#the japan fans have proven I’m not alone

[chronussy-bc]

Berzé: Do you think we can make it back?

Sephiria: No...I don’t.

*A moment of silence as they watch enemy’s army flooding into the place.*

Berzé: ....Together?

Sephiria: Always.

[unproductive-software-blog]

I Just Played Every Mega Man Game on the NES and Have Reviewed them All For You, Free of Charge.

TLDRFAQS:

Q: Are these games even any good?

A: For the most part, yes. Even without a fetishistic sense of “duty to the series history”, they are alright. Megaman 6, an oft overlooked entry in the series for being an NES game released well into the SNES lifespan, is easily more enjoyable than the majority of directionless open-world action games released today. They are mostly visually striking, making the most of the NES’s limited color palette, and the later games even feature a few animations more reminiscent of modern “old-school” indie games than most of the NES library. The music alone is iconic for a reason, and if you need to be sold on the series, just listen to this and decide for yourself:

Additionally, I shed tears during the ending sequences of games 2 and 3, and after shedding said tears, rested on the end-screens of both games for a few heart-mending, contemplative minutes. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

Q: Where do I start?

A: If you’re sincerely wondering, I recommend you play Mega Man 2, and don’t hesitate to save-state before the Wily stage bosses (this can be achieved through the legacy collection’s “save” feature). This is heresy to the series “hardcore” fans, but anyone interested in appeasing said fanatics wouldn’t ask where to start in the first place. If that strikes you as too archaic, try playing Mega Man 6, the game in which the developers actually fixed most of the series hair-tearingly obvious design flaws. My personal favorite is Mega Man 3, when played with heavy use of save states, as that game’s potential far surpasses it’s designers’ willingness to make any accommodations for the player, leading to a frustrating mess that left me crying like a child the first time I completed it.

Q: How can I access these games?

A: The Mega Man Legacy Collection by Digital Eclipse (available on switch, ps4, and whatever you guys are calling Microsoft’s current generation game console), is the best legal option. It allows for a single save state per game, decent CRT filter options, and the ability to replicate the NES’s lag (or not). It also features a “turbo-button” which removes the need to mash for anyone worried about carpal tunnel or some similar injury. Those unconcerned with the possibility of such an injury should at least try to play the games without the use of said button at first, as it does change their general feeling. I increasingly used it as I proceeded through the series, given its usefulness in “just getting through” the sections I’ve successfully proven to myself that I am above having to clear without taking damage yet again. I may be a gamer, but I am also a flesh and blood human with limited time. I do not recommend the playstation 2 anniversary collection. The emulation quality is simply off, and modifications seem to have been made (to the sound effects most notably) which, in my opinion, completely spits in the face of the concept of a classic games collection.

Realeased as Rockman on December 17, 1987 for the nintendo family computer in Japan, and just 12 days later in North America for the nintendo entertainment system, Mega Man is a game where you play as a robot who walks, jumps, and shoots other robots in screen-based, sidescrolling 2D. Anyone interested in similar details of objective quality should check out the Wikipedia article on the game. I’m not even kidding, it contains some pretty neat information in the “development” section, like how the bosses’ weaknesses were literally inspired by rock-paper-scissors, or that the American title was invented because “Capcom's then-Senior Vice President Joseph Morici… did not like the original name”.

This, 6, and rockboard were the only games I played without the use of save states, though I did abuse a glitch to beat the “yellow devil” boss. For anyone seeking a similarly “pure” yet “not quite maddening” experience with the game, if you use elecman’s weapon and pause the game without opening the menu (select) repeatedly as it passes an enemy, it can damage that evemy multiple times in one shot, once per pause. The pause seemingly cancels the breif invincibility granted to bosses upon taking damage, and the weapon in question is just big and indestructible enough to still be overlapping them when you unpause. Programming “quirks” like this are part of the fun, and frustration of the original Mega Man.

More on point, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this game. For all it’s fidgety awkwardness, largely blank backgrounds, and brutal level design, I found the process of mastering each stage to be incredibly rage-conqueringly satisfying. Though limited life systems are often lambasted for punishing players by making them replay content in order to win, I find that the experience of working up to not only beating a checkpoint’s-worth of stage, but the whole thing as one well-practiced run (with good performance early on leading to more opportunity to learn the boss, and poor performance early on increasing tension toward the end, punctuated with righteous fist-pumping moments of 1-up collection), lends the game a distinct sense of pacing that many modern “hardcore” platformers in the vein of Super Meat Boy trade for a constant flow. While those games have an addictive sense of instant-feedback and game feel, so does any well-crafted digital slot machine, the majority of which fail to tell any story worth experiencing firsthand.

Mega Man is the story of a blue guy who struggles tirelessly to assasinate one of his 6 evil brothers, before consuming that brother’s essence, empowering him to steamroll all the others by exploiting their weaknesses to one another’s power. Told wordlessly, this story matches exactly with that of a typical adult’s experience going back to the game they loved as a child looking for that “spark” (such an adult could, using more colorful language, be described as a “blue guy”) and subsequently realizing that said game is Mega Man, and that any meaning to be found within Mega Man lies guarded below layers upon layers of icefields, gun turrets, and even subterranean passages under icefields. WOW!

Yeah, what story was here got kind of mangled by the localization team. They tried too hard to turn something with the cute-yet cool appeal of the yet-to-revolutionize-marketing Pokémon into some GI Joe manliness measurement software (as though the title alone wasn’t “for boys” enough already). Mega Man is basically a tool for preparing children for adulthood, however. Within it’s “dated” and “backwards” game design are meaninful life lessons. The initial 6 stages go from hard to easy as you accumulate weapons. Similarly, one of the hardest parts of pursuing neaely any real-life goal is summoning the willpower to go from “doing nothing” to “gaining experience” to “actually making progress”. In physics this is called “inertia”. As my father would say “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”. He would also sometimes say “ancient Chinese proverb” in a voice I assume he learned from television, so I never quite trusted him. I did, however, love playing Mega Man 9 with him (watching). He was a great coach despite not having played the game, I assume, because being good at Mega Man requires so many skills expected of a businessman (patience, willpower, and most importantly, keeping your cool under immense pressure). He also made sure to yell at me whenever my health neared 25%, so I would remember to use my E-Tanks. I was 12 years old.

Upon beating Mega Man on the nintendo wii’s virtual console (look it up, children of today, and despair at how good we had it, and when you’re finished despairing, cancel your nintendo switch online plan (unless you’re on someone else’s family plan, ideally a strangers’)), I was treated to a beautiful, humanizing cutscene, showing our hero’s armorless (he still has a t-shirt and pants underneath) return journey. Something about witnessing this robot child I’d, attempt after attempt, watched slowly transform into a perfect killing machine, go “home” with their hair flowing freely in the wind, struck me as inexplicably moving. I will attempt to explain it. As one grows older and faces the hardships of life, they accumulate layers of defense mechanisms, habits, emotional callouses, and other useful tools in the name of strength and productivity. Sometimes these tools are gigantic, snaking lightningbolts you painstakingly grind, frame by frame, through the presumed invincibility of the people you call your enemies. Sometimes they’re just a helmet your father made for you to wear so you won’t get hurt, possibly with the added benefit of hiding your messy hair, which, as your mother incessantly reminds you, makes you look like a homeless person. To “save the day” our impressionable child brains are shown, wordlessly, is to earn the right to let your hair down at the end of the day, to remove one’s armor as an unquestionably deserving member of the human race, with feelings that, finally, you can let flow beautifully out.

This is the game most people like best. It takes the aesthetic elements of the original game (rock music and shounen anime-style action) to a more extreme level, with striking color palettes, giant midbosses, 2 more bosses (a total of 8 new robot masters to fight), an overpowered rotating saw you can throw in like 7 directions that makes the most aggressive sound effect on the NES other than Dr.Wily’s ear-destroying alarm which hideously heralds in every one of his castles in every game. It also features what I once heard called the “most remixed song in gaming history” (a title which almost certainly no longer holds true), a timeless anthem made perfect with the lyrical cover Okkusenman, a cover which has itself been covered many times. No cover, no vocal performance, musical or orherwise, will ever match the level of sincerity that the pained screams of the original Okkusenman convinced me of when I first heard it as an 11 year old on my family’s iMac computer.

The game also features an iconic opening cutscene which employs text to summarize the previous game’s events as the “camera” pans up the side of a skyscraper in the year we’ve just been told is 200X, a year so baffling we can’t even discern whether it’s intended to be in base-34, or if the game is set 200 times some unknown variable years AD. At the top of this tower gazing down at the black void of the city he returns to after believing to have saved, is none other than our hero just as we left him, glorious black hair vibrating in the breeze.

Dr.Wily has created his own set of 8 robot masters, each designed via a fan character contest (which is an awesome idea you’d expect from a kickstarter game, not a capcom game), for the sole purpose of assassinating Mega Man back. Our hero must don the helmet once again!

Then you press start and play it. It’s pretty good. Much easier than its predecessor in the early phases. Lots of new level design elements are tested, some of which, like Quickman’s… deadly accordion tubes, were too “hardcore” to ever be attempted in any game since. Either that or they’re a tad rough. One strategy I employed repeatedly in this game is to simply run forward, unconcerned with whatever harm it may bring to my character. This would get you annihilated in the original, but works perfectly well for massive chunks of this game thanks to the level design and invincibility frames. I won’t pretend to know whether this was “intended” or not, but it works and feels oddly fitting for the Mega Man aesthetic to push straight through the pain (a bull charges into the storm, etc.).

The Wily stages are mostly gross, aside from music of course. There’s no Yellow Devil, but there are puzzles requiring specific weapons that have limited ammo, ammo that is often not provided by the level itself, and some of these puzzles require your ammo supply be nearly full, meaning, unless you get a series of very lucky drops, you often must get a game over to continue. Forgive my overuse of boldface, but I feel the need to stress the point as this issue will not be resolved until the main series’ sixth entry. This is why I not only condone, but highly recommend the use of save states for this game as well as the next several. The stages aren’t even particularly hard with the exception of these puzzles and the bosses (several of which operate as ammo puzzles themselves, including the final boss, whose stage is very short, but features no items or checkpoints).

The final stage is actually excellent. It begins with a straight drop down three screens; there’s no floor to speak of on the first screen. For those who haven’t played one, you fall very quickly in these games, and several stages feature segments where falling from the wrong horizontal position between screens can get you instantly killed, making this the level design equivalent of a jump scare. It’s also the only level to feature no music. The fact that, in actuality, nothing is even capable of hurting you during your fall, gives a feeling of unease, like you clearly should have died there right? So you’re basically living on borrowed time and surely something up ahead must rectify that soon. It doesn’t though, instead you slowly pass through a tight corridor where admittedly heavily damaging but easy to dodge blood drips from the ceiling. Blood? In a game about robots? You find yourself before the boss gate, and rather than take you to the usual pre-boss safe room, it spits you out into the black void of space, where a floating dr.Wily grotesquely transforms into an alien that, for some reason, is only vulnerable to bubbleman’s bubble-shooting weapon (forgive me, I forget the name, and am on an airplane, unable to look it up). Defeat him and get ready for more aural blood-letting; a horrid siren blares and the scene strobes out of existence, revealing the whole thing as some sort of hologram with the real Wily as the helpless man behind the curtain.

Then this happens:

I find it thematically similar to the ending of the original which I already expounded upon. That said, I like how he changes with the seasons, it has a coming of age feeling to it. I also love how Mega Man fights his battles in the techno hellscape city, but lives in a peaceful village on the countryside. It’s… wholesome.

Hopefully nobody is saying these games “don’t have” or “aren’t about” a story at this point. Forget anything I’ve said here, that cutscene alone proves “text” is not what makes a “story”.

I really hate what the American localization team did with this one. In their quest to make Mega Man as dark and hardboiled as childishly possible, they paint the enemies as (violent) labor rights activists and Mega Man as some kind of pinkerton come to stop the proletariat from rising up. It really grinds my gears. It’s like they played these games and tried to extrapolate as much as possible from the little details, without addressing the obvious emotional appeal at the series’ core.

That said, Mega Man 3 is still, undoubtedly, the dark one. Maybe the creepy alien stage in 2 was popular, I don’t know, but Mega Man 3 takes the neon greens, blues, and pinks of its predecessor, and smears all over it with hard, black, pixelated textures, and stark white steel platforms. Snakeman’s and hardman’s stages are pretty whimsical, but many of the other stages take place at night, in dark subterranean lairs, and not even ones under ice fields this time. Magnetman’s stage features unnaturally colored smog, geminiman’s stage has you blasting your way through what seems like a nest of fertilized alien eggs, and shadowman’s stage features intermittent segments where the lights go down and your dodging suicide-bombing grenade-shaped robots in pitch darkness. The music, in my opinion, is easily on par with the iconic Mega Man 2’s, if a bit less “epic” in tone. Mega Man 3 has plenty of rocking tracks, themes are more varied. Gemini and needleman’s stages feel downright perilous, and the game’s opening theme (the first song linked in this post) is like the grand, brooding 8-bit equivalent of The Beatles’ and George Harrison’s “While my Guitar Gently Weeps”.

Unfortunately this game is also the beginning of the end for a lot of people. Put bluntly, this game is the most padded in the series. Mega Man gets a dog in this one, and he is basically a “cute” streamlining of the platforming items in 2. Unfortunately the designers are way to proud of him, and so the accursed item puzzles from 2 are back stronger than ever, this time with at least a tad more ammo than you need. It still sucks to be deep into a long segment of riding your dog around, only to find that the run was doomed from the start because no, they weren’t going to give you the little boost you needed that time. You fight the mysterious “Break Man” in several stages, a midboss that feels like he’s preventing the game from having actual cool midbosses like the last game, even though he isn’t. He just kills you until you learn his pattern and then he never hurts you again. The fight still lasts too long. You also repeat half the original 4 stages. They have some new sections, and reused bosses from 2. It sucks, because the bosses in 2 are mostly beaten by spamming their weaknesses while they galivant around the arena wailing on you, only you don’t know which of the new weapons they’re weak to, so you have to die a few times testing weapons. Unfortunately the item puzzles turn each death into a game over because for some reason, they left out the checkpoint before the boss of needleman 2!! Sorry, but I will never get over this; it’s the reason I gave up on this one as a teenager, which is a shame because I would’ve loved the ending even more then.

The Wily stages in this game are the best so far. Yes they have item puzzles, but you know what, flying around on the rush jet is pretty fun. More importantly the bosses are difficult without being Yellow Devil or Dragon levels of hopelessness-inducing pain. On top of that, the visuals gradually get darker, more serious, and more muted, while the music does the same, eventually culminating in this excellent suspense building track:

The final boss proceeds without error and ends in Wily’s castle collapsing. The debris crushes Mega Man and Wily. We see Mega Man lying down, wounded, in a sprite the appears nowhere else in the series, and he is saved by breakman, who, after what is for this series a massive dialogue heavy cutscene, is revealed to be protoman. Upon hearing this, Mega Man immediately storms out of the lab and roams the countryside, searching in vain for the brother he, one can only assume, has always longed to know (especially after destroying all his others in the first game). His reasons for leaving the family are yet unknown, but as Mega Man gazes at the empty sky, one thing is clear, Protoman is out there; he might even be watching us right now.

I wept, like a child, at the saddest song ever written in 8-bits:

Just a quick aside, I did play the first of the gameboy Mega Man games. It was decent. The bosses are mostly reused, but the stages are unique. With there being so many games in the series, I don’t see a real reason to play this game today. The NES games are simply better from an aesthetic and narrative perspective. The selling point here is portability, but a difficult action game like this doesn’t work that well portably without a sleep mode or save file, it simply demands too much of your attention. Future spinoff games would reformulate the formula to work well on gameboy advance and nintendo ds.

It at least ends in space, which is always cool.

This game returns the series tone back to “squeaky clean Mega Man”. No sections reminiscent of the pre-boss areas in Killer 7, just “4 Megs” of “metal-mashing” action (yeah, they actually used to advertise the ROM’s file size). The major exception being dustman’s stage, with a song that starts out haunting and becomes a relatively average Mega Man 3 song (read: excellent). The stage is a massive waste treatment facility wherein you mostly climb around scrapmetal. The whole stage is black and grey with a few pixels of random color here and there representing random debris. It’s crazy to think there are the parts of the real world that look like this, and it’s a whole different kind of crazy to think that Megaman himself is a robot and will probably himself end up here when/if he dies. He’s basically climbing on corpses, which you more literally do in skullman’s bone-platform stage. I like the extreme color contrast of the bones with the blood-red sky, but the whole thing is so unrealistic that it mostly just feels funny and cool, not really spooky.

Anyway, my point is, other than dustman’s stage, this game is basically as bright, colorful, and pop as you can get. There’s even a brightman, whose stage has you running across rainbows through a sky blue… sky. Foreground and background elements change color, the backgrounds are more detailed, and nearly all the weird technical issues of yore have been smoothed over. It’s essentially Capcom using SNES-era technology to make an NES game that clearly outshines most of the system’s library in sheer style and playability. The next two numbered entries in the series will proceed to 1-up themselves using this same method to the point of absurdity.

When I say this is the “pop” entry in the series, I’m also referencing how easy the game is compared to its predecessors. It’s actually possible for a normal human, having played some ammount of the series up to this point, to beat stages on their first try, a feat that would have been nearly unthinkable in the original game. I personally love this. The original Mega Man is the biggest challenge to surmount, and every other game is intentionally and meaningfully different. Would the average diehard fan seriously call 2, the breakout hit of the series, a lesser experience because of its decreased challenge? Of course not. As with 3, some people consider this game to be the beginning of the end (I promise those are the only games I will attribute that secondhand title to in this retrospective), however that has more to do with the story than anything.

In short: Dr.Cossack is not Dr.Wily, but is doing more or less the same thing (causing urban mayhem with robots, particularly involving perfectly circular explosions on the sides of buildings that somehow don’t seem to do any visually apparent damage). Fly through his wonderfully Kremlin themed hideout (the easiest “castle” levels thusfar, featuring less item puzzles as well), and eventually get to my favorite level in the entire series, to which I have dedicated a much shorter twitter-tier post to.

Then you fight Dr.Cossack’s capsule machine and reveal that Wily had kidnapped Cossack’s daughter, Kalinka, and forced him to commit crimes.

This scene is surprising the first time you see it, not for any plot reasons, but because it transitions immediately from boss battle to dialogue cutscene without any kind of screen transition (eat your heart out, Final Fantasy VII). Then you do 4 trollishly frustrating Wily stages, some of which deprive you of pre-boss checkpoints. It’s as though Cossack represents the game’s more friendly sense of challenge, and Wily, the true evil, goes back to the worst of Mega Man difficulty. In execution, however, it feels more regressive than clever.

The game ends with a scene of Mega Man riding home atop a train. It’s pretty beautiful, and the music is somber and good. At the end he returns to his home in the country with Dr.Right and Roll (his creator and sister) there to welcome him. It’s a pretty sweet reinforcement of the Mega Man as salaryman parallel, seeing him ride the train home. It gives the impression that after saving the world 4 times, the game’s events feel like business as usual to our hero, and the end cutscene is, once again, his return commute from a long day at the mechanical skull-shaped office.

Overall this game falls a tad short of its full potential because though the graphics and mechanics are more refined, the twist isn’t very meaningful. Cossack never gets much characterization so it doesn’t really feel important whether it was him or Wily truly behind it all, and the ending also fails to surprise. It’s the first game in the series to feel like “another one of these”, and the sense of Capcom playing it safe is amplified in the eyes of many fans, perhaps unfairly, as an NES game released soon after the SNES.

That said, the game’s opening cutscene is excellent. It basically establishes Mega Man’s origin story as Rock, a lab assistant who asked to be converted into a killing machine in order to fight for justice. I really love this. It’s inspiring that Mega Man wasn’t born a hero; he chose to become one. It also makes all those past hair flowing scenes feel more meaningful, emphasizing the true discrepancy between his public and private faces.

I’m writing this section a few days after having finished the last section. The truth is, Mega Man 5 is the most functional game so far. It’s smooth like butter and sweet like milk. The easiest game in the series thusfar, Mega Man 5’s level design often feels generic. I beat several stages on my first try, loudly declaring to my friend in attendance “this game is fucking trivial!” upon annihilating my sixth robot master within what couldn’t have been even two hours.

A handful of stages make up for this by being drastically more difficult and unique than the others: Starman’s stage uses floaty space physics, waveman’s stage sees Mega Man riding the waves in an auto-runner style segment that controls unlike anything else in the series, and gravityman’s stage has points where the direction of gravity changes for Mega Man and his enemies a la Super Mario Galaxy, or Metal Storm, from which it likely draws inspiration. These stages alone nearly justify the game’s existence, but if you’re going to focus on new, innovative mechanics, why not do so using the power of the snes to create something on yet another level? This doesn’t mean much today, with both the consoles and these games being “outdated” and all the more charming for it, but I can empathize with a fan’s desire to see this series “make the transition already”. On the other hand, the game is really fun, and hey, isn’t a developer making their games available for people without the latest and most expensive hardware a good thing (Cyberpunk 2077)?

The story of this game is the weakest, even moreso than the original game’s. Protoman is acting like Dr. Wily. Treat him the exact same and get treated with a cutscene at the end of his castle wherein Mega Man refuses to fight his brother and nearly dies, before being saved by the real Protoman. The fake one was, of course, made by Wily, who must be stopped in his castle. The castle levels are extremely tolerable in this game, but lack the major stage gimmicks discussed above, and thus, like much of this game, feel a bit generic. The castle bosses especially feel generic, with “Protoman”’s being variations on the same normal-sized robot. The fights are effortlessly easy and forgettable. The game ends with Mega Man saving the day and being saved by the real Protoman again. Protoman then sinks off the screen, in a move that is legitimately starting to feel like pure shyness at this point. I mean come on, we know Protoman’s our friend by this point, why can’t he just, I don’t know, actually say hello for a change? Frankly this whole game’s plot is built on the unbelievable lie that Protoman was shockingly behind it all this time, but it’s just a more groan-worthy version of the last game’s twist with Dr.Cossack. The games in this series haven’t been 13 stages in length (as the back of this game’s North American box wrongly claimed it was), since the second installment. If they’re going to pad the game like this, they should make those extra stages fit the story, instead of writing a weak story to justify the added game length (especially when the added stages ignore the game’s most interesting new mechanics). It’s reminiscent, or perhaps a harbinger of, the worst modern day open world game plot-points (i.e. spiderman hiding 50 backpacks from himself over the course of years before one day deciding he needs them all back, etc.).

Actually, speaking of game-padding chores, Mega Man 5 is the first to offer a hidden power unlocked by collecting the letters in MEGAMANV throughout the first batch of 8 stages. Most are easy to find, but slightly difficult to get, offering a reward for taking on extra challenge beyond e-tanks and 1-ups, even though those items encourage you to take on the challenge more often, not being one-of-a-kind items. Also, the phrase MEGAMANV contains 2 letters repeated 2 times, which makes finding those letters occasionally confusing if you’re not paying much attention to the treasure hunt. I also think the exploration needed to find a letter you missed in a cleared stage is tedious and mostly aimless. It’s not super hard or anything, but Mega Man just isn’t the kind of game where I want to replay stages after beating their respective bosses; it saps the experience of it’s deadly tension and uncertainty, not to mention most of the fun in these games is in proving to yourself that you can, in fact, do it. Once “it” has been “done” the whole thing begins to feel a little toothless.

Overall I had a good time playing this one because of how quickly I could play through all of the new content, but I just as quickly moved on from the experience and forgot its details. What you see on the poorly-localized box is essentially what you get with this one, “secret” Wily stages or no.

Even so, this is pretty bold.

This is the entry most readers will likely be unfamiliar with, so I implore the crazed Rockboard-addicted otaku to please bear with me as I explain to 100% of this post’s audience (rounded up to account for the fact that the total views of my posts do not exceed 100) how it works.

It’s actually kinda cool. You have a functional monopoly-like 8-bit board game complete with options to trade, auction (egregiously the feature requiring use of the second controller port on the NES; I un- and then re- plugged my single controller for those breif sections), and offer properties to other players. It actually feels quite impressive, given the console’s limitations. Additionally, one character may build property (labs) on another character’s land by paying the landlord, causing them to share profits. It’s a clever system, with many levels of development, and the strategic considerations of which plots you do or do not need to completely own (merely owning a lab or plot neighboring another of yours will raise the value of each).

The game also features many playable characters, none of which, insultingly, are Mega Man or his cool brother with the sunglasses. As the Mario and Luigi of this series, it makes no sense not to include them. The explanation I came up with to allow myself to enjoy the game in a state other than pure, blind, unrelenting, confused rage is that this game is about what the series’s other characters get up to while the boys are off saving the world. Each character has their own unique dialogue upon witnessing or participating in certain in-game events. You see them constantly, but the game’s “fast” text option more than lives up to its label. I’ll break down each character and who I imagine they were designed for below:

Dr.Right - Trying to bring peace to the world with his inventions and occasionally giving gifts to players who land on his spaces. This one’s for dad. Helping the other players fits his character and therefore is a really sly way of applying a handicap your children can look up to, instead of feeling coddled by. He’s so polite and adorable. I felt bad when beating him.

Roll - My character of choice. Her goal is to build hospitals, and her lines really emphasize that she’s doing this solely for those less fortunate than herself. This is the best choice for mom, even though she’s a robot child (there are NO adult women (man or machine) in the series up to this point. Her property effects are neutral.

A quick aside: I like that the above two characters play what is nearly modern day monopoly with altruistic intentions. Like, yes, they might financially ruin the Kalinkas, Cossacks, and Wilys of the world, but hey, in this world real positive change takes money. It’s not politically perfect or anything, but it’s better than whatever you can ethically surmise from Mario Party.

Dr.Cossack - Basically playing normal monopoly. Essentially a self-interested character who still gives you a chance to roll again when you land on his space. He wants your money, but he’ll help you out in other ways because in his mind he’s still a good guy. I can’t really imagine anyone wanting to play Cossack unless they wanted to play a boy and the others were taken, or Right was taken and they don’t want to play a villain. Maybe your atheistic teenage brother who actually wants to be a scientist would choose him.

Kalinka - Not even advancing a career, just amassing money and building castles to feel like a princess. I guess this is my house-flipping mom? Can’t really see anyone wanting to play her other than maybe a young girl or series fan who was fascinated with her inclusion as such a minor character. I do like that she’s here, and she adds a little chaos into the mix by transforming other players into robot masters that have special powers, but no ability to buy property they land on.

Dr.Wily - Taking over the world as in any Mega Man game. He’s the only one literally trying to establish a monopoly, and his spaces can drain an extra 300 zenny from you. I kind of like how playing the easy character also makes you the game’s villain, but I imagine the kind of player that chooses Wily would suck to play with anyway. Probably an obnoxious brat with something ever-so-slightly wrong with them. The kind of kid your parents make you hang out with because they just can’t accept your 11-year-old brain’s earnest revelation that other people just aren’t worth the time of day. You wish you could just play as Rockman in this Rockman game and kick his ass like an awesome hero already.

I didn’t get the chance to play this multiplayer, but I will give my opinions regardless. The beginning of the game is too slow and makes you feel like the game will last forever, but because the game ends when a player earns enough money (an appreciated change to the formula) and the rate of money-earning increases exponentially, the proceedings will end in a manner that feels sudden to the winning player (“things were just getting interesting!”). The other players will probably be pretty out of it at that point, as their doesn’t seem to be much opportunity to make a major comeback, but it’s hard to tell, since I only played against the game’s less than incredible CPU players. I also really dislike how many items and transformations in the game take down the other players, rather than giving the user a boost. That and the way the new character Reggae laughs at the last-place character after the winner is announced gives the game a mean-spirited edge that is the opposite of what anyone should want from a party game.

That’s basically the game. It’ll probably make everyone slightly less bitter than monopoly or Mario Party, but also feel the need to discuss why you keep insisting on playing as Kalinka or why your little brother would rather play as a hideous supervillain without an ounce of coolness than the only iconic playable robot character in this Rockman game who just so happens to wear a dress.

The final installment of the series on famicom/NES, Mega Man 6 mechanically perfects the formula while essentially disregarding the series breif history of hard-hitting cutscenes. I encoutered no bugs and only once experienced what I would call an “oddity” of programming. I joyously annihilated the game without the use of any save states, and still found the overall level of challenge greater and more consistent than the previous game’s. The new Rush-Adapter powers change your platforming and combat abilities without consuming ammo, allowing the game to actually vary the platforming by requiring their use without being infuriating. There are also many optional paths through this game’s stages which make use of the adapters. That and the indication of which stages contain collectibles on the menu solve Mega Man 5’s aimless search problem, and make finding the secrets quite fun. The animation and sound gives the common enemies more character than previous entries, and the internationally-themed stages provide a sense of aesthetic diversity beyond its predecessors. Flameman sounds like a rehash, but his stage is Saudi oil tycoon themed. Centaurman is insane. He teleports, disappears, stuns you, and shoots what look like fireworks just over your head. His stage takes place in the city of Atlantis, begining above the water, diving into it, and ending in the city itself, with the water (and its physics) above you. It’s a great twist on the usual water stage, and had me laughing and smiling quite a bit.

The story is the same-old Cossack twist for the third time, with Mr.X, who claims to have been manipulating Wily all along, revealing himself to actually just be Wily. This is the worst iteration of the trope because it actually lowers the stakes for the final castle. At best it makes you more annoyed with Wily, and want to put a stop to him for good just so he’ll stop preventing these games from being more interesting. You sort of maybe do that because the epilogue shows a newspaper declaring he’s in prison now. It’s sort of a bland ending except for the hilarious scene wherein Mega Man chases the helpless doctor to some comically frantic and breif music.

And then it has a sequence showing tihe game’s robot masters which goes on way too long. The last few games had similar sequences, but they were more appropriate in length. Either way, I’d much prefer seeing the series recurring characters, even if it’s just in a tiny slice of life scene. It would bring back the sense of releif games 1-4 so righteously bestowed on players in their endings.

IN CONCLUSION:

The Mega Man series had 7 installments on nintendo’s first video game home console. The intellectual property rights to all these games belong to Capcom. The people who made these games claimed to have worked their hardest to outdo themselves. Their efforts were rewarded with funding for sequel after sequel.

I enjoyed these games enough to write this article in part because I have a nostalgic connection to the series which helps me appreciate its best qualities. I played all of these games because as a middle school kid, I discovered the Mega Man guitar cover scene on Youtube and decided that classic Mega Man was the epitome of hardcore and something of intense, head-banging, tear-jerking, childhood-defining importance, despite my only experience with the games at that time being a laggy port of Mega Man 2 on my flip phone. I vowed to someday play them, and now I have. It was not the best use of my time, and the sleep I lost staying up all night to finish games 2 and 3 caused me to feel depressed during work, and my performance suffered. At the same time, my respect for Mega Man’s tireless effort in the service of the greater good in those early games despite the difficulty of the road ahead, and the fanmade album embelishing and re-telling the series’s story The Protomen inspired me to quit that soul-sucking job and pursue the more socially-just career I had imagined when I first became interested in the series. They’re not perfect games, and they make you experience a real kind of loss when you lose, the loss of real world time, wasted. However, that wasting of time is a tool used to drive home the game’s emotional and thematic experience! It makes you realize just how much you value your limited time on this Earth. However, you only get that out of Mega Man if you really take it in and think about it, as opposed to enjoying it as a superficial distraction until you get frustrated or “bored” and go play something you can turn your brain off and either “excitingly” overstimulate or “relaxingly” understimulate yourself with.

The people who love Mega Man love it so much because we are the kind of people who get deeply invested in our entertainment. We get deeply invested in our entertainment because we find it fun to play with our brains on full blast, as the original game’s difficulty demands of us. We enjoy difficult video games because we want to be in the habit of pushing our limits, but still feel we occasionally deserve a break from the harshness of reality and from the work required to make it better. The most zealous of us might even say that pretending to be heroes who overcome great adversity and oppose evil at every turn makes us more likely to try our best to do good in the real world by aligning our minds with the mindset of the character before bed each night. I am myself the most zealous of said fans.

Being the change you want to see in the world begins with acknowledging the desire to see said change, and the best art helps draw out the best in us.

All else is distraction.

~suoly

[ko-fanatic]

Blood, Guts and Chocolate Cake

Rating: Mature

Fandom: Danganronpa

Pairings: IshiMondo

Summary:

Mondo Owada, the Ultimate Bodyguard, is entering a four year contract with one Kiyotaka Ishimaru, the Ultimate Idol. It makes sense, two Ultimates put together for their high school careers, and he could use the steady pay check to send home to Daiya; those medical bills were a bitch, and it was his fault the accident happened in the first place.

It was supposed to be easy, guard the cutesy, clean-cut idol from perverts and stalkers, no big deal! However, the world's perception of Kiyotaka Ishimaru was far different than what the young idol had become. During the first few months before even stepping into Hope's Peak, he's more worried for the young boy than he's ever been for anyone before.

TW: Alcohol, and eating disorders (both restrictive behaviours and B/P), mentions of disability, underage sex/sexualisation, drugs

The hallways of this damn building were too long.

That was definitely the first impression Mondo got, being led down said monotonous hallways by a young woman with an expression which implied that she simply wasn’t paid enough to care about small talk. Not that he had any room to judge, hands shoved in his pockets and a permanent scowl on his face. He might’ve been going to review an upcoming contract, but the best thing about his position was that there was no need to be all smiley; Hope Peak’s choice for Ultimate Bodyguard was all the credentials he needed at this point. 

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a bit intimidated by how long he would be working with these record label types. He couldn’t deny it made sense - hire the Ultimate Bodyguard to protect the Ultimate Idol, sound logic; it was just that a four year contract was… a lot. That wasn’t even thinking about the fact he was going to be glued to the guy’s hip for all that time, having to get along no matter what. Would he even have time to make friends of his own? Doubtful. Still, a paycheck was a paycheck, and he’d have to go to some highschool anyway, so kill two birds with one stone. 

He’d never had an issue smiling through vapid celebrity bullshit before. It was going to be an easy ride, too; from what he knew, the guy was as prim and proper as they came. Real boy next door image. Easy to take care of, and mainly just telling overzealous fans to back the fuck up. Simple. 

His inner monologue was broken by an abrupt stop, the woman only sending a bored glance his way before knocking. The door was pushed ajar with the quiet muttering of “Mondo Owada to see you, gentlemen”, before he was unceremoniously shepherded into the room. 

It was just as big as you’d expect from a building like this, with a gargantuan desk and several business-types sitting across from him. They were even backlit by a floor-to-ceiling window showing Tokyo in all its glory - like some cheesy ass movie. Still, taking a cursory glance around the room, he couldn’t see anyone fitting the description of “teen idol”, let alone Ishimaru himself...

“Owada-san, good afternoon!” One of the men greeted cheerfully, clasping his hand in one of those firm yet professional grips he’d gotten used to since rising up in his career, “My name is Shiro Kamei, and these gentlemen are Kenshin Aki and Yutaka Hayashida. We’re Kiyotaka Ishimaru-san’s managers.”

“Well, that answers one question,” He shrugged, not sugarcoating his words, but not being as rude as he certainly could be, “But I don’t see Ishimaru-san around. If I’m meeting with anyone, I personally think it should be with the guy I’m gonna be with 24/7, for the next four years.”

“Of course!” Kamei-san chirped, far too cheerful for his taste, especially considering the stench of ass-kissing that followed it. Not sincere, but too many meetings like this one had trained him to swallow down the vomit that threatened to spew from the fakeness of it all. 

“Ishimaru-san will be here soon,” Hyashida-san intoned, temperament a bit more palatable than Mr Chipper, “He’s a rather busy young man, being an idol of his caliber. Dance practice is just wrapping up, any minute now, so we can use this time to have a little chat - go through expectations for your role and such.”

Mondo managed to stop himself raising an eyebrow at that. Like he wasn’t the best bodyguard in Japan. He guessed it was something needed for a job of this sort, not temping or whatever, and so he settled down for a bunch of timewasting jabber. 

Or, it was, until a certain request caught his attention.

“We also expect him to be kept out of, well… trouble…”

“Thought he was a cutesy, innocent kid?” He frowned, sitting a little straighter in his seat, attention piqued, “I’m guessing he’s the kind to get mouth-breathers and creeps, huh?”

The three men looked a little more caged at that remark. A couple cleared throats, a few tugged collars and cuffs, awkward air. 

“Yes, there have been incidents, but nothing previous security couldn’t handle,” Aki-san informed, “The issue is a recent change in attitude. Nothing much, but tugging on the leash more than necessary, if you understand my meaning.”

He did. Part of him wanted to object to the idea that a sixteen year old needed to be kept on a leash at all, but idol shit was full of PR. 

“So boy next door is going through a little rebellion, and you want me to make sure it stays on the DL,” He shrugged, “Got it.”

“I wouldn’t put it like that, Owada-san -!”

Kamei-san was interrupted by several short, sharp raps, door opening to reveal the man of the hour. 

Ishimaru was pretty, no denying that. His eyes were what really caught everyone’s attention; bright, wide and doll-like. That said nothing about his facial structure - cheekbones and jawline and everything prominent - or his barbie doll-esque frame. He was probably one of the slimmest people Mondo had ever seen, at least in person. Well, and outside of a hospital. The media went absolutely gaga over his thigh gap, his lithe abs and delicate hip bones. 

He personally prefers a little more meat on the bones, a little less fragile, but he guessed it was an idol’s job to appeal to the masses. 

“Good morning, everybody!” He beams, but honestly? The sunshine emanating from him is a lot warmer - a lot more real - than Kamei-san. He actually had to take a second to come back to himself, knocked off equilibrium. The power of the Ultimate Idol, for you. 

“Kiyotaka, this is Mon -”

“Mondo Owada,” He cuts in, wanting to introduce himself, cut the preamble, and offers his hand to shake, “‘M gonna be the one guarding you.”

Ishimaru gives him a once over, and for two seconds he thinks he sees a smirk pull at the corner of the young man’s lips, but he soon brushes it off as a trick of the light. 

“Thank you so much for accepting our proposition, Owada-san!” He grins, and Mondo hates his little bi heart at that moment. Ishimaru clasps his hand. He can’t help but feel that they’re too calloused for a pretty boy idol, but he doesn’t dwell on it, “I hope we get along well!”

He’s loud, but the words are sweet, and Mondo relaxes a little bit. Easy job, as he thought. 

---

Mondo was proven wrong in a matter of three days into his contract. He’d certainly been proven wrong far quicker than that before; however, in terms of sheer what-the-fuckery-is-this, this situation took the cake. 

The train journey to the first tour destination wasn’t bad, if tedious. Kid spent all his time reading, and Mondo had no clue how he didn’t puke all over the place from staring at the pages. He’d looked at his phone for about five minutes and was ready to lie down and accept his death. 

… Trains were not his prefered method of transportation…

Ishimaru had passed on the sandwiches on offer, but so did Mondo. No big deal. Those things sucked ass, and maybe the kid was more nauseous than he seemed. Wish that was him, considering he was pretty sure his face was pale green. 

Settling into the hotel was fine, as was the tech set up in the venue. Stress emanating off everyone, but pretty normal as far as that shit was concerned. Ishimaru was dragged between costume fittings, tech run throughs and other things that just passed in a blur. 

No, what really proved to Mondo that the pretty boy idol was going through an actual rebellious phase, was what he walked in on at 11:56pm, night three. 

He’d gotten up due to a serious inability to sleep. Seriously, did he manage to get jet lag without even switching time zones? Nah, didn’t work like that. Maybe it was second hand adrenaline from the performance being tomorrow. Ishimaru might not make his kind of music, but the guy had this infectious enthusiasm for it all. He’d be backstage, too; premo location to see everything up close. He couldn’t help the slight smile on his face, in spite of how tired he felt. 

Any fleeting, fuzzy feelings disappeared, however, when he walked into the main area of their hotel suite. 

There stood Ishimaru, back to him, very much not dressed for bed. His jeans were so tight they looked spray painted on, not to mention the sequined top that cut off to show a tantalising flash of milky pale skin.

“Where’re you off to?” 

His question seemed to startle the kid, who practically jumped three feet in the air, hand clutching his chest as he whirled on him. 

“Fuck, what’s your problem?” He gasped out. Mondo couldn’t help but let his eyes widen, having not heard the boy swear since they met. Admittedly, it was only a few days, but Ishimaru just gave off such an innocent vibe. He’d questioned if the boy even knew a swear word for a while. 

“The guy I’m meant to protect is running off into the city at midnight, and obviously didn’t plan to tell me,” He answered bluntly, “So, come on, where’re you trying to slink off to?”

“None of your business,” He sniffed, shoulders squaring, “And stop… talking to me like that. Like I’m a child. It’s annoying as shit.” 

“Alright, sor-ry, jeez,” He apologised, hands up in surrender, “Let me just grab my coat and -”

“No!” Ishimaru ground out, “I’m going out, you're staying here, and my managers are none the wiser, got it?”

Oh, that sneaky fucker. While Mondo was all for personal freedom, no way was the scrawny kid going out there to get attacked and murdered in some urine soaked alleyway. For one, it’d completely fuck up his plans for the next four years - no money to send back to Daiya, and he seriously doubted Hope’s Peak would want an Ultimate Bodyguard who let the world’s most popular idol get murdered in a matter of days. 

“Yeah, no, not happening, kid,” He shut down, reaching over the boy to get his coat, only for hands to press against his chest, stopping him. 

“What do you want then? Money?” Ishimaru asked, looking up at him through his lashes. Fuck, the kid really went all out with the makeup; smokey eyeshadow and liner, glossed lips, the whole deal, “Or I can suck your dick?”

He nearly choked at that, face hot as hell and probably an embarrassing shade of red. “N-No! What the fuck?!” He yelled, only earning a shrug in response. 

“Look, I need to go out - alone,” Ishimaru began again, arguing a point Mondo simply wasn’t going to agree with, “I need to get a little fucked up, railed into some guy’s mattress, and then I’ll come back. I’ll be here again before sunrise.”

“Tugging on the leash more than necessary”, his ass! 

“Sorry, you're talking to the wrong guy,” He dismissed, doing his best impression of Daiya’s you done fucked up voice he could, “Back to bed. Don’t think you’re sneaking out, either. I’m just gonna stay out here all night, make sure you don’t go and get yourself cut up and dumped in the river. Y’know, my job.”

“Fuck you,” Ishimaru spat, storming back to his room with a mutter of ,“Asshole…”

If Mondo knew one thing, it was this… He’d really had no idea what he was signing himself up for.

---

A/N:

WOW, it's been a while since I've written for this fandom. Thank you Taka and Mondo for being an adorable pair of dumbasses and dragging me right back into DR. Hopefully, I'll add to my old fics too, but I've got lots of new ideas I want to play with (Including two other talentswaps and two AUs!)

For now, Ouran fics are on the back burner, I'm afraid. I'm sure I'll be back to them soon enough, but I'm a bit burnt out in my OHSHC obsession, so we'll see.

Also, as always, comments really help and if you want to take any of these concepts and run, go for it! All I ask is a credit and a link if possible! :)

[buttmuncher91]

a lot of advanceshippers love to say such bs about Drew even to this day. Drew is not my favorite character & it’s fine to prefer advanceshipping over contestshipping and I kinda like advanceshipping , but some of the things they say are ridiculous! This is not bashing on all advanceshippers or advanceshipping in general, this is just some quotes (not exact) I’ve seen that I’ve had problems with.

”Drew is a jerk! Ash would treat her right!“

Both would treat her just fine! Drew watches out for her & tells her when Harley is tricking her, saved her friends & brother when she was busy, saves her friends, cheers her up when she’s down, & they both calmly talk to each other when alone.

Besides, there are some things to point Ash being a jerk to her too! Ash yelled at her because he was butthurt he had no boat to get his next gym badge & skips out on watching some of her contest when May even watches him battle regular trainers.

And it’s not like May is an innocent angel herself. She yelled at Ash & Drew for no reason, had her torchic attack Ash, & forced Ash to agree to let her travel with him by bringing up her bike.

I know May & Ash have developed a lot sense than, but so has Drew & y’all are just stuck viewing him how he reacted at the beginning.

”May hates Drew & loves ash!“

She doesnt hate Drew. At the very worst, she sees him as a friend & has seen him that way by “Who, What, When, Where, Wynut.” Like I said we seen them talk a lot when they run into each other & heck, she even ditched the group, including Ash as he was talking to her, to talk to Drew when she saw Drew. So tell me again how she loves Ash way more than Drew lol!

And in ”Spontaneous Combustion“ May blushes at Drew after he waved and walked off. May never blushed around Ash, even when some weird couple accused her of being Ash’s lover. And there was nothing in that scene that indicates her getting red met something else. She wasn’t sick, doesn’t look mad, didn’t do anything embarrassing, etc... so it looks as if she really likes Drew.

”Drew is a flirts with any girl & would cheat on May, but Ash would never cheat on her!”

You people have nothing to back this up. Drew had fangirls gushing all over him? May being Norman‘s daughter and probably because she’s referred to as hoenn princess, has a lot of fanboys! In fact, Ash is more likely to cheat on May then Drew dispite him being oblivious, as Drew showed 0 interest in his fangirls & ran from them. If he was such a flirt, he wouldn’t run from fan girls, but would try & you know, FLIRT with them. Drew also showed 0 interest for other girls, & only teases May. You advanceshipper fanbrats (not saying all advanceshippers are fanbrats just the advanceshippers who think this) only pretend he is to make up reasons for May to reject Drew.

”He only likes May for her rack, & wouldn’t care for her if it was flat!“

Talk about reaching. Drew only stares at her FACE! He never stared at them, & the anime gave her chest 0 focus. He isn’t just some creeper. Despite not being interested in her, he treated Breanna nicely & she was flat. He may just have puppy love/a crush on her, but saying he’s just trying to win her because of her rack is complete bs!

”Think about it, Drew & May would make ugly babies!”

Based on what? Cuz Drew has green hair? As someone whose least favorite color is green (okay, okay dark/forest green is pretty), I think this is a stupid claim. Even with a weird hair color, there’s a chance the child could be cute, & really beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Hair color is NOT even close to a huge factor to what separates not ugly to ugly. And they don’t have to make babies if they do get together. They can just choose to adopt to help out those who need a home or just happily be with each other with no children at all.

”Drew is in less episodes with May than Ash, so advanceshipping is better & will be canon!”

🤦‍♀️Misty has the most screen time with ash. By this cruddy ”logic,” Misty & ash (so far) are canon. Yes, misty has much more screen time with ash than May. Misty had all of Kanto, Orange Islands, AND Jhoto with ash... as well as a cameo with ash in Hoenn, and TWO separate cameos in Alola. And at this point, May could have spent more time with Drew. It’s been 4 regions that Ash hasn’t even thought of 1 of her Pokémon after all this time. I’m no pokeshipper, but let’s be real here.

And most of the time Ash & May are on screen, it’s them focusing on their goals/Pokémon. They cheer & encourage each other too, but it’s mostly friendship stuff. Could something happen later on between them to spark love? Sure. But nothing in the anime ever pointed to that. And you can literally say that with Ash and... ANYONE! Like Ash could grow up, met back up with Roxie & they could fall for each other.

When Drew appears on screen, you mostly see hard evidence for contestshipping, weather on Drew’s side, May’s side, or both. Yes, there’s evidence on BOTH sides that they like each other. At best, advanceshipping looks one-sided on May’s side. And even then, it mostly looked that way in the beginning of AG. There’s way more evidence that May likes Drew & vice vesa than with ash & May, even with “less contestshipping hints!“ A lot of hints for shippings are overblown. Not just advanceshipping hints, but poke/pearl/negai(actually never mind, negai is under looked & over hated)/amour/etc... are over blown & it’s just ash being his usual nice/childish self. With Drew, it’s obvious he likes her as how he constantly stares at her, teases her, gives her red roses (& says they’re for beutifly), etc... While I think I covered how May likes Drew enough already. And yes, this could just be a kiddy crush for the both of them, but in the end there’s still harder evidence that Drew & May like each other.

Plus there are a lot of canon fictIonal couples who had less screen time with each other than other characters. Naruhina, ichihime, Hinny, gochi, etc...

“Drew never saves May’s life, unlike Ash!”

So? May never even tried to saved Ash, like she did with Drew!

Ash has also saved: Angie (who has a more confirmed crush on ash), Dawn, Pikachu (3x I can think of), Chinchar, Lillie (or at least attempts to help a lot of times), Celiebi, Erika’s Gloom, Serena, Misty’s sisters Pokémon, a ton of CotDs & their Pokémon...

And what of those who saved Ash? Misty, Sabrina’s... family photographer, Gary, Iris, Clemont’s father, Zeroara dude, a ton of officer jennys, Pikachu, a lapras, Paul, Drew (ya keep on hating him if it werent for him Ash Brock and Max would probably be dead in that crate Jessie, James & Meowth trapped them in so not even advanceshipping could happen).

“Rivals can’t be dating!”

Where did you get this bs? Even in the pokeani IN THE AG SERIES this has been proven false. Watch Pasificlog Jam again. Who put you in charge of how couples should work anyways? If a writer wants to have rivals hookup in their story, than they have that freedom to have the rivals hookup regardless how upset you get over it.

“Ash & May kissed in a banned episode, so advanceshipping is canon not contestshipping!”

Come on guys, they’re 10. The anime creators aren’t gonna have two 10 yr olds kiss on the lips. Its really creepy some person came up with this. No, it’s not creepy cuz I don’t like advaceshipping (I actually like some aspects of it). Again, it’s creepy because they’re 10. If they were like 13+ yrs old, it‘d be okay, but NOT 10. Plus, even Japan is very sensitive when having kissing on the lips happen with kid shows. Even with adults, they censor it/show something else as the kiss happens & just imply it happened. Expecally how they view kissing on the lips in the first place, they ain’t having 2 ten year olds kiss.

And there would be NOTHING to imply that they where going to kiss. Around this time this episode that they kissed claimed to happen (episode 357), Ash & co. where heading to fortree. Nothing ever was implied from the both of them even want to kiss each other. They just where supportive friends of each other with no hinting there where secret feelings or developing feelings from ether of them. Theres also nothing beyond that episode that implied the kiss happened. Because if it did actually happen, I’m sure something like that would impact the next few episodes, but nope no mention of any kiss nor do ash & May act any differently around each other in 358 and beyond. So even if it did happen, it was going to more than likely sink the ship, like it was some akaward thing they did because they were “under the mistletoe“ & afterwards just agreed to be friends & forget about it. The pokemon anime was always about friendship, adventure, and Pokemon themselves, never romance.

Also episode 357 is “Take This House and Shuppet!” not “A Kiss Under the Mistletoe!“ The Japanese episode is the same as the English barring names & episode number.

Were do you get such a sorce for this info? “my friend’s japanese friend who talked to the director of the AG anime & saw it!” or some other ridiculous unreliable garbage like that? Give me actual sources with interviews from the writers talking about this supposed banned episode. Bet you can’t, unless it’s fake & unreliable. If it existed, it would have floated up by someone from Japan. After All, even if for 20 mins that episode should’ve existed if it was just banned. Like “Electric Soldier Porygon” was banned completely & only aired one time in Japan. However, there are places that you can watch the episode despite it being completely banned due to putting a lot of children in the hospital from seizures. That was older than the supposed advanceshipping kiss episode as ’Electric Soldier Porygon’ is a Original Series episode in Kanto the 38th episode. No one can find this supposed advanceshipping episode nor is it even listed in the banned episode list. It should be harder to find this older banned episode than it should be to find this supposed banned kiss episode.

“Why should May choose Drew over Ash? Ash is like a literal god!”

What? Yes, he’s befriended every legendary & come back though poketears, save the world so many times, has arua abilities (he rarely uses), & whatever else, but it’s not like he seems that BA or whatever. Ash not aging seems over focused on, when in reality NO ONE is aging. It took him 7 regions to win 1 league (a questionable one at that), can’t remember Pokémon he seen before & sometimes forgets what he learned, & needs saved by others sometimes. Some god, can’t even rescue himself. Besides, who knows what Drew has done on his adventures. Drew has also saved Ash, Brock, & Max from trouble, isn’t Drew awesome saving someone ”like a god!”? Drew also has beat him in a battle as well, is that y’all’s problem?

And where is Ash’s voice in all this? It’s like this in all this anti-Drew bs. “Drew is just this terrible creature who possesses all 7 deadly sins & is the creation of Giratina & thus May hates & so does everyone else! However... blessed by Arceus himself, we all just know not dense Ash Ketchem is waiting to sweep May off her feet & save her from the demonic spawn that is Drew who is lusting after her bewbs😡” (<-original ideas, do not steal jkjk). Like there’s NOTHING to indicate ash wants her. And do you think this of May as well? Like do y‘all think May is just this perfect, sweetest, most divine woman in the pokeani that only Ash “blessed by Arceus“ is the only guy that should be blessed by such an angel? 🤣

Look, I like Ash & I like May. But even with my favorite characters I wouldn’t go as far as to think so highly of them that it makes Helga’s obsession with Arnold look like nothing. And just because Ash is more amazing with more feets & whatever, doesn’t mean May has to love ash or that Ash has to choose may because Drew doesn’t measure up to him.🤷‍♀️ Just think about it, should Timmy’s mom go with Dinkleburg? After all, he is smarter than Timmy’s dad, has more money & is more successful than he is. And Wandesemo is more popular, not stupid, & mostly competent unlike Casmo. Should Wanda dump Casmo for him? Of course i understand wanting the best person to end with you’re favorite character. But that’s not how love works & in the long run isn’t fair to both Ash & May (& Drew, but I know you haters don’t care about that).

[yumeka36]

The ending of Frozen 2...a year later

I try to stay away from touchy subjects like this, at least here on Tumblr. But since @greatqueenanna @the-blue-fairie and @vuelie-frost have recently written inspiring posts on this topic (which you can read here, here, and here), I wanted to give my two cents (well, more like a thousand cents because what I thought would just be a few paragraphs ended up becoming a mini-book!)

Just to be clear, my intention here is not to argue with anyone or invalidate their feelings about the end of Frozen 2. It's quite the opposite, actually. In my view, when we're presented with a beloved hobby that has disappointed us, we have a couple of options: one is to simply stop partaking in that hobby and move onto one that brings us more pleasure (no doubt some ex-Frozen fans have done that), or keep sticking around the fandom despite constant negative feelings about it which, I can't imagine, is that enjoyable. But there's another option too: when presented with something we don't like but won't divorce ourselves from and yet have no power to change – in this case, how Frozen 2 ended – what we can change is how we view it. The fact that people who disliked Frozen 2 are still part of the fandom even a year later shows just how strong the Frozen characters and their world are…that despite dissatisfaction, fans are still not willing to give up on the franchise and leave it in favor of another fandom. And if they're not willing to give up, but still can't help feeling let down about it, I'm hoping the reasoning I present in this post can possibly offer a fresh and, hopefully, more appealing perspective. My intention here is to help alleviate hard feelings, not entice arguments.

I also want to mention that I'm only discussing the ending of the movie, specifically the fact that Anna is queen of Arendelle and Elsa is living in the forest. I've addressed most other topics of theorizing and criticism in my Frozen 2 analysis book “Seek the Truth,” which you can read here. While I did discuss the ending in detail in the last chapter, I didn't expand on it nearly as much as I will in this post.

To make things easier, I'm going to address the most common griefs about the ending one at a time and offer my input:

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Anna and Elsa were separated for 13 years so they shouldn't be separated again.

I definitely agree that it would be tragic if they were forced apart again, unable to have a relationship like they did for most of their childhood. But the more times I watch Frozen 2, the more I just don't see that in the ending. To me, a separation is when both sides are split up against their will, unable to get together again. That's not the case for Anna and Elsa. I admit the epilogue of the movie was rushed, but out of the many loose ends it could have touched on, the filmmakers made sure to include Anna's letter to Elsa about charades night, which to me shows that they want us to know that the sisters still get together regularly (that's the feeling I get from the movie; I'm not including the questionable canon of the storybooks/comics in this, which I’ll discuss a little later). We could still infer they get together even if they didn't show the letter, because we know the forest is free again and Elsa can ride Nokk to Arendelle whenever she wants. But the filmmakers chose to show the letter to make it clear that there's nothing keeping them apart.

So then the point becomes "spending only 3 years together isn't enough." What number is enough, then? 5 years? 10 years? Any number is arbitrary for a case like this. But the length of time doesn’t matter because, to me, Frozen 1 showed how strong of a bond Anna and Elsa have despite hardly ever being in physical contact…a bond of love strong enough to thaw a frozen heart. So to think that now they could never be happy unless they're physically together 24/7 does an injustice to that bond that transcends physical boundaries. They suffered because of their separation in Frozen 1 – that was a true separation, because they wanted to have a relationship but were forced apart against their wills – and at the end of the movie, they could finally have the relationship they were yearning for. And at the end of Frozen 2, not only was their love cemented further from the epic adventure they shared, but they can continue to see each other as a family as well as live out the new roles bestowed upon them. Unlike a movie with an actual separation ending, like Toy Story 4 for example, where Woody and Buzz would never be able to see each other again except by some crazy coincidence, there is literally nothing stopping Anna and Elsa from continuing to have adventures together in future stories, while also satisfying their new duties and enjoying their lives both individually and as a family. That sounds like a very fulfilling life to me.

But the "Anna sans Elsa" book proves that they barely see each other and Anna misses Elsa a lot.

This sentiment comes down to whether you want to consider the relatively few post-movie storybooks as true canon or not. I consider them loose canon at best because no one involved with the creation of the canon Frozen movies/shorts had any involvement in their development and probably even knows they exist. There's also the fact that they're having such a minimal release – just one or two European countries have been getting them, and they're not even being released in English, which is arguably Disney's largest market. There're also conflicting implications between the stories, for example, the "Anna sans Elsa" book implies that Elsa hasn't visited for a long time, but the German comic where Elsa visits for charades implies that she does visit regularly (from @bigfrozenfan‘s translation here, she says "I wouldn't have missed an evening of charades with you for anything in the world!"). Then there's the "Explore the North Book" which shows Queen Anna visiting Elsa in the forest. Just because this book isn't a story is no reason to disregard it, especially when you consider the fact that it was the first book released to show the sisters interacting post-movie, plus it was actually released in larger markets, like the US and Japan. Even Anna's letter within the movie canon itself, telling Elsa not to be late for charades, is not written in a way that implies she hasn't seen Elsa for a long time. If anything, it implies the opposite to me…that these visits occur regularly. So what we can conclude from this is that Disney's publishing branch is releasing a few post-movie stories to limited markets to make some extra earnings, but obviously the book/comic authors are restricted with the kinds of stories they can depict; as in, they can't have stories that would affect the lore and canon, like showing Elsa's role in the forest or how Northuldra/Arendelle relationships are progressing. So they're going with safe side-stories like Anna doing familiar things in Arendelle and Elsa visiting for charades – things that can be inferred from the movie's ending but don't continue the narrative past that. This could also be why these books are having such a small release. Perhaps because the English-speaking market is so large, anything brought to that market could be seen as having relevance and clout, and Disney doesn't want that for these stories (because there's really no reason to not bring the books to other markets when children's book sales are soaring thanks to the pandemic). The "Anna sans Elsa" book is even getting a re-release with new pictures, again, only in French, which to me further illustrates the limitations on post-movie stories currently going on. So ultimately, I would not take details from these books/comics that are available to only 0000.1% of Disney's worldwide market as the "word of god," especially when they're inconsistent with each other and canon implies otherwise.

Anna isn't fit to be queen.

I'm not really sure what (canon) examples there are of Anna showing traits that would hinder her ability to be a good queen, or at least not as good a queen as Elsa. Is the reason for this because of her naivete about Hans? There's no evidence that shows she hasn't learned her lesson from that…it's not like she rushed into marrying Kristoff right away. If it's something about her personality being too reckless or something, Elsa has exhibited recklessness too, doing things without forethought like running away to live alone in an ice palace and risking her life to dive into Ahtohallan. But despite having these very human flaws, Elsa still turned out to be a good queen, so why would Anna be the opposite? Anna has proven herself to be brave, noble, and outgoing with people…all of which are great qualities for a ruler. Plus she's lived among royalty her whole life, and no doubt helped Elsa during her reign as queen, so she's not going into the position as a total novice. We barely see Elsa doing queenly activities in the Frozen canon, so how can we assume she's so much more fit to be queen than Anna? Again, I think this is another sentiment that stems from an aversion to something unfamiliar: fans want Elsa to remain queen because we've been familiar with that for years, but that doesn't mean Anna can't be a good queen, too. Canon-wise we haven't yet seen Anna do anything in the way of ruling, so why not give her the benefit of the doubt and a chance to prove herself?

The first Frozen established that Elsa shouldn't live in isolation and yet she's doing it again in Frozen 2.

In the first Frozen, Elsa isolated herself out of fear and refused to even get near anyone. What evidence is there that this is happening at the end of Frozen 2? I've heard assumptions that she's living in Ahtohallan now, but we don't know that for sure. The last scene of the movie shows her heading in that direction, but she could be visiting too. But regardless of where her actual place of dwelling is now, there's no reason to believe she's shutting herself off like she did in the first movie. The epilogue shows that she's happily interacting with the spirits, the Northuldra, and makes visits to Arendelle. Home is more than just a physical place where one dwells and sleeps; even if the forest is where Elsa does this now, Arendelle is still her home in all other regards.

An offshoot notion of Elsa living on her own in the forest is that it's somehow akin to the idea that "people who are different should live outside normal society." I don't understand this because to me it implies the person in question is being shunned; that they want to live in normal society but normal society doesn't want them. That is definitely not what's going on at the end of Frozen 2. As I'll explain in the following paragraphs, Elsa stays in the forest because she feels a newfound sense of freedom and is thrilled to explore this new world she found, but she can freely go back to Arendelle whenever she wants, and there's no indication that anyone there loves her any less (they should love her more actually because they all witnessed her save the kingdom from the tidal wave!) At the end if the movie, no one's being ostracized for being "different." Everyone's doing what makes them happy and can freely come and go as they please.

Why does Elsa need to stay in the forest? Why can't she stay in Arendelle and visit the forest?

A large majority of the hard feelings about Frozen 2's ending comes from the fact that it didn't clearly show what Elsa's role in the forest is. I definitely admit that the ending would have benefited from expanding on this, even just another line or two. But to me, it still leaves enough information for us to make reasonable inferences about what she's doing. We don't see the Northuldra or Arendellians interacting in the epilogue, which makes sense since they hated each other for decades and it'll take time to mend the relationship between them. When Elsa says to Anna "we'll continue to do this together" conveys to me that she knows they still have work to do as far as making amends between the kingdoms…she and Anna can serve as dual queen ambassadors between the two sides, a bridge, so to speak. Then there's also the fact that the spirits were angry for decades and it'll take time for them to return to the peaceful coexistent they had with the Northuldra, something Elsa can certainly help with (again, we don't see the spirits interacting with the Northuldra in the epilogue, only with Elsa).

On top of that, there's the fact that Elsa spent her whole life believing she was the only magical being in the world, and now she's discovered this whole new land of magic just waiting to be explored. As I explained in my analysis book, if we consider Elsa believing for years that her powers were a curse and no one but her possessed magic, and suddenly she's brought to a place where other magical beings exist, as well as a group of people who live in harmony with them, plus the fact that she's somehow a bridge between both magic and humans, it makes sense she'd be ecstatic and want to spend time indulging in this new land. The reason she doesn't just visit the forest while living in Arendelle is because being queen is a full time job that requires her to be present as much as possible. Trying to stay on top of all her queenly responsibilities while going back and forth to the forest all the time wouldn't amount to the kind of quality she wants for Arendelle royalty. But having someone like Anna who's already familiar with royal activities and loves Arendelle with all her heart, would be perfect for the role. Elsa never indicated it was her dream to be queen of Arendelle. She was born into the role and accepted it, and if the events of Frozen 2 never occurred, would have probably lived out her life happily in that position. But happiness isn't necessarily a final destination and sometimes things come along that alter the status quo, but also enhance what we thought was already a good life. What we can infer from Frozen 1 is that she doesn't want to live in fear and have to constantly suppress her powers and that she wants to have a relationship with her sister again. None of this is taken away from her at the end of Frozen 2: she's not living in fear but in freedom, she can use her powers without restraint and in brand new ways with the spirits and Ahtohallan, and she can not only continue to see her sister often and foster their relationship, but she can grow her relationship with herself and this new realization about the origin of her powers. And still another reason, perhaps the true purpose of the fifth spirit is more than a single task and Elsa is trying to discover what it is: what more can she do with her amazing powers now that the forest is free, both for the benefit of the Northuldra, the spirits, Arendelle…maybe even the world? There's a wealth of possibilities for future stories, and I believe this ties back to the fact that the post-movie books/comics can't touch on what her role in the forest is because it's too closely tied to continuing the canon story, and until the heads at Disney decide what direction to take it, all spin-off content will be limited.

And yes, it's true that these are just my theories, but they're theories based on many hours of rewatching, analyzing, and thinking critically about the movie, which I think is better than just dismissing the idea that Elsa has a role to play in the forest simply because it wasn't explicitly shown. Just because Elsa's new lot in life isn't spoon-fed to us doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and I think it's much more logical, and imaginative, to assume she's doing the kinds of things I just mentioned as opposed to doing nothing of significance in her life now. I prefer to be logical and imaginative, so I’m going with these reasons unless canon shows otherwise.

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After reading all this, you might think I'm in love with the ending of Frozen 2 and think it's perfect, but that's not the case. While I love Frozen 2 overall, I admit that the ending was rushed and it wasn't my first choice of an ending for the sequel I was anticipating for years. But at the same time, I'm open-minded, especially in regards to the fact that the story and characters I'm invested in are not my personal creations. They’re the products of someone else’s experiences, values, and beliefs, and I have to recognize that this is what makes them interesting even though I may not agree with everything. But who am I to say that my vision and headcanons for Frozen are somehow better than those of the filmmakers? I don't think so highly of myself as being more of an authority on Frozen than the creators themselves or even my fellow hardcore fans. But I have spent many hours of my life these past 7 years examining and analyzing the franchise and its characters, so I'd like to believe my words have at least some weight to them. That's the wonder of fiction…that someone's ideas can be interpreted and appreciated in a variety of ways by a variety of people. But that's also the tragedy of fictional stories that continue on with long gaps in between, like the gap between the two Frozen movies. During that long time, we can't help but build and prop up our headcanons and develop the feeling that we know these characters inside and out, what is and isn't good for them, how they would and wouldn't react in all situations, etc,. But two and a half hours (which is about the length of time of Frozen 1 plus the two shorts) is not enough time to show so much of a characters’ personality that we could really know them as much as we’d like (especially Elsa, who got relatively little screentime in the first movie). So when we're presented with the continuation of the story and find that the creators had a different view, a view that didn't return to the status quo we were familiar with, it can be very jarring. But that's the risk of falling in love with someone else's creations. And thankfully, the beauty of headcanons is that they're all our own and can be adjusted. Even though the outcome of Frozen 2 was not what I was expecting, it was a minimal effort to adjust my headcanons because I don't feel the ending was so outrageous and far removed from everything I loved previously about the franchise, for reasons I hope I explained clearly in this post.

If you still can't feel any better about the end of Frozen 2 despite all I've discussed here, I'm sorry…I really tried my best. All I can say now is that I hope future content will rekindle your appreciation for the franchise. I know it's been over a year since Frozen 2, which seems like a long time to go without any announcements of new material, but we have to remember that that's not a long time at all by Disney standards. The recent Disney investor's meeting proves how long it takes to churn out new content, especially on the animation side of things, as it took years for Princess and the Frog, Zootopia, and Moana to finally get new content. Disney immortalizes all their popular franchises and could go back to them months, years, or even decades later (The Lion Guard series came out over 20 years after The Lion King for example). Unlike other Disney franchises like Marvel and Star Wars that have their own production teams and studios, Frozen has to share resources with all of WDAS's other projects. So a year is still too early for the studio to go back to Frozen again, especially if you consider that it's technically only been a few months since we got new Frozen content in the form of Once Upon a Snowman. Patience is the key now and we don't know what the future holds. But I'm someone whose opinions will change with new information, so maybe tomorrow we could get an announcement about a new Frozen YA novel or Disney+ series that shows Anna and Elsa rarely see each other and Anna misses Elsa and Elsa's doing nothing noteworthy in the forest and everything I've said here can be tossed out the window. I don't think that will be the case though, so as long as we don't know anything for sure, I want to go with a positive outlook because, at the end of the day, your fandoms should lift you up instead of bring you down. Frozen is a juggernaut for Disney so I'd rather they take their time with the next installment for the franchise. It's not so much a question of "if" as much as "when" and "in what form"? So until we have those answers, I wish you all well…don't let the hope die out.

[wrienne]

My Cheating, Amnesic Fiancé

Chapter 7: Reconnaissance

You stared at him. “You must be freaking kidding me.”

“I’m afraid not,” replied Sejin as he reluctantly sipped his cup of coffee. “I’ll help you in any way I can, but it’s mostly up to you.”

“I… I’m...”

“You’re doubtful?”

“That wouldn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling,” you admitted and nervously scratched your arm. “I… I’ll try my best, I really will. But...”

You stopped yourself right then and there. You had merely promised Jungkook you would help him through the amnesia. It wasn’t necessary for you to get him back on top of the music industry again. But you knew he had suffered and worked and spent too much of his life to lose it all just because he was stupid and impulsive enough to drunkenly run out on the street at the wrong time. Also, you couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty. Even though he was - or should you rather say had been - an absolute scumbag, if you would have never made him so upset, he might not be in the devastating situation he was in right now.

And he had changed. You felt it. Somehow, however little. Jeon Jungkook relied on you for the first time in your life.

You had a chance to help him. And although that was good enough morally speaking, what would be the point of all your efforts if he couldn’t perform again? The concert had clearly proven to you that Jungkook belonged up there, on stage, singing and dancing with his hyungs. Having a deadline of slightly more than three months would only mean you and Jungkook would have to work harder.

A lot harder.

“I’ll make it happen,” you said finally. “Jungkook will be able to perform in Japan by the end of May.”

You surprised yourself with how confident you sounded. Perhaps even Sejin, too, for he raised a surprised eyebrow before nodding in approval.

“I believe you can do this,” he told you. “If there’s anything I can do to help, just tell me.”

“Actually,” you began, “I need to get Jungkook some new clothes. Could you give me an address to where he lives and perhaps the numbers of his group members? Yours, too, if you don't mind.”

After exchanging numbers, you realized you could probably make a fortune selling the information to fanatic fans. Though, as Jungkook had stated yesterday, you didn’t really need any more money.

You parted ways with Sejin and found your parents’ private chauffeur, Kwon Jong-Yeol, waiting impatiently outside the entrance door to the hospital. While driving you home, he held a long lecture for you where he talked about the dangers of young women wandering around alone during the night. He didn’t even care about the emergency part, but then again, he had never been particularly fond of Jungkook.

You were done drying your hair after a much-needed shower when you decided to call your parents to tell them about your decision to break the engagement. As you stood in the hallway of your apartment, your heart pounding against your ribcage, you realized very quickly that nobody would reply. You weren’t particularly surprised, knowing your parents' habits of exercising early in the morning before work, and made a mental note to call them later in the day when they were free.

Frankly, you felt a bit relieved. You didn’t know how they would react upon hearing the news - nor did you want to know.

Before you zipped your phone into your jacket pocket, you spotted, to your great horror, that the seven numbers Sejin had given you were names you had never heard before, of course with the singular exception being him.

Jung Hoseok.

Kim Namjoon.

Kim Seokjin.

Kim Taehyung.

Min Yoongi.

Park Jimin.

Six names. You guessed Jin, the guy who had blown a kiss at Se-Eun and her friends, was Kim Seokjin, but you hadn’t even the slightest idea regarding the remaining five. You barely remembered what their stage names - since that’s what they must have introduced themselves as at the beginning of the concert - had been.

You didn’t have the chance to stress over it much, since you were getting late to school and you had forgotten to read a chapter for the day’s first presentation. You planned to read during the drive, but you were so tired you fell asleep during the usual, boring road to Korea University Business School. Yes, you were enrolled in one of the prestigious SKY universities. But as the granddaughter of one of the most prominent businessmen in the world and the alleged heiress of his company, this surprised nobody.

It hadn’t really been much of a choice for you, since you had known, ever since you were four years old, that you would one day become the owner and CEO of Phoenix Inc. Even if your parents were to have birthed a hundred children after you, none of them would have become a candidate for the post. Because your grandfather had chosen you in particular, stated your name explicitly in his will, to become his successor as soon as you had finished college. Your dad was merely a placeholder - your placeholder - until that day.

You didn’t know why, though.

Se-Eun was waiting outside the main auditorium together with the other students when she spotted you approaching. She darted toward you, greeted you happily with a hug and took you a bit off to the side, so no one could overhear.

“You have to tell me what happened,” she blurted, her brown eyes glinting with curiosity. “We only have three minutes ‘til class, so you’d best keep it snappy.”

Thinking back on the last twelve hours, it wasn’t difficult for you to deduce that you could say nothing. Not even to your best friend.

“I… I can’t really talk about it,” you said truthfully. “But I promise, it wasn’t anything sensational.”

“I thought you were going to snap someone’s neck when you returned,” she said skeptically. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that upset. Were you embarrassed because they kicked you out? You didn’t have to let us wait for half an hour just to make it seem you had gotten backstage.”

“I was neither upset nor embarrassed,” you protested. “And if I wouldn’t have gotten backstage, I would have been only half as angry as I was yesterday.”

“I knew it!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “You are the quickest, craftiest person I know, (Y/F/N) - now spill the details! What’s there to be so on the down-low for anyways?”

“You know your dialect always spills through when you’re overexcited?” You gave her a teasing smile, pleasantly surprised with her compliment.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” she said stubbornly as she folded her arms across her chest. “Why are you so secretive about it?”

You shook your head. “I really can’t talk about it, I’m sorry.”

Se-Eun sighed, but she gave in. “Well, what did you think about the concert? Wasn’t it-- every one of them amazing? Especially Jungkook?”

When you didn’t immediately give her an annoyed eye roll, sigh or a directly opposed comment as you had the last couple of years whenever she brought up the subject of Jungkook, she whistled in surprise. “You must have really been floored,” she noted.

“Yeah,” you admitted reluctantly. You recalled Jungkook’s presence on stage and almost shivered. His hair, darkened with sweat; his large eyes, filled with an intensity you had never before witnessed; his body language, purposeful and practiced, yet fluid and wild, like liquid mercury; and his voice, soft yet steady, controlled yet gentle.

Beautiful.

But then you remembered his face when he had spotted Kim Sejin. You remembered the creeping anguish in his voice when he had spoken to you and the desperate strength of his grip when he had held your hand. He had been a whole different person. Fearful and brittle. So near his dream yet suspicious, confused and alone.

Now he trusted only you. Of course, you couldn't forget his eyes on Park Yi-Jae, either.

Se-Eun had been discussing which solo performance had been her favorite while you reminisced, when she said something that caught your attention.

“‘Taehyung’?” you repeated. “Who is he?”

“Are you serious?” exclaimed Se-Eun. “I’ve been talking about BTS for years and you only now pay attention?”

“Sorry,” you said unapologetically as you checked the time on your phone. Class would begin anytime now. “You never listen to me when I talk about my interests.”

“Oh, I don’t? I’ll remember this, (Y/N).”

“Come on, I’ll buy you lunch. Now tell me.”

“You would have gotten in so much trouble without your family’s money,” she replied while giggling. “Whenever your tongue and stubbornness get you in trouble, you have an easy way out.”

“Please, Se-Eun,” you said impatiently as you spotted movement over your friend's shoulder. “Professor Kang has already begun letting people inside.”

“Make it free lunch for the whole week.”

You gave her a sharp look but knowing the time-crunch you were in, you also nodded. “Deal.”

Se-Eun began toward the door as she spoke, signaling for you to follow. “Kim Taehyung is V’s real name,” she told you. “Do you want to know the rest of their real names as well?”

You greeted Professor Kang while passing her, then nodded again.

“Rap Monster’s real name is in fact Kim Namjoon,” said Se-Eun as she followed you on your search for two available seats next to one another. She folded a finger for each member - and name in your contact list - as she continued. “Jin’s real name is Kim Seokjin. J-hope’s real name is surprisingly not J-hope but Jung Hoseok, Park Jimin is Jimin and Min Yoongi is Suga. You probably know Jungkook’s real name.”

Suga. Min Yoongi. He was the one who hadn’t spoken even once when you first had stumbled upon the group. With slim dark eyes and a solo performance that had left you feeling physically wounded.

There was something about him.

“Jimin is the shortest one, right? With the light voice?” you asked as you found two seats and sank down into one of them.

“He’s taller than you.”

“In comparison with the whole group,” you said as you rolled your eyes at her instant defense. “And it wasn’t an attack, merely an observation.”

Se-Eun sat down next to you. “I’m just saying. Now, what’s the reason you want to know about their names? Are you becoming a fan?”

“Not really,” you said nonchalantly. “I just thought it would be good to know the names of the seven guys my best friend plans to marry by the end of her twenties.”

“Well, that will be easy. I only intend to marry one of them. Can you guess who?”

You swallowed. Hard.

“I can’t believe you’re still shameless enough to fantasize about things like that,” you said in an attempt to change the subject, immediately regretting the path your joke had taken. “Aren’t you too old to be a fangirl?”

“You’re never too old to be a fangirl,” she said defiantly. “I have a whole scenario in the back of my mind for the time we first meet. Jungkook will have spotted me in the audience and fallen in love with me just like that. I just need to be seen by him, that’s all.”

“You’re absolutely mad,” you told her as you laughed in disbelief. “Love doesn’t work like that. He doesn’t work like that.”

“Right, I forgot you and him are childhood friends and have known each other for centuries.”

You regarded her closely. “You’re actually getting irritated, aren’t you?” you asked.

When she didn’t directly reply, you almost burst out in laughter again. Fortunately, you were mindful of your surroundings: people were quieting as they trickled in slower through the door where Professor Kang still waited, her one hand rubbing the face of her wristwatch.

“I would never let a guy get between our friendship,” she said instead of directly addressing the question.

“Not even Jeon Jungkook?”

She shook her head as Professor Kang shut the door and began toward the lectern. “Not even him,” she whispered.

Se-Eun could never get hold of the knowledge that you and Jungkook had once been engaged, you realized as soon as the professor began her lecture. It would mean the end of your relationship. Even though you were tempted to talk with her about you and Jungkook and the situation overall, you couldn’t.

During the rest of the school day, you surprised yourself by almost constantly thinking about Jungkook. Which ways you could help him, what type of reintroduction would most likely help him and so on and so forth. You looked back at your and Jungkook’s time as younger, when and how he would express himself regarding music. You even listened to Se-Eun’s obsessive rambling over the group, hoping you could snatch any type of idea or information that might be of use - which didn’t prove as fruitless as you initially had predicted. For example, you never knew Rap Monster, or rather, Kim Namjoon, was the reason Jungkook had chosen BigHit when he had numerous other options. By the end of last class, you had actually gotten somewhat of a battle plan against Jungkook’s amnesia. Though you seriously doubted anything less than a miracle would be absolutely crucial for you to succeed by May 30th, you were determined.

You were in good spirits by the time Jong-Yeol dropped you off outside what Kim Sejin had told you was BTS’ apartment. The sun had already sunken beneath the upraised, jagged horizon of other apartment buildings, and your breath was escaping in white wisps. Fortunately, you had had the foresight to dress properly - unlike when you darted out to see Jungkook at the hospital - so you weren’t feeling too uncomfortable. Still, even though most of the snow had melted, Seoul was a chilly city during the winter months.

The apartment Kim Sejin had given you the address to didn’t look any different from a typical, middle-class apartment building. But then, you were used to living very affluently and had no idea if this was considered a good buy or not. Jong-Yeol had been unwilling to let you walk around all on your own, forcing you to remind him you weren’t seven years old any longer. Perhaps he had meant that the neighborhood wasn’t the best.

You were too nervous to call any of the six new contacts in your phone, so you stalled a bit by trying to find out where seven guys could live by checking the mailboxes in the entrance hall. However, none of the names stuck out as particularly “largest K-pop group in Korea”-esque, and you understood to your dismay that you would have to call one of them.

You were just about to dial Kim Seokjin - since he was the only one you had managed to fully identify on your own, he felt the least awkward to talk to - when someone called you.

[pink-imagines]

spice it up

request: Ok this is something that’s been on my mind for a couple of days now, and it’s SUPER CHEESY but plz bear with me haha. I’ve been watching a lot of ANTM and it inspired me to think about an au where Bakugo is a pro-hero and Y/N is a upcoming top model visiting Japan to walk and display a new line of lingerie based off of Pro-Hero’s costumes (kinda like for a Victoria’s Secret fashion show) She’s chosen to wear the Ground Zero lingerie and she gets permission to shadow Bakugo for a day or two to get a read on his personality so she can base her walk off of him. Thing is, off the catwalk, Y/N’s personality is free-spirited, laidback and even a little shy, so when Bakugo meets her he’s like “why the fuck would they choose an extra like her to be me?” but little does he know on the catwalk her personality does a complete 180 and is outrageously fierce and confident. Pro-hero’s got a free invitation to the fashion show so with some convincing from his friends (and maybe because he was curious to see how the hell she was going to pull this off) he goes to the show and his reaction to when she steps on the catwalk… Lol I want to leave it up to you. Wow that was wayyy longer then I expected it to be. I’m sorry to spam you like that 😂 I feel like ppl are either going to love or hate this idea so if you don’t want to write it I honestly don’t blame you haha. Either way I love your posts! You’re writing style is very fun to read!

a/n: hellooo! hope you’re doing well! sorry for the late update, but i hope that this is an alright imagine!

warnings: description of lingerie(??)

masterlist

You were exhausted. The airport had always been a stressful place, but now you were jetlagged aswell. Flying to Japan wasn’t an easy task, but it was worth it. You carefully pushed the sunglasses you were wearing up the bridge of your nose. It was a weak disguise, but you really couldn’t care less.

“The car’s waiting outside. Let’s hurry up.”, your manager spoke fast. You grabbed your bag and followed after her. The paparazzi were flooding the exit, luckily they had put up fences. This was one of the reasons you had to look atleast a little bit dressed up on airports. Which was the most uncomfortable thing ever, but you just had to live with it. By “dressed up” they usually just meant “don’t wear sweatpants”. So you could still wear your comfy pair of jeans and a nice sweater or something of the sort.

“How do you feel after travelling so much? From New York, to London, to Paris and now here in Tokyo. How do you cope?” The same questions were popping up everywhere, but you didn’t stop for any of them. The only time you did stop was when you saw a few fans getting strangled against the fence. You hurried towards them, got their things signed and made sure they got back to safety.

“Let’s go, Y/N.”, your manager warned.

“Coming!”, you sighed and kept walking.

The next day you were driven to the place where you’d be messured for the lingerie.

“Y/N? Over here, honey!”, the designer said. He got you into a chair as soon as you arrived.

“What do you have for me today, Ray?”, you smiled kindly.

“So, heroes are a big thing. So we’ve made a line of hero-inspired lingerie, we think it’ll be a hit.”, he said with a big grin and showed you the sketches, “We’ll get them ready as soon as possible, but we need to match the right hero to the right model.”

“Alright, I trust your judgement.”, you looked through the sketches, “Give it to me, Ray.”

“Okay, okay. Since you’re the most charesmatic of the girls, we want you take care of the hothead.”, he pointed at one of the sketches, “Ground Zero.” You looked at the sketch. The top was some sort of dulled down orange color, in a lacy material. That wasn’t that bad, it was the usual, but there was a leather harness on top of it... a leather harness that connected to a leather choker. The bottoms were high-waisted and in the same lace material but black. But that wasn’t it. There was a pair of leather, knee-high, boots along with it.

“It’s... extreme.”, you sighed, “But, sure... I’ll do it.”

“Oh, thank you, Y/N. You’re a life saver, no model in Japan wanted to take the roll.”, he chuckled, “Here I’ll show you what we thought we should do for the face.” He showed you a face with cat-eye eyeliner, a simple nude lip and some sort of explosion looking thing behind the ears. You guessed that was a part of Ground Zero’s hero costume.

“Looks great, Ray.”, you smiled.

“Go get yourself meassured, your manager is booking you a meeting with Ground Zero so that you can study his personality.”, he said calmly and started to walk away.

How had you gotten yourself in this mess? To be honest, you didn’t know anymore. Everything happened so fast and now suddenly you were in the lobby of a hero agency, waiting for Ground Zero to go on his lunch break.

“Y/N Y/L/N?”, a rough voice asked behind you. You turned around to see a pair of crimson eyes staring into your soul. His hair was messy and he was just wearing jeans, a hoodie and a leather jacket. You didn’t know why you thought he’d show up in his hero costume.

“I’m guessing you’re Ground Zero?”, you stretched out your hand.

“You can say Bakugo.”, he scoffed and ignored your stretched out hand. He instead put his hands in his pockets.

“Are you ready to go?”, you asked.

“Why else would I be here?”, he sighed and walked to the exit. This was gonna be an exhausting week.

Bakugo walked as if he had just proven a point, or like he had just won an argument. To say the least, there was only pure confidence flooding in his veins. You hated it, but you simply had to see this as a job. You weren’t in your body, you were only watching from the audience.

“Are you just gonna sit there looking at me? You’re not gonna talk?”, he quirked an eyebrow at you.

“Fine then... um... what kind of music do you listen to?”, you asked innocently.

“Music?”, he bursted out into laughter, “That’s it? You really are just another extra!”

“Listen, man, you’re the one who wanted to talk. So talk.”, you kept your calm, you didn’t want to make a scene out in public.

“Eh- this place sucks, let’s go to my apartment. We can talk there.”, he shrugged and walked faster.

“Your apartment?”, you squeaked.

You were just supposed to follow him around for a while every day, but now you were in his apartment. This was only the first day! His apartment was nice though... it kind of had an oldschool aesthetic to it. Like he came straight out of a private school in England during the 1980′s.

“You asked what kind of music I’m into or something?”, he sighed and walked over to a record player after taking off his shoes and hanging up his jacket. You stopped for a second. Didn’t he just make fun of you for asking that? You watched as he flipped through a few records.

“Yeah, I did.”, you answered cautiosly and hung up your coat next to his jacket.

He effortlessly handled one of the vinyls and quickly put it on the record player... it started playing and-... was that The Beatles? Bakugo sat down on his couch as if it wasn’t extremely shocking for him to listen to this.

“You listen to The Beatles?”, you asked as Paul McCartney started signing the first verse of Yesterday.

“Who doesn’t?”, he sighed, “C’mon, sit down.” You sat down in one of the armchair’s and finished listening to the song.

“You don’t seem like you listen to this kind of music.”, you commented as the next song started playing.

“I don’t only listen to this, idiot.”, he snarked, “This was the first thing I found.”

“Whatever you say.”

A few days went by and you’d go through the same schedule. Wait for Bakugo to go out for his lunchbreak, walk around for a bit, go to his apartment and go home when he had to start his next shift. He started making you lunch, and he was a surprisingly good cook. 

For the last day he stopped you before you parted ways.

“Wait-... can I meet you at your hotel later tonight?”, he actually looked a little bit nervous for once.

“I mean, yeah... but why?”, you gave him an unsure smile.

“I’ll take you out for food, something spicy... unless you can’t handle that.”, he grinned, his confidence was suddenly back.

“You wanna bet?”, your laughed.

“Alright then, it’s a bet.”, he chuckled, “I’ll meet you around 7 in the lobby.”

“For sure. I’ll see you!”, you waved goodbye and so did he.

Just when you were about to sneak out to the lobby your manager walked past.

“Where are you going?”, she asked.

“I was just uh...”

“And why’s Ground Zero in the lobby? He’s starting a commotion! We don’t need that, we need you to rest for the show tomorrow!”, she sighed.

“Please, I just wanted to-”

“No, Y/N. You can’t go out tonight, you have a damn show tomorrow.”

“Well, please just tell Bak- I mean... Ground Zero that I can’t come... and that I’m sorry.”, you pleaded, “Please.”

“Fine...”, she agreed.

The next day you woke up early to go to the fitting, so that you could later that day go to the show. Since they had your measurments, it fit perfectly.

“Hey, Laura!”, you stopped your manager as she passed by your make up station.

“Yeah, what’s up? Need anything?”, she asked.

“No-... I was just wondering if you know if Ground Zero would be here tonight.”, you asked.

“I don’t know, honey.”, she sighed, “He hasn’t said anything about it.”

“Alright, thank you.”

You got a moment alone in your changing room before you were going backstage. There was a harch knock on the door, which prompted you to go over to it and open the door. 

“Is it time to come out n-”, you stopped dead in your tracks when you saw Bakugo in front of you.

“Hey.”, he said quietly.

“Hi.”, you responded, “How did you get back here?”

“It’s not that hard for a hero of my status.”, he grinned and puffed up his chest a bit.

“Okay, okay...”, you chuckled and wrapped the silk robe you had on tighter around you, “Well, I’m happy you made it.”

“Y/N! Showtime!”, you heard your manager shout.

“Coming!”, you answered.

“Good luck... on the show...”, he muttered.

“Thank you! I expect to see you in the crowd.”, you grinned and ran up to the backstage area.

-

Maybe he should’ve tried to see what she was wearing. He really hadn’t thought about it at all...

The show was in alphabetic order, so he’d have to sit there for a bit before she’d come out. He really didn’t care much for the other models and he might’ve fell asleep for a few minutes here and there... but that was the chair’s fault! It was too comfortable, it even had armrests! How could he not fall asleep? Just for a bit... 

“Ground Zero!”, they shouted, making him almost jump out of his seat. Eijiro, who sat beside him, let out a quiet chuckle.

“Shut up, man...”, he whispered before glueing his eyes to the runway. He didn’t even recognize her at first. Y/N was... different... and it wasn’t just the clothing... or more like the lack there of.

Her whole aura was different when she walked she was like a whole new person. She was fierce, confident, simply the embodiment of a goddess of war and destruction.  Katsuki’s eyes were glued to her, every curve and edge, and his mouth was slightly agape in shock. He didn’t even realize that people were taking pictures of him.

After the show Katsuki made his way backstage, where he met up with Y/N who was now wrapped up in her silk robe again.

“What did you think? Did you like it?”, she grinned.

“I-...”, he looked around at the people around him who were all watching, “It was alright.”

“Alright?”, you laughed, “Okay then, you diva, I’m gonna go get changed!” His gaze followed her form as she walked away from him to her changing room... until he noticed that people were staring at him.

“Oi! What are you looking at!?”

-

The next day you were already at the airport early in the morning, which was way to early since the plane didn’t leave for another hour. So you decided to look at the articles about last night.

You scrolled quickly through most of them until you saw a picture of a familiar face. It was Bakugo! Looking absolutely star struck as your figure strutted down the runway. A smile spread across your lips and you took a screenshot of the photo.

“Hey, do we have Ground Zero’s buisness email or something like that?”, you asked your manager.

“I can get it for you. Why do you need it?”, she quirked an eyebrow at you.

“Oh, I just wanted to thank him.”, you smiled sweetly, “Also, do you know the next time I’ll be working in Japan?”

“In a few months or so.”

“Perfect.” You couldn’t wait.

-

permanent taglist: @theoceanphoenixhasrisen | @raven-r0ses | @darkbeautyswife | @sondering-thoughts | @gowoneandonlyone | @bnhabadass | @queenblackcat | @jayetheanimefreek101 | @witchy-anna 

tagged for this fic: @bnha-violetnote​ | @succulent-momma​

[endysgirl]

Usagi as The Will of Heaven

I’ve been thinking about Cosmos a lot lately. Sailor Cosmos symbolizes the feminine divine to me because of what she represents and implies for our heroine, Usagi. Her role transforms the hero narrative into one of divine power. While, Moon always uses phrases like cosmic, power, eternal and so on, at the introduction of Cosmos we get to see those traits personified bodily in her, not just as an extension of her wand power. I’ve written before on my tumblr about Cosmos and how I liken her to a Creation Goddess. While I’m social distancing because of Covid I’ve been thinking about her a lot more (mainly because I was planning on getting her as my second Sailor Moon tattoo at the end of March).

I consider Cosmos, and therefore Moon, as embodying the feminine divine because of the overall power of her crystal/starseed. In the Stars arc, we find out that Cosmos has Lambda power which the manga says is the power to restore everything to the static Cosmos. I’m curious as to the literal Japanese translation here, and looking forward to seeing if the Eternal Editions translates this differently. The reason for my curiosity is because lambda which is the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet is the symbol for a cosmological constant. It is used to describe the energy density of space, and the ever expanding dynamic energy of space. Aristotle, Ptolemy and eventually the early Christian church accepted the idea that there were fixed stars in the universe, meaning they accepted a static Cosmos. Static referring to things being unchanged, not expanding or growing. It wasn’t until after Copernicus discovered elliptical orbits and Newton theorized gravity that people began to realize the universe might actually be expanding. That it might be dynamic instead of static. While there were many objections to the idea of a static universe, philosopher Immanuel Kant perhaps surmised it best. He makes the argument that whether the universe had a finite starting point and fixed stars aka static Cosmos, or whether it was infinite aka dynamic was irrelevant because of time. So yeah, I’m really interested in how Eternal Editions will translate this phrase and what exactly it’s suppose to mean.

We see the now proven theory of time as cyclical in the oldest living religion in the world, Hinduism. And Hinduism heavily influenced the emergence of Shintoism and the other mythos that accompanies Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon universe. Pluto is the biggest example of time being cyclical but that’s an analysis for another time. In Sailor Moon, we see reincarnation many times. In Stars, we learn that the Galaxy Cauldron is where all things in the universe are born. We also learn that Queen Serenity gave her life and power to the cauldron so that Serenity and the entire Earth could have a giant redo (also a topic for another time). We see when Moon kills Dark Endymion that she is confident that no matter how many times they are reborn, they will one day meet each other again and they will have a chance to be happy.

So what does this all say about the nature of Usagi’s power? Usagi’s power is one of rebirth and hope. And as Cosmos, using Lambda power, it has evolved as the cosmic power that makes up the universe. Her power of rebirth is a power of creation. She has the ability to draw stars to her, and by stars I mean the senshi. As the Stars arc revealed to us, the senshi are all drawn together because of their great devotion and bond to each other and to Serenity. So literally, at the end of Stars it wasn’t Usagi’s power alone that made them be reborn together, but their combined will as stars/star seeds allowing them to draw each other close. So we can assume that Cosmos, who is Moon alone in the far distant future, may be fighting alone but there’s the hope that she will one day be rejoined by her senshi and lover.

Using this analysis of her as a Creation Goddess, I’d like to take it step further and assert that according to Asian mythologies she is also something much more significant. Those familiar with Asian religions, folklore and even movies and dramas have heard the phrase “Will of Heaven”. Sometimes this is translated as “fate” or “destiny” for non-Asian audiences. The Will of Heaven or Mandate of Heaven was used to ordain ancient Chinese kings. But it was also used more widely to imply that what is happening or whatever decisions are being made is the Will if Heaven and is divine fate. Japanese mythology, Kojiki, describes how the universe begins, and after it begins there is the formation of Heaven (not in the Christian sense). The formation of Heaven creates Light which is the Will of Heaven. From there, Kojiki describes the creation of gods and goddesses and the Earth/Islands of Japan itself.

Considering how deeply Naoko uses mythology in Sailor Moon, I would assert that Moon becomes/is the Light of Heaven and therefore the Will of Heaven. This works in the Sailor Moon Universe through many examples: when she kills Dark Endymion with the confidence that they will be born again, when she finds and rescue the senshi on Nemesis, when she as NQS grants Pluto eternal sleep but then also sends her back in time to be reincarnated with a new mission, when she is able to bring Saturn back from the Tao System and have her start life over during their timeline, when she is able to activate the Golden Crystal essentially making Mamoru her consort and activating her power to enhance her own, and in Stars when she throws herself into the Cauldron to release her power which makes it possible to push the ever-growing power of chaos back into being a smaller part of the universe. Her Will is what gives her crystal power and she can use the will of her senshi to enhance her power. That ability allows her to be the Messiah, the Queen, the Savior and the Creator. Her Will throughout the manga is what shapes the outcome of those around her and by Stars, the Universe itself. It’s an awesome power that demonstrates her eternal brilliance as an “immortal star” as Mamoru calls her.

Usagi’s transformation fro Ordinary Girl to Will of Heaven and Creation Goddess to Eternal Shining Star is bittersweet to me. While my childhood memories of Sailor Moon are deeply rooted in watching the 90s anime growing up, my love for Moon as an adult fan is sustained through the Stars arc in the Manga. I think her transformation is ultimately feminist and of the feminine divine. Anyways, that’s just what I’ve been thinking of the last few days as I social distance and eat too much because I can’t go anywhere.

Anywho, if you liked this please check out my tumblr post in Cosmos: https://endysgirl.tumblr.com/post/187799988033/sailor-cosmos-and-eternal-moon

[houseofvans]

SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | INTERVIEW WITH LAUREN YS

From large scale murals to multi-layered works on canvas, LA based artist Lauren YS’s art captures everything from the female experience, addressing topics like sexuality, death, aliens, monsters, and the occult. Her works are complex much like her own experiences, so we’re super stoked to find out more about what drives her, who and what inspires her, and what challenges and advice she has for our readers in this awesome Sketchy Behaviors interview..

Take the leap!

Photographs courtesy of the artist. 

Introduce yourself. Hey! I’m Lauren YS - Hmm, something you might not know … I used to play ice hockey and my favorite candy are Peach O’s. I am a really good listener, but that also means I hate being interrupted. I dream, often, about being underwater.

Tell folks a little about your artwork and what do you love to make works about? I make work about the female experience, sexuality, identity, space, aliens, heritage, death, monsters, nature, emotions, natural phenomena, the occult and whatever else I might be obsessing about. I like slimy creatures, kitsch, psychedelia, sex and Halloween, and mixing repulsion with attraction. I want the viewer to feel unsettled as much as engaged. I make things in an effort to try to process the beautiful shit rocket that is the world around me.

When did art become something you were aware you could do for a living or as a career you wanted to pursue? I have always been making art, but I never thought it was possible to support oneself as an artist: It seemed really out of reach or surreal. It wasn’t until I had already been fully freelance for a year before I realized I was actually doing it. I think it’s just something that comes out of necessity, it’s like – if I want to keep making art as much as possible at the rate I am living, then damn, I’m going to learn how to make money off of it.

What’s a typical studio day for you like? I tend to work nocturnally. I’ll paint through the night and sleep through the day and watch horror movies, listen to podcasts about art, serial killers and cults, and eat anywhere from 1-2 sacks of tangerines every day. I like to really plow through paintings as well, it’s hard for me to stop working on something once I start. After about three weeks in the studio like this, your mind starts to wander off into deep strange places, and that’s when the really good stuff comes out.

What’s your studio or creative space like? What do you keep around to constantly motivate or inspire you? I have always worked best in a bit of “artistic chaos”–I like to fill my space with odds and ends, knick-knacks, items from my travels, talismans. I believe in the power of objects. I love my lava lamp and need to buy seven more. I also have this drawing I made of an Asian grandma screaming “DRAW, MOTHERFUCKER” which I plan to make into a screen print and give to all my artist friends.

When working on a body of paintings and works for a show, what is your process like? How long does it typically take you to complete a painting from start to finish? Depending on the size of the gallery, it can take anywhere from 2-6-10 months to create a show, given that it is often punctuated by mural tours and big projects to pay the bills. I like to work on lots of pieces at the same time, so generally it’ll take a few days to a week or two to finish a piece. I am trying to get better at reworking pieces rather than just pushing through them one by one. Workflow is still sorting itself out. I also make a ton of pieces that end up being nixed from the final show. I am very prolific but also very psychotic.

Not only do you work on canvas, but you are also known for some of your amazing murals! When did you start going from painting on a regular scale to large scale works? What’s your process like for mapping out these large works? Well shucks, thank you! I started painting murals around 2013, which was a sort of natural transition because I wanted to work bigger and bigger, I wanted to travel and be in the sun and use giant machines to make my art. I actually started learning color from using spray paint. I freehand everything because I like to feel independent of projectors or machines, especially if I’m in a foreign country or don’t have time or resources.

It makes me feel empowered to be able to make big things on my own. Maybe that comes from growing up under the common experience girls have, especially asian girls, where you’re expected to be small and quiet and obedient. I have always worked in active aggression against that stereotype.

Is there a medium you’d love to get your hands on, but yet to have the chance too? And what are your go-to materials? I’d really love to learn how to use an airbrush, a la Sorayama. Outside of 2D I am dying to get back into stop motion animation. My favorite brand of spray paint is Montana Black (high pressure forever!), and I use a wide variety of acrylics and gouache in my paintings, specifically the Holbein gouaches from Japan.

What do you love about where you live, and what is the art community like in your area? I never thought I’d move to LA, but I’ve been really enjoying it here. I’m a communal living person (been in and out of communities for about 9 years) and I am lucky to have found somewhere that fits with my work ethic (intense) and social vibe (weird). I like to be able to work alone while still having people bustling around and making things all the time. It helps me to feel like I’m not dead or a total solipsist.

I’ve also found that the artists in LA–especially the female artists–have proven to be really kind, generous and welcoming. There’s a lot of room for weirdos here; it might take a while to find them, but they’re here. We also have a one-eyed cat, did I mention that?

Who are some artists you’re inspired by and have influenced you throughout the years? I’m a big fan of dark/psychedelic/erotic artists like Keiichi Tanaami, Suehiro Maruo, Sorayama and the whole Ero Guro movement. I also love Goya’s dark paintings and the sculpture work of Bernini. Some contemporary artists I’ve been into lately are Christian Rex Van Minnen, David Altmejd, Robin Francesca Williams and the fabric sculptures of Do Ho-Suh. Jamie Hewlett, Swoon, Andrew Hem, Aryz. I find that my taste changes constantly and I am always thirsty for different influences.

What’s been the most challenging part of your art career? What’s been the most rewarding? What do you do to keep the balance? Something really challenging has been learning how to trust myself while growing in the industry and balancing business, work and travel. It’s a really solid test: moving to a new city, providing for yourself, going on tour, shifting from place to place, managing gallery work and mural work, all while protecting and nurturing your own ambition and positivity, and not feed into the shitstorm of capitalism and social media past what is required of you.

The muralist life is not for the faint of heart. I would hardly say that I keep any type of “balance”–art is my life and there isn’t much room for anything else, and that’s how I like it. It is the most rewarding thing to look around and feel like you’ve created something new and good and powerful, all on your own terms. It is similarly rewarding to feel the need to level up - I enjoy feeling stressed arguably more than I enjoy feeling accomplished.

What would your dream collaboration be? What do you enjoy most about collaborations with other artists or clients? I would love to do something with Takashi Murakami and/or his gallery (Kaikai Kiki Gallery). There’s also this amazing Australian animator named Felix Colgrave whose work I’ve been obsessed with lately, I’d love to find a way to make an animated short with him! I love collaborating - especially on mural work - because it’s such a cool experience to be able to intermingle your visual world with someone else’s. Working with ONEQ in Hawaii this year was really great, she had so many suggestions and ideas from out of left field that made me rethink my own work as well. It also forces you to relinquish some control on the way you work, and reflect on the basic joys of making shit in the first place.

If you could paint a portrait of anyone living or dead, who would you choose and why? I really want to do a tripped out portrait of Yayoi Kusama or Bjork or maybe Steve Buscemi—all heroes of mine.

What’s your advice to folks who see what you do and want to pursue art as a career? I would say, go at it as hard as you possibly can! Make sure you really enjoy doing it! Not all parts of painting murals are glamorous (actually, few are) and it’s important to truly love every part of it if you’re going to commit your life to it.

This means: hustling walls, handling machinery, travel, people, logistics, finding somewhere to pee, dealing with unexpected bullshit, not complaining, being comfortable handling yourself in dangerous situations, being independent and resourceful, etc. I have reservations about artists who genuinely don’t seem to enjoy all the elements of mural painting going too deep into it. But if it’s something you love, there’s nothing better.

What are your FAVORITE Vans? I’ve been rocking the classic authentic Vans in black/burgundy as paint shoes for years now. But I also love the Sk8-Hi boys in burgundy… I never wear them because I’m too scared to get paint on them, haha!

What other artists would you love to see interviewed for Sketchy Behaviors? I’m currently really into Andrea Wan, Louise Zhang and Caratoes. It would also be really cool if you covered a GNC or trans artist, like Nomi Chi or Laughing Loone!

What’s next for you that you can share? My first book is coming out this year with Von Zos, and I’m also going to be designing a tarot deck with them. April is my first mural tour in several months; I’ll be hopping from Australia - Guam - Peru, and then moving around South America for a while, trying to practice my spanish. After that, I’ll be starting work on my next big show, scheduled for a city in Asia, which I’m really, really excited about - keep an eye out!

FOLLOW LAUREN YS | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | SHOP

[musicprincess655]

“You’re being too cautious with Yamada,” Mei complains, knocking his forehead against Itsuki’s shoulder. He’s feeling particularly petulant because Itsuki invited him over to “go over the batters” and, apparently, actually meant it.

“You’re not being cautious enough,” Itsuki tells him. “If he gets fired up, he’s unstoppable. And he can steal better than anyone else on the team. You don’t want him on base.”

“Which is why we should crush him,” Mei says.

“Which is why we should be careful with him,” Itsuki counters. “Trying to overpower him could backfire in a big way. He’s dangerous.”

“You really think?” Mei asks.

Itsuki is still more cautious than Mei is, but he isn’t overcautious the way he used to be in high school. If he insists on being careful with a batter, he’s probably right, but Mei has never been a fan of backing down.

“I really think,” Itsuki says. “You wanna overpower someone? They’re supposed to be using Yuuki this time.”

“You wanna take a risk on him?” Mei asks. “One wrong move and the ball’s out of the park.”

“It’s out of the park if he can hit it,” Itsuki says. “He’s good at power, but he’s not as clever as his brother was. We can overpower him.”

“Damn shame the older brother never went into pro baseball,” Mei says. “He would’ve been a good player. He’s wasted as a coach.”

“You’ve never wanted to give back to the team that built you?” Itsuki asks. Mei just gives him an incredulous look. “Right, right. Stupid question.”

“There’s no reason we can’t give back,” Mei says. “I just don’t see why that should mean giving up our own baseball.”

“Seidou was gonna need a new assistant coach eventually,” Itsuki points out. “Ochiai, right? He was getting older. Someone young and devoted to the team was just what they needed. He’ll be the new head coach someday too.”

“He’s still wasted as a coach,” Mei says. “Fine. Let’s overpower the younger brother.”

“I think our standard lineup should be good for him,” Itsuki says. “It’ll be a tough game, we don’t wanna overthink everything.”

Mei takes his head off Itsuki’s shoulder to lean back against the couch, blowing his bangs off his forehead.

They have a game tomorrow against the Swallows once again. The postseason has been going better than anyone expected of the BayStars, including the BayStars themselves. They managed to take the first series of three games against the Hanshin Tigers, two to one, but they’re in the final stage now, and they have three games against the Swallows to win before they can call themselves champions. Mei knows everyone expects them to go down here.

He desperately wants to prove them wrong.

The odds aren’t in their favor. The Swallows have beaten them before, and there’s every chance they can do it again. But they have momentum now, the BayStars tasting real victory, and maybe that can be enough to turn the tides.

“We should get some sleep,” Itsuki says. “It’s already later than I thought.”

“Fine,” Mei whines. He’s pretty sure he missed the last train, so he’s going to have to search for a taxi. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Just stay here,” Itsuki says. “It’s late.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the offer,” Mei says, and he really does want to stay, “but your couch leaves a lot to be desired.”

Itsuki gives him a strange look.

“Obviously you can just sleep with me,” he says.

Mei, through great power of will, does not make a comment about double entendres.

“Can I borrow pajamas, then?” he asks instead.

Itsuki nods, standing to get ready for bed. He throws Mei a soft t-shirt and a pair of sweats that are both too long for him but fit around him just fine.

Mei is still the same height as he was in high school, down to the millimeter. It’s made more unfair next to the three centimeters Itsuki grew in their time apart. Itsuki is a cool 180, and Mei nearly feels small next to him, despite the fact that they still don’t have that big of a height difference. It might have more to do with how much Itsuki has filled out, how obviously he could lift Mei’s entire body weight with ease. Mei is not small by any means, but Itsuki has at least as much muscle as him, and significantly more in his lower half. Like most catchers, he’s solid, built for stability.

And Mei should really stop thinking about the finer details of Itsuki’s body and finish getting ready for bed.

As he steps out of the bathroom, teeth not quite clean from brushing them with toothpaste and his finger, he finds Itsuki already curled up in bed, facing away from him. Mei can’t help the sense of déjà vu, and he can’t really be blamed for sidling in close behind Itsuki and laying a hand on his hip.

He only means it as a wordless goodnight, but Itsuki shuffles closer until Mei’s arm drapes around his waist, until his back presses to Mei’s chest.

“Goodnight, Mei-san,” Itsuki says, but he doesn’t sound very tired. He very nearly sounds expectant.

And…okay, Mei isn’t stupid. He knows what Itsuki’s doing could most easily be interpreted as hinting. The touches, the closeness, it could all be a wordless signal from Itsuki to take the next step. And they’re both adults, and both not virgins, and they’ve already both had hands down each other’s pants and then some, so a further step shouldn’t be that big a deal, but.

Mei made the promise to himself that he would let Itsuki set the pace, and he’s overstepped that as far as he reasonably can to still consider himself in agreement with that promise. Itsuki could very well be hinting, but Mei has read him wrong in the past, and he got burned by it.

More importantly, though, they both have bigger things to worry about than sex. They’re closer than the BayStars have been to the Japan series since…well, ever. They’re still baseball players, and they have baseball to play. Mei is loath to do anything to screw this up.

So he just holds Itsuki close to his chest and lets that be enough. For now.

In the end, they don’t win the series against the Swallows. They make the Swallows work for their win, though, taking the second game in the series, and very nearly the third. Mei is frustrated, but he can appreciate a game well played. This is the extent of their ability right now. All that’s left is to come back stronger next year.

The team isn’t depressed in the way Mei feared. They’re disappointed, angry at being out, but not in a destructive way. They’ve proven the extent of their improvement, and they’re ready to keep working at it until they make it now.

Mei is proud of them.

It’s hard to feel anything but, when they’re all sloppy drunk and laughing through the loss. It’s no celebration, but at the same time, it’s hard not to cheer for how far they got. They pour each other drinks until it washes away the sting of the loss, until they’re all loose and hanging off each other. Mei can’t say he remembers much of the night, even as he leaves the bar hanging off Itsuki’s arm.

They’re closer to Itsuki’s apartment, so that’s where the two of them go, and even if Mei was inclined to push for something, he’s too drunk and too exhausted to try. He barely has the presence of mind to strip his shirt and pants off before collapsing heavily into bed after Itsuki, half covering Itsuki’s back.

When Mei wakes up, his head pounds, worse with the morning sunlight in his eyes, mouth fuzzy and awful-tasting, and he’s alone.

There are sounds in the direction of Itsuki’s kitchenette, so Mei takes care of the most pressing issues first, drinking his weight in water and using his finger to try and brush the horrible taste out of his mouth, and when that doesn’t work, stealing a generous swig of Itsuki’s mouthwash.

Feeling marginally more human, Mei grabs his shirt off the floor and wanders out into the kitchen where Itsuki is pouring coffee into mugs.

“You’re too good to me,” Mei tells him, swiping one mug and draining half of it in one go, despite the fact that it’s hot enough to burn his mouth and has no sugar or cream. He shudders from the taste, even as the caffeine hits his veins and makes him feel better.

“Stop that,” Itsuki says, stealing the mug, putting it back on the counter.

“Bossy,” Mei complains, reaching for it again, and Itsuki just grabs his wrist. “What?”

Itsuki steps into his space until Mei has to lean back against the counter, dipping down to press their lips together.

“Hi,” Mei says softly, muffled around Itsuki’s mouth. Itsuki sighs, and Mei is pretty sure it’s only half exasperation.

Mei rests his hands on Itsuki’s hips, content to stay here and let Itsuki wrap arms around his shoulders and lean them farther into the counter in spite of all the want bubbling in his stomach. The postseason has kept them both busy, and they haven’t had the time or energy for more than hurried handjobs, Mei currently holding the record for blowjobs in this relationship in the face of all odds. It’s frustrating, and Mei feels it keenly, but he doesn’t let it show in the kiss, which is still slow and lazy.

Itsuki makes a soft sound against Mei’s lips, pressing harder, pressing faster, and Mei follows his pace, not going any faster than Itsuki, letting him lead. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job of it, at least until Itsuki pulls back abruptly.

“Mei-san,” Itsuki starts, and then he almost seems to lose his nerve. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and continues. “I don’t want to feel like I’m the only one who wants something here.”

“What?” Mei asks, still reeling from Itsuki pulling back.

Itsuki rolls their hips together, making his meaning crystal clear.

“I need to feel like I’m not the only one who wants something out of this,” Itsuki repeats.

“You think I don’t want you?” Mei asks.

“You never make a move,” Itsuki says. “You never…even when I think you want to, you just back off. Am I just reading you wrong?”

And Mei…he’s aware that he’s still not done dealing with years of repressed bullshit, and Itsuki even less so. But he didn’t even bother to think his policy of letting Itsuki take the lead would come off this way.

“You really think that?” Mei asks, but this time, it’s very nearly a growl. Itsuki notices the difference immediately, if the way his pupils dilate is anything to go by. “You really think I don’t want you?”

“You just…” Itsuki trails off when Mei tightens hands on his hips, but Mei doesn’t give him time to recover. He pushes so Itsuki walks backwards, steering Itsuki towards the bedroom.

“You wanna know how I want you?” Mei asks, voice low and dark, and Itsuki makes a sound in response that is very nearly a whimper. “I can make a list.”

“Mei-san,” Itsuki says, grabbing at the back of Mei’s collar as they walk, and when his knees hit the bed and he’s forced to sit, he takes Mei’s shirt with him.

“I want your eyes on me,” Mei says, climbing into bed as Itsuki scrambles back, a smile starting to form on his lips and eyes wide. “I never want you to look away. I want all your attention.”

He crawls forward until he’s kneeling between Itsuki’s legs, grabbing at Itsuki’s hair to keep his eyes locked with Mei’s.

“I wanna know what you sound like with my fingers inside you,” Mei says. “I wanna be the answer to every fantasy you’ve ever had.”

“Fuck,” Itsuki swears, and Mei lets go of his hair to reach for the hem of his shirt. “Fuck, Mei-san.”

“That’s the idea,” Mei says. “If we’re done going slow, you better keep up with me.”

It’s not truly a command when Itsuki has already asked Mei for this, and they both know it. Mei tried so hard to prioritize Itsuki over himself, and maybe that’s what Itsuki deserves, but it’s not the foundation for a relationship, especially when it prevents him from reading the signs Itsuki sends him. It’ll be a while until they learn to trust what they read from each other, a while of talking everything out, but they have that kind of time.

Itsuki reaches up and pulls Mei down into a kiss that is downright filthy, so caught up in the action that it’s sloppy, and Mei pulls back to lick the line of drool that escaped the corner of Itsuki’s mouth. He doesn’t stop there.

Now that he has permission, he’s wanted to put his mouth on every part of Itsuki’s body for months, and he’s going to take advantage. He kisses down Itsuki’s neck and laves across his collarbone, dipping even lower to bite at the muscle in Itsuki’s chest. Itsuki isn’t bulky by any means, but he also can’t be described as lean, and he’s not lacking in muscle. There’s enough for Mei to run his tongue down the dip in Itsuki’s abs.

“Lube,” Mei says. Itsuki doesn’t respond immediately. “Itsuki. Do you have lube?”

“Fuck, I…” Itsuki whines as Mei bites at his abs. Mei wants to suck a mark in, but that’s definitely something they should talk about first, and he doesn’t have the patience to slow down and do it. “Yeah, hold on.”

Mei doesn’t pay much attention as Itsuki twists, reaching, just keeps kissing down, pulling Itsuki’s pants down with his boxers, turning his attention to Itsuki’s thighs and relishing in the power of them. Every catcher has thighs of steel and an ass to match, but Mei thinks Itsuki’s are particularly choice.

He knows he’s biased.

“Here,” Itsuki says, shoving a half-empty tube of lube and a condom at Mei.

“Do you have a position you wanna be in?” Mei asks. Itsuki considers, and then grabs a pillow and lifts his hips, wiggling until he seems satisfied.

“Like this,” Itsuki says, looking uncertain again, and Mei doesn’t let him start to overthink it. He returns to Itsuki’s thighs, biting just enough to leave a red mark that will fade by tomorrow, making a note to ask because he really wants to dig his teeth in, hold the thick cords of muscle and bite.

Instead, he kisses up Itsuki’s thigh so he can lick where Itsuki’s dick has gone hard, and when Itsuki gasps, he grins and sits up.

“Like this it is,” he says, and flicks open the tube of lube. Itsuki watches, eyes ravenous, as Mei coats his fingers, rubbing them around to warm up the lube and also to feel the slick slide, a kind of anticipation game for both of them.

Mei leans down to lick at Itsuki’s dick again, and when Itsuki is sufficiently distracted by the swirl of Mei’s tongue, he slips one finger inside.

Itsuki jerks and tightens up, but Mei has been patient for months – years – and he waits it out, waits for Itsuki’s hips to sink into the pillow again and for Itsuki to relax around him.

Mei doesn’t have to coax Itsuki through it slowly. They’re both too desperate to go slow, and Itsuki urges Mei on even before Mei thinks to continue. Itsuki rolls his hips down against Mei’s hand, riding three fingers with ease, and Mei just can’t take it anymore.

He pulls his fingers out, sparing one thought to how he’s going to get the condom out and on, but Itsuki beats him to the punch, ripping open the package and rolling it over Mei, stroking a few times for good measure. He lays back, letting his knees drop open.

“You know you can still say no to me whenever, right?” Mei asks, pouring more lube into his hand and slicking himself. He hasn’t been able to shake the feeling that before, they had some weird power dynamic where Itsuki didn’t feel like he had that power.

“Mei-san,” Itsuki says. “Yes.”

Mei doesn’t ask a second time. He grips Itsuki’s thigh with his right hand, holding him open as he slides in. Itsuki is hot and tight, and Mei pants against his chest, resting his head.

“You can move,” Itsuki says.

“I definitely can’t,” Mei complains. This will be over too fast if he moves now.

Itsuki huffs a laugh, then sits up on his elbows and nudges his head until Mei looks up at him. Itsuki kisses him, sweet and very nearly slow. He sits back, eyes open and soft.

“Mei-san,” he says. “Move.”

Mei complies.

He snaps his hips forward in a short, shallow thrust, and then again, and again. Itsuki drops his head back, rolling his hips against Mei’s thrusts, riding the ebb and flow until their rhythm matches.

Mei goes back to kissing any part of Itsuki he can reach, wanting to taste all of him, and tries to hold on for longer than Itsuki. He does have an advantage, dropping his free hand to stroke at Itsuki’s dick. Itsuki moans, too loud and yet not enough, grabbing for Mei’s shoulders.

This can’t last much longer. Itsuki is already starting to tighten around Mei, and Mei just barely holds on until after Itsuki throws his head back and shakes and comes, and Mei is right behind him, burying his moan in Itsuki’s shoulder.

They pant against each other until they come down from the high, and Mei pulls out of Itsuki, wincing as he pulls off the condom and throws it away. He knows he should go get a wet cloth to clean Itsuki down, but walking is a tall order right now. He settles for one of their shirts, wiping Itsuki and himself down, and then he rolls to his side, gathering Itsuki to his chest.

“Still think I don’t want you?” Mei asks. Itsuki snorts, resting his chin on Mei’s chest to look up at him.

“Maybe I need another demonstration,” he says.

“Cheeky,” Mei tells him. “Wait ‘til tomorrow. You won’t be able to walk.”

“Prove it.”

“I plan on it.”

Itsuki laughs again, and Mei can’t help the curl of his mouth. They’re not perfect, not yet. But they are functional, he thinks, and they’ll get better. It’ll take years to learn each other, and Mei can only look forward to it.

They have time, and Mei can’t wait to take it.

[hamhamparadise]

Episode 52 - Graduation Ceremony! Yay!

This post is being released the same day as in Patreon, as a special occasion.

Now, for real, we're done. This is the finale of Jewelpet Sunshine.

This anime has been worked on and dropped by various fansubs during the years, and we're proud to pick it up and finish it up in a single year.

This episode, as we mentioned on the sneak peek, is really special for our team, and talking about it is difficult without spoiling it. But we just think it is a really good closure to the series, and a beautiful ending. We are very happy to be able to deliver it to you.

Deciding to start working on a second anime besides Hamtaro was a really important decision for the team, but we're happy we took it, since it helped us promote our Patreon a lot and also helped us improve our skills.

On this regard, we want to specially thank Whippu for his contribution. He was the very reason we decided to pick up Sunshine and he has been an inmense help not only by helping with the translation, but also helping with timing, which he single-handed for all the episodes we worked on.Now, since this series was handed by André and Whippu, they will have some words.

"Hi, André here. Jewelpet Sunshine has always been in my list of stuff to subtitle, as proven by the fact I subbed the last episode on 2014. However, it was a huge endeavor to take alone, and I am not ashamed to accept that I would have been unable to make up a lot of sentences and references without help, and the subs would have been end up of really low quality, something that is by all means not acceptable for a series that I treasure so much. So Whippu's help has been a Godsend.

I had a lot of fun subbing this series, I haven't had so much fun subbing in a long time, and it shows. I cherised this series, I tried my best to perfect every timing, every effect, every sentence (and yet we are going to revisit a lot of them), I tried to learn many new tricks (like the "iclip" effect), I even learnt to make my own karaoke effects!

I kind of feel an emptiness because this has been always around for the last whole year... and now we're done. But I'm also really satisfied at finally being able to watch this amazing series finished. And sharing it with everyone.

It has been a nice trip. Thank you all for your support. I really hope you enjoy it :)"

“Hey all, Whippu here. Now that we're done with Jewelpet Sunshine (even if we only actually subbed about half of it), I wanted to reflect a little bit on what the subbing process was like for me.

This was the first subbing project that I really committed to. Suffice it to say that it's a lot of work, made even harder by the fact that there were only two of us working on the project, Andre and myself; both of us were jointly responsible for translation and effects, and I was the one who timed all the episodes. Suffice it to say that it's definitely not the most exciting thing to do, and that I'm totally jealous of the other fansubber teams out there who have like 5-10 people on their team. But it was worth it because Jewelpet Sunshine is so good. Like, you were probably wondering, why the heck is a Hamtaro-themed group subbing Jewelpet Sunshine? Go and watch it, you won't regret it.

Despite (ostensibly) being a children's oriented anime, the vocabulary in it is anything but. Trying to piece together half the stuff they talked about, whether it's references to pop culture I don't get or Kaluza-Klein theory or Dolphin-sensei or Peridot babbling at 100 words a second or whatever, was really an adventure, compounded by the fact that both Andre and I have different strengths when it comes to translating; Andre's much better at getting the general gist of conversation, whereas I fared better in finding and recognizing specific vocabulary. But there's always stuff that throws you for a loop, like when I found out "riajuu" basically means "normie" in Japanese. Here's just a sample of stuff we (and apparently, 8-year-old girls in Japan) had to deal with:

Note the accompanying Japanese text; that is all text that we would have had significant trouble deciphering without the generosity of Japanese bloggers who posted excerpts from the show years ago, bless their hearts. We would've killed (and probably still would) for transcripts, not necessarily to make our job easier, but just so we can know what the heck they really were saying half the time. Doing this was also a reminder that fansubbers are, well, fans, and not exactly professionals. We did our best to stick to what they said most of the time, but there were definitely times we got stuck and just had to make the best of it. Subbing this was a great way to learn lots of new Japanese phrases, which is part of the reason I did it in the first place; if I really knew Japanese 100%, what fun would it be to just transcribe exactly what I hear?

Anyway, that's it. I hope you enjoyed the subs; I sure know I did, and it feels great to know that finally, the best season of Jewelpet (come on, let's be real) has escaped fansub development hell. Will there ever be another anime like Jewelpet Sunshine? Hell no there won't (unless Sanrio decides that what Mewkledreamy needs is Aerosmith music and bikinis), which is why you should do yourself a favor and watch Jewelpet Sunshine.P.S. Neither of us still have any idea what this "sasuga Japan money" line is. If you know, please let us know so we can rest in peace.

-Whippu”

Now, we wanted to talk about future plans, but we're not even sure about what we will do in the short term, so, we will let you enjoy the finale for now!

Yay!

You can watch online or download the episode here.

[aftermathdb]

DEATH BATTLE Review: Weiss vs. Misturu

Y’know, I had a gag planned when that required Weiss to be introduced after two other RWBY Characters that I don’t think I can do anymore since Weiss got introduced before them. Maybe I can do a deleted scenes thing later…

Two Ice Queens battle for the true reign over the ice castle!

Weiss′s Preview.

The world of Remnant is full of many things that make it famous. From the vicious creatures of Grimm, to the Huntsman and Huntresses that are sworn to fight them, and many many more. But in this world, you’d be hard pressed to find a person who has never heard of the Schnee family.

And like any famous family, these guys are like royalty. And their princess, is Weiss Schnee.

Like many children born to great families, Weiss’ home life wasn’t that fun. Her father had high expectations for her, and she was set to just run the place… Whenever that happens. But, in defiance to her father’s wishes, she got out and joined Beacon Academy, an illustrious school where everyone can learn how to fight monsters. And once she joined a team, she put the ‘W’ in team RWBY.

But Weiss can’t just get by with money. So like most Hunters (Which is what I’m going to be calling them so that I can save some space), Weiss got herself a weapon, which Boomstick nicknamed Merc-Nasty.

This rapier is nearly three feet in length, and, much like nearly every other weapon in the show, it doubles as a gun (insert “it’s also a gun” joke here)!

Myrtenaster comes equipped with a six-slot Dust chamber. And unlike the dust in our world, the Dust in this world is special. Similar to the materia from Final Fantasy or Crystals from Storm Hawks, these all come with their own stats and effects.

Weiss is a fan of combining water and wind to create Ice Dust

But, if you’re going to fight giant shadow monsters, criminals, and godzilla dragons, you’re  going to need way more than just a stick to fight them with.

Think of Semblances as “X-Men” powers. They’re all unique in their own ways. However, Weiss’ Semblance is a bit different. In the sense that instead of it being unique, it’s actually inherited through her family line. Kinda like the mark of the Joestar (Before you ask, no. No Jojo character is up next. I’m upset about it too).

Weiss’ Semblance lets her do all sorts of crazy stuff. From manipulating gravity, to time dilation, to manipulating dust.

But most impressive of all, is the summons, which lets Weiss act like Yuna from FF X and bring out monsters she’s beaten to fight alongside her.  And the most powerful one of all, would be knight, the Arma Gigas… Which means “Giant Armor” in Latin.

But yeah. Weiss’ family is pretty dysfunctional, and kinda abusive at times. Her Colonel Sanders-looking dad up there cut her out of the family line, leaving her piece of shit brother as the sole heir to the company.

But if there are any physical weaknesses Weiss has, it would probably be her durability.

Aura is finite, and takes time to recharge. Sure, you’re basically invincible when you do have it, but when it’s out, you’re out.  And compared to Best Girl Yang (Fight me), Weiss’ durability isn’t that great. And since using her Semblance also burns aura, she’s more likely to run out sooner rather than later.

But Weiss is pretty tough. She once managed to survive a train crash. Judging by the size of the fragmentation, and applying the appropriate mathematics, the amount of force Weiss withstood comes out to be about…

Not good enough?- Then how about the time she knocked over a giant mech that was designed to fight giant leviathan grimm?

Judging by the size of her partner beside her, Weiss’ output of force should come around to about…

And it’s unlikely that Weiss is doing this using only dust. So, by using the water,  we can get an estimate as to how much energy is being used for this attack.

For those of you wondering, this translates to over 230 tons of TNT!

Forget Dust. Weiss could make a killing on giving people renewable power alone.

Weiss might not be the strongest of her team, but with her newfound family, she’s certainly proven that she is far more than just a name. And she’s out to prove that this life is hers.

Misturu′s Preview.

In the early 2000s, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Japan who hasn’t heard of the Kirjio group, a global conglomerate that was involved in nearly every aspect of daily life. .

And just like any other major company like this, they had a family. And this princess, was known as Mitsuru Kirijo

One day, Mitsuru’s Grandfather was experimenting with some sort of mental world called “The Mind Place.” Officially known as “The collective unconscious.” Because companies doing shady business deals is apparently something we should expect. When is news going to break out that Disney does have their founder’s head in a jar?

Anyways, the Mind Place connects every living being’s subconscious mind. Things known as “Shadows” lived there.

These things are basically demons. But if you want to see an inner demon, you find a person’s “Shadow Self.”

Surprise surprise, Grandpa Kirijo decided to try and get to the shadows for himself. But, as per usual, summoning demons never works out… Unless you play an Archfiend Deck in Yu-Gi-Oh, in which case, go nuts.

So, everything kinda went to shit because of it, and not only were the shadows released into the world to attack an unsuspecting populace, this tower thing here:

the Tartarus, arose. It’s basically the citadel between worlds. The earth was changed with a new “Dark Hour.” A period of time where everything freezes at Midnight.

Most people don’t really notice though. Time resumes as normal when it’s over, and almost nobody really notices.

Almost.

Some people can keep moving around in this time. Mitsuru is one of them. since she felt bad about her family’s company screwing everyone over, so she decided to fix it.

And while her rapier skills are certainly good, on account that she’s in the fencing club at her school, a small sword like that isn’t exactly enough to take down a bunch of evil shadows… Wait, hang on. Do both of these franchises have Heartless ripoffs?- Moving on, Mitsuru also has various abilities that she can use.

And on top of all of it, she even got a Stand Persona, named Penthesilea, which later grew into Artemisia.

With Artemisia by her side, Mitsuru has a lot of powerful ice spells that she can call upon in battle. So it’s basically a Stand except they don’t have that rule of “Only a Stand can defeat another Stand” thing going for them… Huh, note to self: Have Jotaro and Mitsuru get into an argument about terminology. Also unlike Stands, Personas can be defeated, but they’ll come back after a short time.

Similar to Stands, Personas also kinda reflect damage back to the user. But since it’s more linked to the personality rather than the soul or fighting spirit, it’s more mental stress if anything else.

Artemesia gives Mitsuru all sorts of awesome stuff. Like ice powers that could give Elsa a run for her money. It also grants Mitsuru enhanced strength, speed, and durability. In addition, it also makes her completely immune to the cold and ice-based attacks. I’d ask “Why the fur coat?” But, as we all know, Everyone needs a fur coat (And it’s a pretty nice coat). She can also sense her surroundings via analytical clairvoyance, which makes sneaking up on her pretty hard.

But, like all great heroes, nobody really does it on their own. Mitsuru created the S.E.E.S, or the “Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad.” A group of Persona users that were basically the Teen Titans, if they had Stands instead of superpowers. And, as an added bonus, it’s an after school club, so bonus extra credit!

And you might be thinking “How would one summon a Persona?” Well, since this franchise wasn’t done ripping off Jojo (I looked it up, Stands and the Stand Arrows were introduced about three years prior to Persona 1), they decided to uh… Use the Evoker… Which… Fair warning…

(I think I’ll take the Stand Arrow instead).

The idea behind the Evoker is that it evokes a strong traumatic experience to awaken a person’s Persona, similar to how Mitsuru’s first experience in summoning hers was also traumatic.

To add to the unsettling nature of this, you don’t just have it shot at you. You aim it at your face, and pull the trigger. DEFINITELY taking the Stand Arrow over that.

Anyways, with all that power, Mitsuru’s pulled off some ridiculous stuff.

Here’s an added bonus: One Persona user that could outrun a bullet fired from a Magnum. So it’s reasonable to say that Mitsuru could do this too.

If that last feat wasn’t impressive enough for you, Personas can move even faster. One of them reacted to and caught an arrow within milliseconds. And since Mitsuru defeated this user and Persona in a fight.

But if you’re looking for a durability feat, then look no further, because Mitsuru once survived an explosion.

This one to be exact.

This is easily the longest series of images I’ve had to upload in a row. And isn’t Boomstick a Poultry Scientist?- Why’d he say “I’m a scientist now.”?

Ahem, moving on. Artemisia also once helped out in icing these creepy puppet things:

Now, using the surrounding air and accounting for Nitrogen (As it makes up a good chunk of the air we breathe), we can get some calculations for this feat.

The energy output, after the calculations are done, comes to around…

Okay, forget Weiss supplying people with Power, Mitsuru’s where it’s at. Maybe she could slow down out polar ice caps from melting.

And after ending the Dark Hour and redeeming her family name, Mitsuru continued battling for people everywhere. One shadow at a time.

Not too shabby.

The Battle Itself.

Torrian and Kristina are here for animation, Weiss will be voiced by Kara Eberle and Mitsuru will be voiced by Corey Pettit, music (Winter Sonata) by Therewolf,  and audio by Chris Kokkinos.

So, we just jump right into the middle of the fight. No explanations, no story build-up, no nothing. It’s just like RWBY Volume 4! Ha ha! … Sorry, I, I just, I had to get that in there… God, that was a garbage volume.

So, with swordplay looking to be about even, both sides are basically going to be relying on their other skills for this bout. Y’know, a fencing tournament getting out of hand would have been an interesting story for this fight.

So, a bit of talking later, and the fight just picks up. And it occurs to me that they should have used this as the example fight for why the “FIGHT!” soundbite shouldn’t return. Like, c’mon guys.

Back on the fight, Weiss uses her ice powers to try to give Mitsuru the cold shoulder, but as we’re already aware, that’s not very effective.

And out comes Artemisia, which Weiss manages to parry some of the attacks, and opts to get the hell out of dodge after a quick burst of fire.

The Wasp up there is then sent to fight Mitsuru’s Persona while Weiss opts to fight Mitsuru directly.

But, let’s face it. The Rapier Wasp is a Bug Flying type. So Artemisia takes it down.

And with Weiss distracted, Mitsuru then gives her a kick to the face. That’s the face of someone who was wondering why she was just standing around when there was someone trying to kill you right in front of you.

But Weiss isn’t a fan of being kicked in the face, so she uses her gravity glyphs to make some distance.

And with that distance comes…

The Arma Gigas! Let’s be real, we wanted this fight so that we could see this knight fight Artemisia. After a couple of combos where neither side seems to make any headway, Artemisia then fires some frigid projectiles towards Weiss.

Her Knight, being a gentleman, takes the blow for her.

Weiss charges (with added assistance from her time dilation glyphs) and manages to actually stab Mitsuru.

Unfortunately for her, Mitsuru doesn’t go down that easily. And she uses Artemisia to knock them both down.

Finishing blow in 5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Imperious Queen of Executions indeed.

Verdict + Explanation.

So, to Weiss’ credit, her versatility put up a decent fight. But she was pretty outclassed in other categories aside from speed thanks to time dilation.

But with Mitsuru’s analytical clairvoyance, that speed gap gets a lot smaller. To the point that Mitsuru’s the one that can outpace Weiss. Not that it matters, Artemisia outpaces Weiss a few times over.

Now sure, the time powers seem like an insta-win, right? Well, maybe that would give Weiss a win in some scenarios, but not all of them.

Since Weiss is extra reliant on Ice Dust, and her other Dusts are fairly lacking, Mitsuru didn’t really have to deal with fire at all. Especially since Weiss doesn’t have the best track record with fire (As we’ve seen from that fire geyser from before).

It also doesn’t help that the explosion from earlier is pretty up there in terms of destructive power. Power that isn’t really that low for anything Weiss had to really beat it out.

Using calculation provided by Boomstick (Yes, you read that right), the calculations can be made through the height of the bridge.

This puts the explosive yield to about.

And this is even accounting for the fact that the person setting it off wasn’t even planning on killing Mitsuru too.

Also, remember those big ice structures that each of them made?- Well, comparing them directly, Weiss’ energy output doesn’t come close. Even if one were to cut Mitsuru’s stat in half, on account that she had help for this feat, Weiss falls short. About a hundred times short to be exact.

At the end of the day, Mitsuru had the power, skill, and durability to take Weiss down. Sure Snow White there had versatility, but at the end of it all,

Overall impression.

I heard from a friend of mine (And I  read  it on the Persona Wiki) that Personas can’t really be seen by non-persona users. Whilst this doesn’t really make much of a difference since it was more exciting to see the Arma Gigas directly fighting Artemisia instead of having it flailing around while the Persona just chipped away at it, it would have been nice to have seen this acknowledged.

Also, I kinda had like… Ten jokes that I could have used for my own end quip, but I’ll just post that to my Deviantart account as a list.

Overall, the results are solid, the animation is good, and it feels well-made. Sure, Weiss’ death could have been a bit more brutal (I would have liked to have seen her shattering with the ice), but as far as underwhelming deaths go, this one wasn’t that bad.

6.9/10. It would have been higher, but we didn’t get a “Bites the Dust” reference for Boomstick’s end joke (The song, not the Stand).

Next Time…

MORTAL KOMBAT! DO do do do dodo doot do do doot do doot do do do!

By the Gods I have been wanting to use Johnny Cage for the story. And having another Nintendo rep is always a plus. This… Is gonna be fun!

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

Falcon Punch vs. Nut Punch

[missmyloko]

What’s In a Book? Part 28

On The Bonus Day Of Fun I present... a book review! It’s hard to believe that my last review was also done last year! This year I’ve really set my sights on buying a few books that my collection dearly needs, so this will (hopefully) not be the last review you’ll see in 2019!

Book’s cover courtesy of Amazon Japan. 京都五花街 - 祇園甲部 - 宮川町 - 先斗町 - 上七軒 - 祇園東 - The Kyoto Gokagai by Hiroshi Mizobuchi 溝縁ひろし (ISBN 978-4-8381-0432-1) Date of Publication: 2010 Language: Dual Japanese and English (Mostly) Format: Softcover Availability: Still being printed and easily found online Price: $15 Errors: 1 As can be guessed by the look of the cover, this book came between Kyoto Hanamachi and The Kagai In Kyoto. Already with the title and introduction we can see how the author is now using the more correct term of “Kagai” instead of “Hanamachi” as that is the term used in Kyoto. It’s also nice to note that if you look at the English page with the publishing information you’ll notice some Japanese text and numbers at the bottom. These are actually the statistics for how many maiko and geiko were active at the time! I’m not too sure why they were kinda hidden there, but it seems like a fun easter egg for people who are paying attention. As of September 2009 there were 194 geiko and 89 maiko, which isn’t too far off of the current count of 188 geiko and 74 maiko. One of my only qualms is how the book begins. Even though pretty much every event has the information written in Japanese and English the entire index is written in Japanese only. This would be remedied in his next book, but it seems like a bit of an oversight that should have been corrected for this book. Overall, the book is split into three separate parts: The Calendar of Events, The Miscellaneous Maiko and Geiko Information, and The Gokagai Directory. Part 1: The Calendar of Events We’ve seen this before numerous times, so I’ll quickly list off each event covered, along with a small blurb. Each event name is as it appears in the book: Shinen New Year’s Day - Details the kadomatsu ornaments outside of businesses. Shigyōshiki Year Opening Ceremony - Ceremony to officially open the kagai. There’s a few pages of photographs showing the ceremonies in each kagai along with descriptions, but they’re only written in Japanese. Hatsuyori New Year Greeting - Gion Kobu’s special rounds. Setsubun Seasonal Division Ritual and Obake Disguise - Ceremonial dances performed at various shrines along with bean tossing and dressing up in costumes for ozashiki. Baika(sai) Plum Blossom Festival - Outdoor tea ceremony at Kitano Tenmangu hosted by the maiko and geiko of Kamishichiken.   Oishi Ki Memorial Service - Special memorial service for Kuranosuke Oishi, leader of the 47 Ronin, held at the Ichiriki. Miyako Odori Dance Performance - Gion Kobu’s annual spring dances. Kyō Odori Dance Performance - Miyagawa Cho’s annual spring dances. Kitano Odori Dance Performance - Kamishichiken’s annual spring dances. It’s placed after the other two as the Kitano Odori used to take place at the end of April; it now takes place during the last week of March and the first week of April. Takasegawa Canal Sakura Cherry Blossom Festival - Held by the maiko and geiko of Pontocho each April. Dance Dedication For Annual Festival of Heian Shrine - The spectacular dedication dances of the four kagai associated with the Heian Shrine. You may know it better from its Japanese name as the Heian Jingu Reitaisai Hono Būyo Matsuri.  Kamogawa Dance Performance - Pontocho’s annual spring dances. End of Miyako Odori Rituals - The Gion Kobu maiko and geiko praying together with their Inoue teachers for a successful Miyako Odori. It used to take place each year on May 1st as the odori ran from April 1st to the 30th at the Gion Kobu Kaburenjo, but since it’s been moved to various locations for the past three years while the kaburenjo is undergoing retrofitting the dates have changed. In 2019 it will take place on April 28th. Kanki Inari Shrine Festival - Gion Higashi’s big event for the spring where they celebrate the ongoing success of the shrine with an outdoor tea ceremony. Fumi No Kai Singing Performance - A nagauta festival hosted by Miyagawa Cho in the early summer. Kyoto Gokagai Traditional Dance Performance Miyako No Nigiwai - The annual combined dances of the five kagai on the third weekend in June. There’s seven pages of images dedicated to this event! Beer Garden - Various outdoor beer gardens hosted by Kamishichiken. Since theirs has proven to be very popular Miyagawa Cho and Pontocho have also followed suit in recent years. Osendo Thousand Time Shrine Visit - The gathering of all maiko and geiko of Gion Kobu together with their dance teachers to pray for success on July 7th in specially made yukata. It’s better known by it’s other name of Miyabi Kai Osendo. Sannin No Kai Performance - An event held only a few times from what I can find. It featured the best dancers from Gion Kobu, Pontocho, and Miyagawa Cho and ended with a dance by Yachiyo Inoue and Mitsugoro Bando, the heads of the Inoue and Onoe Schools. Gion Festival - The massive festival that takes place for the majority of July and is one of Japan’s Big Three festivals. It also details the Hanagasa Junko and the Dedication Dances by the maiko and geiko who are selected to perform each year. Yukata Kai Summer Music Learning - Annual event held by Miyagawa Cho in which the performers all wear yukata. Since this book was written Kamishichiken and Gion Higashi have also began their own Yukata Kai. Hassaku Summer Greeting - The annual rounds of thanks on August 1st each year. Autumn Dance Performance Practice - Beginning in September the gokagai each get ready to host their annual fall dances. Zuiki Festival - Annual event in Kamishichiken that celebrates the harvest. Onshū-kai Dance Performance - Gion Kobu’s annual autumn dances. Mizue-kai Dance Performance - Miyagawa Cho’s annual autumn dances. Kotobuki-kai Dance Performance - Kamishichiken’s annual autumn dances. Suimei-kai Dance Performance - Pontocho’s annual autumn dances.  Jidai Festival - The annual procession that celebrates over 1,200 years of Kyoto history with participants dressed in period accurate clothing. Fire Drill - Annual demonstration of how to put out fires by maiko of each district. Gion Odori Dance Performance - Gion Higashi’s annual dances. Chion-In Gion Odori Presentation Dance (知恩院祇園をどり奉納舞) - This part was in Japanese only, and it appears as though after the Gion Odori the maiko and geiko of Gion Higashi did a dedication dance at Chion-In following the Gion Odori. I am not aware of this event still existing though. Ohitaki Fire Festival - Annual event held at all shrines where wishes written on paper are ceremoniously burned. Kanikakuni Festival - Annual dedication of flowers at Osamu Yoshii’s monument that features his famous poem Kanikakuni. Ichi-go Ichi-e (Treasure Every Encounter For It Will Never Recur) Autumn Tea Ceremony Party - An event held by the maiko and geiko of Gion Kobu in which they perform a tea ceremony and dances. I do not recall this event happening within the past few years.  Gion Kouta Festival - Two maiko from each kagai read the lyrics of the famous Gion Kouta in front of a monument in Maruyama Park. Each kagai takes part on a rotating basis. Kaomise Soken Kabuki Watching - Annual viewing of the first kabuki performances of the year by each kagai. Kitano Kencha Tea Dedication Festival - Annual tea ceremony hosted by the maiko and geiko of Kamishichiken that celebrates the tea festival held by Toyotomi Hideyoshi that lead to the establishment of Kamishichiken. Kotohajime New Year Preparation - Visit to the head of each dance school where maiko and geiko give a gift of pounded rice cakes and receive a new fan to use in the new year. Okotosan Year End Greeting and Okera-bi Fire Offering - The annual year end greetings where maiko and geiko receive fukudama and the shrine fire ceremony where maiko and geiko light a special rope that is then used to light the oven for the new year. Part 2: The Miscellaneous Maiko and Geiko Information   A short section that features an interview with a maiko (Japanese only), the misedashi process (Japanese only), a section about various maiko accessories, such as hair ornaments, hanameishi, dance fans, pocchiri, and kago (Japanese only), maiko hairstyles (Japanese only), the erikae process (Japanese only), the hiki iwai retirement process (Japanese Only), and ozashiki asobi practices (Japanese only). This is then followed by a two page blurb about Shimabara, which is written in Japanese and English. Part 3: The Gokagai Directory This may seem a bit odd to English speakers, but listed within are the history of each kagai, maps of the kagai, where all ochaya are located on said maps, and even the phone numbers for each ochaya. Obviously you can’t just call up these places as you need an introduction, but it’s not uncommon for Japanese publications to print phone numbers for businesses. This is still practiced with odori program books too! Like his other books, this section is entirely in Japanese. Like all of his other books, the real charm here is from his absolutely GORGEOUS images. This book is loaded with images for each event and even some random outdoor images that mark the changing of each season. It’s a feast for the eyes that makes this book worth the (very affordable) price alone! During the entire book I found one error, and it’s an English issue. In the introduction the English part states that a shikomi period can also be known as a minarai period, but it’s correct on the Japanese side of the text in that it states that the minarai period comes after the shikomi period. For those of you who are looking for an affordable book that details the events of the gokagai along with stunning images then this is the book for you! Rating: ✪✪✪✪✪ (out of 5)

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #176

rape tw

Do you like to have croutons in your salad? Noooonononono. It's a texture thing. Which do you find more irritating - sunburn or bug bites? Sunburn. How many friends do you have on Facebook? Like... 116? How many contacts do you have in your phone? 16. Do you carry any means of protection on you while out in public? No, but I wanna get pepper spray. Would you ever pick up a hitchhiker? No, I'm too paranoid of strangers. Do you know anyone who does cocaine? Not to my knowledge. What is something that most people wouldn’t know about you from simply looking at you? I used to be a super in-shape 117 lb. queen that even then felt slightly fat. :') What’s a quality that your sister has that you absolutely can’t stand? One has a serious temper, the other's... well I dunno. I don't see my older sis enough. Have you ever been to a bachelor or bachelorette party? No. Something you would NEVER buy? Uhhh the first thing that came to my head are snakes that aren't directly from breeders. Both snakes I bought from PetSmart were sick, so. No thanks. Could you wait until marriage for sex? Yeah. Have you ever dated a smoker? If not, would you? No, deal breaker for me. Do you share a middle name with any of your siblings? Yes, Nicole. Do you think your first love still loves you? No, but the feeling's mutual so np. Are you a money saver or spender? I've never had a consistent source of income, but when I do get some from gifts or photography, I've actually proven to be great at saving it for whatever my target is. Hopefully I stay that way when I do have a job. Has a member of the opposite sex ever seen you naked? Yes. Have you ever had to sell something for a school fundraiser? Yup. If you have any piercings, who did them? Claire's did my earlobes, then various people from Garry's Skin Grafix and mostly New Addiction did my piercings. Have you ever cried while watching a movie trailer? No. Have you ever been pulled over, but just let off with a warning? Never been pulled. Have you ever taken shots? (of alcohol) Noooo, been offered to take part I think twice, but it's not something I think I ever want to do considering I loathe the taste of alcohol, hence why I only ever drink fruity things with tiny amounts of alcohol. Do you like mash-up songs? Occasionally, I guess? None even come to mind. Would you ever consider adopting a child with a severe mental illness? No, because I have a plethora of my own and don't want to put a child under the supervision of someone with conditions like mine; as well, I'm sorry, but I need to take care of myself. Took me damn long enough to get here, and I'm not going back to how horrible my life was before out of stress and having to handle a child with a severe mental illness. And oh, did I mention the main reason is because I don't in any capacity want kids? Have you ever pole danced before? No. Have you ever seen a live bat? Yeah. Do you listen to classical music? Not intentionally. Do you tell your parents who you like? Why or why not? No. I'll admit I like someone if they ask, but otherwise I just don't see it necessary to walk up to your guardian and just randomly inform them that you have a crush. Are you due for a haircut? Getting there, maybe almost two months from now. Are you dealing with any health-related problems right now? My OCD's been exceptionally bad lately. Do your parents like the music you listen to? Both like certain artists that I do - a lot, really. I do know I also like heavier stuff than them, though. Do your parents approve of your beliefs? Not all. Who’s the most annoying person in your neighborhood? Don't live in one. Name one of your psycho exes? None. I was honestly the psycho ex. I was very rightfully broken, but I shouldn't have done many things I did. Why were they a psycho ex? ^ I wouldn't leave him the hell alone and would pester him on Facebook too much even when I was ignored and, most regrettably, make just enough time to blame him for my ER visits before leaving until he finally blocked me. I sincerely don't blame him if he does consider me "the psycho ex." What’s the best revenge you ever got on someone? I don't care in the slightest about revenge to even think up a situation where I got any. I've never deliberately fished for it. What screen name did you use in 6th grade? FlowerOurQueen ew. What do you look forward to most in the next six weeks? ih crihmus What’s the last movie you saw? Halloween. Who was the last person to call you? This fucking car insurance agency that calls like every goddamn day. I've answered a couple times thinking that it could be VR and promptly hung up upon finding it wasn't. By now, I recognize the three digits after the area code to just ignore them. Who was the last person to leave you a voicemail? VR. Where is your least favorite place to be? Hospitals. Where is your favorite place to be? Sara's house. Do you think the sanctity of marriage is meant for only a man & woman? lol no, grow up, 0-19-y/o me denying your own sexuality in fear of a "loving" god sending you to Hell. :^) Would you like to learn to play the drums? Nah. Is there anybody you just wish would fall off the planet? Types of people. Name one thing you worry about running out of. Motivation to live, again. Do you post to say happy birthday on other people’s walls? Sometimes. Always with close friends. Have there ever been floods where you live? Oh yeah. Do you listen to K-Pop? No. When was the last time you saw a rainbow? Ummm idr, but not very long ago. Sunshower. What’s your favorite television commercial? I don't watch TV anymore, so I don't know any current ones. But it will probably /always/ be the sexy Mr. Clean one because memories fuck me up. Have you ever tried writing a song? Yes. For one of the Nintendogs tracks. I even moved their heads around to the tune of the song. kms What is your favorite type of juice? Peach/mango. Whose birthday did you last celebrate? My nephew's. When you were a kid, did you have a treehouse? No. We didn't have trees built for that, just very tall pine trees. What was the best school year in your opinion? 7th grade; ironically, the year my depression began to seriously manifest. Do you know (of) anyone who has committed suicide? Sadly. When was the last time you flew on a plane? This past October. Take me back. Do you eat meat every day? No. Who taught you how to ride a bike? Dad. Are you a fan of Lana Del Rey? No. How do you cook your rice? Steam, boil, other? I don't cook. Do you like your country’s president or prime minister? Nope. Some of his policies I side with, but his personality absolutely destroys him for me. Do you wear skirts? No. I absolutely hate my legs. What color is your house? Like this khaki sorta color. How many first cousins do you have? I have zero clue. I don't even think I've met some first ones. Off the very top of my head, I know there's at least... nine? Have you ever seen a pop star in concert? No. Do you listen to Christmas music during the holiday season? No, not a fan of most. It doesn't put me in the "Christmas spirit" anyway. Where would you like to vacation to? The Bahamas baby, Sweden, Japan... What time do you set your alarm to? I don't use mine. Nothing to use it for. Do you like ginger ale? No, unless my stomach is upset. What time does the sun set at the time of year where you live? Like 5, and I hate it. Have you ever been skiing? No. When was the last time you moved house? Feb. of last year. What did you last feel nervous about? How in god's name am I blanking here??????????? Over something incredibly trivial, I'm sure. Do you find yourself saying mean things to people over the internet that you wouldn’t say in real life? No. Who is the last person to text you? Sara. Does the person you like know it? HAHA she's got a pretty good idea. Who of the opposite sex has seen you at your worst? Jason or Girt. Girt came to the hospital after hearing about my OD, so my mental state was obviously shit, but Jason saw me in more obvious, externally-expressed emotional breakdowns. Did you have a nap today? Yes. I've been waking up much too early lately. What was the last movie you saw that you really liked? Really liked? Probs Jumanji. Do your best friends live near you? Ha, no. Do you have any stuffed animals saved from when you were a child? A LOT. When is the next time you are traveling outside of the state, province, or country? Where to? I'm sure sometime next year to Sara's. What are your living arrangements currently? Are you happy with them? I live with just my mom and pets. It's fine, though I wish I was emotionally prepared to move out. Hell, and obviously financially. Have you ever had feelings for someone your best friend was dating? N- oh yeah yes, in the Jenna situation. Though I don't truly recall what *kind* of feelings exactly I had. Is there anything written on the shirt you’re wearing? No, surprisingly. How was your first kiss? Super cute. Do you still talk to the person you shared it with? No. Are you the oldest of your siblings? No. Have you ever dated someone who had kids? No; that's a deal-breaker for me. I am not being a mother figure to any child, especially when it's not my own. Have you kissed someone 4 or more years older than you? No. Were your parents married when you were born? Yeah. Does the last person you kissed have tattoos? No. Do you live within 20 miles of where you were born? Yeah. What is your opinions on Valentine's Day? Cheesetastic, is it not? No no no no no I LOVE it!!!! I can't stand that "ugh every day you should appreciate love" shit 'cuz like, why not have a day specifically wrapped around it? Is it hurting anyone in any way shape or form?? What is the last thing you wrote? (typing is not writing, btw) My signature, probably? Do you have an outfit that you consider your "seduction outfit"? lul no. What is the last fruit you have eaten? Uhhh good question. I'm only just back on solids. What was the last injection you received? Was it sore? At the dentist when I had to get a cavity filled. They had to give me no less than 6-7 shots in the same spot to numb me properly, so yeah, it was sore. Have you ever been badly bitten by an animal? No. Favorite sandwich? I'll never turn down a ham, cheese, and mustard one. What characteristics do you despise? Arrogance, manipulative, lack of compassion, anger, two-faced, entirely insensitive, rudeness, raunchiness, the inability to accept one is sometimes wrong and that that's okay, BEING A DRAMA NEST HINT HINT, and I could go on... Where would you retire to? The mountains. What was your most memorable birthday? My 21st. Supposed to be your greatest celebration, yet I was in the mental hospital. It still means the goddamn world to me how my peers and employees tried to make it special. What did you want to be when you were little? First an archaeologist, then a vet. I think I only changed my mind upon realizing the original would've been extremely difficult. Have your parents ever forgotten your birthday? No. Would you rather have some bacon or beef jerky? Bacon. I'm actually not a big fan of the latter, it's too dry and tough. Did the Spanish classes have an “El Dia de Los Muertos” (Day of the Dead) fiesta at school? I don't know, I didn't take Spanish. What’s the most number of comments you have on a Facebook picture? What is the picture of? I have zero clue. Do you like coconut flavored things? nooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I really don't like coconuts. Have you ever met a famous author before? No. Do you know anybody who has been raped before? I don't believe so? I know many who've been violated or molested, but I don't believe I know a rape victim. How often do you get a fever? Like never. What makes you lose your appetite? Unappetizing scenes or smells and feeling/being sick. Are there any childhood habits you are grateful for or regret? I was taught good manners, for one. I wish chores had been more enforced upon all of us. At what age did you start to wear makeup? Did your mom object at first? I think 9th grade was when I "officially" started? It was freshman year and I had that "it's a new start and you're (this old) now, at least try to look pretty for once" mentality with how my self esteem was on the decline. I did it every day for a long time, until one day I didn't put on anything because I was tired of it and my art classmates (I was close to them) literally asked if I was okay lmao. From then on out, it was sporadic; eyeliner, shadow, and mascara some days, other days, nothing. But anyway no, Mom didn't have a problem. I think I recall her worrying about how it was all black, but she in no way objected. Would you consider yourself an adventurous person? This reeaally depends on the situation. I can't say which I lean more towards... maybe no? Have you ever snuggled with someone you weren’t dating? No. Have you ever been afraid of being underwater? No. Have you ever been drunk at work? No. What band/group have the most lyrics that represent you? I dunno. One thing you really want to learn? Digital art. What is your favorite piece of art you own? I don't own any other than my own work. The most expensive bill I paid last month was ____? N/A What’s the one thing you apologized for this month? @ the Silent Hill wiki, I wasn't understanding why a certain member was giving particular information that appeared irrelevant to me, but he got me to understand. I am extreeemely nit-picky over there, having been active there since '12, and now being a staff member, I'm even more specific. What is the largest TV screen in your house? We only have one, in the living room, but it's been the biggest. What has challenged your morals? Wondering if I was bi in middle school, frustration when I was trying to be abstinent in a serious relationship, pirating (which I still know is wrong asjfawouow), mutually being a flirt with my then-best friend's boyfriend, considering abortion at a much more open-minded angle, the justification of eating meat, my experience in life in relation to religion... Those are the ones that stand out. Who was the last female you hung out with? Mom. Have you ever taken a pregnancy test? No. Do you want to get married? Yes. Does the thought of moving out from home scare you? A bit. Would you rather live in a mansion or a small cozy home? The latter. I'm not paying for superfluous space and spending a gross amount of unnecessary time cleaning. Would you ever try being a vegetarian? I did, but stopped for a few reasons. Do you have any tattoos at the moment? Yeah and NOWHERE NEAR DONE. What about piercings? ^ Do you keep your eyebrows more thick or thin? Natural. What color is your bedroom door? White. Do your shoulder blades protrude? No, give them back to me. Have you ever been to a rave? No. How many bananas have you ever eaten in a row? Two? Do you think you’re the best thing that’s happened to someone? No. Can you make a clover shape with your tongue? No. Do you have a protective father? No. What’s the biggest misconception about you, personally? Uhhh probably that I don't try hard enough, specifically with work, adulthood, socializing, etc. when I'm sincerely doing my best. Are you disrespectful to a lot of people? No. Does your cell phone have a case on it? What color? No. What was the last song you had on repeat? "Family" by Mother Mother. Your most recent ex says he/she hates you, you say? That'd hurt like hell; he's like a bro to me and is the last close friend I have here. I don't know what I'd say. If someone you wanted before came back now, would you take them? Nope. Have you ever had to choose between two people? Sara and Girt. Jason and Juan. If you were to attend a costume party tonight, what or whom would you go as? Good question. What are your choice of toppings on a hamburger? And do you prefer gas or charcoal grilling? Cheese, mustard, ketcup, pickles, a little bit of minced onion. Idk which I prefer. Everyone hears discussions that they consider boring. What topic can put you to sleep quicker than any other? Economics. How many times did it take you to pass your drivers test? N/A What is your highest level of education? Some college. What kind of lunch box did you have as a kid? Idr. Would you rather be trapped in an elevator, or stuck in traffic? Traffic. I'm afraid of elevators. The last thing you remember dreaming about: Everyone I loved left me, so I tried to suffocate myself. Why do I only recall nightmares, ugh. The last place you went: The parlor to get a new bar for my tongue ring. The last alcoholic drink you consumed: A margarita. The last time you felt insulted/offended: I'm unsure. But I feel it was recently? The last time you kissed someone: October 17th weeps. The last time you held a baby: Months ago when Colleen needed me to hold Keegan. The last time you gave up on or quit something: Vegetarianism. The last video game you played: I finally got a new disc of Shadow of the Colossus!!!!! :'D I'm replaying it and doing both Time Attack modes to get Agro's white coat. The last television show you watched: Fullmetal Alchemist w/ Sara. Are you afraid of shots? No, I just anticipate it being unpleasant. How many times have you donated blood? Once. Would you date someone 15 years older than you? No. What’s the worst sickness you’ve ever had? An awful stomach virus. I wouldn't stop vomiting. What was the last classic novel you read? Did you enjoy it? I couldn't tell ya. Something in high school. Do you think Gatorade tastes refreshing or just gross? I hate it. What’s the scariest video game you’ve ever played? I personally think Outlast is overall the scariest game made thus far, but one I can't play because of the intense jumpscares is SCP Containment Breach. What about your life concerns you the most? Future financial position. If you were a different gender, what name would you want to have? Ummm Severin. What product or service do you find ridiculously overpriced? Certain clothing and makeup brands, like half the shit doesn't even look that great. How many people, outside of your immediate family, do you know the birthdays of by heart? At least six. Would you rather take a walk in the cold rain, or in the blistering heat? Definitely the former. If you had the chance to slip through a portal, despite being aware of any of effects and/or consequences, would you do it? No. Do you trust your gut instinct? I try to, but don't always. Which parent was more strict when you were growing up? Mom. What are some things that initially attract you to the preferred sex? CHARISMA, kindness, concern for others, a love of animals, and being a gamer oops. What is the saddest thing that has happened to you? What about the happiest? The breakup and eventual suicide attempt are definitely the saddest. The happiest, easily the last day of Holly Hill when everyone was telling me goodbye and I felt like I was ready to really live again. When was the last time someone scared you? Sara had me worried something was wrong involving me, but it wasn't. Name the strangest game you’ve ever played (video game or real game): Silent Hill 3 is so fucking weird but also one of the best horror games ever. Name something that you saw within the past week that made you smile: Probably Teddy being cute. Name something within the past week that made you frown: I don't think I have physically frowned this week. Name somebody you know who deserves a better life than they have: My mom. Name something that you hope is different by this time next year: My social anxiety has improved. Name something that you’re good at but don’t like: Um I have no clue. Name something that you’re bad at but DO like: Drawing anthro characters. Name something that you strongly believe in: Gay rights. Do you like pudding? Chocolate pudding. Do you tend to use a lot of big words? No, it's unnecessary. Just talk so people can understand you and not wonder what five words you said mean. Do you fall for guys/girls easily? NOPE. When someone copies you, are you more flattered or annoyed? Annoyed. Which is worse: Stale chips or flat soda? Stale chips. Flat soda doesn't bother me very much. What’s one show that you wish was still on the air? Deadman Wonderland. Have you ever used a port-a-potty? Omg yeah I know I have at sports practice or games as a kid. I absolutely never would again. What was the last stinky thing you smelled? Teddy's pee; he wet his diaper, and we know he has some kind of infection with how rancid it is sometimes, but we don't even bother anymore because it's recurring. What’s your favorite outdoor activity? Photographing nature.

[holydragon2808]

Sorry for all the long posts lately. Just been in a sort of nerdy nostalgic mood here....The Final Fantasy XIII trilogy is truly underrated IMO. Maybe I have that opinion because I’ve never really thought the series had a certain set in stone way that they absolutely had to play out to be considered “a true Final Fantasy” game. It was always my understanding that they with each new installment, something different would be introduced to mix up the formula. 

I’m not saying that the FFXIII trilogy didn’t have its flaws. It has such a massive and rich story and lore....but sadly it was presented overall in such a haphazard way that many people couldn’t really appreciate it. Especially for the fans that aren’t from Japan that had to rely on fan translations of the many, many web novels that half the story is presented in (Episode Zero, Fragments Before and After, A Dreaming Cocoon Falls Into The Dawn, Reminiscence, etc). However, one of the things I’ve always appreciated about these three games is their tendency to put the player directly into the position of the characters emotionally (so you feel the same frustrations of being forced down a linear path or truly understanding the despair a particular character may be feeling) for better or for worse which is one of the reasons why this ending is among my favorites in the FF franchise. Oh and this isn’t my video! I just left a comment in the link about a year or so ago and like I said, nostalgic mood right now so I figured I’d just blog about it here on tumblr. Be mindful of spoilers if you haven’t played the trilogy.

One of the most beautifully tragic things that I love about this is how the ending was clearly foreshadowed throughout the game (Serah dying because of her Seeress abilities as well as what would happen if the Goddess Etro's Heart was pierced) and yet, even though the player was warned multiple times, it STILL catches the player completely off guard for a heartbreaking effect for many reasons: 

1) Most of the FF games end on bittersweet but overall positive note and you half expect Noel and Serah to be able to find a way to avert Serah's death or finish with the time jumping before it's too late and 2) the player actually did save the future from Noel's bleak time line and because of that and seeing Hope's new ark rise just as Cocoon falls (as well as knowing they got Vanille and Fang out in time, the player is lured in a false sense of security and 3) The way the ending starts is on such a high note one doesn't expect it will all come crashing down so suddenly right at the end with the melancholy (but overall very hopeful) lyrics and melody of the theme song. 

I've seen a lot of people say that the lyrics and the melody don't really fit what's going on during the cut scene but I would disagree to an extent. The theme song isn't just about what's going on in the moment of the ending. It's supposed to reflect the OVERALL journey of the characters and the underlying themes of the whole story and "New World" does that very well for both Serah and Noel. BOTH characters were more or less journeying with nothing but hope in their hearts that at the end they would find the people that they loved waiting for them in a New World that doesn't end up the way Noel's timeline does, (a crisis they do actually save the future from, but unfortunately with Caius possessing the Heart of Etro, he had back up plans) and yet towards the final chorus of the song Serah suddenly dies and Noel holds her lifeless body in his arms. 

At this point the song's overall "tone" (for want of a better word) does seem quite a bit out of place, however, the song is still playing because despite losing her life, Serah was never a character to be crippled by despair for long and was very dedicated to her goal for her desire to find Lightning again so they could live together as a family (notably the song ends BEFORE the truly bad things start happening with the Chaos being set lose on the world) and even if that wasn't possible, she was still not going to sit by and let the future fall into despair just to save her own life. She believed that a brighter future (A New World) could be born. And later in Requiem of the Goddess this notion is proven true because she says to Lightning word for word that she has no regrets about what happened to her and believed with all her heart and soul that she and Lightning could be together again. I mean REALLY read the lyrics and see if they don't sum up how Serah feels about Lightning's departure or how Lightning feels about being away from Serah or what happens to her later. Not to mention Noel and Serah's journey and how he was working to avert the disaster that was his timeline in hope for a better tomorrow and being reunited with his Yeul. 

 "New World"

Staring the stars, feeling the winds every time

I cannot stop thinking of you, since you've been gone away from here

Shedding the tears, crying out loud for once

Cause you are such a precious part of me

And there's no one who'll fill my broken heart

Oh but now, I have realized

The reason why I live in this world,

Even you have left me here alone,

I found the way where I can get hope for the future

Baby, I'm gonna see the new world

With nothing but the love you gave me

Only thing I can do, is to trust the time we shared

Baby, I'm gonna go to the new world

With nothing but the strength you gave me

There's nothing to be afraid of,

I know your love will lead me where I should be

Even if it is dark and hard time for me,

I don't wanna give up my hope

Having a dream, basking in the sun everyday

I'm starting to thank that I'm still here,

Though the pain of loss still hurts me

Making me smile, making me laugh many times

Everything is gentle to me, because you are making it so

Then now I have realized the reason why I live in this world

It's not to lose what I truly need

I will make, sure to build the beautiful days together

Baby, I'm gonna see the new world

With nothing but the love you gave me

Only thing I can do, is to trust the time we shared

Baby, I'm gonna go to the new world

With nothing but the strength you gave me

There's nothing to be afraid of,

I know your love will lead me where I should be

Even if it is dark and hard time for me,

I don't wanna give up my hope

Pray for all the things in this world

And believe in the power of our love

Sing a song of tomorrow

Now we are not alone

And we come to life again

A new day will come to you, for you and me

Baby, I'm gonna see the new world

With nothing but the love you gave me

Only thing I can do, is to trust the time we shared

Baby, I'm gonna go to the new world

With nothing but the strength you gave me

There's nothing to be afraid of,

I know your love will lead me where we should be

Even if it is dark and hard time for us,

I don't wanna give up our hope

Despite me praising SE for foreshadowing an ending so obviously and yet still managing to catch players off guard in the the best and worst way, I still felt sad and angry (just like Noel did) that things turned out this way for both Serah and Noel after everything that they (and by extension the player) went though to avert one bad future (and being successful in that goal) only to inherently cause another one right at the end...Fortunately, in the final game Lightning Returns, everyone gets their well deserved happy endings....

[sordm5]

By cross-referencing the Sekiro trailer, with confirmed FromSoft/Activision statements about the game. I think it can be deduced that this leak is almost entirely trustworthy. 

I’m fairly certain that this leak was made by someone who was given an alpha of the game for playtesting. FromSoft did this exact thing with Bloodborne - that’s why there is old footage from the alpha version of Bloodborne that was not leaked by the devs, but in fact played by regular people, long before any of these save editor leaks started coming out. That footage remained under embargo until the release of the game. But with Shadows Die Twice, someone tried their luck and leaked details anonymously.

I’m highly skeptical of leaks, but I’ve just gone through the main important details, and I’ve found many things to be proven very believable given what we see in the trailer, and a couple things 100% true. And this was before we knew anything about the trailer released today. Some things in the leak are only hinted in the trailer, as well. So I’m quite sure when I say this leak must have come from a play tester, and not just someone who saw the trailer early.

- Again, this is the leak I’m going to be referencing off of.

- This is the official trailer.

- And this is a link to an article with Activision’s statements on what Sekiro is going to be about.

I’m going to bold the statements from the leak that were confirmed to be true, either by Activision, or the trailer itself. And then analyze the leak below the blockquote.

similar to Dark Souls “in gameplay and atmosphere”, but will differentiate itself from the company’s action-RPG trilogy by “being a lot more open” and “not having the clear level/Boss design” while also containing “a more directly told story.”  

This is likely exactly what we're looking at. FromSoft has confirmed that "Players will experience the thrill of exploration and discovery in Sekiro" with exploration being a primary focus, as it is brought up twice in Activision’s statement. And we know, from past interviews with Miyazaki that he was going to be implementing what developing Dark Souls had taught him into his next game.

not feature “side arms or shields,” but players can utilize blocking and countering with their weapon, with each having a “unique counter ability.”

We see on the Sekiro cover art that the "sidearms" are going to be prosthetic attachments, which this leak also goes on to say is a 'multi-functional device'. And there appears to be a moment in the trailer where we see an interesting guardbreak and counter attack. Right after we hear "You'll learn to appreciate its worth".

its story focuses on “an ancient cult, that has been using farmers for their dark rituals since hundreds of years.”

FromSoft is known for their dark themes. We cannot confirm if there’s an ancient cult or any farmers from what we’ve seen in the trailer alone. I will say that ancient Japan did have a lot of farming villages, but...that’s not much to confirm anything.

“sacrifice people at their shrine of blood”

We see a lot of villages on fire, and what looks to be a lot of corpses scattered over areas and boss arenas, but there's no confirmation of sacrifices or “blood shrines” from the trailer alone.

“many of the creatures will be the result of the experiments,” with these enemies often losing their limbs or heads in combat, leading to some spawning parasites “from their beheaded selves"

We don’t see much/any of this in the trailer. Besides a scene with centipede-like insects.

“start the game as a heavily maimed and disfigured person at the edge of death” who is then “saved by a mysterious leader who gives you a new face” that will prompt a character creator

There is a scene that alludes to this exact scenario: The old, ragged person telling the character "So you're awake? Looks like death is not your fate just yet". I choose to believe this part of the leak to be fully accurate. I think character creation will be optional, and you will have the choice whether or not to use the protag's default face that we see in the trailers (the character creator will open, and the protag’s face will be the first preset).

The protag we see in the trailer does not speak or show emotion, which is a classic FromSoft player character. They have no reason to deviate from character creation if the protagonist is going to be silent anyway. They are very aware how much their fans adore the character creator, and being able to mix and match armors for further customization.

“replaces [their] missing arm” with a “multi-functional device” that operates as a prosthetic for the majority of the game, “but can also be used a some kind of grappling gun to reach higher levels.”

This is the main reason why I think this leak is so believable. The prosthetic and grappling function is exactly what we got. And it also seems (by the cover art of Sekiro) that we will be able to use attachments for the prosthetic. So “multi-functional” is also accurate.

“a dark fantasy world” that resembles “ancient Japan”,  it will mostly “take place in rural places, but there will be a bigger city to explore later.”

There are rural areas with bigger looking structures and walls in the backdrop. And if we know From by now: backdrop cities are always later accessible.

“enter the world of another player and take control of a monster”

Didn't see any online content or controlling of monsters.

I chose to exclude the “dynamic weather and night/day cycle” part, just because there’s no conclusion to gain on that from a trailer that’s made up of short clips.

In any case, because of the extreme accuracy of some of these leaks, I’m going to choose to believe that the majority of the leak is real. There’s no way to confirm or disprove what we haven’t seen as of yet, but the fact that this person nailed so many things, before we knew anything about it, tells me they had access to the game.