#there’s a lot of asterisks because I have a lot of thoughts

[callmewishful]

[loveletterworm]

Undertale and/or deltarune is fucked up because it causes you to think sentences like “What if the reason there’s an asterisk in front of most but not all text is because asterisks that mark divisions in text are called dingbats and this is somehow indicative of a character that doesn’t even actually exist’s constant presence” and then you realize the way that sounds is like. Nobody thinks this way.  Have you ever read words before.

[linkspooky]

GREAT TEACHER, GOJO

For my final commentary on chapter 236, I thought I'd talk about this panel the starter of a million flame wars on twitter dot com. The big controversy is Nanami stating that Gojo fought only for himself without mentioning his students which a lot of people thought was a last minute reversal on Gojo's character, or character regression.

I'm not going to call anyone stupid, or say if you have good teacher Gojo headcanons you're wrong. However, I'd like to point out that Gojo's always been more complicated than most shonen mentors. He's not Kakashi, and he's not Aizawa, and I'd argue the fact that he's not the standard "I'd die to protect my students" mentor we see in shonen manga is what makes him interesting.

The Springtime of Youth

Jujutsu Kaisen is a shonen jump manga that is very aware of the other manga that are running in the same magazine and uses that awareness to play with audience expectations.

To put it simply if you don't want to use words like Deconstruction - if you're reading Jujutsu Kaisen then things are probably not going to go the way you expect them. It's not Naruto, it's not My Hero Academia, it's a little bit like Bleach except characters actually die.

If you expect things to go one way in Jujutsu Kaisen, then you're going to be thrown a curveball. To name some examples briefly before diving into Gojo.

Yuji Itadori is a normal boy protagonist suddenly dragged into the world of the supernatural.

However, everything goes wrong from there. Jujutsu Sorcerers are not heroes. Yuji is told that much from the beginning by Megumi within the first thirteen chapters. The world of Jujutsu Sorcery is not a good place to be, Yuji is initially excited to be a sorcerer and to be a part of this world and then learns that lesson fast. I mean, imagine if Deku was accepted to UA, and then he immediately learned that students at the school die on the regular and all the adults are either terrible selfish people, or if they're not they die too like Nanami because being selfless means sticking your neck out for someone else.

Yuji's not really special in the narrative. He's just a kid who swallowed a finger. He doesn't have a secret technique. We're hundreds of chapters in and he's still just punching people. If he's cornered in a fight he doesn't unlock a secret technique either, he just loses.

Yuji has a superpowered evil side, like the nine tailed fox, or Hollow Ichigo except it's not really his super powered evil side. It's an evil parasite attached to his soul with a will of its ownt hat will manipualte him. Hollow Ichigo and the Kyuubi can escape temporarily and there's usually no consequence. Sukuna escapes twice, the first time he nearly kills Megumi, the second time he kills thousands.

Yuji is kind of like a main character who is not a main character.

If you still believe he's the main character, then you can agree he's punished for thinking he's the main character and therefore things are going to be easy, because nothing is ever easy in Jujutsu Kaisen.

Megumi is a riff on the chosen one. He's supposed to be the Gojo Satoru of his generation, born with the strongest technique that ca even surpass the limitless and he's nowhere near the level he's supposed to be. This is because Megumi has been continually failed by every adult figure all his life, starting with his father who sold him, then Gojo the man who SAVED* him techically but with a big asterisk that he needed to become his student and do jobs for Jujutsu High School otherwise Gojo would just let the Zen'in take him or let them starve I guess. Megumi has no adult figures to rely on, and has been given very little freedom about who or what he wants to be in his life, and therefore he's a very passive, repressed individual who's riddled with insecurities. Megumi doesn't want to be the strongest like Gojo, or like many hero / rival characters in shonen manga. Megumi doesn't even know what he wants to be, because he's never been given any choice in life.

If you don't think Megumi's a deconstruction of any sort of character type, look at those posts on twitter that are like "Look at the black haired depressed shonen boys" and then look at Megumi, he's never actually like any of these boys because he's much deeper and probably closer to being the main character than Yuji is.

Then we get to Gojo who is very unlike all the other mentors in shonen manga.

If Yuji and Megumi are both riffs on a main character, a hero in a world so cynical he's not allowed to play hero and actively punished for it, and a chosen one who doesn't want to be the chosen one then you have Gojo as the mentor who's nothing like the classic mentor.

The problem with mentor characters in fiction is that number one they die a lot (spoiler warning Obi Wan Kenobi dies in Star Wars just so you know) and number two they're not usually the most complex character in the cast.

What is the mentor there for?

To Mentor (duh.)

What this means is they are usually a fully formed adult who can teach a lesson to the main character, who in shonen manga is typically a teenager.

I say they're usually less interesting because stories are about characters changing, or characters learning lessons. A teacher presumably already has learned his lesson. They are usually at the end of their journey and not the beginning, that's why they can offer wisdom to the main characters. They're not usually their own separate characters because of this - a narrative doesn't have time to waste on a character that's not going to change.

Jung had a term for this character, it's called the Wise Old Man.

In Jungian analytical psychology, senex is the specific term used in association with this archetype. Examples of the senex archetype in a positive form include the wise old man or wizard. In the individuation process, the archetype of the Wise old man was late to emerge, and seen as an indication of the Self. 'If an individual has wrestled seriously enough and long enough with the anima (or animus) problem...the unconscious again changes its dominant character and appears in a new symbolic form...as a masculine initiator and guardian, a wise old man, a spirit of nature, and so forth'.

The role of the wise man archetype is to help other people along with their ego development, because usually they are already fully developed individuals.

Obi Wan is the most typical of typical mentors, and he dies in Star Wars because after he finishes teaching Luke he has nothing to do. This is Luke's Hero's Journey. Obi Wan's already happened offscreen, he's at the end of his journey there's no room for change or growth in him because his story purpose is to exist to advise Luke and to do that he needs to be a fully grown adult figure.

The subversion to this when the mentor has their own agenda (Gandalf), or the mentor is as flawed as the main characters themselves and so therefore he has something to learn.

Gojo is kind of a combination of both, like Gandalf he is the mysterious but seemingly all powerful wizard (er... or rather sorcerer) with his own agenda, and he's also practically the fourth member of the main cast who are otherwise all teenagers. In fact, Gojo spells out his agenda in the same panels that everyone uses to constantly assert that Gojo is a good teacher who only wants to protect his students.

He wants to make the Jujutsu World a better place (good) which is why he is raising students so he can turn them into his political allies to make a regime change (hidden agenda).

It's a means justifies the end type scenario. In Gojo's mind the means (raising kids as tools in support of his political agenda) justifies the ends (a better jujutsu world for those children). His motivation is still the same. This is what I think people most often get confused about with Gojo's character. I think he is one hundred percent genuine about wanting a better world.

"I have a dream, I want to reset this crappy Jujutsu World" is his motivation, but not his means. He uses his students as a means to achieve that end. Even if it's purportedly for their sake, he's still using them. I don't even think this is subtext it's text, both Megumi and Yuji call themselves cogs.

"But senpai, what's your function...?"

You could say in this case that the ends don't justify the means. Is Gojo really protecting these kid's youth, if Yuji and Megumi are going around calling themselves cog and acting like they don't matter in the grand scheme of things? In fact the narrative is inviting you to question if Gojo's ends justify his means.

Gojo's ideals can be one hundred percent real, but he can also pick faulty ways of choosing those ideals that fail to live up to them. In fact most people fall short of ideals, that's why they're called ideals. Gojo is taking these kids in because they have strong potential as sorcerers and he wants to recruit them, that's his hidden agenda. It's confirmed in databooks in Yuji and Yuta's case, and even if you don't trust databooks as canon then look at how he treats Megumi.

Megumi is explicitly Gojo's student, not his son. He only intervened in Megumi's situation on the caveat that Megumi work for him. Presumably, if Megumi didn't want to be a sorcerer and just wanted to be a normal kid, Gojo would have either let the Zen'in have him or do nothing. The option of just calling child services and getting someone to foster Megumi until he was older didn't even seem to cross Gojo's mind. There's the help he gives (Food money, rent, protection from the Zen'in) and then the hidden agenda (Don't work for the Zen'in who are my political rivals, you're my student now).

Yet at the same time Gojo is shown going to find Megumi after Geto's defection, probably because of the words he said to Yaga "You can only save those who want to be saved," when he realized it was too late for Geto. Was he intervening earlier for Megumi because he learned from being too late with Geto? Did he think Megumi needed guidance, or did he think Megumi needed protection in his youth so the Jujutsu World wouldn't corrupt him like it did Geto, or did he think he just needed to make it so Megumi was strong so he wouldn't fall behind him because Geto fell so far behind him once Gojo became the strongest. There's ambiguity there, because the hidden agenda is you know... Hidden. That's what I mean with Gojo though, you can look at him from multiple angles, he's not just (I love my students I'd die for them) because that character would only have one purpose in the narrative and that'd be being the perfect mentor who teaches them all the right lessons.

Gojo's not like other mentors, and in fact he's a commentary on the mentors that everyone is always comparing him to and expecting him to be like.

Literally everyone who reads Naruto has the exact same response, "I hate how the manga never talks about how it's a bad thing to send these child soldiers into war, and nobody breaks the cycle."

There are a lot of people unhappy about the same thing in My Hero Academia, "Why does nobody talk about how wrong it is that the adults make these high school students fight on the battlefield."

Well there you go. That's Gojo. His dream is to make it so Jujutsu Society is a place where teenagers can survive until adulthood. His method of doing so is to... raise those teenagers to be stronger than the previous generation, but you know still letting them be child soldiers on the battlefield just stronger ones. He does this because if he's working within the system the his two choices are raise a group of people who can age out and replace the old regime, or just kill everyone at the top.

Everyone complains about how no one talks about the child soldiers in Naruto or My Hero Academia, but here you go, we have a manga that is centered around how messed up it is to send high school students to continually fight these curses before they even turn eighteen. Gojo's sending these kids out there still even if he wants to change things, and it's supposed to be a little messed up and also a contradiction to what his ideals are supposed to be.

Because in My Hero Academia you have characters like Aizawa and Kakashi who are "I will die for my students" but then they just send those teens out to fight in a war, and seem totally fine with that. It's a hole in the writing, but this time it's done on purpose, to ask why these adults are always comfortable sending teenagers out to fight for them?

Jujutsu Kaisen provides two answers, number one the system is inherently corrupt and it sees the youth as cogs because the system is rooted in traditions that keep the elderly in power. Number two, in Gojo's case at least this is exactly what it was like for him growing up as a child. Gojo is just repeating with his students what was done to him, subconsciously.

The reason Nanami said this, and then repeated it in this most recent chapter is Gojo was born to be a Jujutsu Sorcerer. Being a Jujutsu Sorcerer is a highly deadly occupation for everyone else, except for Gojo. Not only that but because he's so good at it, and he's so lauded for it he's built his entire identity around it. Nanami's not just saying that Gojo is selfish, he's also saying that Gojo thinks being a sorcerer is a good thing. It is the end all, be all of Gojo's existence.

He doesn't want to make it so sorcerers don't have to fight, or make it so all cursed energy is gone for the world like Yuki Tsukumo, his dream is actually kind of limited in scope he doesn't want the school days of his students to be destroyed by the outside world the way it was for him and Geto.

Gojo looks at the symptoms and not the cause. Geto defected, Haibara died, Yaga wasn't really able to do much for his students in both scenarios. Gojo deduced it was because the elders and regressive policies were holding people back in favor of keeping the regime in charge (correct) and that because of that the sorcerers in Gojo's high school years just weren't strong enough to keep up (this is just what Gojo thinks).

His words to Megumi are encouraging him to be strong so he won't get left behind, which as I speculated above might imply Gojo thinks that part of what went wrong with Geto was that he simply wasn't strong enough to keep up with Gojo or stay on his level. If not then he still encourages Megumi to get strong before everything else, he's not taking care of these kids emotional needs, he's pushing them to get stronger because in Gojo's mind that's the be all end all solution to every problem.

"Nanami's line was not saying that Gojo doesn't care about children, it's saying that "You live for Jujutsu." It is the lens through which Gojo sees everything, and so therefore he doesn't think of breaking kids out of the Jujutsu World, just making it a place that's slightly more safe for them. Gojo's ego is so strong that he only ever sees things from his point of view, being a sorcerer was fun for him, his high school days were the happiest time in his life before they got ruined by outside forces.

He's trying to protect those days for his children, but he's not arguing against the existence of an institution like Jujutsu High in the first place. He's not saying the teenagers should never be sent out on missions, he's saying we need to make the teens stronger. If they're stronger than they won't die (that's probably true but they'll be even safer if they don't have to go on missions in the first place).

Now we have a reason! Why do Aizawa and Kakashi send out child soldiers into the battlefield if their goal is to protect their students? Because it's a shonen manga and the main characters are all teenagers.

Why does Gojo send out teenagers to fight for him if he wants to protect them, well I just explained it.

In fact, the entire purpose of Nanami in the story is to give us a character who explicitly treats children like they are children and not miniature adults. Who acknowledges that this is emotionally hard for children to deal with and they shouldn't have to do that.

Nanami's lines of "I'm an adult you're a child" and "Being a child is not a bad thing." would not have the weight they carry if they weren't so different from the way that every other adult in the story (including Gojo) treats children.

Nanami and Gojo have the same goal of making being a Jujutsu Sorcerer easier for children, but Nanami practices what he preaches. He tells Yuji to stand back and that he doesn't need to fight if he sees an enemy that's too strong, to let the adult on scene handle things first.

When he sees that Yuji is disturbed by the idea of killing former humans that Mahito had changed with his technique, he consoles him. He knows that Yuji is a sensitive kid and tries to spare him as much of that grief as possible. When he leaves Yuji behind he tells him explicitly that he's the adult in this situation, he shouldn't be forcing a child to help carry that burden if it's not necessary.

He also explicitly tells Yuji that being strong or jumping into life threatening situations =/= as growing up. Nanami is a character aware that the problem isn't that the children are not strong enough, but that too much responsibility is being thrown on these children. That there is a difference between what children and adults are emotionally capable of. Gojo doesn't see that difference because he reached enlightenment as seventeen. He even explicitly chose Nanami because Gojo knew he wasn't good at that stuff.

Nanami was not saying that Gojo doesn't care about children, Nanami was saying Gojo lives to be a sorcerer, Gojo who loves sorcery doesn't understand why being a sorcerer is too much of an emotional burden on a child. He just doesn't. He literally says his students are flowers.

Now, here's the kicker. Nanami dies.

Nanami wanted Yuji to not take on too much responsibility, and he died leaving Yuji with more responsibility than he could ever carry. Nanami failed in his goal, despite the fact he is the most responsible and well-meaning adult in the story who treats children like they're children.

The reason he dies is because this is what happens to people like Nanami in Jujutsu Society. The whole of society is built to condition people into being cogs and Nanami who's just one person can't overcome it on his own. I can write a whole meta on how Nanami's way of dealing with children is way better than Gojo's and yet they do essentially the same thing, throw way too much responsibility onto Yuji even though he's just a kid. They're both too ingrained in the system to make any sweeping changes, and that's why the child soldiers keep on child soldiering.

Gojo as a Character

The second reason as eluded above that Gojo is not meant to be read as a perfect teacher, or even a good one really is because he's the fourth main character of the cast. If you are a main character, then you need a flaw, and an arc where you either improve upon that flaw or you succumb to it in tragic fashion.

Gojo's not the perfect adult mentor, because he's kind of in the same place as the kids themselves. I think there's a reason we never learn anything about Gojo's backstory, we know nothing about his parents, the Gojo clan, because those details aren't as relevant. The most important thing about Gojo is the three years he spent at high school, because that was the only time he felt like a person, and also because he is trapped there mentally.

There's a reason that Gojo's dying dream is him imagining everyone reset to seventeen years old, because that was where the clock stopped for him in his youth, and that was where all of his regrets as an adult come from. His motivation to help teenagers today only comes from his own youth being ruined, and the adults in his life failing to protect him.

It's very likely that Gojo who lives for Jujutsu probably would never have realized the problems in his current society, if his youth wasn't ruined by those same adults he's now fighting against.

The reason most mentor figures in fiction are not main characters is because as adults they don't really need to grow up anymore. The obvious solution is that you just need your mentor character to just fail to be an adult in some glaring way.

To show how Gojo falls short as an adult, especially in regards to these children and how he treats them is to drag him down from all powerful, all knowing wizard, and make him struggle with the rest of the main cast. Gojo is not a positive adult figure in these kids lives despite having the best of intentions, because he's not really an adult.

I guess if you were already the best and strongest person in the world at seventeen, smarter and more capable than all the adults around you, you wouldn't really feel the need to grow up. Coupled with the fact that you are alienated from other people and do not relate to them on a personal level that's not going to help with your identity formation.

I mean I constantly compare Gojo to Superman, but to be fair to Gojo instead of bullying him like I usually do Clark Kent was raised by parents who raised a boy not a superman, and who constantly tell him that he's just a normal person, his powers don't make him great, it's his heart.

Nanami says that Gojo only fights for himself that ""You don't wield Jujutsu to protect something, you use it solely to for your own sake. What a weirdo" it's likely Gojo only fights for himself because he's never ben told that's he's more than just the six-eyes and more than just the limitless.

The best way to make a mentor a part of the cast, is to make them through some way or another have failed to grow up properly in their youth and therefore they need to do it while the story is taking place. We know how Gojo failed, his springtime of youth ended early, it ended the day he couldn't stop Geto from leaving, the day he can be the strongest sorcerer ever and still fail because sorcerer society is too corrupt for one person to handle alone. We also know he didn't really grow up past this point, because he still thinks the solution is to make people be stronger. Why does he not do anything about Geto for 11 years? In story terms he's basically suspended in time unable to grow past Geto. Kenjaku literally uses the trauma from his youth and the memories that seeing Geto alive would provoke in Gojo again, to trap him because he knew it would make him freeze up. Gojo is frozen in the past, he failed to grow up in story terms and must now grow up while the main story itself is taking place along with the children he's trying to raise.

This is how you make a mentor interesting. You have to make them flawed in some way that makes it worth having them onscreen, because a perfect mentor only serves one purpose to teach a main character and then he's gone.

Dazai Osamu from Bungo Stray Dogs is a character that's almost as massively popular as Gojo. Similiarly, he is a teenage genius who found trouble relating to other people who is now as an adult attempting to mentor two children.

However, Dazai's faults as a mentor are made much more explicit.

Dazai suddenly punched Akutagawa in the face, preventing him from finishing his sentence. Akutagawa flew back onto the ground, his head bouncing off the stone flooring with a thud. "Perhaps I made it look like I wanted to hear excuses. Sorry for the misudnerstanding," Dazai said while rubbing his knuckles. "Urg..." Akutagawa moaned. He'd hit his head so hard that he couldn't even stagger to his feet. "Give me your gun," Dazai ordered one of his men. The subordinate was hesitant but nonetheless handed over his weapon. Next, Dazai removed the magaine from the automatic pistol, took out all but three bullets, then put the magazine back in. He immediately pointed the gun at Akutagawa, who was still on the ground. "I have this friend who's supporting several orphans all on his own, you see," he continued his weapon still drawn and aimed at the boy. "AKutagawa I'm sure Odasaku would've been patient enough to give you the guidance you needed had he been the one who'd found you on the brink of starvation right in the slums. That would have been the 'right' thing to do. But 'righteousness' doesn't take very kindly to me. And there's only one thing people like me do to useless subordinates." Dazai mercilessly pulled the trigger the moment he finished his sentence.

(Don't worry, Akutagawa lived). Dazai is a character who had a troublesome youth he never grew up from. He was too smart for the world as a kid, and because of that joined up with the mafia because he wanted to feel like he was more connected to life and other people by getting closer to death (weird dazai logic I know) and was the best of the best at it, but it only drove him further away from people. He makes one friend, and loses that friend similiar to Gojo. Just like Gojo too, that friend is the one who gives him his purpose as an adult that drives him to mentor young people.

"Odasaku.. What should I do?" "Be on the side that saves people," Odasaku replied, "If both sides are the same, then choose to become a good person. Save the weak, protect the orphaned. You might not see a great difference between right and wrong, but... saving others is something just a bit more wonderful."

Is this not what Nanami said just in different words. Odasaku tells Dazai point blank, I know you're selfish, I know that you don't really have any concept of good or evil but you can choose to save others anyway.

Isn't this what Gojo does?

He is selfish. He doesn't really consider the morality or his actions or get hung up on the idea of protecting the weak like Nanami or Geto do, but he still does go out of his way to live for the ideal of saving children.

Both Gojo and Dazai are characters who are struggling with this ideal of saving the children, because while their ideals are good they themselves as people are morally gray. Adding onto that, they're also children and a good deal of their backstory is devoted to showing why they never really grew out of the mindset that they held as children.

The story doesn't call them horrible monsters for it, it's just saying that they need to grow up or face the consequences of not growing up.

"I have one regret," I said. "I never got to say good-bye to my friend. He was always there for me as 'just a friend.' He was bored of this world and always waited for death to come for him." "That man was in search of a place to die just like me?" "No, not exactly," I answered. "I thought you were similiar to Dazai at first, rushing into battle and wishing for death without even considering the value of your own life. But he's different. He's sharp-witted with a mind like a steel trap. And he's just a child - a sobbing child abandoned in the darkness of a world far emptier of the world we're seeing." He was too smart for his own good. THat was why he was always alone. The reason why ANgo and I were able to be by his side was that we understood the solitude that surrounded him, and we never stepped inside it no matter how close we stood. But in that moment, I kind of regretted not stepping in and invading a little.

Does that sound like the narrative is condemning Dazai for being who he is? No, it's Dazai's best friend offering empathy and understanding for how lonely it must be, and how if Dazai made real connections with people then he could have a chance of growing up like everyone else. That's what the narrative challenges Dazai to do while empathizing with why it's harder for him to and why he's still trapped in his youth, because to take care of children you need to be an adult yourself. Otherwise if you're a child, and I'm a child, then nobody's driving the plane.

Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is another mentor who faces the same moral dilemna that Gojo does. In fact his entire character revolves around the fact he knows deep down he's sending a kid to her early grave.

Buffy is the Chosen One TM. One girl in all the world is chosen to fight the vampires. Much like sorcerer society, there is an entire bureaucracy dedicated to identifying the chosen slayer and then raising her up and guiding her as a weapon to be used against the threat of vampires and demons.

The watchers are all adults. The slayer is a teenage girl. The slayer slays. The watchers watch. Just like in Jujutsu Kaisen, there is a necessity for the Slayer to exist, because the alternative is just letting vampires eat people. Yet even if the slayer needs to exist, at the end of the day a bunch of adult men are sending a teenage girl to fight for them.

All Slayers die young. All of them without an exception. No matter how good of a mentor is, no matter how much he cares about her, Buffy is going to die one day, and Giles is going to watch. Because that's what the watcher does, they watch. Sending her on missions means Buffy's in danger, not sending her means innocent people are in danger.

It's a scenario that's pretty much like Gojo's, and the narrative of Buffy makes it explicit that Giles really can't be a father figure to bufy in this scenario. A father would have to choose to put their child above the world and keep them safe, not send them out straight into danger.

It is a choice that Giles makes over and over again. He is always her watcher and never her father. There's a season 3 episode where Giles literally drugs Buffy as a part of a test to prove she is "worthy" of being a slayer. A test that deliberately puts her in harms way that he complies with - because the system told him to. A choice to be her watcher and act according to what the council of watchers wanted and not what Buffy wanted. A choice that shatters the illusion that Buffy had of him, showing her that Giles is only there to teach her to be a Slayer, not to take her to the iceapades or buy ice cream with her.

In this scenario Gojo is very much like Giles as no matter how much he may personally like these kids, he is not their father, and there is only so much he can do for them when he's still feeding them into the same system. Giles loves Buffy, Giles wants to protect Buffy, Giles is a part of the system that exploits Buffy. Giles is an adult asking Buffy to risk her life to save the world.

Gojo goes out of his way to recruit Megumi, Yuji, and Yuta among others. Gojo still doesn't let them be anything other than sorcerers, and as sorcerers they're still guaranteed to one day die and probably die young. Gojo wants to revolutionize the system he is, but he still sends out his students to do missions as part of that system. He's not letting them escape it, he's just making them be stronger sorcerers.

Not only is Gojo not a father figure to Megumi, he is exploiting him more or less. The option of Megumi not being a sorcerer isn't on the table. No matter how well-intentioned he may be, or how good his ideals are he's still an adult telling a child to make a sacrifice for the world.

So, there are two character conflicts with two different mentors that both reflect Gojo. Gojo cannot grow up because he's still trapped in the tragedy of his youth. He himself is not an adult, for various reasons (lack of connection to other people, trauma in his youth) he's egocentric like a child but there are children in his life who need him to be.

Gojo also cannot be a proper adult, because he is part of a system that exploits children. We see what the system does to proper adults like Nanami, he shows us just how much well-intentioned adults struggle to help kids under sorcerer society so how about Gojo who thinks being a sorcerer is really fun. A proper adult would never send kids on those missions, they'd find some way to shield them but Gojo cannot do that. Because sorcerers are short staffed and innocent people will die if he doesn't. Because Gojo isn't the sorcer-king of Jujtusu Society and is working within it to affect change. There are reasons, but still Gojo is failing to live up to his desire to protect children because he's not doing what a responsible adult should do in this situation.

Gojo's failures are two-fold, and yet it's because of those failures that he was a main character who got as much special plot attention as he did. If Gojo was a perfect teacher he wouldn't be a character. After all, we relate to the struggles of other human beings we see onscreen in television and in movies so why would we care about a perfect character?

Gojo has a lot more to say about teachers in shonen manga, and also about childhood vs. adulthood as a bad teacher struggling to be a good one, then a teacher who's already perfect. Nanami said those lines because he wanted us to understand the audience that this is who Gojo is, he is a selfish and egotistical person who nonetheless was trying to do good things.

[topherwrites]

FIC RECS: TOP GUN: MAVERICK - 2!

Okay, so there was shit I forgot in my year in review rec list. I posted it and a minimum of about 10 other fics immediately came to mind. so, part 2! I also didn't put many WIPs on the first one, but I think currently in progress fics should get some love too. I'll be marking them with an asterisk.

If I made a little comment about every single fic or series here, it would be inhumanely long, so I've refrained from doing so and have just put the summaries for each.

I hope that anyone who reads this list finds something that they love on it just as much as I do! Happy reading!

P.S. If I missed anyone, I'm sorry, there was a lot to sort through!

(P.S.S. reblog the fics you like, it makes writers happy.)

part 1, if you missed it.

SOME OF THESE ARE 18+, PLEASE HEED THE INDIVIDUAL WARNINGS!

JAKE SERESIN

Parking Lots and Matcha Lattes by @withahappyrefrain

In an attempt to get coffee, you meet a grade A asshole whose head you want to rip off. Meanwhile, Jake Seresin is pretty certain he just met his future wife in the parking lot of a coffee shop. AKA Jake Seresin likes mean women, pass it on.

The Hangman Special by @hangmanssunnies

On a night out with your friends at a fancy cocktail bar, you are just trying to keep your head down and ignore the girl that your ex cheated on you with. The night only seems like it's going to get worse when you are dared to kiss a stranger at the bar. However, it seems like the odds might finally be in your favor when you notice a familiar set of broad shoulders. If you can be convincing, you think you might just be able to get your brother's friend Jake "Hangman" Seresin to help you out with your little problem.

*she is both hellfire and holy water by @chemistryread

you should take it as a compliment, that I'm talking to everyone here but you.

Birds Away by @wombtotombx

You’d known Jake since you were kids, bonding over the shared experience of being military brats overseas. You were the perfect pair - he was reckless, you followed the rules; he didn’t care what others thought, you were a people-pleaser. You both became the best of the best in your field - he through sheer talent and skill, you from demonstrated grit and determination. For over two decades, everyone around you - parents, friends, even teachers - had assumed you’d both end up together, despite the fact that somehow, you never did. The Navy always had its way of keeping you two apart. Whatever possibilities there might have been, it was just never in the cards. Until you got to Fallon.

*The Backup by @ereardon

No strings attached sex never works, right? You and Jake Seresin have fallen into a bad pattern of seeking each other out for sex after dates go awry, but a year of being friends with benefits with Jake hasn’t been good for your dating life. Especially when the two of you are hiding your antics from your lifelong best friend Coyote and the rest of your tightly knit friend group. But what happens when you decide to take a step back and end the cycle with Jake to focus on your dating life? And why is it that all of the sudden Jake looks more irresistible than ever when you know he’s off limits? 

Take Care of Business by @honkytonk-hangman

The last time you met Lieutenant Jake Seresin, the war was still ongoing and you’d been in a floundering engagement. Back then you’d seen the possibility for more in his eyes, and now? Well, now you could explore it.

When Jake Met Polly by @/honkytonk-hangman

Jake likes to flirt with his Air Traffic Controller or Jake Seresin has never seen When Harry Met Sally.

How It's Done (Oneshot Version) by @/honkytonk-hangman

“Like me? I didn’t even think you wanted me as a squadmate, let alone–” you stop speaking, but only because Hangman cuts his eyes sharply away from you to glare out at the ocean. “Well, I do.” He says kind of indignantly, all things considered, and eyes you almost sourly. “You can just say no if you don’t–” “–No, I do!” you quickly cut him off, because at the end of it all, you’re a little too much of a hopeless romantic to let this moment pass you by.

Twenty-Five Going on Forty-Seven by @sehnsuchts-trunken

Flirting with the guy who fixed your car turns out to lead to much, much more when you find out he’s actually not just some random guy, but your new neighbour and father’s new best friend, Jake Seresin.

BRADLEY BRADSHAW

*fever pitch by @greenorangevioletgrass

Arsenal and USMNT captain Bradley Bradshaw attends the mononymous music sensation Y/N's concert with a friendship bracelet and a dream. Little did he know that they soon embark on an epic love story fit for pop royalty...

This Love Came Back to Me by @beyondthesefourwalls

You and Bradley hadn’t ended on bad terms; really, you stopped before the two of you could even truly begin. Still, in the last seven months, you had never completely left his mind. So when you suddenly appeared in front of him at the bar, asking for a favor and pulling him into a kiss, he thought maybe it was the perfect opportunity to see if this time, things could be different. But what neither of you realized was that there’s more going on than just rekindling a lost romance, and it might not be as easy as simply just wanting it.

I Like Your Cinema by @sometimesanalice

Bradley wasn’t sure why you wanted to see the movie again, especially when neither one of you had particularly liked it the first time you’d seen it together. But when you’re tugging down his zipper, things start to make a lot more sense.

‘cause no one breaks my heart like you by @heartsofminds

“Last times always make him uneasy. He thinks that he should be used to it by now from his track record of being abandoned (willfully or “out of their control” situations alike). None of this should hurt him as deeply anymore.” or Bradley Bradshaw is terrified of commitment and he decides to stop being selfish (even though it’s hard to see).

the periphery by @youvebeenlivingfictional

You’d met Bradley a few times before the happy couple had announced their nuptials, and you’d always gotten a pretty good vibe from him. He was sweet, he was easy to talk to—and it helped that he was easy on the eyes. In fact, as soon as you’d been told that Bradley Bradshaw was going to be the Best Man, you were well on your way to having a crush on the guy.

*Hotter Than Texas by @tongue-like-a-razor

Bradley Bradshaw is tasked with transporting a not-so-delicate package in the form of Jake Seresin’s baby sister, who turns out to be Bradley’s dream girl worst nightmare.

*flight risk by @ofstoriesandstardust

In which you and Rooster got married while at UVA for the military benefits. What started out as a mutually beneficial deal between friends years ago turns into a point of interest for Maverick, causing Rooster to have to haul you out to Fightertown to get him to shut up. While Maverick’s fussing over a marriage he didn’t know existed, Rooster’s focused on getting the ball rolling on divorce papers because really, the Navy does not need to be calling some poor girl from his college that he’s died in a horrendous accident. It’s proving to be more difficult than he expected, especially when Hangman and Phoenix take it upon themselves to encourage a friendship to become more. 

How You Play the Game by @roosterforme

Bradley always loved October because of the World Series. He never expected a mix-up with the ticket he won to bring something as spectacular as you into his life. But time is fleeting, and now baseball is the last thing on his mind.

*The Intern by @/roosterforme

You barely have a minute to yourself after graduating at the top of your Ivy League class before your father insists you find an internship. Your days of lounging by the pool and partying are numbered as he has an endless parade of his colleagues visiting the house. But one of them is familiar to you in a way that warms your skin just like the San Diego sun. And it turns out, Bradley Bradshaw may just have the answers to all your problems. And those answers might be waiting for you on a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea.

there was something 'bout you by @bussyslayer333

bradley bradshaw didn’t fall in love, especially not with uptight girls in his english lit class and especially not the ones being forced into tutoring him.

*Ultraviolence by @babyonboard

You and Bradley loved each other, and Jake was just your old friend from high school who you tried to pay no mind to. At least that's how it used to be.

All Too Well by @bradleyfuckingbradshaw

You’re at dinner with your boyfriend and some of his colleagues at a restaurant he chose when you look over the menu and realize there’s no vegetarian option, but he’s too busy with his friends to realize that. Bradley isn’t.

October 3rd Promptober by @familyvideostevie

you go to a tailgate with your friend bradley.

If You Met Me First by @tip-top-cloud-surfer

Rooster confessed to Echo that he was in love with her before the mission. One minor problem: she has a boyfriend.

Home for the Holidays by @mothdruid

Bradley might have lied about having a girlfriend. His best friend, you, decide to help him out and go home for the holidays with him. As the trip unfolds, so does your and Bradley’s feelings for one another.

BOB FLOYD

*I bet this would look beautiful on film by @coridotmp3

Honey desperately needs a photographer, and Bob desperately needs a break.

Robert from Next Door by @attapullman

You've lucked out with the perfect neighbor, a kind and overly helpful WSO. He puts up Christmas lights, lends his lawn mower, and grabs your morning paper. But what happens when he's out of peppermint tea one night?

If Only the Neighbors Knew by @/attapullman

A month of stolen kisses culminates in Robert hosting the HOA meeting and getting you on his couch. The ladies of the neighborhood may make him blush, but only you can make your sweet neighbor weak in the knees.

*Golden Hour by @/ereardon

Willow, Georgia. Barely even a town, just a speck on a map that you tried to wipe off, mistaking it for a crumb. You’re the outsider: a fancy New York doctor, fresh out of a failed engagement, with zero primary care experience. You’re also the new town doctor, taking over for a recent retiree who was beloved. His son, Bob Floyd, is the other physician at the practice, and takes an immediate dislike to you. But you were looking for a fresh start, and Willow doesn’t seem all that bad if you can get past the fact that there's only one restaurant in town. It helps that you've caught the eye of Bradley Bradshaw, the town attorney, despite the fact that you vowed to take a break from dating. How long until you start to make friends in a town where social circles have been set in stone since elementary school? And what will it take to make Bob Floyd see you’re not as bad as he wants to believe you are?

Ruin the Friendship by @withahappyrefrain

The night before Bob leaves for Boot Camp, he’s learned no one has gone down on his best friend. He’s determined to fix that.

International Bob Floyd Fucks Month Masterlist

a january writing event hosted by @/attapullman

Bob from Stats by @/attapullman

College is a wild time, but absolutely nothing could prepare you for the quiet guy from Stats riding around campus as a cowboy. Or what a good kisser he is.

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

Emily Prentiss x Reader Headcanons

Mostly SFW, but a few lil spicy ones throughout (below the line).

Chews on pens/pencils when she's anxious or deep in thought and it's inexplicably hot.

Has a glass of very nice, very expensive red wine every night.

Fluent in Arabic, French, Spanish, and Italian. Passable in Russian.

Seems quiet and mysterious at first but is actually just a huge dork.

Breaks down crying every time before starting her period and will say, "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm so emotional today," and you're like... "Babe, don't you start tomorrow?"

Usually a no-strings-attached-sex kind of person, mostly because relationships are hard with her job. You're the exception.

Will fold like a wet napkin for nice chocolate.

Notorious for ghosting lol. Sometimes even used a fake name. A bad habit from her undercover days.

Not subtle at all when coming on to you. Pretty much asked you for a date out of the blue.

Loves that you can talk about the deep, dark stuff, but can also make her laugh like no one else.

If for any reason you wake up in the night–stomachache, nightmare, scary storm–she is up with you. She'll claim she can't sleep either, but really she just wants to hold you and make sure you get back to sleep okay.

Watches you breathe at night. She finds it deeply comforting.

Takes you once a year to her grandfather’s cottage in the French Alps, where she spent a lot of time growing up.

Grew up Catholic. She’s not religious anymore, but sometimes she still likes to listen to old hymns and chants, like they had at the mass she and her mom attended in Italy.

Opens every door for you always. In fact, she’ll be hurt if you don’t let her open the door.

An incredibly good listener. She loves hearing about your day, no matter how mundane it was, because her days are usually filled with the darkest, most horrific things.

Has two tattoos. (1) On her ankle. A word from the Qur’an (لِّتَسۡكُنُوۡۤ) that roughly translates to “that you may find tranquility.” She got it in Italy when she started to realize she liked girls, because girls were the only people in whom she ever found tranquility. (2) On her hip. A small asterisk a la Kurt Vonnegut.

Insanely protective. She will not let anyone touch you, say anything to you, even look at you with nefarious intentions.

Has a little note on her phone where she writes down your favorite things–takeout, flowers, ice cream flavors, the brand of tampons you use–so she'll always remember.

“Call me when you get there.” Has to know where you are at all times. You gave up arguing and just constantly have your phone location shared with her. It’d be suffocating except that, given her job, it makes sense.

Loves that you are so independent. She’s watched too many BAU relationships fall apart because their partner was frustrated with the demanding BAU work schedule. You don’t really mind. Of course, you miss her, but you also really like your alone time, so things balance out nicely.

Puzzle fiend. There’s almost always a puzzle going on the coffee table.

Queen of leaving people on read. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that texts usually fall by the wayside when she’s in the field.

Secretly loves it so much when you brag about her. She’ll act all embarrassed about it, but it means a lot that you’re proud of her.

A hipster in the sense that if something is popular, she automatically decides she doesn’t like it. You make fun of her a lot for this.

Falls in love with you every time she notices one of your little gestures–having a second go-bag packed and ready at all times, doing the laundry, packing little granola bars in her purse because you know she forgets to stop for lunch, returning books to the library for her, etc.

Incredibly stubborn. Thankfully, you are, too, so you’re well-matched. On the downside, sometimes it takes forever to make a decision because neither of you are willing to back down.

Swears like a sailor when she’s not at work.

Kind of quiet with other people, but will talk with you late into the night, until you fall asleep. You love that you get to fall asleep to her voice.

Touches you like you’re made of gold, like you were made to be cherished and held on to.

Cheek/nose/forehead kisses. all. the. time.

Kisses you good morning and good night, every time, no matter when she gets home or when she leaves.

You would never guess it, but she lives for gossip. She doesn’t want to be part of the drama, but she sure as hell wants to know about it.

Drives her wild (in bed and out) that you are 100% hers. It is not in your nature to cheat, you are wholly devoted to your person, and she is over the moon that she’s that person.

Acts like a top, is a top.

Can drink coffee at midnight and be conked out twenty minutes later.

After a particularly hard case, she’ll come home and want to just hold you really tight against her chest, sometimes for an hour or more. You always let her.

Big spoon, always. She likes to feel like she’s keeping you safe.

Favorite food is the sweet potato burrito from Muchas Gracias, but they only have them at lunch and she is never in DC at lunchtime, so sometimes you go buy her one and pack it for her for lunch the next day. It makes her day every time.

Honestly it’s a struggle when you have to get up before her because she has you in a ninja death grip that is almost impossible to get out of.

Her feet are always cold, so she has a huge collection of fuzzy socks.

Movie buff. Has a giant checklist of all the Oscar noms during awards season, and you watch one almost every night she’s home.

Loves to shower with you. You will get clean, but you’ll get fucked first.

A wizard with a wand (iykwim).

She still gets butterflies when you hold hands.

[david-talks-sw]

These are the only three flaws I will concede, when it comes to the Jedi during the Prequels.

“They got lax/complacent.”

Yeah*. If you listen to the director’s commentary, George Lucas states the scene in AOTC with Jocasta Nu is there to indicate how unprepared the Jedi were before the Sith’s plan. They thought they were secure and ready but they were not and it turns out humble restaurant owners like Dex know things they don't.

*HOWEVER: Who wouldn’t be complacent, in times of peace?

The Sith were thought to be extinct and Dooku was once a Jedi, a revered one at that. Nobody could have suspected he’d betray the Order that raised him and loved him.

Nobody could've suspected that he'd abuse of their trust and delete a system from the Archives using the credentials of his best friend who he'd had assassinated. That's a verrrry specific scenario, and expecting them to be prepared for that is unreasonable.

"They should've sensed something!" Well, by this point in time, everything surrounding the Jedi was tainted by the Dark Side, which clouded everything. So on the one hand, this situation granted Sidious the gift of foresight and allowed them to always be one step ahead, and on the other, it caused the Jedi to be stuck trekking ahead in a fog, unsure of what the next move would be.

“They were politically-inept.”

Yes**. That’s how the Sith ran circles around the Jedi. They figured “there’s only two of us, if we march into the Temple we’ll get slaughtered, but wait, the Jedi serve the Senate and the Senate is run by politicians… what if we become the politicians? Then we can destroy the Jedi and the principles from the inside!”

**HOWEVER: The Jedi were politically-inept by choice.

After all, their function isn’t setting policy but carrying it out. They’re not politicians, they’re diplomats and as such they're not allowed to get involved in the political process.

But if they were... they still wouldn't. Because power corrupts, and if you let the space monks (who already have magical powers) have political power too, then that will lead to a very dark place.

The Jedi knew that if they tried to play politics, they’ll lose because they have neither the ruthlessness nor the status to do it well, so they make it a point of never going anywhere near it.

Unfortunately, that leaves them open to situations where the Senate or Palpatine corner them into doing something they really don’t wanna do.

It's how they were forced to expel Ahsoka, how they lost the favor of the citizens and it's how Dooku, then the Emperor, framed them as power-hungry sorcerers with his propaganda.

“The war made them hypocrites.”

Sure***. The Jedi were meant to be diplomats, not soldiers. By waging war instead of keeping the peace, they’ve compromised on their values.

***HOWEVER: The Jedi know this and they’re not happy about it at all.

Firstly, because they were forced into this situation by the Senate and Palpatine, who drafted them into service.

Secondly, because they know they’re essentially moving ahead blindly and playing right into the Sith Lord’s hand by fighting this war he orchestrated.

But finally, it’s that they know that not joining would’ve been worse. Sticking by their principles would’ve resulted in the enslavement and genocide of many populations. Sometimes, the spirit of the rules must be prioritized over the letter. Either do nothing and be true to your principles, or go against them but save lives.

It’s a bad choice to make, but not as bad as not making one.

It's a bad choice, but it's motivated by a desire to do some good and it did. They saved countless lives (sometimes at the cost of their own) and inspired countless more to form the Rebellion, later on.

So... three flaws.

But they all come with asterisks. There’s a reasonable (sometimes, even admirable) justification for each of them.

I’m pointing these out because a lot of people seem to conflate “the Jedi were flawed” with “the Jedi were at fault” when talking about their own demise. And the answer to that is:

No.

The Jedi were not at fault. Everybody else was.

The Senate was at fault for growing corrupt and self-serving.

Big Corp for their never ending greed.

The Separatists for being so blind and naive as to think Big Corp would tooootally value their principles and absolutely not commit war crimes every chance they get.

The Sith for being the mass-murdering egotistical assholes who started this whole mess.

And the citizens of the galaxy for not taking up arms in the face of blatant injustice.

Sometimes bad people win.

That doesn't always mean the good guys are at fault. Sometimes, the bad guys are just… better at the game. Mostly because they see it as a game, and the good guys don't.

Luckily, 20 years later, most of the above faults were rectified by the Rebellion, which was led by the best of the Senate, and composed of Separatist remnants and brave citizens of the galaxy.

[kaisaniku]

I finally finished the second chapter of this doodle comic!

Basically from a translation machine:

It's called notes, but it's really bullshit time:

(I didn't put any asterisks in the "text" in order to make the picture cleaner and not make this little comic seem too serious)

①WX says that their body "doesn't have any of those really advanced things" and that "the concept is just bionic", which might make you wonder how WX can agree with their own shortcomings when they are always been so confident in their own machine body. This is kind of a guess: WX's comments in the wiki about Wagstaff being "afraid of progress" and "short-sighted", combined with WX's usual machine-worshiping and violent tendencies, such as their comments about Maxwell "He has that kind of power but he doesn't go out and destroy human". So it's an offense to them, but they actually agree that even though they claim to be superior, I guess WX would like to see their bodies more advanced and even more radical.

② Yes, this WX has acceleration circuits installed.

③ Gnome get✓ Do you guys remember the line where WX checks the Gnome

④ "You're not as kind as you look", how should I put this one, because the Wilson I understand is more or less with a little bit of darkness in his mind, he's someone who is full of emotions but often restrains them with reason, he fears and hates the negative impulses and instincts within himself. And this trait I think probably comes from his good nature, his education and survival experiences and the influence of the Shadow Throne. (But honestly after suffering in CONSTANT for so long, it's normal for whoever it is to be a little psychologically unhinged, not to mention the SANITY setting.) And after WX's soulwalking, they easily have some "psychic empathy" with Wilson... ...... Well, how did that happen Wilson?

⑤ Well I know the reasoning of the empathy module episode is weird ...... In fact, it's mainly because when I drew this plot I didn't have a good understanding of the empathy module, and simply thought of it as something like "emotional deficiency", so this episode was supposed to be Wilson saying "why do I still feel emotional ups and downs blabla" and then WX explaining that it's because of "memories of emotional experiences", which would have made a lot more sense.

⑥I guess it's my own personal setting: although the game doesn't make a distinction, I don't think WX as a robot would have a "headache and blurred vision due to lack of sanity". The system will be affected, sure, but the physiology won't necessarily feel it. It's hard to go from luxury to frugality, and since there is no experience in the eternal realm in the human era, WX can't adapt to the negative impacts of sanity reduction at all.

⑦Wilson's curiosity and desire to explore and then equipped with WX's hardware strength is simply ON FIRE. and "adapting to the human body so quickly" this conclusion mainly comes from the last chapter when the two people just transformed the body, Wilson's side is very difficult, while the WX on the contrary, it seems to be very easy. Even when they suddenly possessed internal organs, blood, light weight and so on, there was no adverse reaction. Wilson, who loves to observe, has always had suspicions (sorry however I didn't draw this clue out)

⑧ on the one hand, just learned a shocking secret, excited and energetic Wilson, on the other hand is the history of the exposure, and is also experiencing unprecedented headache WX. so the two temperament is not quite the same as usual.

⑨ "Wiped of most of their human memories" from the game's credits: "Suddenly recalling the memories of his past life, WX-78 soon decides to change his fate on his own."

⑩ Those of you who have fought Shadow creatures online might know that the only way a teammate's Shadow creature will have hatred for you is if you've forcibly attacked them. What happened here is that WX forced an attack on Wilson's Shadow Creature (except that Wilson was still relying on his headache of empirical judgment and didn't realize that his SANITY was too low), and then WX's own shadow creatures that were looming all showed up as well, which is why it became so much more. I don't have a very comprehensive understanding of this mechanic online though, and it doesn't seem to be very rigorous, so that's probably what it is anyway.

I accidentally added a lot more, mainly because of the limited ability to express the drawing ... Hope you enjoy!

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,” but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

[bravelyartbooking]

little known bravely default series facts

I noticed a couple of comments about the Bravely Series on Twitter last night that made me realize some folks didn't know some of what I consider common knowledge of the series (like why the ba'al theme wasn't on the Bravely Default soundtrack).

Contains spoilers for all three games. Also this got longer than I thought, thanks in advance if you make it to the end and find something you didn't know! I'm sure most of this seems obvious to long timefans.

Here is a compilation of what I know that may or may not be common knowledge to newcomers?

I had to split this into three parts because of Tumblr's character limit and I'm honestly too tired to fix the numbering. A much more readable version can be found on Google Docs here.

First part:

The version of Bravely Default that was received in the West is the second version of the original Bravely Default game, released in Japan in Dec 2013. This version, called "Bravely Default: For the Sequel" came with a massive (80ish) amount of improvements based on player feedback, such as: additional sidequests for the Asterisk Holders in later parts of the game, difficulty and encounter settings sliders, battle speed, redrawing the cities, and the Bravely Second mechanic itself.

This means some tie-ins to Bravely Second didn't exist with the first version - the Adventurer being green when you first encounter her, the end AR movie with Magnolia, the Ba'als and their theme. All this was added later.

The Japanese version does include different languages, including English, so if you can't understand Japanese you can still easily play this version of the game on a hacked or Japanese 3DS!

The first release in Oct 2012 was called "Bravely Default: Flying Fairy" and a lot of JP folks still use BDFF to refer to it.

While BDFTS and BD: Where the Fairy Flies (the Western release) are functionally identical, some changes between JP and West include but are not limited to:

Costumes were censored (such as the Vampire having a bodysuit under the belts and the Bravo Bikini)

The ages of Agnes, Tiz, Edea, Alternis and the Venus sisters was bumped up 3 years in their journal entries (or anyone whose age is written out instead of written as numerals).

Japan had merchandise that had codes for the extra costumes. The extra costumes made it into the Western version of the released game for in-game currency with the exception of Tiz's Dimensional Officer, Edea's Military Cadet, Agnes's Bravo Bunny, and Ringabel's Wakoku Warrior.

You can summon friends from Japanese versions and those costumes will be visible EXCEPT the Bravo Bunny is censored (the cut-out is covered) and Wakoku Warrior is replaced with Freelancer.

These codes expired after like 2 years.

There are 4 novels called "Pocketbook of R" (2 books) and "Pocketbook of R Second" (2 books). I'm including all the translation information I currently have.

Pocketbook of R is a first person journal from Ringabel in what is commonly dubbed "Infinity World" between the events of Bravely Default and Bravely Second.

Ellen translated the first book here (note that she did largely 'summary' translations as she hated the writing in the novel).

Bill translated most of the second book (page 70+) here. (Bill's native language is French and while I did some proofreading, there may be some clunkiness of translating from a third language into a fourth.)

Ellen started translating the third book here. This and the fourth book take place at the same time as Second, for the most part.

No solid English translations of the fourth book currently exist though I know the gist of it thanks to an older Tumblr fan who gave me the rundown. I'm sure RNT will make a video.

Second Part:

There are an additional 2 novels that are based on two of the spinoff games.

One is "Bravely Default - 200 years later" based on Praying Brage that was released in the Japanese Bravely Second collector's edition ONLY.

One is "Bravely Default Fairy's Effect - Rinne's Miracle" based on Fairy's Effect that was released as a standalone novel.

Very little information has been released about both. One day we'll have a summary/translation.

There are (currently) 4 spinoff games, all currently shut down.

Praying Brage (Nov 2012 - Apr 2017) was a browser game and was based on the premise of Edea going 200 years into the future to save Agnes. RedNovaTyrant has a great video on it here!

Bravely Archive: D's Report (Jan 2015 - Oct 2017) was a mobile game that centered around an alternate/future Luxendarc with crystal memories and a new main character who is revealed to be Deneb

It released in Australia for about 6 months in 2018

Bravely Archive Fairy's Effect (Mar 2017 - Aug 2020) was a mobile game released after Bravely Second that took place simultaneously 8000 years in the future and between the events of Bravely Default 1 and Bravely Second. There's a lot of lore for both games in FE that can be seen in various videos on the internet (such as info on the Kaiser/Glanz Empire and Agnes's transition into Pope, Ominas having a role in saving Mahzer and the newborn Edea from Eternia during Braev's coup), but Bill translated some of the remaining website summary here.

Bravely Default Brilliant Lights (Jan 2022 - Feb 2023) was a crossover mobile game in a new world that combined Luxendarc and Excillant characters and setting. It lasted 13 months and I archived as much video as I could on Youtube but as of now, first person "reports" can be found here that summarize each board of each story.

It explains why "First Born" Ba'al was a thing in Bravely Second.

An 'offline' version was released but pulled from the app stores in July 2023.

There are 2 audio dramas for the first game!

First one is called "Festival of Reunion" and a translation of all four tracks can be found here.

Second one is called something like "Bracelets of Eternity" and so far no English translation seems to exist (though I know the gist of the first track).

The Ba'al theme was released with the first audio drama.

There's a Luxendarc / Linked Horizons concert that took place in Japan in 2013, you can find video of it on Youtube and Amazon Prime Video, and they released music CDs specific to it.

Square released an X-mas Collections Music CD that has wintery remixes of some of the Bravely Default music.

There is a Bravely Default 4 volume manga that's a retelling of the first game. Red made a video about it here. You can find scans online and most of the translations were done by Ellen.

There is also a manga anthology that serves to tie together Bravely Default and Bravely Second (released around the same time as Second, if not earlier). Red also made a video about it here. Ellen scanslated the third story in the anthology, I reuploaded it here after her imgur account got nuked.

Bravely Second was changed between the JP and Western releases based on feedback from Japanese players:

Sidequests were streamlined so that players could get a "good ending" based on their decision even if they chose the opposite Asterisk after the time reset

The Black Mage/ Ranger sidequest had its endings completely rewritten, as the Japanese version ends with either Bahamut being eaten or the wounded NPC dying depending on who you sided with.

Some costumes that were DLC were added to be bought with in-game currency (same as Default)

Fort Lune was made more easily available instead of being locked behind a SE Member account (along with some other things like costumes).

Some of the writing was tweaked as there were complaints about the memey/modern references/references to other media like Dragonball.

Aimee/Hawkeye costume was changed (there was also minor censoring of other costumes, like adding a bra to Ranger for Magnolia).

The fox companion was moved to different locations instead of sitting next to the Adventurer, lessening some complaints of "mood whiplash" between tent scenes and serious story events.

Some JP preorder-exclusive weapons were excluded (as far as I can tell, some weapons were just very hard to get).

The controversial apology for Bravely Second was in regard to the large amount of negative feedback the team received from the JP fans in regard to Second (though some Western fans also had a lot of negative things to say, it was largely only because of the costume censorship to the point at least one mod was released).

Third Part:

Magnolia and Pope!Agnes had large plushie prototypes made of them that were never released.

There's an official MMD figure of Agnes from Second.

2 types of large Edea plushies were released, one with closed eyes and one with open eyes.

Only 200 of the open-eyed Edeas were made/released but now there apparently there's only 199 in existence because I tried to buy one and the seller told me she was damaged in by a wild animal getting into the warehouse, rip Edea...

Large plushies were released of Edea, Ringabel, Agnes, and Tiz based on their Default appearance. Tiz's plush had an unfortunate hair style in the prototype that they changed in the final version. Images of this bowl cut have been lost forever.

Gloria got a smaller plushie that's in the JP SE Store.

A set of even smaller Default 1 cast plushies, among other things, are in the 10th anniversary set.

The European Collector's Edition of Bravely Default Where the Fairy Flies included this unfortunate figure of Agnes.

The Bravely Second artbook has three versions:

Original Japanese version, scans of it exist online

Bravely Second (Western) collectors edition version, which removed several images - sketches/concept art of Agnes tied up in the ribbon and a couple of images of Geist as well. This version had translated captions but any text on the images was not translated.

The fully English translated version which also restores the images removed from the CE.

Sales data has indicated that the Bravely Series reached 3 mil in Nov 2021. No word on 4 mil or 5 mil, but maybe we'll find out this year?

Bravely Default 1 (all versions) hit 1 million in July 2014 (21 months from initial BDFF release)

Bravely Second (all versions) hit 700k in April 2017 (2 years from BSEL release)

Bravely Default II (all versions) hit 1 mil in Dec 2021 (10 months from BDII release)

So much JP only merch was released through the years, especially in the years before Second.

Some through the SE Cafe collab with BDII

Some through Artnia (here's Default and Second's collabs)

10th anniversary stores with Hakabanogarou in person and online (now closed)

10th anniversary collab with Super Groupies for watches, Agnes's pendant, a stole with Airy's pendant.

Stuff on the SE JP store

Limited edition rubber stamp sets for Default and Second

Linked Horizon branded BD merch was released with the concert like pins.

Magnolia figure.

Official D's Journal

The messaging Line app released Bravely Default/Bravely Second stickers drawn by a fanartist made official artist named Satokivi! I think they were like 3 dollars per set.

She also drew the mini series of 4koma called "Praying for Miko" for Praying Brage

Physical versions of these stickers are on the JP SE Store.

There's a vinyl record

Pop-up Parade figurines of the main four were released in 2023 for the 10th anniversary of Bravely Default.

Bravely Default II had two demos, the first one specifically made difficult to get feedback from the fans. They implemented some feedback to change the final version of the game (but not everything). This was the first time they have asked for feedback from the West instead of just Japan.

Team Asano has released Lunar New Year art every year except 2016 with Bravely characters and the zodiac animal

They do Christmas cards every year, and it seems that this year they included a special card for a special fan with an extra character in the dragon art. If you know you know.

The woman on the cover of Bravely Default II isn't Gloria.

Bravely Default II has several secrets in the names of Chapter 5, 6, and 7. Spoilers for BDII below:

Twin AGES refers to both the first initials of the known Heroes of Light (Adelle/Gloria/Elvis/Seth and Aileen/Godric/Emma/Sloan) as well as the repetition across the two eras of Heroes. Also, you’ll notice that the initials are shared between the folks who inherited the same blessing from the crystal (assuming Emma got the Earth Crystal and Godric the Water Crystal). This is most noticeable in the final fight against the Night’s Nexus when the spirit of the old Hero of Light is standing behind the new to help them. - Adelle/Aileen - Gloria/Godric - Elvis/Emma - Seth/Sloan

Twin CAGES refers to the ‘cage’ that Adelle locks herself into, and the ‘cage’ that Elvis is forced into without her

Twin PAGES references back to the twin eras of the known Heroes of Light, but now with the Player - whose help is needed for the cycle to end. This is why “P” is the last letter to fade in the ending credits when the player is thanked.

I'm sure there's a lot more I'm forgetting, and this isn't even including the Bravely Default original concepts that were revealed in a booklet in the 10th anniversary exhibitions.

If you made it to the end, I applaud you, and I hope there was at least one or two things you didn't know!

Also one day I'll finish the video on the English fan survey.

[just-jordie-things]

no surprises - okkotsu yuuta

word count: 4.5k warnings: themes of depression, light swearing summary: (y/n) learns she doesn’t see the world the way Yuuta does.  She also learns she doesn’t see herself the way he does. - based loosely around no surprises by radiohead more info: aged up characters! ___

[ a heart that’s full up like a landfill / a job that slowly kills you / bruises that won’t heal ] ___

The world of Jujutsu was fairly small and only shrinking.  Sometimes it was cool to be a part of a unique society.  Most of the time, it was lonely.

(y/n’s) classmates were nice enough, but she had yet to make a real connection with any of them.

Maki was great to train with, and she could be fun.  But she was so intimidating that when they were alone together, (y/n) tended to keep her head down and mouth shut.  You couldn’t say anything wrong if you didn’t speak a word, right?

Then there was Panda, who was very kind, but he could be rambunctious, and a bit of a prankster.  Besides, he tended to partner off with Toge anyways, so there wasn’t a point in trying to reach out more.

And Toge only spoke in rice ball ingredients.  It was a little hard to form a friendship around that.

(y/n) tried not to let herself be too affected by all this.  It wasn’t fair to be upset that they’d all formed a bond before she had come to Jujutsu Tech.

Eventually, she grew to accept that she wouldn’t be joining the strong familial bond they all shared with each other.  She thought this to be a good thing- at least that way if something were to happen to her, no one would lose someone they cared about.  And in this field of work, risking your life was always an asterisk on the mission form.

But risking your life to save others? That had to be one of the most selfless jobs there were.  So if the price of exorcizing curses was a little loneliness, then so be it.  She’d still choose this life if she had another chance.

At least, that’s what she’d tell herself when she’d stare at the sky late at night, recalling the days before she’d discovered her cursed energy.

[ you look so tired, unhappy ]

“You don’t really think that, do you?” Yuuta asks her one night.

(y/n) glances over to the boy next to her, his eyes a dark blue that rivals the night sky above them.  She can’t quite place the look on his face… despair?

“You don’t ever wonder?” She mumbles, her eyes returning to the constellations.  “What if… what if I wasn’t born like this?”

Yuuta swallows.  Sure, all the time, he thinks, but something tells him that’s not what he should be telling her now.

“I suppose,” He answers her quietly.  “But there’s a lot of stuff I’d hate to miss out on”

(y/n) laughs, which wasn’t the reaction he was expecting at all.  His brows furrow in her direction while she shakes her head.

“What?” He asks.

“You,” She answers, still staring at the sky.  “In what world is this life best case scenario?”

“You hate it that much?”

“Hate doesn’t begin to convey what I feel for this life,” She shakes her head.  “But it would be selfish of me to say that, wouldn’t it?” Finally she looks at him again, letting him process the question before continuing.  “Knowing what I know now, it would be selfish to walk away- for what, something better? Something that brings me happiness? Could I really choose something like happiness over protecting people?”

Yuuta is silent for a moment, leaving her to stare at him and try to pick apart each and every emotion behind his eyes.  She assumes he must feel the same.  If given the chance to go back and change the course of fate, much more than trauma could be restored.  A real, normal, life could have been had.  She wonders if that’s what he’s thinking- what life he could have had for himself had he not been dragged into this one.

She’s wrong.

While he sits beside her on the creaky old wood planks that made up the deck outside of the dormitories, Yuuta can only think about the present, the only life he’s ever known, and the only life he’ll ever have.  Her words hurt him, not because he’s offended, but because… it makes him sad for her.

He’s known (y/n) for quite some time now.  When they first met last year, she was very reserved, curiously enough though, he found she wasn’t shy, she just tended to keep to herself.  After a year of spending whatever free time he had, he tried to understand her better.

(y/n) tended to give him scraps- only last week he learned that her favorite color was blue.  “Like at midnight.  Or the ocean” She’d said.  He didn’t mind that it was taking more time to get to know her than the others, in fact, he found that he enjoyed her quiet presence.

He’d grown very fond of her, so much in fact that when he’d come back from long days or weeks away, it was usually her he gravitated towards to catch up with first.  He’d spend the following day joking around with Toge, and training with Maki, and getting thrown around by Panda, but that first night belonged to (y/n).

And it was typical to find them sitting on this deck, staring at the stars.

With these thoughts in mind, Yuuta takes in a breath before asking her the question he’d been biting back.

“You don’t think you can find happiness… here?”

Slowly, her eyes fall from the stars, but she can’t bear to look at him, so instead she keeps her vision blankly ahead.

Why must he be this way? She curses internally.  Why does he have to… care? Why can’t he leave me alone like the others? He insists on being involved… why?

She can’t look at him, because she knows if she does, she might just grow a little closer to him, and she couldn’t accept that.  He was too good.  And it was safer to keep a distance, to never really be attached.

When you’re attached to things, you grow weak.  And this wasn’t a field where she could allow even a shred of weakness.

Her teeth gnaw on her bottom lip.

“You ask me that as if my happiness holds any importance,” She says.  “I don’t think it’s fair to weigh that against human lives”

“You don’t have to pit the two against each other,” Yuuta declares.  “Both can be equally important to you.  They’re important to me”

Her head snaps before she can remind herself why she wasn’t looking at him, and she’s reminded as soon as their eyes meet.

He’s smiling at her.  He has the warmest, most comforting expression on his face, and she doesn’t understand why, but she knows that’s simply who Yuuta is.  Warm, and comforting.

“Why?” She whispers, afraid if she’ll ask any louder, the shadows will hear, and they’ll mock her for her vulnerability.

“Because you’re my friend,” Yuuta shrugs like the answer is simple.  “And I care about you,”

She blinks at him, her eyes wide with bewilderment.

After all this time of forcibly keeping him at arm’s length, he still considered her a companion?

The hot sting behind her eyes let her know that her heart was betraying her mind, but no matter how strongly she willed herself to bottle it up and force it away, the feeling remained.

“The others care about you too, you know,” Yuuta continues.  “Trust me, I’ve learned they have weird ways of showing it, but they do,”

(y/n) swallows the lump in her throat.

“Even when you try to push people away, the ones that matter have a way of sticking around,” There’s a small smile on his face as he speaks, ducking his head as a rosy tint colors his cheeks.  “But that’s a good thing, right? Without friends you love and who love you, what’s the point?”

“Being strong,” Her voice is raspy, but she has yet to let a single tear fall.  “Holding your own.  Looking out for yourself.  Y-you have to.  It’s the only way”

Slowly, and maybe for the first time ever, Yuuta was beginning to understand her.

He turns his body to be facing hers, letting her know that she had his complete and undivided attention.

“You wanna know something funny?” He asks, and she doesn’t respond, but he speaks anyway.  “You’re reminding me of Gojo-Sensei,”

Her nose crinkles in mild-disgust and confusion, and Yuta chuckles.

“When he first found me, he told me this weird thing that made no sense.  But I was so broken up about Rika, and so scared all the time of what was coming next.  I did everything I could to keep people away from me… I just never wanted to hurt anyone- well, ah, you knew that I guess, huh?”

Bashfully, he rubs the back of his neck.

“Well, he told me that love was the most twisted curse of all,” He said.

(y/n) blinked, a bit shocked that her goofy, sweets-loving sensei could say something so dark… and profound.

“And at first I guess I thought I understood what he meant.  It means it holds you back, right? It makes you weak, or lost.  And that’s all I was feeling at the time…”

He trails off for a moment, lost in his memories.  Surprisingly, he smiles at her.

“And then I met you guys… and I understand what he meant now”

(y/n) blinks, waiting for him to continue.  But he just sits there and smiles at her, and she realizes he’s not going to tell her.

“Well?” She pressed.  “What’d he mean, then?”

Yuuta laughs, before placing his hands on the ground and hoisting himself up.

“It wouldn’t be fair to just tell you, dummy,” He teases, reaching his hand down to her.  “You gotta figure it out yourself”

She stares at him for a moment, still calculating what he was getting at, what was the point of all this? And then her eyes fall to his outstretched and helpful hand.

Her heart drops to her stomach, and she fears it’ll launch back up to her throat and be regurgitated.

Cautiously, she raises her hand, and sets it in his.

Yuuta beams as he helps her to stand, firmly clutching her palm in his to keep her steady.

“So- so what,” (y/n) shakes her head, her brows drawn together.  She pulls her hand out of his hold almost instantly, wrapping her arms around herself defensively.  “All that nonsense about love and letting people in, I just have to accept that?”

Her voice cracks and she lets out a humorless laugh.

“Because it’s the most ridiculous, selfish thing I’ve ever heard,”

Yuuta’s face falls, a frown pulling on his lips while she spews out her interpretation of Gojo’s words, and it wasn’t what he’d intended at all.

“See, you can love people all you want.  You can care about them, and- and look out for them, and get to know them.  But at the end of the day, when you die and they’re left loving what’s left of you, that’s on you,”

She does her best to ignore her own sniffling, and the way her voice breaks and rasps as her throat constricts, but it’s all too noticeable.  Yuuta watches as she completely crumbles in front of him.

“Love makes you weak,” She mutters, aggressively wiping at her eyes before any tears could fall.  “It makes you overthink, it trips you up when you need to be on your highest alert.  Gojo-sensei was right about one thing.  Love is a curse.  It’s no gift at all.  It’s a damnation to weakness.  Love is a waste of energy, and- and it’s a waste for you to pretend like you care when you barely even know me!”

Yuuta shakes his head, stepping towards her with his hands out.

“No, no (y/n) that’s not true-”

“It is,” She seethes, stepping back before he could touch her.  “Aren’t you bothered? Don’t you despise me?” The question is exaggerated, and she’s just waiting for him to admit it.

“Of course not!”

“Well then why?” She gasps out.  “Why do you keep coming back to me- seeking me out and trying to get to know me? Can’t you tell I don’t want you to?”

“We’re friends, (y/n), we’re partners.  I care about you whether you want me to or not-”

“That’s unfair-!”

“That’s love!” Yuuta cuts her off this time before she could argue with him any longer.  “Like it or not you don’t get to choose who loves you! Okay!? It just happens!”

Shockingly enough, she doesn’t have a response for that, so Yuuta seizes the silence himself.

“You’re wrong,” He tells her, stepping closer again.  “You can push people away all you want- it won’t work.  Not with me.  I won’t let you,”

A tear escapes one of her eyes, making a break down her cheek, before sliding along her jaw.

“Be angry with me if you have to, I don’t care.  You mean more to me than your anger could get in the way of”

“I don’t understand,”

She sounds defeated, her voice quiet and still breaking as she attempts to fight her feelings.

“I don’t understand,” She repeats.  “Why? Why go through the trouble?”

Yuuta chuckles, and takes a bolder step forward, reaching out to brush his knuckles over her jaw, collecting the stray tear.

“You’re wrong again, (y/n/n),” He says fondly.  “It’s no trouble at all to love you,”

A knot forms between her eyebrows as her eyes flicker between his, desperate to read the thoughts behind them.

If only there was a way he could convince her that he was telling her exactly what he was thinking.

“It sucks sometimes,” He admits with a chuckle.  “When I’m gone and I miss you, or when you want to be a brooding jerk.  But it doesn’t make me love you any less,”

He really loves me? She wonders.  Or is he just saying this?

“Actually, I think that stuff just makes me love you more”

Oh.

Now her tears are falling down her cheeks in steady streams.  She shakes her head at him, the action small, almost pathetic, she thinks.

“Can’t you see I don’t want that?” She all but whimpers out.  “I can’t- I just can’t have that”

“You don’t get to choose that for me” Yuuta shrugs a shoulder, giving her a small smile.  He does his best to hide the way she’s shattering his heart.

“It’s not fair, it’s not fair to me,” She continues, lips trembling as she tries to form the right words.  “If- if something happens and I’m dying I can’t-”

She hiccups and Yuuta finds himself shushing her, cooing softly as his hands cup over her cheeks so sweetly, brushing away her tears as they fall.

“You think too much about everything, yaknow?” He hums to her.

“I can’t carry that weight,” She mumbles.  “I can’t- I can’t die knowing I’m leaving people to grieve for me”

She sees him smile and she just wants to fall to her knees and break down.  She doesn’t understand him, not in the slightest.  How could he stand there and comfort her while she’s trying to reject him?

“Like I said,” Yuuta sighs while he carefully dries her cheeks.  “You don’t get to choose that for me”

“Yuuta…”

“You don’t get to choose that for anyone,” He corrects himself.  “That’s what isn’t fair.  People will love you whether you want them to or not.  You will love people whether you want to or not.  It’s not a choice at all”

She stares at him for a moment, ignoring that voice in the back of her mind telling her to push his hands away and retreat to her dorm.  Instead, all she could think about was a short conversation they’d had a week or so ago.

There’s a shift in her demeanor, or so Yuuta thinks.  He thinks that when he looks into her eyes, there’s something there that wasn’t there before.  A glint, a shimmer of hope.  He gazes at her (y/e/c) fondly, hoping whatever it was he was seeing would reveal itself.

“Last week you told me your favorite color was green, like the leaves in summer,”

Her words were murmured, anxiously so, but she willed herself to keep talking.

“And I told you my favorite color was blue,” Her cheeks began to feel warm.

Was this bashfulness?

“I like… I like the blue of your eyes,” She was nearly choking on her words, but this was much different from before.  “That’s my favorite color,”

Yuuta’s blushing too, so much so that he wants to tug at his color to relieve the heat creeping up his neck.

“On the nights that you’re gone, I sit out here and… and hope you’re okay,” (y/n) confesses.  “I hope that we’re looking at the same stars and that when I ask them to look out for you… they do.  I look at the sky and it’s just so beautiful I can’t stop myself from being reminded of you… even when I don’t want to.  I can’t help it… it’s the damn blue…”

Her tears have stopped falling, yet still somehow she looks distressed.

Still, it’s different than before.

“Is that love?” She mumbles, and Yuuta isn’t sure if she’s asking him or talking to herself, but he answers anyway.

He drops his hands from her face so that he can wrap them snugly around her waist, drawing her close to him so that he could hug her.

At first, she just lets him.  She stands there frozen, trapped by the action, trapped by her thoughts.

This must be, she thinks.  It must be.  Because what other feeling could have her so… lost in another person.

A shiver goes down her spine, and at the same time she feels so warm it’s almost uncomfortable.

All at once, she falls against him, throwing her arms around his neck, embracing him as tightly as she possibly could.  She buries her nose into his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut tight before any other tears could fall.

He returns her vigor right away, pressing her close to his chest.

(y/n) melts.

“I’m sorry,” She mumbles into his jacket.  “I’m sorry for everything-”

“Don’t apologize,” Yuuta cuts her off, a hand cupping the back of her head, before carefully tangling his fingers in her hair.  “There’s no need”

Yuuta hears a quiet mumble against his shoulder.

“You’re so good and I don’t understand it sometimes,”

He chuckles, leaning back and pulling her away from him just enough that he can look down at her.

She’s smiling now, but even still, Yuuta can see there’s a sadness behind it.

“I do… care about you, you know?” Her voice was quiet, eyes darting between his, hoping to find a flicker of trust.

She found much more than a flicker.

She could have sworn that his irises held more color than she’s ever seen before.  The perfect swirl of love, and blue.

“I know,” He smiles and it’s warm, and it makes her feel every pleasant emotion.  “But it’s nice to hear it” He teases.

She cracks a little, her despair melting away.  She couldn’t tell what did it exactly, the sweet words or bright smile, maybe his thumb brushing over her cheekbone being the most soothing thing she’s ever felt- or maybe it was all of it.  

But now with her brain a mush and her life’s philosophy being burned to ashes, she was considering that maybe… maybe it was just him.  Maybe this was just the Yuuta Effect.  Maybe it was his charm that seemed to have it’s own gravitational pull.  Maybe it was his dopey smile and nervous way he talks paired with that sweet look in his eyes.  Maybe it was the fact that it was so fiercely loyal that he wouldn’t leave your side even when you were begging him to.

Am I an idiot?

“Yuuta,”

His name came out in one small breath, and he’s reminded just why he was so infatuated with her.

He was always hanging onto her every word, eager to hear what the next one would be.

“I don’t… I didn’t realize…”

She cuts herself off, wincing and shaking her head from the embarrassment of not even being able to form a sentence.

Rolling her eyes, she looks back up at him, staring at him seriously.

“I never realized you felt that way,” She finally said.  “And I’m sorry I… I never told you… how I felt”

He raised a brow, playfully.

“You didn’t realize, huh?” He asks.

She shook her head.

“I don’t believe you��

“What?” (y/n) scoffed.  “What do you mean you don’t believe me?”

“I don’t believe you,” He chuckles as he repeats himself.  “It was too obvious.  You’re the secretive one”

“Obvious?” She asks.

“Uh, yeah, it was pretty obvious,” He’s still laughing, pretty nervously, but it’s cute.  “You’ve caught me staring, I know you have”

“So? You zone out a lot” (y/n) shrugs her shoulders.

“Okay, well I also try really hard to get close to you”

“How was I supposed to know that you weren’t just trying to be my friend?” She fired back.  “These aren’t exactly solid arguments”

“How? You’re seriously trying to tell me that you haven’t noticed?”

She tries to stifle a laugh at how worked up he’s getting over this, but she fails and giggles spew out uncontrollably.

“Okay then, since you just want to laugh it up at my feelings, how is it you feel anyways?”

Her giggles halted immediately, eyes wide and darting up to his.

“Well?” He asks, impatiently.

“Well.. I’m… fond of you”

“You’re fond of me?” He asks in a posh accent.  “What are you eighty?”

“Shut up” (y/n) mutters while he continues to laugh and tease her.

“Are you hoping to win my favor? Perhaps court me?”

“You’re not making this any easier you know,” (y/n) says, doing her best to scowl at him.  But it’s difficult to not smile at him when he’s smiling like that.  “I could always just walk away.  Go to bed and sleep for a loooong time and wake up and pretend this never happened-”

“So you’re in love with me?”

He has such a way of making her freeze, that she thinks he’s doing it just for his own amusement.

“Maybe” She mumbles.

Yuuta grins.  He grins so wide that all of his teeth are on display, and his skin crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“I can work with maybe”

(y/n) scoffs, her lips turning upwards against her will as she drops her head to stare at the ground.

“Come on,” Yuuta hums, heading back towards the dorms.  “I’ll even walk you back to your room.  You know, to prove what a gentleman I am”

(y/n) giggles, and nods her head softly before following next to him.

They walk in silence, side by side, back inside.  It’s comfortable.

He walks her to her dorm, they say goodnight, and maybe they linger in the doorway a few moments longer than necessary, maybe (y/n) closes her door and leans against it for a few minutes while she hopes that her heart would calm down in her chest.

As she lays in bed that night and stares at her ceiling, she realizes that she had gotten it all wrong.  Perhaps her whole life, but… definitely this last chapter.  She had blinded herself for so long that she hadn’t even been able to see Yuuta was in love with her.

And she was absolutely in love with him.

[ no alarms / and no surprises, please ] ___

3 months later ___

“He’s late” Maki scoffed.

“It’s been two minutes, I’m sure he’ll be here soon” Panda comforted.

“Tch,” Maki rolled her eyes, turning to Toge to shake her head.  “That’s still late” She muttered.

“Salmon” Toge replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

The cursed-speech user turns to (y/n) next to him, raising his brows in a way that she understood exactly what he meant.  Maki.

(y/n) gives him a small smile in acknowledgment.  She can’t see him smile back, but the crinkles at the corners of his eyes told her all she needed to know.

And then the car pulled up, and her timid smile turned into a face-splitting grin.

Ijichi gets out first, scrambling to the back of the car to open up the trunk.  (y/n) ignores the luggage he pulls out as the passenger door opens.

Yuuta steps out, and he looks tired, disheveled.  Understandably so, it was a long flight from Paris to Tokyo, followed by a long drive from the airport to Jujutsu Tech.  It was nearly sixteen hours of traveling when the day was done.

And yet, as he’s stretching his back as much as he can, his eyes land on her, and he forgets all about his achy muscles.  He jogs off to his friends, ignoring Ijichi who was struggling to carry two duffel bags, a backpack, a sheathed katana and a suitcase.

“You waited up for me?” He asks excitedly, quickly hugging his friends.  Panda, Maki, Toge.

“Of course” Panda said warmly.

“Toge made me” Maki snarked, but it was impossible to miss the warm smile on her face.

“Salmon” Toge grins as he gives his best friend a welcome hug.  

Yuuta’s grinning too, patting Toge’s back affectionately before pulling away.  He turns to the last of the bunch, still grinning like a madman.

“Your turn” He says, tugging on (y/n’s) arm and pulling her into a hug before she could refuse.

She wouldn’t, of course, and he can tell by the way she throws his arms around his neck and reciprocates the embrace happily.  He squeezes a little tighter.

“Missed you, you know” She mumbles into his ear so the others can’t hear.

(The others are playing ‘Tackle Panda’, but she doesn’t notice of course)

“Had a feeling,” Yuuta hums.  “You did write a lot”

(y/n) scoffs, pulling away so she can punch him in the arm.

“Don’t make me regret it” She teases back.  

“Too late now, I’ve already saved ‘em all,” Yuuta replies, his hands grasping onto her wrists before she could attack him anymore.

She rolls her eyes, but when he tugs her closer, she steps in anyways, leaning up to meet his lips in the middle, kissing him softly.

His hands drop hers, so that he can cup her face and kiss her again, properly, deeply.  Luckily their friends are still too busy wrestling on the ground, so they had a few extra moments of privacy.

When they part, he leans his forehead against hers.  His hair had gotten longer in the month and a half he’d been away, it hangs in both of their faces rather annoyingly but neither bother to move it.  She can see his sapphire eyes just fine.

“I missed you too,” He tells her softly, before bumping his nose against hers.  “I’m glad to be home”

“I’m glad you’re home,” She hums back.  “I love you”

His beam only brightens, and he pecks her lips in a quick kiss before their friends could see.

“I love you too” ___

xoxo ~ jordie

[batsplat]

hi batsplat this is marquezian.. as our resident casey scholar i was wondering if you have casey race recs !!

boy do I ever have recs! here's a (hopefully) fairly comprehensive list, drawing from more or less all the stages of his grand prix career and featuring races notable for a bunch of different reasons

casey is quite defensive of the 'boring' racing of the alien era (in particular the 2010-12 years)... but it is a shame his time in motogp overlapped so heavily with the 800cc era, which did lead to some tough watches for fans of 'overtakes' and 'close racing' and 'unpredictability'. so a lot of these race picks aren't necessarily reflective of how casey racked up the majority of his wins, plus presumably don't always match up with what his own picks would be. but well, whatever! I threw in a few of the ones I know casey likes

warning: the race descriptions generally spoil the results of the races. since this list is pretty long, I've put an asterisk next to the races I'd particularly recommend, and double asterisk next to my personal faves

my tldr spoiler-free top five faves list is catalunya 2007, donington park 2007, laguna seca 2008, sachsenring 2010, and laguna seca 2011. my five next-off most notable/fun races are assen 2004, turkey 2006, qatar 2007, phillip island 2009 and silverstone 2011

and here's the actual list, in chronological order:

sachsenring 2003: first podium in grand prix racing! big disclaimer: the recordings of the 2003 125cc races you can find on the videopass are poor quality and don't feature any commentary, so not the easiest to watch. this race is also not great to follow on the colour front: the three main protagonists are *squints at notes* casey (yellow bike, number 27), perugini (mostly black and white but with a few greenish highlights, 7) and de angelis (mostly green, 15). but well it's a really tight fight that goes until the last corner, good fun... casey's talked about how nervous the track made him so he wasn't racing his opponents hard enough at the end. which is kinda sweet and revealing

brazil 2003: another tight battle, this time with jorge (green/red, 48) and de angelis, another time he doesn't QUITE make it. jorge's first ever victory! y'know the one where he overtakes everyone on the outside and starts the whole x-fuera thing

valencia 2003: first win! 125cc/moto3 racing being reliably good fun is a time-honoured tradition and it can even make that middling karting track exciting to watch. it's a good fight - quite helpfully, casey's nicely visible yellow bike contrasts well with the blue bike (hector barbera, number 80) and the red bike (sic, 58) (at some point steve jenker, 17, shows up on a black and white bike). that being said... the bloody video on the motogp website cuts off around two and a half laps to the end, which is a shame because those laps were (apparently) filled with drama. very close finish, not helped by the spark plug of casey's bike breaking RIGHT before the end, which is a very casey thing to happen to him. he thought he was screwed but ended up being saved by barbera running wide trying to overtake him in the last corner. here's a cute lil feature with casey discussing the race that you can probably just watch instead of the race. also ofc him saying how good it felt to beat the spanish at their home circuit (clip here), king of spite

^look at him in evil gross luminous yellow

**assen 2004: I'll admit, this race is one of my faves in large part because of the terrorism jorge does on casey on the last lap, which casey was NOT happy about. (in a funny coincidence, the same event features jorge's future teammate doing some last lap terrorism on gibernau that gibernau is also decidedly not thrilled about.) featured in the autobiography - he really wasn't a fan of jorge at the time - and when he's being sulky in the interview they have in the post-race broadcast. but another great fight and, with my apologies to casey, the last lap is fantastic. excitingly includes commentary!!

jerez 2006: casey's first motogp race! you don't reallyyyy see enough of him on the broadcast for it to be completely worth it, but it's still a proper good ride. he starts in fifteenth, makes a great start and then gets a lil lucky at the first corner when toni elias attempts to murder barrels into valentino and opens up a gap for casey. gets all the way up to fourth and finishes sixth!! also ofc a starring performance by dani at the front of the race

qatar 2006: second race of the season. after the first race, casey had been ill with a bad fever, plus there'd been a fuck up with the flights that meant he only got to the lusail circuit ten minutes before the first session. he topped the first practise session and qualified on pole, even though he was still recovering from illness and was massively sleep-deprived. his first battle with valentino, eventually drops a few places but still <3 also features some fun vale/nicky hayden battles

*turkey 2006: the third race of the season (look he front-loaded his good races that year) and my girl's first premier class podium!! but... bit of a heartbreaker as he did come VERY very very close to winning. also he said apparently he was pleased with his podium but when he got to parc fermé his team was acting disappointed he didn't win :( still a fantastic race, the highlight of casey's troubled rookie campaign. (casey was fast from the get-go in the premier class, but was dealing with major tyre issues that the team around him didn't do a good job at helping him with. by the end of the season, he ended up acquiring a somewhat unfair reputation for being a crasher, with the lovely nickname 'rolling stoner'. still, for young talent it's generally the peaks that matter most and you could really see his ability shine through here)

*qatar 2007: obviously of Great Narrative Significance, casey's first race with ducati and when he announced his arrival at the top of the sport by getting his first premier class win. good solid fun casey/vale fight, though it does feature the classic 'ducati blasts past everyone down that very long lusail straight' syndrome. people were kinda mean about that - which in turn made casey very irritable, arguing that if your bike is a nightmare to ride everywhere else then it's an accomplishment to be close enough to blast past down the straight. unfortunately I do agree a lil bit with the naysayers in terms of the actual racing, but still a pretty good fight

^the last year it was a day race

**catalunya 2007: probably my personal favourite? (of the ones casey won, anyway.) just something about a great battle at that track - obviously valentino had about a million, but this was really the only race-long one that he lost. important in the context of the 2007 title campaign - even though it was only a ten-point swing - because it showed casey wasn't just about horsepower dominance. fantastic riding from both of them

**donington park 2007: my fave of his wet weather performances because he actually has to work his way through the field. he started fifth but was outside of the top ten early on after an uncharacteristically poor start. fun race with plenty of good shake-ups of the order

(he sealed the title in motegi and won his home race for the first time that year, but since he finished sixth in the former and won the latter by a few lightyears, they don't make the cut)

*qatar 2008: more fun than qatar 2007!! imo!! obviously it's also jorge's first race and he's on pole and dani's a bit injured and those two have their whole thing™️ going on... and vale has just switched tyre suppliers and is trying to prove he's not washed and casey is starting his title defence... so a big significant race for all four of them, and unlike many races in that era has a fair few twists and turns and almost all of them actually get to fight each other a bit. okay eventually it settles down and gets dull but until then it's fun (and there's also some very late excitement involving dovi/vale)

**laguna seca 2008: I feel a wee bit bad for including this one and casey would throw something at me, but well it obviously belongs on here. ignoring casey's complaints for a minute about vale's aggression, it really is a fantastic battle - and vale only goes as far as he does because casey's so good! (also unsure whether casey would appreciate this line of reasoning.) probably the one everyone's most likely to have already watched, and for good reason since it slaps. sorry casey

estoril 2009: only for sentimental reasons, after the first few laps it gets boring fast. still, it's casey's first race back after the mystery illness-induced break, he immediately has a cute lil battle with vale (which he wins, slay) and... okay then it's basically a procession but it's also nice and sweet when it's over and he's on the podium and he's shown everyone he's still got it. maybe skip like. 20 laps

**phillip island 2009: casey's first win in only his second race back!!! warning that it's a little light on actual overtaking but it's still tense and close most of the way through and casey's so great to watch on this circuit. (he's literally too good at it for most of his races there to be all that interesting, this is probably the best one.) plus it's another one included partly for sentimental reasons. here's my pitch:

sepang 2009: so he's been slandered for months, he's been written off, ducati have been fucking him over, he comes back and immediately gets a podium finish and wins the next race... what does he do after that? win again obviously! another neat little wet performance (partly helped by vale having a bit of a shocker off the line lmao, though he seals the title that day with a p3 finish)

valencia 2009: if you want to see the pole sitter crash on the warm up lap and dani almost miss the start in confusion

**sachsenring 2010: vale's first race back after the broken leg. usually that's the time when everyone would pretend to be nice to each other... but all three of vale, jorge and casey had gone to efforts during vale's absence to make things worse <3 anyway cracking race including a good fun spite-fuelled battle between casey and vale for the last podium spot, one of their better scraps with a dramatic ending - after which both of them are charmingly bitchy about each other to the media (see below). shame it was basically their last notable battle in the dry (I didn't include either jerez 2011 or le mans 2012 on this list because I wouldn't really recommend them as good casey races, but they do more or less conclude casey and vale's on-track story. and the latter is also the last podium they share, plus it's the race right after casey announced his retirement. fave presser moment)

^😭😭😭😭😭 you guys are AWFUL oh my god. people always talk about laguna 2008 but the vibes got way more rancid post-2009 when their actual on-track rivalry was basically over

motegi 2010: this one's kinda marginal on whether it qualifies for this list. casey was really proud of this win and felt his 2010 wins were particularly impressive given how much he had to override a bike that was objectively shit by this point.... BUT in practise once he shakes off dovi, it's quite a dominant win and the real fun is watching valentino experiment with whether he can make jorge lorenzo the first person ever to die of rage alone while riding a motorcycle

*silverstone 2011: one of the truly great wet weather performances. this is a personal taste thing - I don't mind dominance as much in the wet because it's just cool sometimes seeing somebody drop a masterclass on the field in those conditions. but obviously not necessarily the most exciting victory fight once he hits the front after like. a lap. still, good battles going on behind him

^a fan of british tracks, not a fan of the british

*sachsenring 2011: great three-way battle with jorge and dani, with the lead exchanged several times - also plenty of other good battles down the order. not one casey emerges victorious from, but definitely one of the best races that season

**laguna seca 2011: okay look corkscrew this corkscrew that but there's an argument to be made that casey makes a pass in this that's better than anything marc and vale can DREAM of. well no I won't go that far - but it's still an incredible overtake, insane thing to do at a blind corner, and casey just looks fantastic riding on that circuit. in his autobiography he says something along the lines of 'oh it looked scary on tv but I knew I'd make it'. which. okay casey!! not gonna say more than that, one of those where you'll know it when you see it. one of the best races of his career and also a key race in that year's title fight

phillip island 2011: marginal inclusion, but it's sweet he sealed the title on his 26th birthday by winning his home race (even though he mainly sealed it there because jorge lost half a finger and couldn't start the race). conditions got treacherous when the rain showed up but well casey stayed on the bike, just about

*jerez 2012: casey's first and last win at jerez! this is the one that casey called his greatest career win at the time and... sure, fair enough, especially given he had a weirdly bad record at the track. he didn't enjoy the experience much because of his arm pump issues, which makes the performance all the more impressive. fun first few laps in particular, after that it's maybe a bit more tension than actual action. still a proper good race

estoril 2012: another win he's very proud of... another one that's maybe even more skewed towards tension than actual action, but still an unmistakably impressive performance given jorge's strong record there and casey's physical issues. that and jerez completed his set as they'd been the races he hadn't won yet, which made him feel more certain of his choice to retire

phillip island 2012: listen it's his last win and it sealed the title (for jorge), so was at least somewhat exciting. but also according to his autobiography, casey deliberately rode slower for a bit before expanding the gap again just to keep his focus up, which I think gives you a sense of how easy he found winning there

^his penultimate race and sixth consecutive victory at phillip island. he also finished on the podium in his last ever race at valencia

[stoopid-turtle]

the art of being a skeptical turtle

So this is a personal post more about my experience as a turtle. If you just want to get to the fun list of candies I totally buy into regardless of evidence, just skip down to where the asterisks are. (Consider this like a recipe attached to a blog post)

For those interested in the whole nerdery going on here, let me share that I had a lot of trouble coming to terms with bjyxszd. I wrote a whole series of posts about it to get my thoughts in order. Now I'm fully on the turtle train, but I find myself skeptical of some candies.

This is gonna get super-nerdy so hold on to your butts.

I'm a generally skeptical person. I come by it honestly. My parents literally subscribed to Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptics magazines. They (well, my dad mainly) were capital-S Skeptics. My family talked about logical fallacies, perceptual oddness, and the fallibility of memory over the dinner table.

Please don't back away. I know self-identified Skeptics are typically insufferable. I didn't know this as a kiddo, though, so the whole "thinking about things skeptically" became just my default way of processing stuff. Nowadays, I wouldn't call myself a Skeptic in the way that some in a particularly obnoxious subculture do. But I do tend to be a skeptical sort. I just don't...you know...think it makes me smarter/better/cooler than other folks.

(Actually, it makes me way less cool bc I can single-handedly ruin a fun party by expressing skepticism about something. Nobody likes a wet blanket. I know this)

My bestie in high school always called me Scully to his Mulder. He would believe anything he saw or read, whereas I didn't. Usually, I was right. Like when he totally thought that the Blair Witch Project was real found footage (It's not. Nobody thinks it is now, I know, but it was part of the promo at the time). On occasion, he was right. Like when he told me that some gray clouds we had overheard were from wildfires in Mexico. I scoffed bc, really, we weren't that close to Mexico. But he was right and I learned a valuable lesson on large-scale weather phenomenon. (He's still wrong about there being a picture of a light bulb in the pyramids though)

So, yeah, that's just how I process things. It's second-nature for me. But I reached a point with my generally skeptical outlook where I considered 2 things to see whether I really cared if people were buying into something I thought was false.

The stakes. If a person believes X, what does that lead to? If I don't believe Y, even though it's true, what does that lead to?

There's a whole bunch of political stuff that heightens the stakes. To take a ridiculous (and outdated one), when I was growing up, there was a common story that AIDS hopped from apes to humans because a gay man had sex with an ape and then had sex with other humans. Thus, the AIDS epidemic.

The stakes of other people buying into that homophobic nonsense were (and are) life and death. (If you believe that...uh...bye?) It's something that's worth me being the obnoxious Scully if I hear someone buying into it.

The stakes of, say, my high school bestie believing that The Blair Witch Project was real found footage was...nothing. It just made him want to see the movie more. Nobody was hurt. It didn't matter.

I argued with him at the time, but I probably wouldn't anymore.

The stakes for believing that bjyxszd, here in international fandom, are perhaps higher than the Blair Witch thing. But only barely. If somebody believes in a particular rumor/candy that I don't think is real, it affects literally nothing. We're both still turtles. We have a lot more in common than we do difference with regards to YiZhan. Likewise, the effect of me not believing a candy that may be true is nil. Gg and dd are not impacted in any way.

(I think things may be different for c-fans, but that's not at all a thing I'm qualified to delve into. I can only account for myself in my context)

2. The other thing I consider is the context. That is, how likely are we to know the actual truth?

Scientific claims have a method to test them (and claims that can't be tested are just...not something science addresses). Claims about current events can be researched using journalism methods or whatever. For that homophobic AIDS story, there's ways to prove that it's not true. For the Blair Witch thing...well, the actors went on the talk show circuit for promo so, you know, the real footage myth was quickly lifted.

Celebrities exist in a different context. Like most people, they have a private life that is not accessible to people on the outside. If they choose to open up about that life, then cool. But if they don't or can't do so (like is the case with YiZhan), then they'll try to keep their private life out of sight of fans.

It really hit home to me when I was doing the bts thing how little of dd and gg we saw in the Untamed bts. We see even less of them now. I'm at peace with the fact that I just will never know much about these guys (I wrote a whole post about it). But the fact that there's a big mass of the unknown means that the possibilities are endless. We don't know and we'll never know.

So I don't have any more authority on anything gg or dd related than anybody else does. So why would I attempt to question or dismiss candies that other people find compelling? At the end of the day, there is a truth, but it's not accessible to us, so anything we come up with is just extrapolation.

Which is fine. It's fun. I think there's real stuff going on. (If I didn't, I wouldn't be here) But it means there's no real point arguing about the specific candies.

(and to be clear, I don't see turtles doing this, really. so this is all just me reiterating my own approach to things bc I'm a person who processes thoughts through long tumblr posts apparently) (and it's not a reaction to any particular candy. this post has been in my drafts for ages)

I think I'm a hard sell on a lot of candies, and I'm definitely the fuddy-duddy who just squints and asks a bunch of obnoxious questions about things.

But I ask those questions of myself and don't feel the need to annoy other turtles with them because, honestly, we're all in this boat together. Some candies appeal to particular turtles more than others, and I think we all kinda have our personal preferences for which ones resonate with us. I'm not here to rain on anybody's parade, especially as we all have way more in common just bc we all believe in bjyxszd.

This is all a long-winded way to explain how I think about candies, honestly. Or more, how I assess candies that are new-to-me and figure out whether to buy into it or not. With anything involving bjyx, I also leave a lot of room for there just being an unknown and unknowable. Again, the stakes are low, and if I'm wrong about any particular candy (in either direction), then...oh well? It affects literally nothing.

************************************************************************************************************************************************

So here's the fun part! The list of candies that I fully admit don't have a whole lot going for them (by my stupidly exacting standards) but that I totally buy into just because I like them.

Basically all lip-readings, but especially this one

(if you don't want to click thru, this is the moment from the Nanjing farewell concert where dd and gg seem to flirt about photos while on-stage)

Okay, I know, rationally, that lip-readings are always gonna be shaky. I mean, I've seen Medieval Land Fun-Time World. If I'm honest with myself, I know that the lip-readings are basically fluffy candy.

But whatever. I choose to believe them. This moment, especially, I adore (and it does come with dd posting a bare-faced photo after!). I think their big grins while openly flirting with each other on stage just jazzes me enough to pretend.

It's all true. I totally believe it.

Related to this is:

2. Any and all CPN about dd and/or gg seeing turtle signs and smiling or otherwise reacting positively.

I've seen such CSI-worthy analysis of sight-lines to try to establish with precision where dd or gg is looking at the moment they smile/look happy. I have no idea how much any of it holds up, and it's not worth the bother to try to confirm any of it.

But whatever. I like it. I believe it. I'll probably believe it everytime it happens.

3. Advanced Bombology.

So there's some things that aren't in dispute here. We definitely know that gg suddenly cut an Olay commercial ad from a 2 day shoot to a 1 day shoot, and it's a reasonable assumption that he did so to be at the DDU anniversary episode with GG.

The rest is a little fuzzy. The video details dd being kinda grouchy in interviews before the DDU shoot, and it also shares an anon rumor from a person who claimed to overhear dd in a studio restroom arguing on the phone with gg. This rumor came out a year after the event.

The rest of the video is some interpretation of the boys' behavior/mood in the DDU anniversary ep.

So, like, I get that anon rumors a year on maybe aren't the most solid evidence for anything. But whatever, I buy it.

And the interpretation of the boys' mood seems true to me, especially the moment where the interviewer asks gg if they'd discussed his visit ahead of time. Gg def does a sweatdrop, panic pause, look at dd moment and waits for dd's lead to answer. I find a lot of mood interpretation from videos a bit much, but this feels real.

In fact, the whole thing just feels real. Maybe that's why it's easy for me to buy. It feels like a real argument a couple would have.

4. The 5/22 fight during CQL shooting.

I talked about this back when I was doing the bts in order.

In tl;dr, dd gives gg a bit of a brush-off response to something. gg responds by cold shouldering him and then doing some passive aggressive sniping about how dd doesn't want gg to care about him. dd gets upset, then he apologizes, then they go on to watch something on one of their phones.

The basis of this one is some gossip plus a video shot from a distance that requires reading lips. So we know that's already fuzzy, and I know I approached this with some skepticism in my earlier post. That was just to be rational about things so as to be honest with myself.

In truth, I buy it. I buy the argument. I buy the lip-reading. Again, it feels real.

5. GG's card to turtles

This is one of those frustrating ones I'm having trouble refinding. Darn.

The upshot, and I'm going from memory, is that there's a CPN about a card written to turtles ostensibly from gg. This came with some handwriting comparison to try to match the signature to gg's known signature.

This isn't something I'd place bets on, because...seriously, it's so fuzzy.

But in my heart, I believe it for no reason other than that I want to.

6. DD as gg's mystery driver

Okay, there's a couple such incidents. One quite recently. Where gg's driver is mysteriously masked such that you can't see their face.

And, truth, it could be literally anybody under there. But for me, it's dd. No need to give me painstaking comparisons of hands or whatever. I'm fully in on this one.

7. The bone necklace.

Ack, don't hate me for this one!

When I was doing my posts about stuff that had convinced me that gg and dd were still together, I stumbled with the bone necklace. To me, it's the main thing that convinces me, but if I'm honest, it really is kinda a leap of faith thing.

With the ox-head necklace, we have the fancam footage to back it up as being from gg. All we have for the bone necklace is the timing and the precedent of dd having already worn a necklace from gg. That's shaky, really.

In fact, I think I saw some other dd CP claiming the bone necklace as theirs (I saw them also claiming the Leica camera). I think they're wrong, but I don't have any solid proof to say so.

I think the most I can say is that there are much harder evidences that gg and dd are still together. But these typically involve massive privacy violations so I'm not eager to spread them around (I kinda hate that I stumble upon them, tbh). But in any case, it has me convinced, so if I already know gg and dd are a couple, then of course the bone necklace is related.

But on its own, the bone necklace is a leap.

Okay, that all said, since I (finally) had a photo of dd last time I posted, I'm dropping a random gg photo here. Not my favorite, cause pls don't make me choose, but one that hangs out my head throughout the days.

[centrally-unplanned]

I played Needy Streamer Overload, which was a lot of fun, with an asterisk. NSO is a Lifesim Management game for a batshit up-and-coming streamer, where you as her 'boyfriend' allocate her time between streaming, resting, and content inspiration/development to hit 1 million followers. The writing is very on point for actual streams culture;the topics and comments and all that are very true-to-life, while its zany edgecore presentation is hilarious. And the UI is full kino:

Vibes - and also, spoilers, not just a cutesy aesthetic, as the player is not in fact a real person so the digital viewport is ludonarratively cohesive, +1 point.

However, it also pissed me off for specific me reasons!

So, these games tend to go into two buckets. One is the engine builder - managing the lifesim is both involved and The Point of the game. You work hard to optimize and achieve the goal. The second is narrative device - the lifesim elements are more about narrative choice than challenge, and either can't be failed or are trivially cleared. You approach playing those 2 game types differently.

NSO presents itself like the former - its mechanics are pretty involved. Managing Followers, Stress, Affection, & Mental Darkness, all on a clock, while unlocking ~10 different streaming content topic progression trees, its a lot to track. Not saying its crazy hard or anything, but its what you spend your time doing. You will be asking yourself questions like "yes I could have sex with her for the third time this week to lower stress and boost affection so I can burn that affect buildup on the Sexy Stream lvl 2 to sync my highest topic bonus with my streaming streak bonus before I need to end it for a rest cycle, but I can only play that card so many times, is day 13 too early?". That is fun, and where your focus lies. On my first playthrough I tried to hit the 1 million target, barely succeeded, but burned out Ame's stats so much I got a short, pretty-much-failed ending.

So on my second playthrough I tinkered around and stumbled on a soft infinity engine, where I could push Ame's stress to the limit in the opening days to get her follower count to the point where she would unlock "follower milestone celebration" streams that I could bank, that did not increase stress but would count towards a streaming-every-day streak bonus, and never take a rest day to get that bonus insanely high. I got several million followers with low stress, low darkness, I thought I did a good job.

And I got a short, pretty-much-failed ending.

Turns out this game has 30 endings, and the lions share of the long, involved ones are from you completely fucking up. You will get a way more interesting ending if you make Ame-chan overdose on LSD and she trips her way into breaking though the illusion of the internet. You want to raise her darkness high as hell for half of them. You can found a cult, you can induce all sorts of violence against her or others, whatever you want. But the game didn't tell me!!

It instead presented me with a solid optimization puzzle, which I spent like 10 hours doing. I shouldn't have bothered! It doesn't really tell this partially for surprise, but if we are being honest its because they expect you to google it, and they expect you to watch streamers unlock 25 of them after you do 5. Which is how modern games are made, but personally I don't love relying on that. I do think games are at their best when they self-teach a player the right way to engage with it.

But I respect that some people would see the discarded scraps of a tryhard faildaughter that is Ame-chan and immediately push her into doing conspiracy theory streams while smoking weed. I am just not someone you can plunk an engine in front of and expect me not to try to tinker with it. This is 50% on me.

[moonshynecybin]

"Pecco does NOT want marquez in the team as my highly paid Ducati spies have told me" -- Oxley bom podcast. Yeah who would have thought, Pecco is so transparent 😂😂.

So I am assuming that Pecco's issue is Marc's riding style mildly (Significantly?) colored by rosquez issues. But honestly, as seen in the past, having a strong rival makes you better, maybe you don't win as much but it pushes you to learn to ride to the brink, to try different things. I feel Pecco needs that now to elevate him as a rider. Does he want to be the perfect Ducati rider or does he want to go beyond that particular bike. Simply put somebody needs to rock his safe space (not to take away from the immense effort he put into learning the bike those 2 championships speak to his hardwork also not saying he is not kinda flopping now out but Marc is a different kind of a kick)

yeah lmao pecco is not going to see it that way though. lol. like. he won them two back to back titles and is by all accounts the number one rider for their team and on that bike. and then they bring in a rider that is maybeee the only one on the grid that can genuinely work him into an enraged italian lather. which. it should be noted marc did on purpose because he sucks and i love him

IF marc beats him on that bike its going to (at least in pecco's mind i think. and quite possibly MANY pundits) put a big fucking fat asterisk on his last two title wins as. okay well marc was injured so pecco won. and marc was on a murder bike so pecco won. and potentially this year marc is at an independent team so pecco won (we shall. SEE !). and it think that would literally drag at every one of peccochino's delicious little insecurities....

like marc took this gresini deal for a LOT of reasons (the honda WAS trying 2 kill him) but one of them was to answer the question: "can marc still do it." a question asked of him not only by marc HIMSELF but ALSO all of the other manufacturers on the grid who are about to enter the marc marquez factory seat sweepstakes, where. rest assured. EVERYONE is now even moreeeee interested in locking his insane pussy down into a deal. its a lot easier for marc to guarantee himself a seat at the ducati factory team if he slays on the year old bike, AND spending time at an independent team where his emotional support brother can be there to cushion the blow puts less pressure on him to perform. like he knowsssss how risky a move like this can be for a rider and their reputation (STILL a dark mark on vale's story) and i think he very strategically laid out a path where he is going to have a lot more leverage going into 2025 in ADDITION to soothing his own neuroses about leaving honda. so yeah pecco might just have to get used to it lmao. because if he DOES go to ducati its going to be a full season of this

world's worst groupchat.

[weemssapphic]

writing update for anyone who wants one ✨

Hello! I thought it was time for a little writing update, as I have a lot of requests still left to do, many from quite a while ago, and I hadn't posted much recently due to work and a vacation!

under the cut for anyone who wishes to know!

requests marked with an asterisk (*)

currently done - to be posted in the following order:

*Larissa x reader go to a pumpkin patch (I really want to post this tomorrow, Saturday at the latest if I don't feel well again tomorrow)

Lipstick Stains ch 12

A smutty little surprise for Kinktober!

*Phasma x reader feat. Hanahaki Disease trope (hurt/no comfort)

*Brienne x reader songfic to Strange by Celeste (hurt/comfort)

currently working on:

Lipstick Stains ch 13

*Larissa x principal!reader (okay listen I know I've been working on this for actual ages now and I'm almost done, hoping to post next week and as soon as it is finished I will squeeze it into the 'to be posted' schedule asap)

*Another smutty fic for Kinktober, so y'all don't leave my blog empty-handed ;)

next in line:

I have a lot of requests to choose from and will try to go in order of receiving them as much as I can, inspiration and appropriateness taken into account. I also have some ideas of my own hehe. Some fics I might be taking a look at:

*Larissa x reader, reader is a new openly lesbian teacher who helps Larissa realize she's gay

*Brienne x reader, domestic fluff!

*Jane Murdstone x singer!reader

*Larissa x reader, where reader suffers with vaginismus

Brienne x aggressive!reader

Jane Murdstone, sorta sickfic?

Anyway, thank you for being so patient with me. Writing/posting with a full-time job, a chronic illness and whilst trying to have a social life is not the easiest and I'm sorry if it takes me a long time to get to your request or update my series but I am seriously so thankful for everyone who is patient and kind and encouraging, and who continues to support my fics and send me requests and lovely messages. I never thought I would start posting fics publicly, let alone connect personally with so many people because of that, but it makes my heart very happy 🥰

[saccharinescorpion]

oh christ i typed up way too many thoughts about the Teal Mask story

spoilers of course

TO BEGIN WITH literally everything here has a big ol’ asterisk with “subject to change” attached to it, i was surprised at how much of a “to be continued” ending the main story had and i’m trying not to get my hopes too high for Indigo Disk, but wowzers

Carmine’s line about tourism… i have a lot of feelings, but the one looming over my head like a fucking sword of Damocles is “did the writers not intend this to have as much weight as i am ascribing to it lmao” because it’s only the one line and GOD i don’t want to be the “reading too much into stories for babies” person all the time but!! But!!!!

(recalls the scene where Nemona talks to you about feeling isolated because of her talent and recalls my feeling of “why was this only in one scene where she flatout looks at the camera and says this”)

well even if it’s not supposed to be “that” important-

1) sure makes the TCG Tournament in Hawaii feel even more bitterly ironic lmao (obligatory yes i know the game writers are not responsible for most stuff that happens in the wider franchise i’m just SAYING it’s ironic)

2) GOSH it sure does make those ugly jokes people kept making about Carmine even grosser than they already were (if you don’t know what i’m talking about, Don’t Worry About It)

As someone on twitter said it feels weird to have this sort of plot point after not exploring it at all in the game with the Hawaii analogue. at the same time i do have to wonder if it was a response to working on those games and doing some thinking. Who can say

God ALL of that was for one line

KIERAN!! Okay, i know i’ve been giving Kieran a lot of shit but his plot progression is genuinely very compelling. recent games have been exploring the “rival who feels inadequate” type of character but this is the first time one has gone off the deep end like this, and i really hope they push it into interesting places

Cutesy shy “oh gosh oh wowzers” pre-development Kieran… in the end i did feel a bit charmed by how sincere he is for the record!

but also i’m genuinely so glad he ended up having Inner Darkness lol

Sorry Kieran i just don’t like it when it feels like the writer is trying way too hard to make me say “i want to protect you”

By extension sorry Wally lmao because he really was the ancestor of this type in the Pokemon franchise

I tried not to take the fact that i really didn’t want the damn Ogerpon too personally lol, this is one of those moments where i really had to force myself to step back and remember that these games are not for me, they are for tiny children who often really do buy into the Gotta Catch Em All thing and probably felt some genuine inner turmoil at this

But god like, please. I have my giant puppy lizard who makes vroom vroom noises. Ogerpon you are so cute but we can never have the bond i have with my bike

Kieran falling to his knees after the last battle genuinely got me, so did him punching the shrine even with the dumb “owie ><” gag afterwards

OKAY talking about the battles damn Kieran and Carmine were tough opponents i had to try Kieran’s last fight like three times (admittedly because i was using my weaker Kitakami team but STILL)

Kieran feeling bad for the ogre was projecting “THIS CHARACTER FEELS LIKE AN OUTCAST” and i picked that up loud and clear, and that was good, but i wish they actually… made him seem like an outcast?

Don’t get me wrong, Kieran definitely has self-confidence issues, issues with talking to others, anxiety issues (possibly), and that can easily make someone feel like an outcast

But i feel like there’s a big difference between that and someone (Ogerpon and her trainer) who is actively shunned and mistreated by the people around them, and i was really hoping for that from Kieran

It’s just the Pokemon thing of finding it hard to depict people really being actively malicious (see Penny and Team Star’s bullies and their enablers all doing their thing off-screen and then leaving off-screen)

But it’s doubly weird because they didn’t have much issue with showing characters in this story being terrible (Carmine)

Carmine!!! Her terribleness was genuinely so entertaining, a lot of the time i was simultaneously laughing and thinking “oh people are going to be SO mad”

But real talk for all my love of Girls Who Suck i do actually kind of get where some people are coming from, she is genuinely very abrasive and unpleasant at times, and though i don’t agree at least i can tell where the character hate is stemming from (unlike some of the absolute batshit stuff i saw about Geeta and Nemona, don’t get me staaaarted)

And speaking of… okay i feel like i’m pushing it even talking about this but i feel it would be dishonest to pretend that i’m not thinking about it

SOOOO the “it’s not like i hit him” line… another case of “did the writers intend this to be as big as it is in my mind,” combined with uhhh writers from a different generation than me, let’s say

For now i will interpret that at face value, but like… damn, i don’t think that reads as you want it to especially in a Pokemon game

Carmine pleaseeeeeee say you’re sorry to Kieran in Indigo Disk please please please i know she apologized for leaving him in the dark but my dearest dream is for her to apologize for being so mean to him all the time. she needs to just treat him better in general. please i will forgive Kieran having to apologize for taking the mask if we can do this please

I know i know cultural differences but we already had Clavell apologize for the failures of the school system, this isn’t THAT big of  a stretch

I am genuinely curious if Indigo Disk will pull a reverse plot twist and reveal Ogerpon’s trainer to be a bad person or reveal that he was the one to attack the Loyal Three first because if not DAMN we’re just going to have some flat out evil Pokemon? that we can potentially put on a team with Ogerpon?????

Ogerpon is a silly lil girl :)

I still haven’t done Perrin’s plot lol