#this did fuck up my brain a bit lamo

[fireemblems24]

Azure Gleam - Special Chapters

Spoilers for the special chapters below.

SHEZ VS BYLETH

I didn't get the special chapter for SB or GW. SB, I just straight up did not care. GW, I tried, but it involved an "escort Claude" part and he just sat there and didn't move forward, and I didn't care enough to bother with the chapter a second time.

Shez sounds like Arval. Did Arval take Shez over? I'm guessing to go after Sothis?

Oh, cut scene! Shez vs Byleth again.

Byleth holding his own against Arval!Shez. Good to see. Shez is trying to hold Arval back though.

So . . . if we kick out Arval out in these chapters, does Shez loose their abilities/special class, because no :(((((

Felix, Dedue, and Dimitri are worrying about Shez and Byleth (also, awesome to see all my favs). Rodrigue has news about what happened.

Scouts report that Byleth and Shez are fighting. Felix accuses that Dimitri suspected this.

Dimitri tells how Shez worried that TWSITD would take over her. And Dimitri's promise to kill Shez to stop her from killing others.

Oh, we cut straight to the battle and have to defeat Shez. Makes sense. I'm guessing do it before Byleth dies?

My Shez is, eh, a bit stronger than Byleth, so I'm a bit worried. But Dimitri's such an overkill at this point, he's just going to blaze through this chapter like he did the last one.

It's weird not having Shez among my playable characters. I'm using Jeralt instead of Shez for my missing 8th person because he's the highest level (and I can't use Byleth either so).

Edelgard is around somewhere? Claude showed up to hunt her down.

My Byleth is like 10 levels below Shez. It's not going well.

Atrocity is one hell of a drug. Took Shez out.

Defeating Solon feels good. Got a cut scene too. He just ran away though. Wait, Arval/Shez killed Solon? Ohhh, like Solon killed Kyrona. A sacrifice is needed to open Zaharas. Karma I guess.

Claude and Dimitri talking is kinda cool. And weird Edelgard showed up. It's so amusing to me that they wrote themselves into such a corner with Edelgard they just yeeted her brain lamo.

ZAHRAS

Arval is talking to Arval.

Dark Arval created Normal Arval because Dark Arval wanted typical TWSITD nonsense, domination, restore the world to TWSITD, etc . . .

And in the most shocking twist, Normal Arval is programmed to kill Sothis, so therefore Byleth, and while Arval took over Shez.

Oh, Shez woke up! And Claude's there with Dimitri.

So they all got sent to this Zahras place.

Shez doesn't have a lot of memory of what just happened, and tells Claude and Dimitri about Arval, who's gone though.

Now they have to find a way out of this mess.

Dimitri found Edelgard. Since there's like 4 people, no one plans on fighting each other until they get out. Then it's time to kill people.

So Edelgard doesn't remember what happened and got some spell cast on her by TWSITD.

Claude cheerily tells her what a fuck up her country is lamo.

There's this mini map with the 3 lords just standing there, chilling, in this dark abyss place. It's pretty funny looking.

All my other units are gone, but I expected that. Dimitri's my most overpowered unit anyways.

DIMITRI & CLAUDE

Is this like some kind of support?

So AG Claude wants to get rid of the central church and kill Rhea. Like, I'm down for removing any sort of political power from a religious institution, but this fixation on Rhea is weird.

Lamo, is this game serious? Did it really just blame nobility and arrange marriage on Rhea?? OMG.

I knew Claude went completely dodo bird in this game, but he somehow became even more of an idiot?

I'm kind of impressed lol.

He drank the Edelgard koolaide.

Dimitri's like, well, as long as you just dislike the church and not Faerghus.

It's interesting for Dimitri to acknowledge that his personal beliefs and his beliefs as a king are sometimes at war.

He also lays out why Claude's plan is an awful idea. Meaning, all the death and suffering he'll cause.

It's just a classic, Claude is too rash - Dimitri is too cautious.

Claude tells Dimitri that he's too good for him. And that they could've been friends if kingly stuff didn't get in the way.

It's overall a fine support, except this absurd idea that the church is solely responsible for stuff human nature always comes up with, and I think it's more a symptom of a huge flaw in the Fodlan games as a whole than anything else.

DIMITRI & EDELGARD

Dimitri finds it hard to talk to Edelgard because of all the people she's caused the death of. But way more polite.

Edelgard doesn't feel that way. Which, not surprised. She doesn't really care too much about the people who've died like he does.

Lamo, she also is way less polite and is like "you don't want to talk to the tyrant who's gotten everyone killed." See, though, it's acknowledgements like this that make me like this game more. She knows that's what she looks like to everyone not in Adrestia.

Dimitri gets annoyed with her for placing words in his mouth. And good for him. That's always annoying.

Edelgard is less confident than Dimitri that he has no regrets of his actions and carefully considered all of them.

Oh, good, Dimitri asks about Patricia. But Edelgard doesn't know what happened either. So, still no answers about her.

Dimitri wants to just end the conversation. I am loving how much he really doesn't want to talk to her. It's so different from Claude who he was curious about.

She falls down because dark magic place does it's thing, then helps her stand up, and they get a picture, which is cool.

It reminds her of when she fell once and took the help without thinking about it. Now she thinks about it.

Dimitri remembers helping a girl up.

I see where this is going, but it's funny such a mundane thing will trigger important memories, lamo.

Edelgard is like, yeah, knowing you, you probably helped a lot of people get up who fell down.

I'm living for these supports acknowledging that Dimitri's a way better person than the other two lol.

He's like, naw, it was you. Edelgard keeps insisting it wasn't her.

He calls her El at the end.

Is this the same support in SB? It works for AG, but man, this asshole just killed Sylvain (and Annette, and Gilbert, and Ingrid, and Rodrigue, and tons of other people from Faerghus simply bc she wants that land back), so I'd be furious seeing it there.

In AG, though, it makes sense.

BACK TO THE CHAPTER

Dimitri's the only one who asks about Shez's wellbeing. Does their dialogue change in different routes?

Oh, cool, I had some access to stuff like the blacksmith, which makes no sense, but ok.

Bad Arval showed up behind Shez, but she alludes it.

Arval says none can escape. But I doubt it.

Dimitri's like, that's bullshit, bc there's no way they'd build this without a way out, and if they can get out, so can we.

And then Dimitri's proved right when Arval says he'll leave, alone.

Ok, I learned this other Arval's name, but I am not going to spell all of that.

So like, after this, do they all just go back to war? Because if they do . . . lol.

They let you use all the 3 lords, but I'll probably only use Shez and Dimitri. Neither Edelgard nor Claude impressed me much when I started this game (and at the time I started, I liked Claude a lot more than I do now).

Oh, so a dark Hubert, Hilda, and Felix showed up. A bit sad it wasn't Dedue, though. I feel like he deserved to be the BL rep even if Felix is more popular. But maybe it was for variety? Like Dedue is another axe like Hilda, but then switch Claude's people out.

At the same time, Felix makes sense, esp in Hopes. He and Dimitri are practically married lol.

Dimitri's like, that's not Felix. He wouldn't get mad at me for doing this and not avenging people. He's not wrong.

Ohhh, not they're fighting phantom versions of themselves.

They had some throwaway lines explaining why Edelgard is normal now.

Lamo, Edelgard doesn't trust herself.

Meanwhile . . . Dimitri . . . is like, really excited about this. Because he gets to kill a version of himself. :((((

Claude's line wasn't as interesting as the other two. I know. Shocking. /s

Dimitri wants to thank Arval for letting him fight and kill himself. I cannot with this man.

Evil Claude just about totaled regular Claude. Edelgard isn't scratched though.

Edelgard and Claude were way more normal about reactions to fighting themselves lol.

I had to make Claude an adjunct. He was nearly dead. It's actually surprising how much worse he is than Edelgard. (Dimitri's not fair to rate against them since he's more built out and not dropped into this map for a one-time battle).

Ok, he summoned more dudes to protect him, and one was a Shez copy the other Dedue. So Dedue got credit too. So now I'm less conflicted about Felix making an appearance.

Shez is upset at fighting herself.

Dimitri feels awful about fighting the shades this time. He's only motivated by all the people he's kept alive in real life.

I defeated Epimedes. That seemed too easy.

Cut scene fight between Shez and Epi. It's pretty badass looking in the dark magic place with falling rocks everywhere. Like, in a cheesy but just roll with it way.

Shez wins. Arval pops back up and they almost hold hands. Arval's never felt more alone :( Honestly, kinda sad things end badly for them. So not recruiting Byleth gives Arval a better ending? Will Arval not be there in the final map before the final battle?

They escaped!

Dimitri's like "it felt like a strange fever dream" and honestly, not a bad way to describe it.

They lost Edelgard and are we back to the normal stuff? Oh, no Shez asks to go back to the search for her and the others. Claude wants to get back to his people too.

Ok, so moving onto the final chapter now.

xxx

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

y’know if there’s one long running theme I’d like to stop in kids/tween/teen shows in the 2020s and beyond..... it’s that awful one where it’s kids who constantly interrupt the class and never do their work or skip class and end up in “summer school” are always the “cool kids”..... and then the priggish, uptight and studious characters, like, say, the comparisons between zack and cody or even maddie on the suite life of zack and cody or lisa vs bart on simpsons or even hermione vs the weasly twins in HP..... were always looked down on etc. but yeah, it was always more obvious in american shows on disney channel or nickelodeon and whatever else I watched.

like, I felt this super deeply in high school mostly; bc for the bulk of high school (years 7-10) i framed myself as the loud, semi-disruptive kid, with some annoying witty remark; to seem cool and funny. but then this backfired on me in 2011, at my year 10 formal/junior prom, when I wasn’t voted the “funniest person in the year” as a formal award..... whereas one of my friends in my group ended up being voted “most likely to succeed in life” or whatever the fuck.

it made teenage me super fucking bitter; because she realised that after all of her “work” trying to build up her “image” as the annoyingly witty semi-priggish kid...... and then the stupid fuckin kid who would actually ask the her teachers to go to the bathroom during class in maths and italian etc.... and then purposely spend literally 40mins out of class just fixing her hair in every bathroom etc.... that she wasn’t even fuckin playing hooky properly. like was all of this a waste to prove that I was “cool” and “memorable??!” or was I really just THAT IRRELEVANT in my year group that everyone actually found me annoying and not “cool” ??? like why should my friend get an award and not me???

bc i was so bitter like: “how dare they not fucking appreciate all the effort that I did to make myself seem “cool” and unbothered and “idgaf” all the time in an environment where everyone was so up themselves, and so self-righteous??? so much so, that literally only one of my friends in that group actually invited me over their house for a sleepover???? like fuck y’all.” thought 16yo me.

there was also that one time I had two girls actually pressure me to play hooky and hangout in the bathroom to skip class, I said no lmao. I couldn’t even skip class right lmao bc i actually asked for permission to skip class, practically. like yeah. so I was weirdly nerdy cool anyway. or so I thought.

bc i actually sat with girls who were nearly all deans scholars or honours students when they finished uni. so their atars (uni entrance scores nsw) at the end of high school were literally 80-90..... while I was just aiming for 50 without studying bc i felt like everyone from both schools at that point, thought I was too stupid to get anything close to 70 as a final mark both with studying, let alone at all anyway so I ended up with 38.25 instead (aside from other factors)....

and the above is bc i was never used to being a high achieving student; all bc i thought it was cool from years 7-10 to barely ever turn in my assignments and fuck around in class for the bulk of high school..... all to be like the bart simpson’s and the zack martin’s; instead of the lisa simpson’s/maddie’s/hermione granger’s etc etc etc. so once i started getting good marks in years 11/12 when I swapped schools; I couldn’t contain for the whole time bc it was just too much responsibility.

so yeah, from this decade onwards.... can this shitty trope where the nerdy-type characters like the lisa’s/maddie’s/hermione’s/cody’s are always seen as priggish, stuckup and prude etc are always seen as downers and seen as a negative trait (minus when it’s actually an incel type character)..... whereas the disruptive and annoyingly loud & witty kids are always “cool” bc it really does fuck up some kids ability to have good grades and stuff, like it did for me.... all because they don’t want to seem like the stuckup know it all, just like one to the girls in my group was. 

but yeah. teach the future gen z or whatever the next gen of kids is called, that being smart like hermione and cody martin is actually good... and that being the forever disruptive kid whose always “in summer school” bc they never do their work is not exactly a good thing to be.

[akiratachimori]

So, I finally watched Kado: The Right Answer

I suggest giving it a watch since it’s quite interesting but fair warning: the last 4 episodes and especially the ending are bs. Overall episodes 0-7 get 8/10 for intrigue and being thought-pomoting, the last for -3 for killing majority of my brain cells.

After giving it a watch, I get why they had to use so much CG, lol. At first, after watching the pilot, I figured that the animators are just really, really bad at drawing full bodies since it was clearly the case in that episode, but given all the dimensional stuff it makes sense they had to use it. I don’t think that animating characters with CG was a bright idea though. Maybe for zaShunina since he is a bit different and as such CG wouldn’t appear as weird as it did with Shindo and other, but, oh well.

Music is quite good too.

Best girls: zaShunina , Kado and dr. Shinawa. And Gonnou. Because it’s not about good or wrong but the truth!

Anyway, I am off to an angry rant about the ending. And then I will go read some fanfiction to clean my eyes. After that, episodes 8-12 do not exist. Forget forget beam!

Honestly, I don’t know where to begin xD

First of all, that negotiator chick is a hypocrite. She was all about claiming ownership over this universe when she and Shindo were on the boat but then complained when zaShunina tried to do what he was intended to from the very beginning.

The romance between Shindo and this chick also came from the left field. She blushed at everything and Shindo didn’t pay much attention to her, except for asking why did she laugh during the first negotiation.

Speaking of negotiation, the topic got derailed in the last episodes because of said romance =_=

The chick was also going all fatalistic that zaShunina wants to pull the whole humanity into the rest of the dimensions, but he said both during the initial and final confrontation that he was going to bring one, let me repeat it louder ONE, person to the anisotropic world. And yet she was going on about him breaking humanity. Now you CAN argue that his plan could be unsuccessful and he would kill Shindo, replicate him and try again until he succeeded and that the copies he makes are not the real thing. Although, if you think about it for 5 seconds, zaShunina was a being of just pure information. If he can understand a concept of suiting something, liking something and so on in a MONTH, then the stupid copy can do the same thing. 

You are probably asking “then why did he start pulling humans into Kado”? Short answer - getting a reaction. He knew that Shindo was alive and that the negotiation chick was up to something so he made them come to him. And beforehand he prepared humans in case something like that would end up happening since he didn’t want to break them.

If Shindo was even half of a good negotiator he claimed to be, he could have convinced zaShunina that a. he doesn’t want to go and he can find someone willing like to go (like dr. Shinawa - GREAT character btw unlike that bullshit negotiator chick), b. since they are friends, it’s not the right to do to try to convince him, kill him and try to convince his copy again later.

Also, what was that “I am going into a negotiation in which I can’t talk” bs. HE LITERALLY TALKED TO HIM FOR 10 MINUTES BEFORE THEY STARTED FIGHTING.

The deus ex machina daughter was bullshit. Don’t get me wrong. Logistically, it was 100% possible to have sex, create hyperspace, give birth and raise the kid until she was older but why would she have more control over zaShunina ? The negotiator chick was only an administrator of the information egg. Even at full power, she wouldn’t have been stronger than him as he is “a complete” being. He still had complete control over all 37 dimension but I guess that brat pulled another 3 out of her ass to whoop his.

Also, a solution of “oh, there is this super powerful being how do we beat him? MORE POWER” is so cheap. Especially since negotiation was supposed to be the premise of the whole. Have their used wits, like they had in the beginning, I would be highly satisfied but nooo. Deus ex god daughter.

Also, I have no reason to sympathize with the negotiator chick. She was antagonizing zaShunina giving ZERO reasons why she disagrees with his ideas and it turns out that the only reason is that she likes this world so he can’t have it. You would think that she would go to him, tell him to fucking clone it and fuck of the anisotropic world but no. She needs to stay hidden and sit on her ass, making dr. Shinawa do all the legwork for her because she can’t be bothered.

Anyway, the negotiation chick was 100% dialogue which was the whole fucking point of the anime and why Shindo got through to zaShunina the end. zaShunina at least was willing to have a conversation and learn but her solution was to wag her finger and try to make humans kick him to his own dimensions.

I felt so bad for zaShunina since he obviously wasn’t malicious or evil. I don’t get why Shindo didn’t even FUCKING TRY to convince him when he was trying to kill him. YOU HAD ONE JOB DAMMIT but no, instead he goes silent and all the magical girl bullshit happens. It’s like whoever was working on this episode took the main theme in his hand and pour gasoline on it, light it on fire and threw it into a burning building.

Honestly, the only reason why Shindo ended up with HER out of all people is that she was a girl. That was honestly the only reason. Given how zaShunina is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he could have a baby too, LAMO and at least it would have an in-universe, or out-universe I guess?, explanation why it’s possible.

Another reason why the ending was silly is because the anime wasn’t action packed really but after the magical gurl reveal we just needed some battles I guess.

I am so pissed. It was so good until all that BS happened.

Especially when you put motivation of zaShunina and the negotiator girl against each other. zaShunina shared technology that could end up a lot of issues humans had and the girl didn’t want humans to have to so that they should figure it out themselves. Who cares that currently you have so many people dying to hunger all over the world. pfff. let those peasants figure it out for on their own because I say so. People die over fighting over resources? zaShunina gave humans infinite energy? Pfff. Fuck that. let those peasants figure it out for on their own because I say so.

The “natural way” is not always the best way. Heck, a lot of people died as babies if they weren’t put into an incubator (aka not natural way).

Maybe if the anime made more argument for individual choice to support the natural way instead of all the magical girl bullshit and ending all humanity lie, it would make more sense but as it stands it feels like “the bad guys” won and they didn’t deserve it.

[replacewythy]

Totally Reprise Episode 96

"I should be on more, I like this show." "It's a good show, I think, anyway." "Yeah." "Eh." "Yeah, fair." "I'm holding myself back from making a super, like, obscure wrestling reference." "Thank you." "Okay." "Why? Like, what changed?" "I feel like buying the Homestuck book is like, extremely normie now." "But then I saw that it was a flag draped over another flag, which I think is a crime? But it's probably fine." "It seems like you have to burn one or both flags now." "No, it's fine, one is just topping the other." "Hey, what if the cartoon squirrel said fuck, and wanted sex." "We're only a month away from a hundred episodes of this shit." "I have not been on all of these, but you two have, and you're coming up on about 200 hours of talking about Totally Spies!" "That seems... fine and normal." "You two are the core of this, I'm just, I'm the moon, circling you." "But that's for cowards, and Clover ain't no fucking coward." "Mandy obviously has not had her memory erased, you know, today" "Do you really think GLADIS would do that shit? That's way beneath her." "There was definitely a point in this episode where I like, looked at Molly and like, this is why Jerry destroys her." "Like, imagine someone chewing like five sticks of gum with their mouth open, it's bad." "Yeah, they got that big league chew." "I mean, I guess LAMOS parked the sub on like the edge of the continental shelf." "GLADIS is a future reader, she probably made these nail files with, you know, three settings: couch, submarine, and rope." "I definitely did write during this episode, and thought it multiple times, uh, that Alex is moe." I mean that's pretty undeniable. "I love that Clover canonically sucks!" "It really just kind of makes you believe in yourself, right? Cause you can be like, man, Clover sucks and she's a spy? Maybe I can be something, too." "They all have their own Jimmy Neutron brain blasts of their own lives." "Pris, stop showing me cat videos while I'm recording." "Sam needed to know how to tie safe knots." "I would like to give my theory for why Alex and Clover did not take it," "Okay." "They never want to have like, even the possibility of untying a knot" "Oh I see, sure." "that they are tied in, because that would kind of ruin it a bit if they knew that they could get out" "I have a different theory for why they didn't take the class." "Cause they already knew. That's what I'm saying." "Well no, I just think they were busy, they were all tied up." "Hey, you wanna see a bad thing I couldn't stop looking at?" "No, but sure." "There were so many times during this episode where I thought Terrence was going to say, Jerrence!" "What if we added Jerrence to the Totally Spies wiki? Do you think anybody would challenge us?" "I think it would be challenged instantaneously, I think we would hit confirm, and by the time we refreshed the page it'd be reverted." "You think so? I don't know" "I'm doing it right now!" I'd put R. Daneel Olivaw in charge of the Illuminati, he's already got experience doing that kind of thing. "I said that, and immediately realized how dumb that sounded. Was hoping I would just be let off the hook." Are you new here or something? "You know, why do we have meatball subs? Why don't they just do that? Why don't they just make meatloaf and slice it thin?" Well great, this question is going to haunt me for the rest of my life now. damn, it must be hard to talk about the superbowl if you've been injected with a nanomachine culture "Ashley, I'm not going to like, skin a woman, to make a bracelet." VENUS EARTH AND SOME OTHER PLANETS "One, Jerrence is still up." "Two, I'm learning that Jerry does have a sister called Sherry, so let me just give you, Sherrence." I made this joke on twitter, but it was because the person who reverted the Jerrence edit was named Sharon? "I can't wait to meet Sherrence." That's my favorite Train song.