons why FEH is so successful can explain some of the reasons why Dragalia Lost wasn't.

1. The first challenge Dragalia faced was that it was a new IP. It was always going to be an uphill climb trying to get people interested because it had no other media to fall back on. The biggest things that could bring people in were the story and characters. Cygames is, admittedly, really good at character design, but the story that these characters were in was really average at the beginning. Also, if you liked characters outside of the main cast, then you had to hope that they would be featured in an event, or just live with their five adventurer stories. They did expand on this somewhat with Dragalia Life, castle stories, and non-limited alts, but for the most part you didn't get much for non-main characters (especially if your favorites were in the initial batch of 3 star units).

FEH, on the other hand, already had an install base from the start. Fire Emblem is the most popular SRPG series, and making an accessible version of it that features characters from every game in the series was a pretty easy selling point. Also, every Fire Emblem character is unironically somebody's favorite. It doesn't matter how useless, obscure, or unrecruitable they are, someone is willing to summon for them.

2. Speaking of summoning, let's talk about Dragalia Lost's summoning mechanics. Dragalia Lost was both too generous and not generous enough. Cygames admitted in a rather well-known interview that they could have made Draglia more profitable (read: exploitative) but Nintendo stopped them. Dragalia was generally pretty generous with wyrmite and summoning tickets, sometimes even making summoning tickets rare drops from certain raid bosses, but in the beginning summoning was awful. There was a time when wyrmprints were in the summoning pool, and you could be pity broken by a 5 star wyrmprint. They removed that feature pretty quickly. They did at least add sparking to the game during the 2nd anniversary update, but they also made the game as a whole way less generous with summoning materials, which pissed a lot of people off. To further add to this issue, sparking cost 300 summons, which was a lot. Sure, you could now guarantee a unit you really wanted, but consider: the cost of purchasing enough dimantium to do a single 10-fold summon is $25 dollars, last I checked. There is a reason I, and a lot of other people, never spent money on this game. It was fundamentally not worth it given how expensive it was for a single 10-fold summon. Admittedly, they did halve the amount of summons you had to do using payed-for currency to spark, but that's still a lot of money to spend. Sure, there were the platinum showcases, which guaranteed a 5 star, but you weren't guaranteed a 5 star you didn't have (at least not until some of the absolute last platinum showcases). For reference, it costs like $12 in FEH to get enough orbs for a full 5 summons, and in FEH sparking costs 40 summons. Without optimizing purchases, it costs ~$100 to spark in FEH. It costs $325 to spark in Dragalia. Also, for perspective, FEH gives about 300 orbs a month. That is enough to spark twice a month.

3. I'll talk abut FEH's systems first for this part. FEH's summoning system works so well because it feeds into three other systems: traits, merges, and skill inheritance. There is never a useless unit to summon. If you already have a unit, getting another one of them means a chance to get better IVs or a chance to merge the two together to make a stronger unit. If they have good skills, you can consider using the duplicate to pass those good skills onto another unit. Even lower rarity units can pass on lower level versions of skills so you don't have to waste as many inheritance slots when passing on good skills from another unit. Also, the max amount of merges a character can have is 10, meaning that you have to summon 11 of them to get a character to their max potential. That is, of course, assuming you only want one +10 version of that character. I'm pretty certain the theoretical max is 7 +10 versions of the same unit, meaning you would need 77 of them. Needless to say, you can really whale in FEH if you feel so inclined.

Compare this to Dragalia Lost where once you summoned an adventurer, there was no reason to try and summon them again. You couldn't have more than one of the same adventurer, and there was no merge system for them. The only thing you got was Eldwater, which while useful for upgrading other units, there were ways to get outside of summoning. The only characters you could merge were the dragons, and the game, surprisingly, provided plenty of ways to get merges for them without summoning. The dragons also only took 5 to get to MUB, and you usually only wanted at most two of the same dragon on a team, so you'd really only need to summon 10 of the same dragon ever, assuming you weren't using any of the ways to get free merges.

4. Now's as good a time as any to talk about multiplayer. Dragalia Lost from the beginning tried to frame itself as a somewhat multiplayer experience. Basically everything outside of the main story mode could be played with other people. This encouraged community growth and involvement, and could be used as a way to convince friends to join the game. It also helped make high level content viable early on, since you only needed one good unit as opposed to the four you needed in solo. It also helped that the AI in early Dragalia was really bad. The only problem was that Dragalia's multiplayer community was toxic throughout the entirety of the game's life. The devs literally removed the Cleo Nope! sticker because people were being so awful about other players bringing off-meta units. Sure, it got better as time went on, but I know it was still happening through the addition of Trials of the Mighty because it happened to me. I didn't have Gala Jean for the Thor fight, so the owner of the room kept using the arrow sticker to point at me and eventually just closed the room.

Look, I kind of get it. Dragalia really marketed its high level content. The boss fights were intricate and had complex mechanics. They also lasted upwards of 10 real life minutes, and it sucked if you had to keep retrying because someone kept dying or you just couldn't do enough damage. The amount of effort you had to put into learning boss fights, building characters and backup characters, and actually doing the fights was a big ask, and finding three other people who were good enough to do it could take an excruciatingly long time. Dealing with toxic people and also dealing with people who were not good enough to do high level content is a big reason why I, and probably a lot of other people, switched to just doing solo content. I'm pretty certain there are still some High Dragon trials that I haven't done in multiplayer. And I will probably never do them.

5. This next point is kind of difficult to explain succinctly. Basically, due to differences in gamemodes, AI, and player interaction, FEH encourages players to build and summon for units more frequently than Draglia Lost did. Several major gamemodes in FEH involve AI controlling teams you create. Arena and Aether Raids are the big ones, but things like Rival Domains also use units you and other people build to make teams. Since the AI in FEH is so dumb and exploitable, one of the best ways to make your team win is by building an incredibly busted set of units. FEH also has a real-time PVP mode that can be played without any unit restrictions, meaning that you will almost certainly need a team of busted units to compete against others. You are also encouraged to create at least one very strong unit just so people you've friended can use them in the brigades. Creating busted units in either case requires summoning for merges and summoning for fodder.

In Dragalia Lost, there was one PVP mode, and unit stats and builds didn't matter. People could use a character you set as a helper, but outside of Shadow adventurers being able to equip Ramiel to give you dragon prep, they basically did nothing and were outshone by weapon abilities or shared skills. That basically left high level content as the place where unit build in multiplayer really mattered, and as time went on for the High Dragon and Agito battles, it started to matter less. Sure, when each type of high level content came out, you were expected to use the meta units, but as more units became more viable for it, it really stopped mattering who you were using and how they were built, so long as they fulfilled their role well enough. It also helped that actually controlling the character could make up for sub-optimal unit build. At least, all this was true until they added Curse of Nihility, which I'll get into later.

6. All you Josh Strife Hayes lovers out there might recognize this next point. Dragalia Lost did not bring in enough content for new players. It mainly focused on making content to keep old players, which is a losing tactic. The three consistent things that were added to Dragalia were new story chapters, new high level content, and new events. New story chapters and high level content were not going to appeal to new players. The high level content wasn't appealing because it was too challenging and required too many resources to try it. The new story wasn't appealing because you had to read all of the other chapters first for it to make sense and be impactful (also the chapters get too hard for a new player to handle). So, you're left with events. In theory, they should have appealed to players of all levels, but they just didn't. The problem was the difficulty scaling. First off, and this is a side note, Dragalia never had good metrics for how difficult content was. Once the "suggest might" value went above, like, 10,000, the game lied. Depending on the difficulty of the quest, you needed 5,000 to 10,000 more might than what was listed. Not being able to tell how the actually difficulty of a quest was extremely frustrating to new players, but I digress. You had five main kinds of events--Raid, Facility, Onslaught, Defensive, and Invasion. All of them had problems.

One of the biggest overlapping problems was that to receive the best rewards in these events, you basically had to be able to do the hardest content consistently, excluding Omega Raids (which still gave you good, but not necessary, stuff). Onslaught and Defensive events were arguably the least offensive. They both required you to battle to earn enough points in the bonus bar to see the whole story. The problem was that the bonus bar was set up so that you basically always unlocked the story so long as you went through and did every level once. If you were unable to complete every level, then you were going to have to grind to see the whole story, which means you were more likely to miss out on the story if you were lower level. This sucked because the writing in Dragalia was generally pretty good. Facility events were just far too grindy for new players (especially the kind that had the "Extra" battles). Getting the facility bonuses was important, but starting from scratch and going to level 35 was slow and required a lot of a battling. Also, the challenge battles to fill up the rewards bar faster were very difficult for just-starting-out players. Invasion events were also grindy and expected you to have specific overdamage and high-hit teams ready to get good scores. Raid events were perhaps the biggest offender. The thing that generally made raid raid events so appealing were the cool boss fights. The problem was that new players just didn't get to experience it. If you were a new player and you got paired with anyone who had played the game for, like, at least 6 months, you were not going to get to experience the Standard, EX, and Nightmare raids because the boss would basically be instakilled. This left you with the Omega Raids, which were way, way too hard for new players to attempt. In the end, new players were going to feel like they were missing out on something in each of the event types.

FEH generally has more new player appeal. Difficulty scaling tends to be handled better, and its easier to make a team that can do hard content. Arena, Aether Raids, and Summoner Duels try to put you against similarly ranked opponents, so that you don't just get absolutely destroyed by their teams. Basically every event has a variety of difficulty options that should allow everyone to get all the rewards, presuming they put the time in (with the exception of Rival Domains, where you do have to do the highest difficulty stuff consistently to make it to tier 25). A player can also probably take on the easiest difficulty of the most recent story maps within their first day of playing if they train up their free units. FEH, overall, just handles new player experience better.

7. One of the biggest things that I think really hurt Dragalia was that neither of the two most recent non-boss battle gamemodes that were added encouraged summoning. Alberian Royale was true competitive multiplayer, but characters you had summoned (except in very rare cases) didn't effect it at all. The Kaleidoscape (which I only just realized is not called the "Kaleidoscope") was really fucking cool and a great game mode, but it was an entirely singleplayer mode and you didn't need specific characters to get specific effects on the wyrmprints you received for completing it. Both of these modes probably took a lot of time, effort, and money to make, but neither of them seemed like revenue generators.

FEH's newest gamemode is a real-time competitive PVP mode where you make and use teams from characters you have summoned. I do not need to explain how this makes people want to spend money.

8. Alright folks, here's the big one. The one I actually almost made a very long post about when it first came out, but didn't: Curse of Nihility. I said that Dragalia was felled by a thousand minor injuries, but this one was perhaps the most damaging. Here's the thing: Dragalia was no stranger to arbitrarily hard content that almost entirely limited team composition. The High Dragon trials were like this initially. You had to use up one of your two wyrmprint slots on the dragon's wyrmprint, you had to have enough HP to survive the initial attack, and you had to deal enough damage to beat them in the time limit. This all came to a boil with the release of the master level difficulty for High Jupiter, where you basically could only run one of two units in public rooms: Gala Cleo or Veronica, and the former was very much preferred. Master High Jupiter was the first time the awful toxicity of the community was really apparent. If you were not running either of those two, you would be Nope! stickered out of existence. (Fun fact: Gala Cleo was so dominant that basically all dark content for a significant amount of time was balanced around her. Someone made a chart of the Fafnir Roy battles, and you can see that the light Fafnir Roy just had way more HP for a very long time because of Gala Cleo. She was even put into "Tier 0" on gamepress due to how meta-defining she was. The only other adventurer to ever be put on that will be talked about shortly.)

Alright, fast forward a little bit and the Agito are coming out and people loved them. The battles were interesting, tough but fair, and well-tuned for the most part. Also, you were relatively free to use units you wanted, so long as every requirement for the battle was fulfilled. Sure, you might have had to change to a secondary unit if someone had already taken you role you want to fill, but you could generally play who you wanted to play. They did make Volk a little too hard at the start, and then made Ciella and the Twins too easy, and then went back to making Kai Yan and Tartarus way harder. Overall, though, they were great battles and with them came the mana spirals, which allowed for older units to be enhanced further so that they could more easily be used in newer content. This was the first step to Karina becoming an absolute monster of a unit. The other two parts she needed were the Shared Skill update (not entirely necessary, but nice to get) and the 2.0 update. The 2.0 update completely rebalanced the game (and absolutely gutted Chrom) and brought major changes to wyrmprints. Wyrmprints after 2.0 all had basically one skill, but you could equip five of them at a time. A team of mana spiraled Karinas with a full deck of doublebuff wyrmprints and Patia's and T!Hope's shared skills could easily immediately get over 50 buffs at the start of a battle. Karina's S1 had its power boosted based on the number of buffs she had. A team of Karinas could eviscerate every single Agito. Needless to say, this was a problem for balance, and the devs were going to need to make changes for Sinister Domain.

Now, I'm not saying Karina was the only reason they added Curse of Nihility, but I think she and buff-stacking as a whole played major parts in it. I also think one of the intentions the Dragalia team had for CoN was to not implement pure powercreep. They wanted to make it so you couldn't just destroy the newest high level content with old units while still not making them wholly outclassed by new units. It's a reasonably noble goal, but it was implemented so, so poorly.

The first issue with CoN was that the replacement for standard buffs, amps, were just not fun to use. The mechanics for how they stacked together were much more complicated than standard buffs, and they couldn't go nearly as high. Also, there were only three types of amps, as opposed to the myriad of buffs available. The second was that not all unique buffs were immune, and the ones they decided weren't seemed kind of arbitrary. They were so arbitrary, in fact, that sometimes they decided to just make ones that weren't originally immune, immune in an update. Yeah, originally Ilia's Alchemical Cartridges weren't immune, despite being a major part of her gameplay, and they decided to just make them immune in the beginning of 2022 (I assume this was to make Dragonyule Ilia, who used the same mechanics, better). Making some character's unique buffs capable of being ruined by CoN made them basically unusable in high level content. Even if they were still reasonably okay, they were boring because they lacked their central gimmick.

In a game that relied so heavily on people becoming attached to specific characters, CoN made it so that there was a very real chance you wouldn't be able to use your favorites. Everyone who knows me knows that I used Mym as my main flame unit the entire game. As soon as she came out, I used her because I liked her design and her character. I also really enjoyed her gameplay loop of trying to gain dragon gauge as quickly as possibly to turn into one of the most powerful dragon transformations in the game and buff herself. I used her extensively before they made her good in the 2.0 balance update. I used her even more after that because she became the unit with the highest damage potential in the entire game (and I think she still technically is). The problem is, I couldn't really use her in either Sinister Domain or Primal Dragon fights because CoN, for some reason, got rid of her personal buff, which means her S2 couldn't be powered up to its full potential. Furthermore, I couldn't do the fun loop of stacking Dragon's Claws and Dragon's Skill to get permanent buffs. I genuinely avoided all the high level content with CoN because I couldn't use my favorite character, and I knew that my other faves from the other elements might not work either. I had some hope when they announced Mym would be getting a spiral, but they did not make her personal buff immune when it was added. At that point I basically swore off high level content. And mine is not a unique story. Anyone who liked support units, anyone who liked buff-stacking units, anyone who liked characters with unique buffs affected by CoN all probably felt the same way. If you look up CoN in a search engine, a ton of the top results are forums and threads of people talking about how they don't like it, or how their favorite character got destroyed by it, or how they were worried that a character's buffs would be affected by it.

I genuinely believe CoN was the final push for Dragalia to fail. In an already struggling game that was for the most part kept alive by people's interest in its difficult and engaging content, and their love for specific characters, CoN appealed to neither of those things. Bosses in Trials of the Mighty, Sinister Domain, and Primal Dragon fights became health sponges, now that most characters couldn't build themselves up with buffs. People couldn't use their favorite characters because the meta was so insanely rigid. People couldn't even hope that their faves would become usable because unlike the Agito and High Dragon battles, where new weapon and wyrmprints could make up for a subpar unit, the devs could not implement an "ignores CoN" weapon effect or wyrmprint because it would trivialize all content the new high level content. It was a recipe for inactivity--for stagnation--where people just waited for event reruns and half of a story chapter instead of focusing on the new content being put out. And in the end, Dragalia died for it.

The death of Dragalia Lost really is tragic because the devs clearly intended for the game to go further. The last New Year's event laid the groundwork for new characters to show up in the next New Year's event. The last summer event established an entirely new city that was supposed to ally with the Halidom. The rebellion in Svenitla never got its resolution. The Dragalia Mini comics showed the final Valentines dragon, and implied that he was coming next year. The team had so many more ideas for Dragalia but ultimately the plug got pulled because it just wasn't making money, and I kind of doubt we're going to see any more Dragalia content for a very long time, if ever. Still, the devs did at least get to finish their story, and I think it would be a shame to disregard it just because so many other things had to be left behind in the process. It's important to enjoy what we did end up getting to experience from a fun little game that never really took off, and if you never actually tried it, then maybe give it a go. Try it out, and see why people are genuinely sad about its finally before the entire thing inevitably gets taken offline. I mean, after all, it's free to start. Goodnight Dragalia Lost, I'll miss you.

[onestepbackwards]

Ace Anon

Since I already knew all the plot twists And the story is kind of dead anyway. I'm here just to hang out with my boy. Ingo in the scenario is quite literally my actual stated goal. I am actually only wanting to play this game to hang out with him.

To a fictional character, It must be totally wild to have somebody (god?) who is regularly angry at the game(And sometimes I'm Mad on his behalf) (I soften up over time but I wouldn't have touched it if it wasn't for him ) to be plugging Nearly 50 hours (I am slow) Just to see them. must be a fucking trip.

Especially because I would refer to him in strange terms such as the ‘love of my life, ‘best boy’, ‘Husband’, and the wildest ‘DILF’ Of which I would most likely force forget that even came out of my mouth As soon as I learned that he is conscious and aware. (Can't say any of that to real people Until you get to know them as a person first) Of which I would be immediately sympathetic towards Trying to spend a whole lot of time with him because he is trapped and it's sad.

Me: I will be your friend through this. ( we can watch DuckTales 2017 if you need to calm down? Man I'm happy that somebody's here to watch that show with me) What if we go to game freak itself? And make sure they write up a good resolution?? Tries to comfort the switch Oh Ingo I'm patting your back right now.

Of course, the relationship Dynamic would change again because he popped out of the TV screen. So I get slapped in the face by ”yo this dude real” again. Also, he is acting kind of sus due to the fact that he's also a yandere in the scenario. So yeah really freaked out that I have a full-grown man That is not related to me whatsoever In my place of living But it's my best friend so we're good.

Cue thank god we are both Asexuals.

SAME THO Like, I literally speedran the game just to get to Ingo, and continued to do so just so I could battle him every time I saw him Until I could battle him, I would literally stop and see him every time i was in the village, and show him my pokemon and how strong they were :') It's kinda how i came up with the whole Self aware thing bc i thought "I wonder what he would think if he knew i made the hero run around him bc i was happy to see him" and it went from there fjaskjfdsljf

[runn1ngn0se]

I posted 5,814 times in 2022

That's 5,600 more posts than 2021!

137 posts created (2%)

5,677 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@khaotik-singularity

@talonpaw

@berrystumpytail

@girltigerclaw

@00389a

I tagged 1,807 of my posts in 2022

#runningnose - 285 posts

#shadowsight - 205 posts

#bluestar - 162 posts

#requested by me - 146 posts

#sol - 58 posts

#mudlizard family - 51 posts

#warrior cats - 38 posts

#ohno - 33 posts

#deathloop - 27 posts

#nightstar - 25 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#i still can't believe than in the left pic i had to color her a grey lighter cause i accidentaly used her actual dark grey for the lineart

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I really hope that Nightheart x Sunbeam is a trashfire of a relationship and for that to be the point.

We as a society forgot that the point of Romeo and Juilet was that the two of them were rebelious, emotionally charged teenagers who got infatuated with eachother once, but then when their families steped in and started telling them no, in defiance they pushed further and further into eachother into it eventually killed them both. The tragedy wasn't that they never got to love eachother, it was because they never got to explore their relationship in an honest manner that wasn't them acting spiteful to everybody else.

The point of Nightheart and Sunbeam is that their entire relationship is based off them using eachother to act in defiance of or to escape their clanmates (Squirrelflight, Bramblestar, and Sparkpelt in Nightheart's case, and Lightleap, Blazefire, and Berryheart in Sunbeam's case), and that the two a very clearly both emotionally unstable [Ya sure Nighthearts show that plenty of times, but Sunbeam was just seething at Lightleap in the most petty manner durring her little bothers funeral]

My hope for Shadow and onward is that they have a honeymoon period at first where they're all lovey-dovey, but then relationship slowly but surely begins to slip apart as their more unstable elements clash, but the two will refuse to seperate because it would mean making Squirrelflight and Berryheart smug, so it just continues to rot until it finally explodes in dramatic fashion.

The fact the the will-they-won't-they aspect of the story is already over 2 books in (which is the usual way to keep a romance plot like this going, see BristleRoot), and they couldn't possibly fill 2/3rds of 4 books with "Berryheart doesn't like Nightheart", they need something more for their story and I think this would be great for material.

I know this fandom would hate a story like that, but I've always been capivated by the toxic trashfires of relationships like RaggedYellow, and I'm excited to see us get that as a plot in a main series arc.

I really do hope this is their intention, cause if they do play it off as actually genuine and correct, then this arc is gonna be another kind of trashfire.

I understand people's hesitation to believe that the Erins could pull of a storyline like this without it slipping and falling on its face given their track record, but I'm willing to wait it out and see if they can stick the landing. Shadow is going to be a really important book in solidifying how i feel about this arc going forward

Also people who say Frostpaw's chapters are the only good ones only care about "the plot" and I think those people are boring

76 notes - Posted November 3, 2022

#4

Something people aren’t talking enough about with the ASC covers:

The Warriors logo color matches the eye color of the front-most character

102 notes - Posted May 5, 2022

#3

Felt like drawing something this morning, then I saw @lockandkeyhyena 's Cinders design for the 100th time and figured that looked like something I could bang out real quick, maybe even experiment with lineless art again.

105 notes - Posted November 29, 2022

#2

ok so apparently somebody has found a copy of a reprinted Skyclan's Destiny with a new cover THAT WAS NEVER ANNOUNCED!?!?!

284 notes - Posted May 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I said this in the tags of a reblog and i just want to put this out there proper

Its wild that Runningnose was conceived entirely as a joke character. His single point of existence for Into the Wild was so that, when Firepaw found Yellowfang in ThunderClan territory, they could be like "but wait, if you're not ShadowClan's medicine cat anymore, that who... OHNO" *smash cut like a Family Guy cutaway joke to the single most unqualified-to-be-a-doctor person imaginable and play laugh track* Thats his entire place in the story.

Then they realized when they started writing the later books that the dumb joke character was still ShadowClan's medicine cat and was therefore too important to just ignore / write out, so they had to take him seriously as a charcater, and as more and more horrible stuff happened in ShadowClan the more and more emotional weight they put on the doctor who couldn't cure his runny nose.

Eventually we get to Yellowfang's Secret and its revealed that he had a neglegent mother and was the foster brother of the tyrant that ruined his life, and when we get to his naming ceremony Yellowfang has to say with a straight face "Your name will be a reminder that medicine cats can't cure everything" and they have to just straight into Yellowfang's dream cause how could you possibly write his reaction to that as anything other than him realizing his entire life is a joke.

And now we are at the point where people are reading stuff like Exile from ShadowClan where theres just a character whos a doctor with an uncurable runny nose named Runningnose and everybody had to treat him like any other serious character and can't even bat an eye at how foolish that is while the reader is left to wonder how we ended up in this timeline.

This is all just another reason why hes my favorite charcater

1,280 notes - Posted October 7, 2022

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