#ngl I kinda like it just for the sheer evilness of it

[heljay]

I wanted some comforting Cronos content so I came up with this

Context I pulled out of my derrière: Cronos has to duel on behalf of DA to prove to KaibaCorp that the school is still worth funding

By the way there is almost no content for this ship and also the early GX fandom decided to call it “Emasculateshipping” which is the most savage ship name I’ve ever encountered

Commission Info!  

[ohbother2]

I fucking LOVED the alastor forced proximity fic!! I love it when the readers have a bit of spice to them!! (really hoping you do a follow up fic btw)

Anyway, I was fucking howling at this part:

Alastor: "oh dear" *weakly attempts to push open a flimsy door* "it appears as though we're trapped and oh no, my powers are oh so conveniently unavailable right now, as well as my many harvested souls. woe me, whatever shall we do?" *shoves his throat immediately down readers throat*

I was genuinely laughing at most of his interactions with the reader, you wrote him so sinister and yet so comically

ngl you're alastor is kinda a fuck boy, and I lowkey love that - yes baby, you're evil, you're fucked up, you're also highly attractive and tall and good with the ladies, and you also have no interest in any of them except your darling play thing.

love ya!

I was definitely playing on his reputation and sheer arrogance deterring the reader from calling him out on his bullshit, and you are 100% correct anon, the man barely pushed at the door with his pinky before he was turning to the reader and declaring the effort a lost cause

He knew what he wanted, and he was going to get it

love that you like my characterisation of Alastor! Though I think he's more of a possessive-type than a fuck-boy - he really only has eyes for the 'reader' and is just pissed she would even consider others as opposed to him. It took me a long time to figure him out, and I think I did a semi-okay job :))

...also, there WILL most likely be a part 2, I've already got ideas 🤫

[viperwhispered]

Quick question: how comfortable are you with gore? I have an interesting scenario in my head.

Warning: light description of dead bodies and massacres.

So I was looking into mythology again and took a look at the story of Kali, the hindu goddess of pure unstoppable rage, death, time, and a form of Parvati. And it gave me a little scenario for OB!Jamil.

Let's say that everyone has some form of extreme/dark side. All these dark sides stay in their own dimension of sorts. For mages, it manifests as an overblot. For normal people, it's usually a manifestation of what they are at their worst.

The reader's darker side manifests from their desire to help others. Specifically an intolerance towards evil. While normally they'll accept that some people can't be changed while still promoting non lethal punishments, their darker side is basically kill on sight. If you're a scum of the Earth who commits unjustifiable evil (ex: abusers, pedos, rapists, etc), you're dead.

Cue the scenario: so we got OB!Jamil chilling in his massive palace partying it up with other darksides. It's basically a convention for hedonist (with limits, Jamil still has standards). Suddenly he gets a the news that there's a huge scuffle on his turf and it's getting in the way of party supplies.

Royally pissed off, Jamil marches out to deal with (ie kill) whatever is getting j the way of his party.

Then he sees this: a pile of massacred bodies, all darksides who's he's quarreled with or heard to have been below his standards, with what has to be the most sublime creature he's ever seen dealing a finishing blow to one of the survivors. The person slowly turns their attention to him, all the while oozing bloddlust. Just one look and Jamil understood: this is one of the most dangerous being to walk this world and they could crush him like a bug.

Cue cupid's arrow. Why? Because OB!Jamil is still Jamil and normal Jamil is currently in a very loving relationship with the normal version of the reader. OB!Jamil knows nothing of the person in front of him. Not their name nor their personality. But he does know that he loves them.

Jamil, now throughly enamored, grabs their hand and starts flirting, gleefully inviting them to his palace. The reader, still covered in blood and guts, just goes "huh?"

Reader: I just finished slaughtering your guests and your response is to flirt?

Jamil: well they're barely acquaintances. But I must say that you're radiance greatly outshines their filth! So how about it? Hmm, I promise the finest dishes and entertainment if you come along.

Reader: *starts laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation while slightly blushing"

Jamil: 😍

The pair then proceed to head back to Jamil's place and live happily every after.

This version of the pair also comes with the visual of Jamil and his beloved dancing on the corpses of their enemies.

We sure are headed for a full on au with these, huh?

Now I can't say I'm big on gore (at least when we get graphic about it, like it kinda put me off from watching game of thrones and the fallout show) but ngl I can kinda vibe with the sheer unhingedness of this all.

I'm also thinking of this in relation to the previous ask, with reader's destructive tendencies being particularly directed towards anyone who they feel has wronged Jamil. Those people (or whatever these beings are) not even knowing that crossing reader's path might be in some ways worse than Jamil getting his revenge on them. (Or if we're looking at darkside versions of people who have wronged normal Jamil… well, there's a few of those as well, isn't there?)

At least for Jamil's canonical overblot, imo the two things at the center of it were wanting power and wanting recognition (aka no longer being the one having to hold back and no longer having to take orders from others). Which, sure would be a reason for plenty of conflict with those other darksides, who probably aren't exactly enthusiastic about submitting to his will or anything like that. Plenty of folks for reader to lovingly mow down 🥰

I do love the concept of the feelings from the real world carrying over to these reflections, even if these reflections may not fully understand what or how it is happening.

Just “I'd crush the whole world for you 😍” “How sweet 🥰” for these two, huh?

Ah yes, dancing together on a field of your slain enemies, what an epitome of romance.

But talking of Kali also makes me think of one of them taking on the role of Shiva. Throwing themselves on the way of the other to stop their wanton destruction. Just, the potential for drama there.

Maybe even regular Jamil doing this with an enraged reader for whatever reason? I mean, he'd definitely have to be desperate to do something that endangers himself so directly, but the uncharacteristicness of it all just makes it even more tasty (and angsty, presuming it would still involve Jamil getting hurt. Tho depending on the particular history they have, he could always play it off that at least they're even now after he hurt reader during his overblot…)

Love it how I'm here like

Me: I'm not an angst writer

Also me: but what if Jamil was in such a desperate situation with someone he loves that he forgets all his usual cleverness / sees no other choice to stop what's happening except getting himself hurt by this person who he normally feels totally safe with

Oof 🥲

[dastardlydandelion]

Hello, friend! Did you have a chance to watch Longlegs? Tell me your thoughts and feelings about it when you're in the mood and have time!

HELLO

whew, i appreciate the patience implicit in this message more than I can express. 🫀

so i have seen Longlegs! My very first thought upon watching it was “yep, that sure was an Osgood Perkins movie.”

he has a very distinct directorial style…so on that note, have you ever seen a movie and gone like, “hey, that was really well-made but i’m not sure it’s for me?”

because all in all…I think that’s where i’m at with Longlegs? but I’m also a little confused. so I’ll start with that. when I asked you about Longlegs, friend, you put what you liked first and then went into what you didn’t, I’m gonna do the opposite.

my biggest issue with the movie is that I really don’t understand what I was meant to take away from it. and I mean, I have NO issues whatsoever using my brain, I can roll with things left ambiguous for the audience to puzzle out. It’s great when different interpretations can spur conversations, and I love symbolism generally!

But with Longlegs, as a viewer, I’m really at a loss for what was being communicated to me??

Lemme talk about Osgood’s other features for a sec here. you preferred The Blackcoat’s Daughter, so do I!

and I get The Blackcoat’s Daughter. it has strong themes of isolation, desolation, loneliness— the things desperate loneliness could drive us to, the vulnerability inherent in that state of loneliness so aching, so cold, it’s like freezing February rain.

i mean, okay— gonna just be honest and admit (and I might’ve mentioned this before) but I’m maybe not even quite the audience for The Blackcoat’s Daughter or Longlegs because possession is my least favorite subgenre. certain issues I have had with intrusive thoughts and paranoia in the past make possession movies hit kinda…weird for me.

nevertheless, I felt like The Blackcoat’s Daughter utilized possession in a very impactful way and offered some meaty food for thought.

Its themes were conveyed effectively to me, which I cannot say for Longlegs. On paper I get the plot, sure, but…why? Like, what are we as an audience meant to take away from our viewing experience? What are we meant to understand through this story that unfolded before our eyes for like, two hours? Why?

Gretel and Hansel remains my favorite Osgood Perkins movie (and doesn’t have possession 😅). It’s trippy and surreal but I get it. It communicates themes of sibling relationships, coming of age, the complexities of realizing female power in a male-dominated world, and ultimately self-acceptance.

Longlegs’s themes were…uh…corruption, maybe? Pure evil, maybe? The sheer conundrum of becoming something the people we hold dearest hate because we chose to forsake ourselves only for their welfare? But like, maybe?

Idk, idk, I don’t feel like any of the above was particularly well-executed.

Cracked up at your take on Nick Cage’s prosthetic makeup! Hahaha, I mean, you’re not wrong! It was A LOT. I dooo think the Longlegs character had plastic surgery in-universe though, I mean, maybe his (unsuccessful) pursuit of a flawless face in correlation to his being a doll maker? Bc people don’t just look like that. What really took me out though was him screaming in the car, oh my god— he sounded just like The Earl of Lemongrab from Adventure Time! Especially when he was like “unmake me!” There’s one scene where Lemongrab passes Princess Bubblegum a note that just reads “unmake me.” So I was giggling like a loon at that, ngl.

Not a fan of the ending either, still trying to wrap my mind around it. Can’t quite work out why Lee waited so long, either? Mom said it was too late for the parents but oh boy, at that point in the story we should not be listening to Mom. also at this point, Lee is not under the influence of her own doll, her doll’s been destroyed, so it can’t be the doll making her hesitate. Yes, Lee was out of bullets when she went to shoot Ruby’s doll, but I mean, its face is porcelain, you don’t need a gun to break porcelain. She could’ve just picked it up and smashed its head against the wall to expose the satan orb!!

Other things I don’t understand: why was child Lee approached by Longlegs to begin with in the 70s? Longlegs’s whole MO is using the dolls to get the fathers to commit murder-suicides. Nothing indicates Lee’s father was ever in the picture, so it doesn’t make sense for her to have been a target.

Human beings (generally) have peripheral vision! Agent Browning should’ve seen Lee’s mother coming up to the car with a shotgun— Mom was not being sneaky about her mission, man, she was in full nun garb!

okay, now onto the things i did like: once again, i do feel it was a very well-made movie! visually artistic, superbly well-acted, awfully unsettling sound design, some stellar imagery ranging from those eerie shots to the outright horrific.

the twist with Mom! i figured Mom had to be relevant to the plot in some way bc they kept referencing her and Lee’s relationship and bringing her into the story, but man i was NOT expecting her to be an accomplice to the killer, hand delivering the demonic dolls and HOUSING LONGLEGS IN THE BASEMENT.

agreed that i loved her complexity as character. mama bear characters really speak to me and in this movie it was just like, the darkest and most wretched version of that. my attention was grabbed.

I also appreciated some of the subtler touches of foreshadowing. Lee’s mother is shown to be hoarder. hoarding often does develop after trauma, distress, and/or mental illness. “Cuckoo” being Longlegs’s catchphrase. Cuckooing someone is the term used when you take over a person’s home, named after the cuckoo bird who takes over other birds’s nests.

Kiernan Shipka, my darling one scene wonder. more foreshadowing in her dialogue, Lee asks her if she remembers having a doll and her answer is “nope, and neither do you.” she’s not just being wackadoodle or argumentative— Lee’s memories of the doll were legit erased.

and…yeah, that’s about all i’ve got!

it was interesting but possession is just not my personal cup of tea and again, i’m just not sure quite what it was i was supposed to get out of the experience.

[grimalkinmessor]

Hold up--hold--hold up.

Okay, so I know there's a theory out there about how the First OFA user is secretly evil and on All For One's side (which I don't particularly care for but to each their own) but! I see your Secretly Evil First and raise you: Secretly Evil Second.

Don't you find it a little suspicious that two seemingly random peons managed to get past All For One's men and possibly All For One himself to get to Yoichi's vault? With nothing but sheer willpower and a big gun? Which, if I'm wrong, is really fucking impressive ngl. But, looking at it from a more critical lens...

Second didn't even speak to Yoichi before "changing his mind" and deciding to help him instead of kill him. And yeah, it could've been the fact that Yoichi looked kinda pitiful all skinny and sick and sprawled out on the ground of a fucking bank vault, but also--Second and Third had NO WAY of knowing why Yoichi was in there. They could've heard rumors or whatever of AFO locking his only family away for "protection" or even just "containment", but until they met Yoichi, they couldn't know if he was actually good or bad. If he believed in All For One's cause or maybe even was so crazy that even a man like All For One just went "Mm yeah you can't be on the streets" and locked him up.

Second kicks open the vault door, doesn't even aim his weapon at Yoichi, and looks him in the eyes for five seconds before deciding "You know what? This guy's alright!"

(Again, if I'm wrong, thank you Hori for providing us with some very fruitful Love At First Sight tropes UwU).

So, I guess what I'm wondering is...

What if All For One was pulling the strings behind OFA the whole time? What if he sent Second into the vault to pretend to befriend his brother and cultivate One For All into something he could use later down the line? What if Second (and likely Third as well) has been biding his time until the opportunity came to deliver OFA back to All For One?

THINK ABOUT IT. SECOND COULD'VE KEPT YOICHI SAFE UNDER THE GUISE OF A FRIEND/LOVER WHILE ALSO FEEDING HIS MOVEMENTS TO AFO. ONE OF THE REASONS SECOND AND THIRD DON'T LIKE IZUKU IS BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SAVE SHIGARAKI AND THEY KNOW THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PRY OFA OUT OF HIS COLD DEAD HANDS. AND IZUKU IS ACTING LIKE A HEROIC VERSION OF ALL FOR ONE BY BEING ABLE TO USE ALL THEIR QUIRKS. SECOND HOLDS A HIGHER POSITION THAN FIRST IN THE VESTIGE HALL. WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT SECOND'S QUIRK IS.

And, in the conversation he had with Yoichi, Second's issue with Izuku's plan was that he wanted to redeem Shigaraki. Second didn't have a problem when Izuku saw Shigaraki as an enemy to defeat, but he takes offense to Izuku seeing Shigaraki as someone to save.

I wonder why.

Why would Second have such a problem with trying to save the enemy when he literally did the same thing himself? With a lot less information on said enemy than Izuku currently has, no less?

There is also the fact that, in recent chapters, All For One seems very assured of his victory over Izuku concerning One For All. He seems very unconcerned with the fact that his plan with Shigaraki wasn't enough to pry the power away from the Ninth. Similarly, it looks like he was very unconcerned with One For All and it's whereabouts until semi-recent years. About around the time when it got powerful enough to be a significant booster to someone's strength. Enough to turn a Quirkless boy into the Symbol of Peace, for instance. Into someone that could change the weather with their bare hands.

You would think that, since One For All has to be passed on willingly, that All For One would be more on a 'capture' kick than a 'kill' kick, right? But he killed Nana with very little hesitation, and went for All Might's fucking life like it didn't mean shit even though he had to know that Toshinori hadn't chosen a successor yet.

Why would AFO be so flippant about potentially losing One For All (we still don't know why he truly wants it but that's a theory for another time) unless he knew he wouldn't lose it? Like he had something that guaranteed he would eventually receive it? Like someone on the inside?

And yeah, that person COULD be First... But I don't think it is. Disregarding the fact that Yoichi got locked up in a damn vault that he now has to spend eternity in as well (oof), all because of his brother--

Yoichi is the only vestige not wearing a hero costume.

And I know that must not seem like much, but from what I've been able to tell, the vestiges seem to take the form that they died in. Hence All Might still not having formed all the way yet, and what bit of him that has takes the form of Smol Might.

Which means that, given the First's form, we can assume that Yoichi didn't get around to doing any real hero work. And I really think that he would have if given the chance, so there must have been something stopping him. Illness aside, Yoichi seems very stubborn and very willing to push his own discomfort aside to do what he feels is right. So someone--someone he admired, someone he trusted--must have led him away from it. And who better to disuade All For One's little brother from heroism than the little brother's "hero" himself?

It's kind of genius, when you think about it.

(Again, I adore Dual Holders, so I kind of hate myself for this, bUT! If I had to deal with this so did you :3)

[fanficmemes]

The discord server encouraged me to send an ask and share my trauma so here I am. This fic is a bit different from the usual tho and I think it genuinely traumatized me. It had perfect characterisation and psychology, it was wholly from the victim's pov, and it had a catharsis at the end, but hooo do I have flashbacks. So to not out the fandom and ship, A = victim, B = kidnapper. 

Starts with A naked and bound to a ceiling, barely able to stand. B comes in with a riding crop, whips A practically to death. And the thing is - A is super sarcastic and tries to withstand but it goes for so long he starts breaking and crying and outright begging. They also knew each other before. If I remember correctly B is both in sadistic glee and reassuring A somehow? Bottom line, he's obsessed with A. He was supposed to test A for some experiments for his evil superiors but fakes A's death so he can take him and basically lock him in a basement, put some healing stuff on A, which hurt like all hell, and when the skin's barely healed, proceeds to rape A. And A is obviously terrified, but he barely escaped death, barely healed and can't do anything. It. Was. HORRIFYING. 

Then the fic truly starts. And its so fucked up, omg. 

B's obviously obsessed and "in love" with A, he wants A on his side, in love with him. He puts A into a strongly fucked up BDSM type of kidnapper-kidnapee relationship, rapes A but acting as if they're lovers. B's frustrated that A hates him and doesn't love him back. There's one time early on when A notices the doors are not locked so he tries to escape but of course B is waiting for it. And punishes A, and it's… fuck. Dunno if its then or later, but I think here, B puts A bound on his knees and prob blindfolded into a tub, and keeps him there for days. Until A apologizes I think? Takes care of him otherwise, like with food and cleaning him, but leaves him there. So from now on escaping is obv not an option so A tries to hold on until his friends find him, playing into the game, kinda acting into B's want for it to be a relationship. Y'know, they watch movies, B brings him food, sex, obv.

There are two more things I remember vividly and one that just kinda makes me want to cry and comes in flashbacks. Its on the basis of - when in such a traumatic prolonged situation the brain starts to adapt so at some point A starts accepting the gestures and what not, cause he has to survive long enough, and they're like taking a bath one day and obv it turns into sex but A takes charge this time, riding B and feeling both good bcs the sex is nice and horrible with himself that he's enjoying it, perfectly aware that he's still being raped. It's just… so fucked up. And so beautifully, heart-wrenchingly well written. Ngl, cried typing this.

Then comes sort of breaking point when B tells A that his friends won't come for him, that they think he's dead or left town completely, and A snaps. He basically forces B down and rapes him instead. And then feels HORRIBLE about it, genuinely horrified with himself. And then of course it turns out B Allowed it (he's much much stronger) bcs he wants A on his side, go dark, etc. And this is where A loses hope if I remember correctly, turns catatonic, which B is first worried, then frustrated, and then either punishes him for that or for smth else, can't remember. But he puts A into the tub again. He's left there for like three days I think? And B doesn't come back this time.

It's actually where his friends find him and damn, this part. When they're carrying him out A gets a panic attack and tries to go back bcs B will Punish Him if he sees he left the basement and he can't take it and I think that just ripped my heart straight outta my chest. Crying again. 

They take A to the hospital, watch over him, etc, someone gives him a knife, and of course one day when they leave him for 5 minutes B comes back. And its another fucked up scene, A getting upset about being left behind altho he knows he shouldn't. Now he has to go with B bcs B's clearly gone tots crazy and unhinged. B was a sadist and obv crazy, but its like manic now. So A goes, he has the knife in his hoodie, they arrive at the car in the woods, A left a bleeding trail I think. At this point A cant let himself be taken or he wont be found again so he stalls and gets raped again, horribly and painfully (it was painful a lot of the time esp at the beginning) but when B's done and distracted A kills him with the knife. It's again heart-wrenching and so, like, reastically written? Like A's not elated or anything just empty and relieved if I remember correctly. It ends with someone interviewing A about the whole thing and self-defense and all, they clear him and then there's a welcome home party for him some time after. Ends on a hopeful note but A aware of how he wont ever be the same and the catharsis was there but damn. THE PAIN. This fic haunts me. 

And again it was beautifully amazingly well written. I think it wouldn't be even 1% as traumatising if it wasn't so heart-wrenching. It was tagged and all, I clicked on it in the mood of wanting to read smth dark, but tbh I couldn't have predicted exactly what I was getting into. I prob wouldn't have read it otherwise. This ask can't transfer the sheer emotion I got from this fic but I think I needed to share it somewhere somehow. So. Yeah. 

This is more sad than cursed 4/10 :( sorry u got in too deep

[ssa-thotchnerr]

Don’t Let Me Drown

Anonymous asked:

maybe a Hotch angst with his daughter being kidnapped by unsub, and he decides to drown her because he knows that she’s afraid of water and can’t swim? Maybe no happy ending? Thank you so much!

word count: 2.2k words of pure ANGST

warnings: drowning, major character death, grief, angst to the max, sad!hotch, kinda shifty writing ngl

a/n: anon, you are EVIL! I love it though. Yeah, this is pretty sad cause Hotch is really sad 😭😭😭 anyway I feel like this is really shit so if yall could give some feedback, I would really appreciate it!

—

"Shut up!"

You winced as you were harshly hit over the head by your kidnapper. He slammed the back door of the van shut, causing you to flinch back in fear. He'd just tied your arms back, not wanting to risk you trying to scratch his eye out once more, since you'd nearly succeeded the first time over. You didn't care that you were full on crying, the kind of crying that shook your entire body painfully.

The kind of crying that suggested fear.

You didn't even remember what happened, one minute you were walking home from school, the next you were in some strangers van with your arms lashed behind your back painfully tight. He wasn't too bothered about you knowing his name of what he looked like, you knew what that meant. You knew why he didn't care about you knowing who he was, what he was going to do to anyone else he could get his hands on.

You knew he was gonna kill you.

The sheer thought made you whimper. You didn't want to die, not like this. Not in fear, not without saying goodbye to your dad, your little brother, your friends. You didn't want to be murdered, not be a case that JJ would be given one morning and be pinned up on a wall. Taking in a deep breath, you attempted to steady out your breathing, there was no way you were going down without at least trying to negotiate your way out of here.

"Please, let-let me go, I won't tell anyone, I-I promise," You said, looking up at the man as he slid the door of the van open. "You-you don't wanna do this." You tried your hardest not to stutter, but your nerves were at an all time high, you couldn't help it. He laughed as he reached forward and snatched you towards him, causing you to scream. "Let me go! Please!" You cried as he picked you up.

"Shut up, brat!" He snarled, throwing you onto the ground. Looking around, you realised you were at the lake near Quantico, meaning that if your dad and his team were working on this case already, you at least had a chance.

Right?

Pulling out your phone that he'd taken from your pocket, he grinned as he took a picture of you. You shook your head and let out an angry huff, your chest heaving with each and every breath you took. The Unsub smiled at you maliciously as he put your phone up to his ear.

"Poor baby, just wanting her daddy to come and save her, huh?" You sniffled as you looked up at him, an angry look on your face as your eyebrows were furrowed. "Well, how about I left you speak to your dad one more time, a final goodbye?" You felt your stomach drop.

Final goodbye?

You started to tug desperately at the rope lashing your arms to your side, fear overtaking your rational side as you realised where you were. You were by a river, you couldn't swim, and this guy appeared to know and have something against your dad.

"Hello, is this SSA Hotchner?"

—

Hotch let out a frustrated sigh as your phone went to voicemail once more. He'd tried calling you about 7 times, and every time he tried, it rang out to voicemail. Hotch knew that your phone was always on, after all, you were a modern day teenager, didn't all of them have their phones on all the time?

"Still nothing?" Derek asked. Hotch shook his head as he looked up at his colleague, trying to hide the complete and under distress he was feeling at the moment. But Derek had been working with Hotch for years, and he knew his usually stoic boss better than Hotch thought he did. "Hey, it's alright. We'll get her home, Y/N's a smart kid." Derek assured him.

"I know she's a smart kid, but she's still a child, she'll be scared," Hotch said. As much as he didn't want to think about it, he knew there was a possibility you were already dead. He hated that he thought of that, that you died scared, possibly painfully. Hotch had never answered his phone quicker than when your name flashed up on the screen. "Y/N-" Hotch was prepared to ground you until you graduated high school just for worrying him so much.

"Hello, is this SSA Hotchner?"

That wasn't you.

"Where's Y/N?" Hotch asked, trying to keep his voice steady. Derek looked out to the bullpen, seeing that the whole team, Minus Rossi and Emily, was there, he signalled to Hotch, who nodded as Derek left him.

"You'll be able to find Y/N at Lake Ridge," He answered.

"Help me! Dad!" You were crying. Hotch couldn't help but to do the same thing, he stood up, he didn't want to feel like it was a hopeless situation anymore. The line went silent for a minute, making Hotch freeze on the spot.

There was a scream.

The line went dead.

-

It was cold.

So, so cold.

But you found that after a while, it wasn't cold anymore. It almost felt comforting, that if you went just that little bit deeper, you would be able to get warmer, and warmer, and warmer. And it became just that, so comforting in fact, you found that you were drifting away from consciousness.

This was it.

And that was it.

Hotch practically dove out of the car as Derek pulled up, running out and getting right into the lake. He knew you couldn't swim. Everything he did, went against everything he was told to do. Don't rush into things, make sure the coast is clear, all of that was not to be ignored, but given the circumstances, Hotch wasn't much caring about what the law said. Yes, he was an FBI agent, but he was your father first.

Dear God, he hoped he still was your father.

The team watched from the shore as Hotch disappeared under the water, all of their hearts practically beating out of their chests. You were the first BAU Baby, the female embodiment of your father, something that Hotch would endlessly brag to Haley about when she’d visit the BAU with you. You’d always listen to Reid list of facts that there was no way a child your age could understand, Penelope would always be aware of your presence before hand and have a plushie ready for you so she could keep her coined title of being your favourite. They'd watched you grow up to the 16 year old they knew and loved, and they were praying that the last time they saw you, wasn't the last that they saw you alive.

"I called an ambulance just as we left, it should be here soon," Spencer said, still keeping his eyes on where Hotch had disappeared. It was a tense atmosphere, and with every passing second, the outcome of the situation became more and more bleak. After what felt like hours, Hotch resurfaced with you, unconscious in his arms.

“Oh my God,” JJ whispered, looking around at the team to see their reactions. Everyone was simply in shock. Hotch waded through the water, placing you on the ground and kneeling beside you. The whole team rushed to your side, Reid at your neck to feel for a pulse.

His stomach dropped when he felt nothing.

“Damn it, Y/N, wake up,” Hotch said, starting compressions on your chest. JJ was holding your hand, Derek was waiting on the ambulance. They’d completely forgotten about the UnSub, they were hoping that you could make it out of this alive to tell them about your captor. You had to make it out of this, you’d lost too much in the past years, surely you’d be allowed to not lose your life too? Your dad switched to mouth to mouth, but nothing appeared to be working. “Come on, honey, don’t leave me.” Hotch was desperate, his voice breaking as he spoke. Everyone was starting to feel sick, it was like watching Hotch grieve over Haley all over again, just 10x worse this time around.

You were still a child.

Throughout everything your dad tried, you remained completely unresponsive. Hotch knew that you were gone, but he didn’t want to think about it.

“Hotch,” He looked up at his colleagues, who were all looking at him with sympathy. None of them wanted to say anything, it would make everything real, make it hurt ten times worse. To Hotch, it felt like being dragged kicking and screaming into a nightmare, as he sat there, his oldest daughters body in his arms. Up until now, he had praying that he wouldn’t be planning another funeral, no, not for you. He didn’t want to be thinking about what he would be saying to everyone coming to the aforementioned funeral, about how he would have to use the past tense while speaking about you.

Hotch finally broke down.

JJ, Spencer and Derek left Hotch for a bit, this wasn’t exactly their time to be grieving. They hadn’t just lost their child, killed by their worst fear. To make things worse?

The ambulances arrived.

-

No one could say that they were particularly surprised when the unit chief stepped back for a bit. They all understood, how could they not? They didn’t even want to think about how Hotch was feeling, how he was dealing with the silence that now on,y came with a one child household. Everyone had went to your funeral, it was the first time anyone had seen Hotch since that day. Everyone had taken turns at going to check on him, and right now it was Emily and Derek’s turn.

“Hey,” Emily said, smiling sympathetically at Hotch as the front door opened. Hotch smiled back, both Emily and Derek knew that it was a fake smile, but the gesture was appreciated. “How are things?” She asked him.

“Alright, I guess,” Hotch answered vaguely. “Me and Jack cleared out some stuff from her room, he took her record player and all of her vinyls, he’d been begging for them for years,” He said, a real, genuine smile coming to his face.

“That’s good, man,” Derek said. “Is there anything you wanna talk about?” Derek asked. Hotch shook his head. It still hurt to talk about you, it was still too deep of a wound to mention. The thought he found himself mulling over often was what did he say if people asked him about his kids? He would surely have to mention you, right?

The only thing he could conjure up was; “I lost my daughter, but I have a son.”

He lost his daughter.

It hurt.

It really fucking hurt.

-

Later that night, Hotch had left Jack alone downstairs for a few hours while he finished some stuff in your room. Once coming downstairs, he paused as he saw you on the screen of the TV. He recognised the video, it was your 5th birthday party, Jack being only a baby at the time. Jack was still young, but old enough the know what had had happened to his older sister.

“Hey, what’s this?” Hotch asked. Jack paused it and looked up at his dad, wiping the tears away from his eyes. Hotch had noticed that Jack hadn’t cried yet, and he knew that different people grieved differently. He knew from experience.

“I found it, it had her name on it and I just wanted to see her again,” Jack said, trying his hardest to keep back the sob that was aching to escape. Hotch sensed this was coming, he knew his son.

“It’s alright to cry, Jack, she is-was your sister, you’re allowed to be upset,” Hotch said, the correction hurting more than the previous ones did. Jack shook his head, and the dam broke, he burst into tears. Hotch put his arm around Jack, pulling him close as he finally broke down. “I know it hurts.” He assured him.

“I just miss her,” Jack whispered, wiping his eyes.

“I know, I miss her too.”

—

Taglist

@snarky--starky @averyhotchner @snowangle1994 @pepperonysmcu @yeojiins @mollbt

[bigskydreaming]

You're asked to choose one and only one or DC's future stops existing immediately. your choices:

1. Jason Todd the anti-hero who seldom works with only a couple of the bats he doesn't hate, for example Dick and Cass VS. Jason Todd who came back with healed body but broken spirit, folded back into the Gotham gang and learns to be part of the society again.

2. Tim Drake who makes all of his mistakes as canon but realizes he's been wrong and apologizes to people VS. Tim Drake back in his first iteration, a cute little brother character who is a reader insert and a fun teenager.

3. JayKyle VS DickKyle.

4. Jason Todd with a sword VS. Damian Wayne with a sword.

5. Chris Kent VS. Jon kent.

Okay but which DC future? Its omniversal future? Its hypertime future? Its multiversal future? Its Elseworlds future? Its dark multiverse future? Mwahahaha your threat is useless because the sheer wtf of DC's continuities, timelines and conflicting declarations of what to even call their multiomnihyperverse makes it impossible to target simply A future! DC's overly unnecessarily complicated nature renders it functionally immortal and impossible to ever truly destroy, take that Darkseid.

I mean. But anyway. Whatevs:

1) I honestly do prefer the idea of Jason someday fully reuniting/reintigrating into the Batfam as a whole, because fuck it, the found family I'm here for is the one where they actually act like a family....I just think it takes actual work to get to that point and I get irey when people are like we're here! We found it! And its like meanwhile, abusive dynamics still abound. Mmm. No thank you. But even though I've been on a huge Jason and Dick and Cass kick for like, forever, I do still aim for him having a dynamic of his own with the rest of the family.

Like the thing is, I hate playing the favorites card in families, and I think the emphasis on so and so being Bruce's favorite child or so and so being this kid's favorite sibling, etc, like it really does feel like to the detriment of the whole family, because once you start validating the idea of favorites, ESPECIALLY in a found family that is CONTINUOUSLY growing....I think you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot because you're kinda creating a situation where either no future new additions to the family can EVER be Bruce or one of the kids' 'favorite' or else you're innately positing that said fave status is conditional and even a current fave of Bruce or a sibling can be bumped down the ladder by the addition of a later arrival....

Which is LITERALLY the entire essence of the eternal conflict between Dick and Damian and Tim fans. Its not even that Damian is Dick's favorite, allegedly, its that prior to Damian's very EXISTENCE, fans felt comfortable declaring Tim unilaterally to be Dick's 'favorite'.....and then all it took was the addition of a single family member who had specific NEEDS in regards to Dick's attention and focus, largely because of his age and needing a legal guardian while Tim was old enough to literally jet set around the world on his own.....and like, everything went up in flames in large corners of fandom.

So I'm just like, death to the fave family member myth, its just incredibly counter productive to the idea of found family as a whole especially when it usually only exists to prop up a preferred character as better than others via the proof of see, these other characters say he's their fave or whatever...but also like, its not even necessary?

Because the thing is, you can have Jason reintegrated into the whole family overall, and still prioritize your personal narrative FOCUS on characters you like more than others, like say Dick and Cass.....because of course its natural for even people in the same family to have entirely different DYNAMICS with different family members....and these dynamics don't have to come with a ranking system in order to prioritize which ones you just focus on more in a story. Because its not necessarily that Dick has to be Jason's fave brother, y'know, just for Jason to prefer spending time with Dick simply because he's more comfortable with him due to knowing him longer or being more secure in the idea that Dick doesn't judge him based on their greater shared history.

This doesn't mean that Jason doesn't care for his other siblings, that he can't have strong dynamics with them as well, its just about finding a reason for why these two specifically might be in a story without the others that doesn't demand putting a definitive ranking on which one Jason considers his FAVE. Just like Damian doesn't have to be Dick's FAVE just for them to have the super close canon relationship they have, even relative to the other siblings, because there's everything needed in canon already to establish that the mere fact of Dick essentially RAISING Damian for a year, and being the first one in the family to really take a chance on Damian, like, this lends itself naturally to them maybe more naturally gravitating towards each other than other siblings due to comfort level and familiarity, etc, but it doesn't have to be like....oh but yeah, I just like Damian more than you, Tim, y'know?

So my answer on this one is a total cop out of both, both is good. Jason totally reintegrated back into the family, but with dynamics that still lend themselves fairly easily towards story lineups where its just him running missions with Dick or Duke or any other one or two specific family members even if for no other reason than they gel together best in the field, y'know?

2) Hmm. I honestly really do love and miss 90s Tim Drake and just....don't see him in a lot of what I read these days. I'm like no, why did he have to go, he was doing so well! BUT I'm also on a big accountability kick, and like, I'm so steeped in fics where Dick GROVELS for forgiveness for every little slight he's ever done real or imagined, with every character but Tim in particular, so its like.....I'm not gonna lie, I really have a preference these days for seeing stuff where its literally anyone actually owning up to shit they've done to Dick and apologizing or groveling or making it to HIM, like, completely unconditionally. In the same manner we usually see Dick apologizing, glossing over any reasons he might have had for doing what he did or feeling the way he did, and saying oh it doesn't matter, putting the entirety of his focus on what HE did and why it was wrong no matter what and he's sorry.....that's what I would kill to see from more fics, just in reverse.

Because so often even in the all too rare fics where we DO see other characters apologizing to Dick for shit, its watered down with Dick volunteering that oh he messed up too, it was a two way street, and its like no! This is Pettiness Hours! I want the unconditional apologies! Give me the groveling! From anyone, I don't care at this point, lol, just show me characters actually PUTTING IN THE WORK to make it up to Dick for harm they've caused him, even if completely unintentionally or via neglecting his feelings or considering the repercussions their actions or words would have on him. Aaaaaaand, frankly, Tim's a good place to start there, because of how one sided all the takes on their conflicts have been for so many years. I mean, if people need a place to start, Batman and Robin Eternal gets enough praise it can't be pretended that people in fandom don't know that story exists, so how about some stories where Tim says he's fucking sorry for punching Dick in issue #4 or #5 of that one, and it was uncalled for and he was clearly just looking for an excuse to unleash some more of his resentment and upset for the Spyral/Forever Evil stuff, and family deciding that its totally okay to punch Dick whenever they're mad at him and need to work off some aggression so they can then finally forgive him (for now) is a trend that needs to die in a fire post-haste? I mean just as an example.

But the thing that kills me about fanfic trends is like....the sameness of so much of it. There's SO much room for variety and diverse takes, and like....I don't actually hate Tim! I'm just cranky because of the imbalanced nature of most content out there for literal years at this point. Push the pendulum BACK in the other direction, create some balance by showing the flip side of things.....and that leaves a lot more room for me and others of like minds to then be more amenable to - and even interested in - other stories that don't scratch this particular itch, but don't need to, because other stories are doing the scratching by then, y'know?

And THEN like, at that point, I would be ALL FOR more stories that are just callbacks to classic 90s Tim who I adore, with his skateboarding and his EARNESTNESS and his go-get-em spirit and also the gumption. All the gumption. I like that Tim. I do miss that Tim. But like, for the moment, like, I want accountable Tim because I am tiiiiiiiired of groveling Dick and tbh at this point its not enough for me to just see people move past putting Dick in that position and just have mutually respective and doting brothers Dick and Tim having adventures together......nah, first I want some reciprocation. Ngl. Gimme the apologies for actual mistakes actually made.

3) DickKyle. Easy question, c'mon, you gotta know that. LOL. ;)

But yeah, I've been shipping these two off their like, two shared pages from way back in the Obsidian Age story years before Jason even returned, let alone was in Countdown together with Kyle, so like, its no contest. I don't mind JayKyle, I certainly prefer it to JayRoy tbh, but there's not a ton of appeal in it for me, particularly in how its usually depicted, because like....the entire basis of JayKyle is that they DO have stories together and spent a whole year worth of weekly issues traveling the multiverse together in Countdown.....but there's like, practically no trace of their actual dynamics from that series or any specifics of literally any issue from that entire comic in most fics I’ve read, so its like.....idk, it tends to come across as more generic, not in the sense that it cant still be interesting, but more in the sense that it feels like just someone paired with Jason just because history between them EXISTS without any interest in exploring what that history actually IS....and at that point, its like, well there's no reason TO prioritize that ship over DickKyle for me personally, when like, I have a shit ton of headcanon reasons for why those two in a pairing specifically. *Shrugs* My logic. Its not for everyone, but it works for me.

4) Jason with a sword or Damian with a sword? I don't understand the question. Both. Both is good. All the characters should have swords. Swords are awesome.

5) Chris Kent vs Jon Kent - oof. I adore Jon, I really do. I love his dynamic with Damian, I love a lot of their specific stories, the parallels between them as friends and Bruce and Clark as friends....its all very bien. But I gotta give this one to Chris, because I'm always gonna have a soft spot for him because I'm a sucker for all abused kid heroes, and I just miss that funky little dude so much. There's so many stories we didn't get with him and were just ripe for the picking, but nooooo, DC's like lol you can't have nice things, here we just rebooted the entire multiverse and now Clark and Lois never adopted the son of Clark's worst Kryptonian rival and raised him with tender love and care awww does that make you sad, were you invested in him, WELL TOO BAD, HE'S GONE NOW AND BASICALLY NEVER EXISTED, NOW GIVE US YOUR MONEY ANYWAY MWAHAHAHAHAH.

Yeah. I'm still not over that. Probably will never be tbh, so I with great grudge-bearing do affirm that I'm gonna go with Chris on this one and like, he is a Priority for me and I'm still very keen on the idea of him and Duke being besties for random reasons that might not make sense to anyone but me, but eh, whatever.

[pbaintthetb]

Ah noooo, I’ve been reading The Golden Ghost series for a while but for some reason I’ve only just now checked out your Tumblr??? Idk, it just be like that

Anyways, I just want to say a couple of things:

- Your writing is amazing

-Oh wow, I never actually thought about WWX being uncomfortable in MXY’s body and it makes sense? Like he was built differently originally and this is a body he’s unfamiliar with and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Just- WWX having days where he doesn’t leave some location, feeling so wrong in his body that he can hardly move without freaking out. Days where he can’t even be near anyone because he feels like a stranger and his entire being *aches*

Because being in a body that isn’t yours has got to be wrong in so many different ways. WWX is strong but like. The angst potential, I want him having breakdowns and horrible horrible moments where he can’t bear being in that human skin anymore.

I. . .really like angst

Kinda just thinking about the Burial Mounds as well and lowkey, imagine if WWX takes comfort in something that is widely regarded as evil? Something that people see as wrong and he feels wrong and can’t two strange things seek comfort in each other? Ngl, I enjoy sentient burial mounds and the sheer confusion that people feel that WWX is more comfortable with the dead on those days would be hilarious and sobering.

Just another reminder that WWX isn’t really himself anymore- not just because he’s not in his own body but also because there’s no way that the Burial mounds and resentful energy won’t leave a mark on his soul. Whether he has a golden core now or not, I refuse to believe that something hasn’t changed deep in his being the moment that he fell,

It’s just an interesting thing to play with, the consequences it leaves on his soul and the changes on his body that he’s forced to deal with for the rest of his life. For all the WWX and LWJ are an epic love story, the world isn’t all that kind and I just want to see them dealing with what these changes mean to him, it would be facinating

I’m sorry for the ramble, I got ahead of myself. . .have a nice day and happy writing!

Hello! and I'm glad you enjoy it!! You're very kind

yeah, no you've pretty much summed up a lot of my thoughts on the body swap like it has to be so uncomfortable right?? I almost sort of wish I was dealing with it in my fic, but it's too late to retrospectively fix it and also, effort (so I see why it's not really in fic ahah)

it would sort of extra fun in a GG work though because like there's this sort of- the body is very important, or at least from NHS' pov because it's his most accurate and true form? kind of? Like he's not physically his body anymore but it's still a fundamentally important part of him, and allowing someone to see it is literally putting his life in their hands- and then NMJ is like nothing except his body now, and then you have WWX, who's body doesn't exist and never will again no matter what, he'll never have that link, and it would just have been really fun to play with in hindsight

and yeah,the wwx that went into the burial mounds was not the same one that came out, not in anyway and not just because of the demonic cultivation (imo). Like he's what? seventeen? and goes through that, absolutely no way it did not have a long lasting impact on his personality mxy or wwx or dc be damned

sentient burial mounds is a fun thought

i feel like wangxian would get through it because WWX is very resilient and LWJ is very supportive, but it might take some getting used to and adjusting for sure

don't apologise for rambling! (sorry for a ramble of my own) Hope you had good day too

[benisasoftboi]

Unorganised thoughts on Trails From Zero:

So I had to experience this one via Let’s Play (shout-out to TheTwitGamer over on YouTube) due to computer limitations, which made the experience a little different. But not worse, because Zero is very, very good

I learnt that I have been pronouncing a lot of things wrong (most egregiously, I’d been saying Liberl as ‘liberal’ and Aidios as ‘eye-dios’)

Oh, also shout-out to GeoFront for their excellent patch work

I’ve also been playing Cold Steel 1 at the same time (nearly at the end), which has affected my views on a few things

First thing I’ve got to say is that I think Crossbell has the best art style I’ve seen from the series so far. I don’t dislike Sky’s, but it’s a little unpolished, and meanwhile Cold Steel is maybe too polished, to a point that it looks kind of generic. Crossbell and its characters have a really distinct, stylish look, and I love it. I actually prefer Renne in this style

(the exception is Joshua. What did they do to his eyes!?!?!)

So, overall plot - very good, well paced, picks up nicely from Sky while also introducing new elements. I cannot believe it got darker than Star Door 15

Like during that whole scene where Joachim is explaining all of the truly, truly evil things the cult did, I was just sitting there silently screaming ‘REMEMBER WHEN THIS SERIES WAS ABOUT A COUPLE OF TEENAGERS EXPLORING THE SEWERS UNDER THEIR HOMETOWN AND ESTELLE’S BIGGEST WORRY WAS HAVING TO TAKE A WRITTEN EXAM CAN WE GO BACK TO THAT PLEASE’

Am excited by all these mysterious bells in Crossbell. Can’t wait to find out what that’s all about

Never trust a mayor’s secretary or an eccentric professor is what I’m learning from this series

Now the characters! The main thing I really care about in any story!

So overall I think having a close knit group of four at the centre was a smart choice because it meant I really came to care for all of them in a way I sort of haven’t with all of Class VII so far

Lloyd: I like Lloyd. I wasn’t sure I would at first, he seemed a little generic, but the thing that swung it was the scene after he talks with Elie on the roof. The others start teasing them about being a thing and this stupid, stupid man starts going into Full Denial Mode, and he’s just such a moron in that scene. I found it extremely funny and now I love him (honestly, all a man really needs to do to get me to like him is be an idiot)

There’s also that scene later where the man has his hand on Elie’s cheek, they get interrupted, and then when she suggests they continue this later he has the AUDACITY to not know what she means. My LPer and I were equally exasperated at his sheer density. I love it

Elie: Elie might actually be favourite non-Estelle girl in this series so far. She’s well designed, smart, makes a good Team Mum... she’s Katara. She’s Katara from ATLA. Which I recently rewatched. Oh my god

Oh I really liked that her parents are divorced and not dead. Makes a nice change from all the other dead relatives in this series

And yes I think she and Lloyd are cute haha

Randy: Easily my least favourite of the four, but I like him well enough. I think it was a good thing that I was far enough ahead in Cold Steel to know about Red Constellation, it made that reveal more impactful. I’m looking forward to learning more about him. I like how he nicknames people, also

Tio: Might be my other favourite non-Estelle girl. Heartbreaking backstory, gets some really funny lines, her relationship with Jona was great - Tio’s just awesome

KeA: Adorable and loveable. Suspiciously adorable and loveable... Very excited to learn more about her origins

Noel: Don’t think I know enough about her yet, but I like her so far, she’s cool. So’s her sister, I loved the sidequest with Anton. The sound effects in that one, PEAK comedy

Dudley: He reminds me of Miles Edgeworth, one of my favourite characters in anything ever, so of course I like him

Arios: Again, don’t think I know enough to say...

Wazy: Oh, man, like I have a huge bias for long-haired pretty boys but I instantly loved Wazy. So excited for more of him :D 

Renne: So glad we got to see her story finally get a happy ending. She deserves it. And man she is just such a good Mysterious Character

I forgot to mention this before, but I think it’s hilarious that she has three PhDs. Who gave them to her!?

Estelle and Joshua: So of course I love them and was very happy to see them again... but also maybe they shouldn’t have been here? They ended up feeling a little superfluous to me, ngl, kinda like Falcom weren’t confident people would play the games with a whole new cast if they weren’t around. Was really fun to see them from an outsiders perspective, though

Joachim: So, I’d been thinking for ages now how interesting Aidios is. In most JRPGs you get to meet and/or fight God at some point, so it’s very, very clear that they exist. But since as early as FC I’ve kind of been wondering... is Aidios real? In universe. Like, the way we see worship work, it isn’t a Fire Emblem thing where God is right there and you can chat with her - instead, it’s very similar to our world. And from there, what I’ve been thinking is ‘it would be really cool to see an Aidios atheist’

‘Ai-theist’?

So this was very exciting for me. I would also now like to see an ai-theist who is not an evil, evil monster, but I’m pretty happy as is 

Oh, yeah, Joachim is obviously a horrible person, good villain

It kills me that they were all ‘oh no, he died, I wish we could have saved him’ at the end. Guys. The man set up multiple child torture facilities. You weren’t going to be able to Zuko him. This is for the best

What else

Crossbell City is a very cool location, big fan

I am now spoiled on the following - something about timelines, resetting and divergence, the grass comes back and is linked to septium veins, something Bad happens to Olivier (NO), and something Very Bad happens to Crossbell (but like, I knew that, because they keep mentioning how precarious their situation is and I have basic literary comprehension skills)

I hope Ziet is more relevant in Azure 

More of Wazy and Wald’s weird friendship please (are they a ship? they kind of feel like they would be, at least in Zero. Rhetorical question, btw)

I hope we see Rixia again, I liked her and her deal, I think I’m also spoiled on Yin returning in Cold Steel in some capacity? Exciting

Yeah this was a really, really good game, and I hope it gets an official release one day (honestly, whoever’s doing Falcom localisation these days - buy Geofront’s work. It’s damn good)

Super hyped for Azure and to keep playing Cold Steel!! 

No but seriously what did they do to Joshua 

Like, this is after he stops being dead inside, right? Either way, I’m never sleeping again

[zghostreviews]

Hellsing Ultimate (2012)

Well, I’m finally back with another review guys! It’s been a while! Back at it with another Hellsing review, but this time with the adaption that follows much closer to the manga.

As summarized in the review of the original, Hellsing is a british occult organization that specializes with the extermination of feral/rogue vampires that cause trouble for people. The story follows 3 protagonists, Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, the head of the Hellsing organization and master of Alucard, Seras Victoria, who is a newly made vampire that was turned by Alucard, and Alucard the vampire made to exterminate those that stand in his and his master’s way.

I watched this anime 2-3 years after it came out, and rewatched it all again via Toonami on [Adult Swim]. I became much more obsessed than I was before with Hellsing after this.

------------------------

The show overall is honestly 9/10. Would be a 10/10 if they had an anime opening, specifically the one they used in the 2001 adaption.

The episodes are all an hour long at most for all 10 episodes, and surprisingly at kept all of my attention, despite my attention literally being that of a goldfish’s, as seen by the fact that I started watching One Piece 7-8+ years ago and am just now getting to episode 302.

---------------------------

Music: 8/10 It was pretty epic and really set the tone, still wish the anime had an opening tho.

------------------------------

Story: 8/10 This storyline was pretty cool, had me on the edge of my seat, kinda wish that they didn’t force in comedic moments, imo it felt kinda tryhard and displaced most of the time. Also wish that I didn’t have to watch Seras being molested as “comedic” tones by some zombie-like people and by that creepy looking vamp guy a minute before Alucard actually decided to do something. I know that the author of Hellsing was a hentai artist in the 90s, but cmon.....you didn’t have to show all that, I don’t even think the 2001 did any of the molesty shit even to THAT extent. These scenes lasted for like 20 to 30 seconds while the 2001 molest scenes were not even close to that long. With how long that scene was my grandparents could’ve walked during any of those seconds and I would have the worst time trying to explain that shit while also running the risk of being kicked out or being called homophobic slurs every single day of my life until I was old enough to leave. Anyways I also didn’t like Pip either, dude was a fucking creep, plus he was the protag in one of the author’s 90s hentai series so.... :\\ 

-------------------

Characters: Overall 8/10

Integra: 10/10 I am gay and I like a woman that can easily dominate me with just her voice alone. Am I considered a milf hunter if I have a streak of thinking that older anti hero/evil women are hot? ‘cause I think that Integra even at 52 years of age can get it ngl.

Seras: 8/10 She cute but can easily kill with no problem if she goes completely ape shit. ngl I kinda liked feral Seras tho, something in me definitely awakened at the sight of her and Integra.

Alucard:5/10 I was really annoyed that the series gave him the most screen time tbh. He’s kind of an asshole and overrated imo, tho this could be just because I’m not straight so I don’t see the appeal that others had in him whatsoever.

Walter: 7/10 ngl it hurted when he went to the n*zi side near the end of the series and then he fucking died. He was the real mvp and also a wise old guy.

Pip: 1/10 Didn’t like him whatsoever, didn’t find him funny whatsoever. He was just a plot device anyways and was also used for dumb het romance for Seras to have motivation to go ape shit and yeet Zorin’s face out of existence.

Can’t rate the Millenium characters since this would be a Stroheim from Jojo situation where you like them but at the same time they’re willingly a n*zi so.....

--------------------

Dub or Sub???

Dub for sure with this one as well, just like the 2001 adaption. As said in the 2001 review, the voices just fit MUCH better here unlike the Japanese VAs.

----------------------

Ending: imo it was pretty good. It made since that Integra didn’t end up having an heir, not only because of the sheer lesbian energy she radiates, but because it would seem somewhat OOC for her to do that. It makes total since that Integra would just let the Hellsing oraganization die with her. Don’t know how the manga ended tho since I still have to read it.

---------------------

Anyways, that’s all for now! Peace!

[teababe27]

Notes From the 2019 Myanimelist.net Challenges - Part 1: Anime

Health problems have laid me up a little, but now I’m finally posting this.

As you can tell by the title, this is a post in the vein of last year’s notes about the Myanimelist.net Anime Watching and Manga Reading Challenges. While I didn’t complete everything by the deadline, I had some fun with it and saw/read some good things, some okay things, some things I’ve been meaning to watch anyway, and some things I probably wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for this challenge.

This post will deal with the anime side. Part 2, dealing with the manga side, will come soon.

I will mention some notables/honorable mentions and then some of my favorite things I watched for this challenge.

Let’s do this.

Honorable Mentions/Other Notables: Millennium Actress - completed for the task “Watch an award-winning anime”

Two filmmakers interview Chiyoko, a retired, reclusive actress from long ago. She brings the two filmmakers through her memories.

As far as I’m concerned, anything Satoshi Kon does is great. A movie with an interesting concept and an interesting art style. I teared up a little at the end, ngl.

RIP Satoshi Kon.

My Neighbor Totoro - completed for the task “Watch an original anime”

Two little girls move to a house in the countryside with their father. While at the house, they discover forest spirits and go on adventures with them.

As expected from Studio Ghibli, the art is gorgeous. The story was fun. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t seen this until now.

While not my favorite Miyazaki movie, this was still beautiful and also fucking adorable.

It was also pretty cool to hear the Fanning sisters in early roles.

Problem Children Are Coming From Another World, Aren’t They? - completed for the task “Watch an anime in which your favorite character’s voice actor participated”

Three kids, each with a different special ability, are whisked away to a world called Little Garden. They are called upon by Kurousagi (Black Rabbit in the English dub) to win “Gift Games” and help the community regain its former glory and resources after a demon took them away.

I’d put this under the group of “Things i probably wouldn’t have watched if not for this challenge”.

I’m not normally into isekai anime (I feel it’s been way overdone lately), but I had fun with this. I honestly didn’t like a couple of the characters at first, but then I realized it was kinda the point. They did get better, though.

Automatic props for having Josh Grelle in there voicing one of the titular problem children.

I had fun with this one overall.

Aoi Bungaku Series - completed for the task “Watch an anime with more than 16 minutes in total and tagged as Mystery, Psychological, and/or Thriller”

An anthology adapting several classic Japanese books and stories.

This anime was different than a lot of what I have watched before. Bleak as hell a lot of the time (especially in the first story), but I found this anime interesting. I might try and read the books that these stories were based on.

The Irresponsible Captain Tylor - completed for the task “Watch an anime suggested by Myanimelist or Anime+”

Justy Ueki Tylor is a bit of a lazy bum. He signs up to join the space military because he wants to live a relatively easy life and get a good pension when he retires. Through sheer charisma and dumb luck, he helps diffuse a hostage situation, leading him to be promoted to Captain of a ship with a bad reputation. An evil space empire and higher-ups looking to get rid of Tylor are also involved.

I found this show funny, but I also feel like this is one you need to be in the mood for. That being said, this was a fun watch.

A lot of zany hijinks and watching Tylor get by through sheer luck and charisma. Gave me some mixed feelings at times.

I have a weakness for things that came out in the 90s, as I grew up with that animation style and shows from that time period. As such, it was very cool to hear voice actors from my childhood, like Rachel Lillis and Lisa Ortiz, in this anime. (I was internally going “OMG it’s Misty!!” every time Yuriko talked.)

Favorites from the Challenge:

Hanayamata - completed for the task “Watch an anime that began airing between 2010 and 2015″

An ordinary student, Naru, wants nothing more than to be pretty and dazzling like in her fairy tale books. One day, she meets a mysterious girl, Hana, who dances with her one night. Hana turns out to be an American transfer student who ends up transferring into Naru’s class. Hana then introduces Naru to Yosakoi dancing and forms the Yosakoi club.

I thought this was a cute and fun slice-of-life anime. Premise can be a bit iffy if you really think about it, but I had fun with this show. I love how everyone slowly opened up with each other and was able to make their club work.

Also, I couldn’t help but have this thought: I feel like the first couple episodes had so much lesbian subtext that I had to check if this anime was made by KyoAni (it wasn’t, it’s made by Madhouse).

Tatami Galaxy - completed for the task “Watch a Noitamina anime”

A third-year college student runs into a mysterious guy at a ramen shop. The student reflects on his past 2 years at college, mostly spent with his friend Ozu trying to break up happy couples. The student wonders if he’s wasted his life and resolves to do better. Then a time loop starts happening and more chances arrive.

*clasps hands like Gendo Ikari*

We meet again, Masaki Yuasa.

No better time than this challenge to work through more of Masaki Yuasa’s filmography, especially after watching the decent Mind Game and the excellent Kaiba for last year’s challenge.

While watching this anime, I felt myself going back and forth on whether or not I really liked this anime. Whether it was overrated or underrated. Whether it was a good idea on what the Endless 8 could have been or something that kept going unnecessarily long because the Student couldn’t see what was in front of his face. Whether it was style over substance.

The answer?

Yes.

I honestly liked it, but I do understand the criticism. I feel like the confusion about my feelings can be a good thing and this anime still had some great points and made me think.

I also thought the art style and soundtrack were great, as usual from Masaki Yuasa.

One Outs - completed for the task “Watch an active staff member’s favorite anime with 10 episodes or more”

A struggling baseball team recruits Tokuchi Towa, a pitcher who is more of a gambler than anything. Kojima, the team’s veteran player, hopes that Tokuchi will lead them to the championship. Corrupt ownership and unethical opponents also add problems.

Tokuchi was a great character. He’s a genius, but also a huge troll. His method is basically trying to psychologically get to the other players and go from there. I liked seeing him work through situations and outsmart people. This was one of the few anime from the challenge where I could watch several episodes in one sitting and not even realize it.

Basically, this was a take on sports anime I didn’t know I needed.

Aggressive Retsuko (aka Aggretsuko) - Season 1 completed for the task “Watch an ONA,” Season 2 completed for the task “Watch an anime with more than 16 minutes in total and a popularity lower than #700″

Retsuko, a red panda, is an average office worker. Unfortunately, she hates her job. She is harassed by her boss and given unreasonable amounts of work. To relieve the stress from her life, she secretly goes to karaoke and sings death metal to scream everything out.

I love this. I love Retsuko. I love the little songs sprinkled in. I love Retsuko’s relationships with several of her office-mates.

I feel like I can relate so hard. Not necessarily with the heavy work load, but just the general stresses of life in your 20s. Being stuck in a job that isn’t the best, and also liking metal.

I had a ton of fun with this show. Season 1 was slightly better than Season 2, but I loved this show all the same.

Girls’ Last Tour - completed for the task “Watch an anime that finished airing with more than 10 episodes and has a synopsis by MAL Rewrite”

In a post-apocalyptic, war-torn landscape, two girls, Chito and Yuri, travel the world for answers, with only their motorbike/tank, their supplies, and each other.

This, by far, wins Best of the Challenge this year.

This anime gave me a mix of emotions that I don’t know if I’ve ever felt before. A strange mix of existential dread and sadness and going “aww” at the slice-of-life adventures the two girls have. It made me laugh, made me cry, and made me think.

Watch this one, please.

[bthump]

it'd be so cool if we could see the "physical" embodiment of griffith's darkness, kinda like guts' beast. we'd have a greater insight into his character. (sure we have femto but still, having him interact with that darkness back when he was human would be cool)

I completely agree! I’m absolutely enamoured with the idea of Griffith’s inner darkness like literally haunting him the way the Beast of Darkness haunts Guts.

tbh since we see Femto ourselves I don’t think we necessarily need to see human Griffith having conversations with him to understand his relationship to his own inner darkness. Like I think we get lots of insight into that with his self-harming and guilt issues, and his contradictory behaviour between like, being glad that Guts killed a child vs asking if Guts thinks he’s cruel.

Femto is pure self hatred and denial of feelings imo. The part of Griffith that wants to be distanced and untouchable and just not care.

But I mean it would still be a lot of fun to see and I would love to see how Griffith deals with his inner darkness being personified and getting a voice. Like how he responds to that could be a really interesting insight into his character I think.

Actually there’s a fic that depicts Femto (and some of the other godhand) as like a voice in his head, Heat by Crimstar, if you haven’t read it. Personally I don’t completely agree with the author’s interpretation of Femto/Griffith’s inner darkness, they kind of have it encompass his possessiveness and feelings for Guts while I’m big on Femto being a stark contrast to/denial of his feelings for Guts, even the less ~healthy~ aspects lol. But yk, it might be worth looking into if you’re into that kind of thing.

tbh what I really would love to see is an AU where Griffith ends up with a brand and has to deal with his inner Femto a la Guts’ post-Eclipse. Like an evil hawk in the corner of his mind, telling him it’s nbd to use people to attain his goal and that it doesn’t matter how many people die for it because he’s already standing on a mountain of corpses, telling him he’s already irredeemably evil so it’s pointless to resist, telling him he’s better off without Guts because Guts made/makes him weak, that kind of thing.

tho ngl… Griffith already has such a low opinion of himself that I can’t actually imagine him resisting it for very long lol, especially since I’m assuming his dream is dead too along with having been sacrificed. If Guts is also around having survived a sacrifice, like if it’s an AU where Casca got the behelit and they both survived her Eclipse, then I could see him hanging on because of his relationship with Guts and because Guts is an affirming opposition to his inner darkness (assuming Guts actually says some of the right things in this AU). But man idk actually talking to Femto would fuck him up real bad. Like, one “you’re already a monster dude, stop denying it” and boom, destroyed. Griffith doesn’t have Guts’ stubborn contrary resilience lol.

Even just the fucking ghosts would get to him lbr. Like one night of this and Griffith would give up and end up possessed:

I don’t think Griffith can do this stubborn fuck you thing Guts does:

Like tbf Guts also has a low opinion of himself, it’s nothing but sheer contrariness that keeps him resisting the ghosts and the Beast of Darkness etc, but yeah, imo Griffith doesn’t have that stubbornness to help him out.

So yeah in this theoretical AU I think Guts would have to be there with him as a counterpoint or Griffith wouldn’t last two days with a brand lol.

[evenstevensranked]

#45: Season 2, Episode 13 - “A Very Scary Story”

Annnnd, we’re back! Let the countdown resume. I know y’all remember this one. How could you not?! It’s THE ICONIC HALLOWEEN EPISODE!!! Lawrence Jr. High is holding free eye examinations on Halloween. But, instead of being legit eye exams, students are getting their eyes BURNED OUT OF THEIR SOCKETS?!

It opens with Ren seemingly home alone the night before Halloween watching some knock off of “Psycho.” I like this bit. She yells at the TV, “Honey, you’re getting chased by 6 mutants and you’re just deciding to take a shower?!” — Seriously, though. People in horror films make the dumbest decisions. I think the fake movie footage is hilarious.

Just then, the phone rings. Naturally. And now we get a knock off of “Scream” lol. Whoever’s calling distorts their voice and says “Do you like penguins, Ren? MAHAHAH!” and hangs up. I wonder who that could be. (Sarcasm) Ren is walking around holding a skillet as a weapon which is kinda funny. She looks so uncoordinated with it. Turns out it was just Louis calling from inside the house. Shocking. He comes jumping out at her making what’s supposed to be a “penguin” noise, I guess. I really don’t know. He kinda sounds like Doodlebob, honestly. Obviously, Ren screams and Louis has the audacity to ask “Ren, why are you so jumpy?!?!" I love this line and the way Shia says it. I use it a lot, lol. He claims he just wanted to show her his penguin jockey costume. The costume itself is a true a stroke of genius. But, I’m sure there was a less serial killer way to go about the reveal, lol. This episode definitely gets iconic points for that costume, though. People have gone as penguin jockeys because of Louis: x / x ...Incredible. 

Ren is seriously a wet blanket here. She refers to Halloween as “childish dress up games.” What da heck?! Lighten up. You’re like, 14. I embarrassingly went as Hannah Montana for Halloween freshman year of high school, 2007. Bad idea. But just because I have tan skin and wore a blonde wig, everyone thought I was supposed to be Beyoncé. I constantly had to correct people. I WAS HANNAH MONTANA, DANG FLABBIT!!! The struggle. 

Ren tells Louis that his costume isn’t going to scare anyone. I never thought it was intended to be scary in the first place??? Either way, Donnie comes walking in and Louis makes some more Doodlebob noises at him and Donnie runs away screaming “AHHH! PENGUIN!” Wow. I’m only mentioning this because I read a little trivia that Donnie originally walks in holding a basketball, but when they cut back to him he’s suddenly holding what looks like an inflatable toucan or something?! What?! How do you forget that Donnie was holding a basketball one second and then hand him an inflatable toucan the next?! I do not understand. 

“Wait, what was Donnie the Sports Jock just holding?! It was probably a basketball or something because that makes sense. But, I can’t remember. HERE! Take this INFLATABLE TOUCAN!” ?!?! - Probably the actual thought process that resulted in this ridiculousness. 

At school the next day, we see that LJH takes Halloween VERY SERIOUSLY. Stuff like this gave me unrealistic expectations. If you wore a costume to school growing up, you were a weirdo and people judged you. Not here! They have some intense decorations and the entire school is dressed up! Well, everyone except for Ren — who’s in a freaking pencil skirt and blazer, walking around making sure everyone gets an eye exam.

This school is more ~lit~ than most actual Halloween parties.

We find out that Louis and the gang are planning a prank for the cafeteria: Putting fake eyeballs in the turkey gravy. Yum. Louis shows them the fake eyeballs he bought and says he just got them in overnight from Chico. It’s a small detail but I like that he mentions Chico. The city is also brought up in an earlier episode. I always laugh when Tom tells Louis “I need to get my eyes examined.” Louis says “YOUR EYES EXAMI— Tom, how many fingers am I holding up?!” And Tom has to squint at the fingers RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS FACE in order to give the correct answer. 

“.......Two.” // “Exactly. Your eyes are fine.”

Okay, long story short: Basically, anyone who goes in for an eye exam comes out acting like a robot. Students are walking around with sunglasses on and are suddenly obsessed with drinking milk and following the rules. Tom is the first victim of Louis’ crew. He says “I suddenly got quite a hankering for the Moo Juice. It’s an excellent source of calcium for overall skeletal health.” I FEEL LIKE THAT LINE IS ENGRAINED INTO MY MIND FOREVER! Tom bails on the cafe prank and says “If something like this were to go on our permanent records, it would follow us for the rest of our lives.” THIS LINE NEVER LEFT MY BRAIN EITHER. I feel like this episode was actually Disney propaganda or something, brainwashing us into drinking milk and being good students. Not even gonna lie, when I was young this episode made me crave milk... and I hated milk. *X-Files theme song plays in the distance.*

Tawny and Twitty both get their eyes checked and start saying the same robotic nonsense Tom did. Louis is having none of it, though. He yells “TAKE OFF THE STUPID GLASSES!” and we get one of the most terrifying moments of our childhood...

This is still so disturbing. Show producers Sean McNamara and David Brookwell wrote this episode. I seriously want to track them down and make them explain what gave them the bright idea to traumatize children in this way?!

The classic Louis Scream kicks into full gear here. (see first image of the post) I’m laughing because I just noticed that as he runs away, he whips the butt of the penguin like “giddy up!” as if he’s actually racing on it… Oh my god. As he’s running he shouts “NO ONE’S TAKIN’ MY PEEPERS!” which I always kinda liked, haha.

Louis ends up spying on one of the “eye exams” and the process is revealed! Wexler and Tugnut zap the kids’ eyes and do in fact brainwash them with the milk and permanent record mumbo jumbo. Great. 

Louis is now the only student who hasn’t had an eye exam. Wexler, Tugnut and the whole school are going after him. He calls home in a panic asking for Steve and Eileen to come pick him up before conveniently hiding out in the Penguin bathroom.

His family shows up within like, 10 seconds. Teleportation is the only explanation for this. Louis goes to get his stuff before leaving... but OH NO! Wexler and Tugnut greet Donnie, Steve and Eileen and make them go in for eye exams. This always made me soooo angry as a kid. I felt Louis’ sheer horror and helplessness here tbh. Just then, Ren pops out of nowhere and Louis explains the whole situation to her. She acts like she has no idea what he’s talking about, but all of the robot students start chasing them so she helps him find a place to hide.

“Safe?! For how long, Ren? How long before those eyeless, sunglass-wearing, milk-slurping zombies get in here?!” - ALL I CAN THINK OF IS THE WALKING DEAD. “DON’T OPEN. DEAD INSIDE.” 

Ren leaves Louis alone to see if the coast is clear. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?! Does she not see the horde of zombie students through the windows?! Regardless, Wexler and Tugnut appear and take Louis down to the school’s newly renovated torture-chic basement. (Louis: “When did the school get a dungeon?” Wexler: “Actually it’s an evil lair.”) 

Ren was the ringleader this whole time. She comes walking out looking like THIS and Wexler and Tugnut refer to her as “mistress.” Okay, this is a little creepy now...

Louis looks at the wall and says “R.E.N.....? That’s gotta stand for something.” - I clearly remember laughing at this line when I was little for some reason omg. 

Ren explains that they’re going to turn everyone into “Renplicates” (actual Ren clones) because the world would be a better place if everyone just followed the rules. Okay, maybe that’s true. But, you don’t need to morph everyone into cloNES OF YOURSELF PHYSICALLY!!! Seriously... whaaaa?! lol. Around here Ren says “Tugnut! Turn on the juice!” which Jim Wise recently admitted was an innuendo line that the crew laughed at off camera. Adult jokes on kids shows sort of creep me out though, ngl. 

Anyway, everyone -- including their parents, step into the Renplicator and transform into Ren. 

Everyone except... Louis.

HONESTLY WHAT THE HELL?!?! I never liked thisssssss.

That’s where the story ends. THANK GOD! Turns out it was just Louis telling Beans a scary story. “Beans, you wanted to know what happened last Halloween. So, I told you!” To which Beans responds: 

One of the only Beans lines I like. (x)

And that’s it! There’s a bit at the very end where Beans tries to get away with trick-or-treating at the Stevens house several times by wearing a bunch of different costumes. Donnie answers the door every time and says things like “That’s cute, kid!” and “Haven’t I see you here before already?” IT’S CLEARLY FREAKING BEANS! 

I never understood this. I know Donnie’s dumb but he knows who Beans is. They should’ve just had a random kid do this scene. Using Beans makes NO SENSE. Also, he already raids their kitchen all the time as it is. He doesn’t need to go “undercover” to get candy from the Stevens house, lol. 

That’s the Halloween episode guys! Strangely, not as funny as I remember. Still a classic, though... obviously. I was originally going to rank it in the #30s, solely for the iconic value.. but, when I was deciding on what to put for #45 I just had to put this one here. It’s a “special” episode. So it’s difficult to rank it any higher than this since it’s just a fun one-off, silly, seasonally appropriate episode. Nothing furthers the overall arc of the series here, lol. That’s not the case for all “special” episodes... But, this one sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison to the other 64.  

Did it scar you for life as a kid?! I have to say that this episode and “Don’t Look Under The Bed” (which Larry Beale/Ty Hodges starred in!!!) literally scared the living crap out of me. Apparently DLUTB has actually been banned?! Whoa. To this day, I’m still afraid of some demon boogyman hand grabbing at my ankle...

Thanks for reading! Chime in below. 

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[spinneryesteryear]

Spinner plays FFXIV Heavensward

SPOILERS AHOY

- I made sure to unlock and lvl DRG before starting HW because reasons

- I… don’t really understand why people love Foulques so much? I can only presume it’s because they find him attractive

- at first I wondered why the lancers’ guild quests emphasized courage so much, but once you realize lancer upgrades to dragoon it all makes sense: they’re training the absolute maniacs who jump headfirst at DRAGONS; of course they’re going to emphasize courage

- the literal first thing I did as a dragoon after getting my soul crystal and the jump action was to launch myself into an AOE so clearly I’m playing my job right

- the drama between Alberic and Estinien was the only reason I made it through the 2.1 - 2.3 slog, tbh

- I picked up GLD/PLD somewhere in there, too, but the GLD quests weren’t exactly riveting and the PLD quests weren’t any better. I was just biding my time for DRK

- meanwhile I had hit like lvl 62 on WHM thanks to running lots of roulettes with Adventurer in Need: Healer so I’d switch to that while wandering through a lot of the HW regions so the mobs wouldn’t attack me. I did the HW story on DRG but ran dungeons as WHM the first time bc it’s my comfort role. 

- I’m… still not sure exactly how to do the mechanics on the Steps of Faith. Whoops. Fortunately, all but once I was WHM when I got it in roulette and I could just heal/spam Holy. The exception was on DRG and I just kinda… derped around killing what adds I could.

- those cutscenes at the end of 2.5, though. Dude. Duuuuuuude.

- it did give us Pipin Tarupin, however, and he is Best Lala.

- So, like… what exactly did Ysayle expect would happen when she broke Ishguard’s magic wards and opened it to assault by hordes of dragons??She seems genuinely regretful of the innocent lives lost when spoken to in the MSQ later in HW proper, but when she actually did the deed she was channeling ‘deranged witch’ for all it was worth and talking about how the sons should pay for the sins of their fathers. Did this incident give her a rude awakening about the Dravanian desire for vengeance?? Idk, maybe further quests will explain this.

—– me: *just arrives in Ishgard*

—– me: *taking the grand tour of the city*

—– me: *notices mob near cathedral, inquires about it, learns about recent violent death of heretic*

—– me: *finds heretic corpse*

—– me: *derails grand tour of Ishgard by slaughtering my way through the streets and through various chapels, laughing maniacally as I enjoy the greater reach of my brand-new greatsword and spam Unleash*

—– me, standing amid the broken corpses of a few dozen temple knights: Count Fortemps is probably gonna regret letting me into this city.

- that one dude in Camp Cloudtop who’s entirely too obsessed with the menu deserves to be booted off his lookout platform. I’ll even rescue him via flying mount before he splatters on the ground (however far down the ground happens to be, idk), but I really want to kick him off at least once. He gave me far too many fetch quests and my inner Fray is disgruntled, to say the least.

- me, just trying to make my way across the map: WILL EVERYTHING IN COERTHAS STOP CHASING ME???

- other people think the gaelicats are too cute to kill them. I, however, just want to kill them all the more. I’d be perfectly content to leave the mobs alone and continue on my merry way, but, nooooooo, they have to attack me. So I respond in savage kind.

- me, doing sidequest chains and getting mildly attached to extremely minor characters: So, I kinda ship Ayleth and Saintrelmaux now…

- ever since I unlocked it, I get Dusk Vigil all the time in lvling roulette so I’m now an expert on ice age megafauna, undead knights, and murderous griffins of the non-Sloppeh type

- Ravana is my fave HW primal, hands down, and his theme is definitely among my fave primal music. I would say it’s my absolute fave (I have listened to it on repeat for hours at a time, but I’ve done that with other music, so it’s not conclusive evidence) but it has stiff competition in the form of the Ultima theme, Leviathan’s theme, and the Knights of the Round theme.

- going on a life-changing field trip with Alphinaud, Estinien, and Ysayle was amazing. All we needed was Zuko.

- far too many side quests in Tailfeather. Far too many. And that one quest chain ended up with the poor dude’s pet baby chocobo as chicken tenders? If I didn’t hate chickens so much IRL that would have been super painful.

- the moogle quests required to progress the MSQ weren’t that bad. The sheer amount of moogle sidequests needed to unlock flying for that zone and their beast tribe quests, however…. well, I’m completely on board now with any plans Sidurgu might have for utter moogle genocide.

- lol, the moogles were about to give us more chores to do but Estinien’s sheer murderous rage panicked their chieftain into sending us on our way. I love him. (Estinien, that is. Not the moogles. I love to hate them.)

- Estinien is just… I love him so much. It’s more than his armor. It’s more than his jumps. It’s more than his sass and swearing. No stereotypical elf qualities to be found here, folks. Honestly, he could give some elves from The Silmarillion a run for their money, with even his own equivalent of Angband PTSD post-Nidhogg. I also immensely love that he’s a character on a power level similar to the WoL. (I don’t actually enjoy the main character being the most powerful person in the world, without equal. I like someone else being better in at least some ways and that being okay.) Heck, when possessed by Nidhogg he’s the final boss of the expansion + patches. And he lives. (Which is in itself a pretty powerful moment and Alphinaud and the WoL’s desire to save him lifts the whole plot point/theme into something more sublime. It would have been easy to kill him regretfully, both from a Watsonian and a Doylist perspective. The devs had no problems throwing painful deaths at us in this expansion. But we took the harder route. And it was worth it.)

- low-key painful Heavensward moments (bc heavens know there’s enough high-key painful moments): Alberic is extremely worried about his adopted son, whom he last saw nearly possessed by a dragon’s millennium’s worth of hate and rage, and who then vanished in an explosion, but he can’t do anything about it so instead he helps another retired dragoon worry about his own missing daughter

- ngl there was some red herring foreshadowing that the primal Archbishop Thordan planned to summon was actually Halone, the Fury, Goddess of Justice and Patroness of Ishgard. Which would have been badass. But I’m pretty sure Square Enix is going the Dragon Age route of never confirming/denying the presence of the Maker with their Twelve, Halone included, so I deemed it unlikely even as I secretly hoped. A lot of players probably missed these fake hints and would wonder what I’m even talking about. 

- I couldn’t even get mad about all the bad things that happened during the Vault because the characters were juggling Idiot Balls. (1) Aymeric thought his father, who has been consorting with Ascians and plans to summon a primal, could be reasoned with. (2) Aymeric went alone to go reason with him and was correspondingly captured and tortured. (3) We fought three of the twelve Heaven’s Ward in the Vault itself and NO ONE APPARENTLY QUESTIONED WHERE THE OTHER NINE WERE. Plus, said three have clearly already been tempered and are feeding off primal energy for their second forms, even if the mechanics are unknown. Those without the Echo should have promptly skedaddled after rescuing Aymeric. (4) After a dungeon full of ambush mobs, no one thought to secure the little airship landing behind the Vault before arguing with Archbishop Thordan. In Ishgard, city of verticality with its gravity-defying dragoons, personal airplanes, and millennium-long war against flying dragons. Everyone involved should have thought to check the nearby roofs for hostiles. Am I seriously the only person who has ever thought tactically about this situation??? (5) The WoL and Haurchefant rush forward to delay the Archbishop, again without considering the whereabouts of the rest of his presumably also tempered bodyguards or whether any hostiles remain in the building behind us. And so events happened as they did.

- Regula van Hydrus has a cool name and a cool silhouette with that helmet. Better than Varis, anyway. 

- the Vundu are probably my fave HW beast tribe. The moogles are the crafting tribe so Imma do them anyway (and have fun tricking them into doing work) but I’m actually looking forward to the Vundu. I’m just benevolently apathetic towards the Gnath.

- I just, like… did not care about Azys Lla in the slightest. It was more Allagan BS and I hated the map. (I still don’t have it fully explored??? What am I doing??) The ‘terms and conditions’ bit with the node was amusing, but… the entire place got old almost immediately. Finding Tiamat and talking to her with Midgardsormr was the only high point.

- why isn’t there an option to have Hrasevelgr come and talk to Tiamat to persuade her to abandon her self-chosen imprisonment??? Or to have Estinien later come and talk to her to possibly give her Nidhogg’s perspective? Bc I think Nidhogg would have some insight into her situation, definitely. She summoned elder primal Bahamut out of grief at his loss, while Nidhogg launched a millennium-long war out of grief at Ratatoskr’s loss, and now they’ve both abandoned their vengeance. 

- ARF TILL YOU BARF

- idk, man, the Aetherochemical Research Facility is such a weird conglomerate of things for a dugneon. Firstly, you got Allagan tech and machines. Then you got mutant creatures the Allagans made (bc, if it was mad science, then the Allagans were all over it). Then you got Ascians, evil ghosty dudes who laugh evilly and throw standard Evil Ascian Attacks at you before doing the fusion dance from Dragonball Z and becoming a Giant Evil Ascian. Igeyhorm has a feminine voice but is she(?) actually female or is she just presumably possessing a female body? Do Ascians have gender or do they even care about such things? (I am very much Not Thinking about Solus/Emet-Selch reproducing here.) 

- Archbishop Thordan reveals the millennium-old, perfectly preserved corpse of Haldrath, the original Thordan’s dragoon son, with NIDHOGG’S OTHER EYE FUSED INTO THE CORPSE’S CHEST, and, like, no one really comments on it in- or out-of-universe???? What happened??? Haldrath gave up the throne, apparently because he wasn’t 100% on board with his dad’s treachery against Ratatoskr and consequent decision to kill all dragons to maintain power. Dragoons were apparently already a thing at this point (HC: to combat the voidsent infesting Abalathia’s Spine and the mountains between Coerthas and Gridania, e.g. Witches’ Drop), so what happened to Haldrath? Is this explained somewhere and I missed it??? Did Nidhogg hijack his mind? Estinien had Nidhogg’s eyes (both of them, incidentally, which Haldrath didn’t have to deal with) fused to his arm & shoulder but Haldrath had an eye fused to his chest. To his HEART. What happened.

- And then Archbishop Thordan somehow turns Haldrath’s corpse + armor + Nidhogg’s eye into a sword, the primal version of presumably Ascalon, King Thordan’s sword, somehow designing it to eat primal/Ascian aether. And then he kills Lahabrea, which, no great loss there. But it leaves my questions unanswered.

- Thordan + Knights of the Round is such a cool trial, I love it to death and not because it’s easy. It could be as hard as Nidhogg Normal and I’d still love it. I wish I had a static with whom I could do Thordan Ex and other more complicated content.

- finishing that fight and the cutscenes after, however… man, I didn’t know how to feel. I was screaming internally and torn in at least three different directions. Couldn’t get through the patch content fast enough to fight Nidhogg.

- had to fight Raubahn as DRG to represent my decimated Knights Dragoon brethren and my missing possessed dragoon brother and restore their honor. I’m also 100% convinced Raubahn learned of Ifrit’s nail trick and decided, “I can totally do that with Tizona.”

- has Aymeric ever done a dragoon jump? No? Then he’s not a real Azure Dragoon even if he has a nice color scheme and has ridden a dragon. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he can do a dragoon jump (he’s survived years as Estinien’s friend somehow, and I can’t help but imagine he’s dragged Estinien off more than one rooftop), but until he does it I’m not budging on this. 

- Aymeric getting stabbed by a rando with a pocketknife and nearly dying was (1) surprisingly realistic and (2) made him look wimpy next to all the punishment so many of the other characters take without dying. Sorry, man. It had to be said. I love you, Aymeric, but still.

- standing there on the Final Steps of Faith, on the broken bridge to the Gate of Judgment, staring down Nidhogg while that beautiful music plays (TELL ME WHY BREAK TRUST, WHY TURN THE PAST TO DUST) and waiting for the queue to pop… that was a powerful emotion unlike any other. Stormblood couldn’t match it.

- Nidhogg is such a fun fight because it’s still hard and I hate that I don’t get it in trial roulette more often. (Trial roulette is my favorite, actually. I love almost all trials - with the notable exception of the Chrysalis bc everyone runs around like chickens with their heads cut off on it and rages in chat, and with the possible exception of non-Final Steps of Faith.) Akh Morn is still a killer, I sometimes just want to watch bodies hit the floor, and Final Chorus is such a badass moment even as we’re all dodging for our puny lives. We’re fighting Bahamut’s brother. 

- Estinien takes advantage of Nidhogg’s temporary aether depletion to regain enough control over his body to try to kill himself before being used to wreak any more havoc. Estinien survived weeks, possibly months of possession via ancient angry dragon, and having two giant dragon eyeballs embedded in his body and feeding him enormous amounts of foreign aether. Estinien survived his body being aetherically remade into the shape of an enormous dragon and then into a giant dragon-man hybrid. Estinien survived the Warrior of Light. IMHO he doesn’t get enough credit for this. 

- do u ever wonder about Hraesvelgr and Estinien later meeting and Hraesvelgr identifying the spirit of his brother lingering within Estinien? Bc I think a lot of us have headcanon’d that Estinien is not as free of Nidhogg as one might think, what with his red fiery aura in SB and all. On the other hand… some of us further theorize that Estinien can’t be tempered now, so he could help us fight primals. It’d be awesome.