#this is a filler post (tm)

[twisting-in-wonderland]

I'm using my guest room to Cope with not getting Jade's halloween card,,

See! Three octavinelle halloween fellas!! It's all fine! Jade's just invisible in his outfit, its allll good! :'^]

[jpegcompressor]

i think dark academia should actually include coding. idgaf if it's not kafkaesque or whatever, coding makes me feel like an evil wizard who is committing several crimes against humanity and loving every minute of it. it is dark academia. to me.

[norcumii]

For future reference

As a shock to possibly everyone, first draft of Balance, story 9 part 1 (of 5? probably?) is DONE!

...not quite 2 years since the last of these, woof. I mean it makes sense - Life Stuff (tm) has kept us busy, and our focus was on finishing Star to Steer By (part 1) and then trying to power through Hard Reset (we are so close on that one! I can see the finish line! There's so many good jokes in sight inbetween all the trauma! :D) so even though this isn't the longest bit in the world, it needed Time.

...it's interesting: we used to need cool down time between chapter finish and posting; now it's more just trying to juggle all the awesome. I think that's skill progression?

Anyway. This lovely little bit's been pretty predictable from the beginning. It hit all the beats we first outlined - no wait, there was that one development that was somewhat more recent which is AWESOME and I adore, so all that extra time was DEFINITELY worth it.

Revised: This chapter hit MOST of the beats we first outlined, though there was wiggle room in stuff that could've been filler but wasn't needed, and of course that surprise bit that was a nice touch.

So not many surprises or lessons, just needing time and regaining the ever elusive energy to put into writing Balance.

and it's all lovely stuff I dig, which is nice. ^_^

[cookiekat-blogz]

last night, I felt a new true terror unknown to man…

the fear of being late to punko’s live.

(Scroll for a satire fanfic styled storytime of me joining the live!)

The cold air and even colder kitchen floor didn’t have an impact on how hot the girl was feeling. The feelings of stress, regret, and fear kicked in as she thoughtlessly paced the polished tile floor, sliding as if she was some sort of ballerina all over again. Yet this time, she was frantic.

There it went again. The hot feeling where she swears she feels her pours open as her body begins to sweat. Is it puberty? The excitement comes in waves as soon as she’s sure the app is finally downloaded and she began to work on calming herself down as the medium hand was only two digits past her preferred time. 8:02. She had time. At least enough to leave one comment on another tumblr post before checking in— but wait…

… the downloading was paused!! She kissed her teeth(wow real Caribbean of you there) as she groaned and turned off her Wi-Fi and unpaused the download on the purple app.

There it was. A message—a question. “Download Twitch on cellular data for 62MB?” She won’t lie, she had no clue what that meant, and still doesn’t. Just that she’s using up her Verizon to get an app that she’ll probably delete once Crimecation was over. There. She finished up the comment that was coincidentally a reminder for Punko’s first Crimecation live and eagerly exited out of the safari engine, telling herself as if it was some sort of Latin chant “it’s okay, you’ll make it”

She opened the app and exited the big purple white and gray styled notification that blocked her vision on her screen. Her thumbs moved in auto-pilot, waiting for no one, and misspellings left with the friends we made along the way. This occurred until the letters on her screen formed “FunWithPunko”.

A familiar account appeared, and before it, a live. ‘47 veiwers’, it read. A cover with Chase Hollow (Like and Follow TM) on it and three sentences spelling out the words “live starting soon”. Her thumbs clicked on it as the anxiety dissipated and the excitement kicked in. She sat down at her kitchen island and smiled as she plugged in her phone.

With this live video came a face, never seen before, one that her poop brown orbs have never laid eyes on, yet the sound— the talking— it was a voice that she recognized. One so familiar to her ears, she couldn’t be mistaken. It was surely Punko. Finally, she’d made it. (and there was a drippy buddy in the corner🔥🔥)

I got there at around 8:04 though and she answered my 3(?) most important questions that weren’t bs fillers for if I had any actual questions to replace them with!!

[doktorpeace]

The Great All Generation Nuzlocks Roundup

This is gonna be long and have multiple parts thanks to the image limit on posts. Each game will be headlined by their title in Bold Print so if you're only interested in certain games it'll be easy to filter through. These notes will also only be on the Successful Run of each game. I'll note how many times I wiped in each game, but largely won't mention those runs for sake of relative brevity.

All runs were performed with the following rules - Only One Encounter Per Route/Zone/Area/Cave [Unique Names Denote Separate Areas] No Duplicate Encounters No Using Items In Battle No In-Game Trades No Overleveling the next Gym Leader or Major Boss Purchased/Gift Pokemon Are Allowed (Though there is only one case where I use one) but count as your encounter for that Area. No Use Of 'Affection' Based Mechanics.

RED - Kanto is a genuine joy to Nuzlocke for a few reasons. It's quick to get going, most early game Pokemon are quite strong (Ratticate, Primeape, Nidoking/queen, and Fearow are all genuinely incredible encounters), and it has probably the most balanced set of starters overall with regards to choice. All three have viable reasonings to be picked in the context of a nuzlocke. I, personally, went with Bulbasaur because my primary goal was to Win The Game and not to flex.

Kanto's also great for developing basic skills for nuzlocking. Team building, knowing when to switch, resource/Power Point management, moveset scouting, etc. all go much farther than normal in Kanto thanks to the poor AI and generally weak enemy trainers.

My favorite thing about it, though, and what made it very fun and a great start is that unlike every other region you can 100% assure yourself VERY powerful encounters in the mid and late game, and I don't mean gift Pokemon. There's just so many routes where all the encounters are filler you're 100% going to have out of the way early (Ratata, pidgey, etc.) that it's a surefire thing that you WILL get a Doduo right outside Celadon, for instance. Extending this to the whole region, you can guarantee you get other extremely potent Pokemon like Slowbro, which I did.

My team in this one was a strong Water/Fire/Grass core and otherwise strong goodstufts that compliment one another well. The surprise of this run was definitely Arcanine. I remember as a kid really being underwhelmed with trying to raise a Growlithe and never really getting the hype behind Arcanine outside of a VGC setting. However, I realized as an adult that keeping it a Growlithe until level 50 for flamethrower is Stupid. I immediately evolved that sucker and taught it Dig, which has 100 base power in gen 1. Arcanine was able to coast off of Dig and Body Slam until we beat Blaine and got the Fire Blast TM. It can also learn Reflect in this gen! All in all a stellar team member whose absolutely massive stats right after obtaining at level 19 really let it shine!

I always forget just how absurd the level swing from even just Lorelei to Blue is though. Just an absolute cliff of increase. Thankfully, however, leveling up in Kanto is a non-issue, so I was able to keep pace even while abiding Hardcore Nuzlocke rules. Total Wipes - 0

CRYSTAL - My overall opinion on Johto really hasn't changed at all, lol. It's still suffers a lot from what I'll call 'Fake Nonlinearity'. Like, sure, you CAN go to a lot of places after beating Morty but like...why would you do anything but go Chuck->Jasmine->Pryce and their associated content? It's not like you can meaningfully get strong early since the entire region has a dearth of strong trainers and wild pokemon alike. It's simply not productive to do things outside of the obviously intended order, except perhaps in the context of a Nuzlocke and trying to get some encounters early.

What does give Nuzlocking this region a unique flavor is that the best pokemon in the game, Alakazam, is a 100% ensured encounter assuming you're willing to pass over the free Eevee from Bill, which you should be. For a mere 200 coins at the game corner, you can get an Abra which can immediately be taught all 3 elemental punches on the cheap and raised up. Johto Nuzlockes thus take the form more of building an ensemble cast to support your clear Main Character, rather than building a cohesive team. As a result, Steelix and Machamp greatly stood out for being so dramatically different from Alakazam that they could patch up his few deficiencies.

We faced a setback VERY late and lost our Tauros on Victory Road, leading to the emergency training of Golly the Politoed. He ended up doing almost nothing, but that's true for the entire team besides Pugilist, who swept the entire Elite 4 and Lance unassisted.

It was definitely a fun time and had a very unique flavor compared to other regions. What Johto offers it does offer uniquely, at least.

Total Wipes - 2 (Rival Fight in Azalea Town Gym Leader Morty)

EMERALD - I'm gonna be totally honest. I love Hoenn and I love Gen 3 but I had somehow never actually pushed all the way through Emerald before. I've beaten Sapphire and ORAS each several times, so there was some nice new stuff to me waiting. Emerald is the first game you can play that still feels 'Modern' even without the Phys/Special split. The gameplay design, routes, and everything else just feel much more well realized and iterated upon, which makes sense. Gen 2 was made to capitalize on the Pokemon Craze where Gen 3 was made with the idea of 'Oh, we have a long running thing on our hands.' They worked to impress!

That said, I don't have all that much to say! Emerald is a very Standard Pokemon game and I had a lot of fun with it. I did end up repeating a single pokemon on my endgame team, Gyarados, but most of the run was played without it. I simply blundered a good number of strong encounters away in the midgame and had to fall back on a Pokemon I knew would be strong and could help get me through the Elite 4 and Juan!

This team has a very funny Water/Fire/Grass/Water/Grass core and it's also the first game where I actually EV trained my team on purpose. Thanks to Gen 3's thoughtful encounter design, training up Sp. Attack, HP, Speed, and Defense are all trivial, which greatly helped out. Sunny Day on Ludicolo was specifically to counter Juan, and we NEEDED it too because we lost Gyarados to Drake and Juan got TWO FREEZES in that final battle, so I needed Ludicolo to put in extra work. All in all, this was definitely one of my weaker Final teams, but I partly blame that on my relative unfamiliarity with Emerald's mid and late game. I also simply was not using all the resources at my disposal, which would dramatically change starting with the next game. The big surprise was honestly Electrode, who was a pretty stellar and reliable teammate all through the late and endgame due to fast, strong thunderbolts and screens support.

This game had a nickname theme - Fruits.

Total Wipes - 1 (Gym Leader Brawly)

PLATINUM - If you've followed me long enough you know I've historically been very hard on Gen 4. I do not like Diamond/Pearl and have started and dropped Platinum many times. However, this run I had a genuine joy playing through. Really and truly, playing in this format with the momentum of three runs behind me energized me to see Sinnoh in a new light and I can truly appreciate the dramatic improvements Platinum makes to the region. Most importantly, I've made a new, lifelong friend.

Encountered as a Nosepass at level 14 in Mt.Coronet, Cao Cao was a true champion and help throughout the midgame and into the early late game. Stonewalling tons of trainers, enabling easy captures on lots of encounters, offering free and important switches at critical moments, and just generally being a reliable member of our core duo for most of the game with Rotom Fan...but we lost him at Iron Island in a completely optional double battle... (artist's rendition in the workbench room at my office)

To make matters worse, the teammate we went to Iron Island for, our Scyther so we could evolve her into Scizor, would also be lost shortly before the Elite 4, rendering his loss all the more painful! I knew, for him, we had to carry on and we had to win.

And win we did. My total unfamiliarity with Platinum past the first couple gyms had me doing much more planning and research out of game on upcoming trainers to help ensure a strong run. As a result we lost far less team members than in the past three runs. In particular I was really sweating the encounters with Barry, who is dramatically stronger than previous rivals. But really, we didn't have any noteworthy losses to him.

Platinum is certainly a challenging game in its back quarter but it also really squanders its otherwise quite excellent pacing in the first two thirds or so of the game. After the sixth gym the game gets really long in the tooth and I was just ready for it to be over by the end. Nonetheless, I did have quite a lot of fun and when I play Platinum again in the future I'll definitely do it as a more casual nuzlocke, for fun.

For the vast majority of this run I had a Rotom Fan, Probopass, and Scizor but they were all lost somewhat to VERY late and were replaced with the bottom row. While Whiscash and Porygon 2 stepped right up and were excellent performers, Bronzong was absolutely abysmal and did nothing but provide a single free switch against Cynthia. This run also came closest to dying, with only Crobat surviving the champion battle. (in my heart, however, any team that completes the game all get to go on and I have in fact transferred them into pokemon home, lol) Wuxuan the Crobat was basically my true starter. With me from before the first gym and all the way through to the end. A stellar pokemon. While this run endeared me to many Pokemon I hadn't used in game - or at all - before in Rapidash, Crobat, and Rotom Fan, above them all stands my new true friend, Probopass.

This run was downright cursed when it came to natures, too. Basically every single encounter had a nature that was negative on their most important stat. It was really frustrating, tbh!

This game has the second and final case of a team having a duplicate species of a previous team - Machamp This game has a nickname theme - Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Total Wipes - 0

Post will continue in a Part 2 because of the post image limit.

[hxdrostorms]

@eternalstarlights has sent: 🌸 = my roleplay petpeeve, 🌵 = a disliked canon character in my fandom,💐 = my favorite part about the fandom, 🌿 = my least favorite part about the fandom

Send me a symbol and I will tell you… [Accepting]

🌸 = my roleplay petpeeve

// Bc this has been happening across several blogs, not just here:

Reblog karma: If you have no plans of sending something back, then the least you should do is reblog them, from the source or look elsewhere in the posts' notes to reblog from.

I'm constantly going back in my prompts tag to delete old reblogs. BUT THERE ARE STILL, complete strangers who dig through it and reblog it from me. Like?????????? That has the same effect as a 'fuck you' in my DMs. It's 10x funnier, if it is one of those blogs with a long ass pinned/rules page. And they still had no qualms in doing this shit. It's not quirky, let me tell you that much.

Notice, I'm not complaining about not receiving asks whenever I reblog something. That's not an issue for me (mutuals/rp partners should only send stuff, when they genuinely feel like doing so, without any obligations). All I'm asking is to not make me feel like, I'm just a RP memes archive type of blog, that's only there to provide writing prompts & nothing else. I may not be the most active RPer, but none of my blogs are abandoned.

This has been a long running peeve I've been having to deal with, for YEARS. And it made a resurface as of lately.

🌵 = a disliked canon character in my fandom

// Hades & his spectres/Judges are overrated as fuck IMO LOL I say as a clown, bc I'm a classic golds dweeb fan. Clearly, I'm not in a position to say what is or isn't overrated.

Jokes aside. It may have been a result of the way I tried watching the classic series (by binge watching the entire thing). BUT when I got to the Hades arc, I got SO mad when I realized they brought back those drawn out battles. Like those were my least enjoyed bits of the early parts of the anime and the Sanctuary arc, meanwhile the Poseidon arc didn't have any of that (which is why I rate the Poseidon arc as my favorite one of the anime adaptation. 15 episodes with NO filler??? HELL YEAH.).

You can say I was already pretty burned, and should have slowed down with the final part of the series. But even then, I don't think that would have changed a thing about my general disinterest towards Hades' servants. Visually speaking to me, they are the messiest and most boring looking characters from the classic series (they only ever wear 1 color and look way too much like a toy, than some form of proper armor).

Rhadama.nthys is the biggest bitch in the club, to me he was the most insufferable. "He is the strongest*tm of all judges." *= only when Hades is straight up cheating and the story feels like unnecessarily drag things out. Reminder that Kanon killed him without any cloth equipped, and he went out the way HE chose to. He literally didn't even have to TRY.

My favorite part of the Hades arc was seeing Kanon wipe the floor, with everyone he crossed paths with. This feels 10x more satisfying, after reading the Destiny & Origins extra chapters.

💐 = my favorite part about the fandom

// I truly mean when I say, this is the chillest community I've been in a long time. Case in point: I haven't felt THIS artiscally inspired in YEARS. I've been doing so many works, I'm literally running an event in the main fandom. I've been brimming with inspiration to do so many things, that goes beyond the RPing aspect. And it has improved my general mental health SO much!

I'm forever thankful for getting into Sts LOL

🌿 = my least favorite part about the fandom

// If you exclusively speak English, you will suffer to find anything or anyone else from this fandom. Which isn't a problem for me at all but, I can see how frustrating or sad it must feel like, you can't get into a community due to a language barrier.

And the community itself isn't exactly the friendliest one towards gringos. Which I mean............ You can't blame us for feeling defensive, when literally every other fandom went down to shit, when things became very American-centered.

Not to start the whole Anti vs proship debate. BUT It is a fact that all antis (ppl who want to be cops/have no qualms with harrassing or policing others/etc.) I've come across are an American, who's way too enthralled in their lil bubble they call world. Then they have a breakdown bc as it turns out, the rest of the world isn't AT ALL like them. And there's genuine pushback/retaliation from the community, against these kinds of whiny bitchass mfers LOL.

Obviously, this doesn't mean the fandom is perfect nor it's an Utopia, where there isn't drama at all. BUT when compared to others, it feels a lot tamer in comparison. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of coming off as a very closed off fandom, that's centered around overseas things for a change.

[joons]

Hey Chelsea, I have an Agenda(tm)! Help me convince the Nancy Drew fandom that they need to watch Lockwood & Co!

And you are so real for that!

A lot of reviews have made clear, favorable comparisons to Doctor Who or Sherlock, but CW's Nancy Drew is absolutely the third part of that formula because Nancy Drew and Lockwood & Co. are much more teen- and team-based than those other shows. Both Nancy Drew and Lockwood & Co. are about

found families teaming up against the supernatural (and against real murderers)

pining after one another, with great romances that don't overwhelm the primary dynamic of friends willing to risk it all so that someone else is slightly less sad

providing solace to ghosts and opening yourself up to your emotions and empathy

haunted boys with amazing hair

main characters whose flaws don't make them incapable or undeserving of love

accepting grief and working through mental illness and trauma

making a cozy home out of somewhere you never thought you'd end up, with an incredible atmosphere and soundtrack

The main difference is just that Lockwood & Co. is shorter and very tightly plotted because it follows the original novels so closely, and it has a bit less of a monster-of-the-week structure as a result. But it still has the feeling of good filler, the downtime of letting an audience fall in love with the world and the characters. The acting on both shows is phenomenal. The writing of both perfectly hits the balance between fun, supernatural action and emotional HOLY SHIT moments.

And both have the possession-as-a-way-to-express-my-hidden-feelings trope. COME HERE, DREWDS. It's a show based on some of my FAVORITE books, and if you're nervous about starting a Netflix show, please know that the books are wonderful and will provide closure if we don't get more episodes. It's just eight episodes as of now, all the needle drops are post-punk analog bands, more cups of tea than you can ever imagine will be CONSUMED, a skull will TALK--

If you're missing the Drew Crew as much as I am, let these repressed British teenagers with swords soothe your wounded heart.

[johnpallo]

This is going to be a bit of a rant.

There's a lot of friction in the current Discourse(tm) between two sorts of media enjoyers: The people who want media that's more comfortable, and the people who see virtue in media that upsets and challenges. I'm generalizing for the sake of this post, but I do think it more or less summarizes the arguments I've seen on both sides.

Part of what bothers me about taking one of these sides or the other is that it assumes a kind of false dichotomy. A piece of media is either family friendly, for kids, comfortable, twee, or whatever other label you want to apply to say it's generally not upsetting to the experiencer; or the work is gritty, "realistic," honest, raw, uncomfortable, challenging, etc.

To me, this kind of dichotomy is unhelpful, and leads to arguments that actually stifle creativity rather than promote it. Most recently I saw a tweet of a gamedev who said she liked Disco Elysium's branching story mechanics, but wasn't a fan of it being a gritty detective story. She then suggested what if you took those mechanics and applied them to a lighter setting, like a witch in a small town solving a low-stakes mystery. From responses I saw on this site, people seemed to HATE the idea that someone could want a story with the narrative depth and choice of Disco Elysium without the same complicated subject matter as DE. One comment said "Imagine if Disco Elysium was about nothing."

I find this idea, that a story with low stakes is "about nothing," to be really annoying. Low stakes stories can in many ways be far more human, able to focus deeply on characters and who they are and how they grow. One of my favorite movies is From Up On Poppy Hill, all in all a pretty low stakes romance story, but I love it for the ways it's able to explore its characters and their choices. I also love Princess Mononoke, a story with MUCH higher stakes that deals with man versus nature and cycles of violence. Each film is good at different things, and I wouldn't want either one to try to be the other.

On the other end of the spectrum, saying that works are "better" with low stakes and less uncomfortable content is also a bad take. This leads to things like people saying there should never be a sex scene in a story because it doesn't "contribute to the plot." Sex, drugs, violence, and all sorts of other potentially uncomfortable topics can be filler, sure, but they can also be powerful tools to explore important topics. But I'm kinda preaching to the choir for most of the people on this site with this point.

On the other side, lighter fair can still be just as important. Heartstopper is a show I've often seen criticized for being too twee, too naive or optimistic in its portrayal of queer experiences, but even this show manages to deal with topics like homophobia, difficult family relationships for queer kids, and eating disorders. Just because a work's over all tone leans towards light and inoffensive, or even outright slice-of-life, doesn't mean there isn't meaningful storytelling happening.

I don't have a strong conclusion to this rant, but I hope that one day people stop with the perpetuation of this strange false dichotomy that a work is either low-stakes, soft, and story-less, or else a story has to be gritty, dark, and meaningful. Escapist media can still make you think. Low-stakes are not the same thing are no story. Explorations of joy can be just as important to us as explorations of pain or loss. Some of the most meaningful stories are about ordinary people, living and changing beside one another.

[hydrajones]

I am in the middle of third Revolutionary Girl Utena watch. My mom (foolishly) agreed to watch it with me, and is having a lot of really cool insights/theories/reactions that I might post about later. But that's not the point rn-

Because as RGU girlies know, each time you watch this high concept doctoral thesis disguised as an artsy anime disguised as a cute lesbian anime, you have DEEP THOUGHTS (tm) about random shots.

TLDR: I am having losing my mind over the goddamm curry episode and I both love and hate it

I have been sitting here for 30+ mins thinking about what the deeper symbolism of the fricking elephant gag in the body swap curry episode becuase I made ONE (1) offhand comment to my mom of "lol maybe that means something about "the elephant in the room" becuase of the Saonji side plot or something". AND I COULD BE RIGHT ABOUT THAT-

Like, Saonji is clearly a ticking time bomb rn that went completely unaddressed and exploded in the next ep but IT GOES DEEPER.

Because the Saionji situation is being influenced by Touga, so it could be about him too (especially with his connections to Nanami). BUT! That's being influenced by Akio- who to be fair, we don't know about yet, but the make it clear that "The End of the World" is doing SOMETHING behind the scenes, so that could work too

And then you have Anthy Himemiya my beloved, who is ACTIVELY helping with both these manipulations, and LYING to Utena constantly. And this episode actually has one of the best examples of this! We find out she's been sort-of secretly meeting with Saionji and writting in his exchange diary. Which she justifies as being okay becuase Utena never told her NOT to write him. Which only happened becuase Utena isn't a possessive asshat who snooped on Anthy to find out she'd been doing that in the first place. So really, ANTHY is the biggest elephant in the room. Especially with episode 12 quickly approaching.

But like, that might not be the only elephant symbolism interpretation. My brain has been slowly weaving yet ABOTHER exhaustive analysis of a NANAMI FILLER EPISODE. Using elephants as symbols of wisdom and/or memory and just-

Someone, send help. Please. My brain is full of nothing but metaphor heavy visuals and iconic leabiams and I will fail my classes-

[baiika]

Karin's powers are quite remarkable.

Albeit fairly mild, this post contains descriptions of violence, injury, gore, & body horror. Reader discretion is advised.

From chapter 88.5, at a mere eleven years old, we see Karin using her soccer ball to smoke hollows alongside Jinta, Ururu, & Don Kanonji.

I think this is something other than a Fullbringer. As Kuugo explains in chapter 432, Fullbringers start by controlling the souls of objects, & have great affinity with objects dear to them.

This is reaffirmed when Chad explains how he tapped into his Fullbring in chapter 436.

Additionally, objects Fullbringers control emit the Bringer Light, as first featured in chapter 432 & later extrapolated on in chapters 443 & 445.

However, I have yet to see any indication that Karin takes notable pride in soccer, & there's no presence of Bringer Light.

But like Ichigo & Masaki, Karin is a Quincy, & there is a technique that allows Quincy to move objects.

There are two forms of matter in Bleach, kishi & reishi, as explained in chapter 70.

Kishi is the matter of the World of the Living & reishi is the matter of the Soul Society, & they can interact in a multitude of ways, given hollows, despite being made of reishi, are still able to destroy buildings & injure people as we see from the first chapter.

Reishi particles are present in the World of the Living, otherwise, Quincy, who by & large, resided in the World of the Living up until the shinigami committed genocide against them, wouldn't be able to manifest their bows to slay hollows, use hirenkyaku, or ransoutengai.

(Ransoutengai is a technique allowing Quincy to manipulate their bodies using reishi, as explained in chapter 124)

Now, if Quincies primarily resided in the World of the Living, which is made of kishi, but used ransoutengai, which is made of reishi, to manipulate their bodies, why can't it be applied to other objects of kishi?

You can say whatever you want about Karin being unable to use sophisticated Quincy techniques, whether due to inexperience or lack of formal training, but if her powers aren't a Fullbring, how else is she using a soccer ball to fight hollows?

This is where Karin's philosophy diverges from other Quincies. They dream small, & operate within a small box of tradition, but Karin is a survivalist, as I demonstrate in Karin's timeline from life to death.

Because the World of the Living is made of kishi, reishi is more challenging to come across. This would directly correlate with the difficulty of moving larger or heavier objects since it would require more effort to gather thinner reishi to puppeteer items. Something like a soccer ball is simple precisely because it's small & lightweight, thus a) requiring less reishi to be maneuvered into place to move it, & b) I imagine packing more reishi onto it gives it more oomph, kind of like how one rubber band won't break a watermelon, but hundreds can & do. This logic can extend further. If hollows can smash buildings, enough reishi can act as solid matter & be focused on smothering fires, rerouting the flow of water, et cetera. 

However, reishi manipulation is especially fearsome in the Soul Society because it & its denizens are made entirely of reishi. Suddenly, lifting a building is less of a matter of collecting enough reishi to do x or y & more of a matter of controlling each particle of reishi. This would make feats like lifting a building an entirely different ball game.

Now, Karin is very driven when she is interested in something. I'm unsure of the veracity of this but this is kind of where things begin to drift into headcanon, but back in Ye Olden Days(tm), this post was shared quoting a Japanese wiki.

Based on the draft by the manga author [Kubo], the anime original episode 132 features [Kurosaki Karin and] Hitsugaya Toushirou playing a game of soccer when during the match a Hollow attacks, and she discovers he is a shinigami.

According to this, this makes episode 132 more canon than other fillers, so I will approach it as canon.

On top of going out of her way to fight hollows for glory, as seen in chapter 88.5 with Don Kanonji, Ururu, & Jinta, this episode displays that Karin & company have been offended & she becomes intent on shoving that shit in their bullys' faces. She's driven by fighting; she's driven in her personal life.

Because Karin wants so badly to be a shinigami, she hones her skills wherever she is. After dying, I know she could accomplish incredible feats, like moving buildings, with ease.

But wait, there's more, & it's worse!

We see Uryuu dissolve buildings in chapter 125

& Quilge dissolving Ayon, Orihime, Chad, Nel, & the Tres Beastias in chapter 493.

Now, these people are dreaming so small just using their reishi manipulation as fuel. Sit down & imagine what you could do with imagination & precision.

We know that folks made of reishi still have bodies similar to folks made of kishi. We see Gin disembowel someone in TBTP, Izuru quotes internal damage to Momo & Rangiku in chapter 337, & there's LOTS of blood, meaning they have cardiovascular systems. All of which are made of reishi.

If Quincy are able to dissolve people made of reishi, why can't they manipulate the minutia of the body?

In theory, blood vessels & tendons could be weakened or altogether torn. Bones could be broken. Organs ruptured. Complete control of the endocrine system can be obtained. If Karin didn't want to use ransoutengai, she could even move someone's body. A lot of locomotion is just the contraction of muscles and tendons. All that's required is the precision & basic understanding of human anatomy, which Karin has, having grown up in a clinic.

With some practice, Karin could level cities, perform assassinations & torture, & cause great emotional anguish without so much as lifting a fucking finger.

What stops her from doing so are her principles. Karin is a vengeful person, & she is violent, & hedonistic. I will extrapolate another time. But Karin isn't wantonly cruel. She doesn't derive pleasure or fun from causing pain. She wanted to become a shinigami to fight hollows. It's the challenge that excites her. There is nothing to be gained from this kind of sociopathy shy of an incredibly cruel personal affront, such as sexual assault, genocide, etc. So you have nothing to fear! Probably.

[wellthatwasaletdown]

With the way he’s aged over the last two years he’d have looked like her dad at the premiere.

lol shush..harries are going to be on the warpath. we’re supposed to pretend clown is still cute and still looks 16. people like princess harry (i.e. fake af) don’t age you know. they just get botox, fillers, wigs, wigs and more wigs and they have deranged fans who have time to make 71,999 blogs to reblog pictures from 10 years ago since pics of him now make him look extra aged and reveal what a creep he is. they’re going to school us lol and use their math sciencetology to explain why in clown years, at the age of 29, harry looks 57. and also why he needs a gps to find face holes (tm someone but e.g. emrata. god bless her for trying to guide him but lols that he still kept trying to peck her eyes out. the man’s got “skillz” yo.)

That video I posted the other day explained the HEmrata kiss. He thinks there're only two holes on a woman's body. Him was confused and befuddled.

[easyplesi]

Tag Game

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it.

I was tagged by @ogsimpgoose and then accidentally forgot abt it for a few days LMFAO. I was reminded tonight hence the poor formatting of the post because I’m doing this on my phone before I pass out.

I’m fairly certain @pastel-skulls hasn’t been tagged yet :) suffer

world building works

“The Myceal Desert” — originally a world doc dedicated to a cat civilization heavily inspired by Ancient Egypt that I’ve been considering adding into my Big Project (tm)

“The Origins” — a word doc dedicated to the scribbled down notes I have surrounding what was originally Wolvden Lore but has since grown into something much bigger. It’s currently mostly about the Parthenon of Gods that rule over my various wolf packs.

“End / Elytrian Lore” — a doc I have that’s similar to the Origins doc in the sense that it’s filled with what is mostly mindless notes and scribbles. Though this one is about my Minecraft Au and the History and Biology of the creatures of the End Dimension.

“The ARK” — admittedly my most empty word doc that is going to be scribbles of ideas for my AU based around the game Ark: Survival Evolved with the slightest hint of Horizon: Zero Dawn.

original character works

“The Afterwood CYA” — a choose your own adventure style game I’ve been working on and off over the past year. Essentially you play the part of a wolf (yes, within the Origins universe) that wakes up within a world of eldritch horrors and must do what you can to survive.

“Afterwood CYA Prologue” — another choose your own adventure game that would act like a prologue to the above. Unlike the above, though, it would have a ‘canon’ ending that would be alluded to throughout the main CYA game. It’s meant to be like a tutorial level for the larger CYA.

“Ghast loses her wings” — an original character of mine (more specifically, an elytrian minecraft oc based off the Origins Mod) gets her wings ripped off a la Maleficent style and has to come to terms with the consequences of that, both mentally and physically. The story is actually told through the eyes of Goose’s (tagged above! :D) OC.

“Lord of the Rain” — a God within ‘the Origins’ Universe, Thunder Weaver, comes face to face with his murderer; the woman who loved him more than anything.

Abandoned Works

^ I do not plan on finishing these fics, but I would be more than happy to answer questions about them :)

“In the Beginning, there was Nothing.” — a short, “introduction monologue” style fic that would have introduced the Parthenon of the Origin Universe as well as the reasoning behind their creation.

“Into the Night Sky” — another wolf fic but it was more of a ‘filler’ than anything else. Originally meant to be a short little scene explaining the beginning of a massive shift within one of the packs and was heavily inspired by dialogue from the show Grey’s Anatomy.

“Driftrot” — “My parents named me Vulturekit, for the markings on my face. My father always seemed proud of it, some sort of sign from Starclan, but as I grew it just felt like a bitter reminder.”

“Dying” — “Frosted was never an optimist, so when he realizes that Badger Bite doesn’t have the herbs he needs to help his friend recover from influenza, he goes to extremes to ensure Whispering Wood’s survival.” Set within the Origin universe.

[glamoplasm]

hii your kingdom hearts posting is getting to me is kingdom hearts any good?? idk anything abt it other than theres disney characters, keyblades, theres a lot of games and you play them in a weird order, and my friend cloud strife is there. the disney characters are really throwing me off bc everything i see abt the original kh characters looks good and also i love my friend cloud but is it worth getting into? or is it one of those things thats good bc youre already into it and u love it? i ❤️ piracy and have a hacked 3ds so the price of so many games is not an issue. u do not have to answer this ofc! but i thought it was worth asking nc the art u are reblogging is intriguing to me

smile :)

my short answer is, i think its good! definition of good here being it was really fun to get into. i havent personally actually played any of the games if you're planning to play them tho- all of them are action rpgs, the first has like a certain amount of platforming and also bad camera controls that are just kind of a given considering its age. if you enjoy those types of games tho, its still very fun! holds up well. most of them are first and foremost playstation games except for 358/2 Days, which was a ds game (it hasnt had a remake like some of the other games, which is sad bc it has some of the best story and the cutscenes by themselves miss A Lot, but the gameplay itself is uh. Rough)

first, look up "kingdom hearts 1 opening"

if you think that looks sick as hell, i would honestly try out the first game and see how you feel about it afterwards! watching someone play that was what got me interested in digging into the entire thing and it is the first game so its a naturally good introduction with none of the weight of all the stuff that gets added over the years to the Lore. if you like 1 you can either play them in release order or chronological order and both would work probably. except the mobile game kh union x stuff i wouldnt touch that until you go through everything prior to kh3 even if its chronologically the first

(more details under the cut since this is getting long lol)

extremely basic summary: a young boy, sora, lives on a group of islands called destiny islands with his best friends, riku and kairi, and they dream of exploring outside their small home. sora and all his friends are taken from the island and their world by the forces of darkness and are swept into a grand battle of light and dark. he teams up with donald and goofy from Disney(tm) and they fight monsters born from the darkness in people's hearts. sora has a blade that's a key bc he unlocks doors between worlds and hearts and stuff. rinse and repeat with a new iteration on the enemies you're facing and the worlds you visit

asides from the disney, the basic plot there is very normal jrpg fare! whats special about it to me is in the specifics, its visuals (i think despite not liking disney as a company the existence of these differing tones and visual styles is what Makes kh what it is), the non disney world and monster designs, the weirdness of a lot of the scenes and writing, and its complete sincerity in statements that are inherently very corny. while the themes shift and compound, the primary theme is connections between people and how those make up who you are and your heart.

you may have heard the story is confusing. honestly, i think this is mostly hyperbole and it makes as much sense as it really needs to. there are bits of lore that are definitely confusing but the games explain everything in such a way that the concepts arent confusing, they just sound weird when taken out of context. not that a lot of it isnt really silly and weird LMAO just that its easy enough to follow and grasp what its going for

re: the disney sections (like the actual worlds): theyre at best like. inoffensive filler i guess LOL. you can really see disney not giving a shit about their part in kingdom hearts the later it goes, with the kh3 disney worlds being like. sure lets put the entirety of frozen's "let it go" in who gives a fuck. however this was after pixar was bought out by disney, and the people working on the pixar stuff that was subsequently added to kh3 definitely put more thought into them as far as tying it in thematically to the rest. still not majorly important tho asides from a couple plot relevant scenes.

you will never escape the Big disney characters tho lol. mickey mouse will Always be there after kh1, as well as donald and goofy who are literally the main character's party members. against my better judgement i do enjoy donald and goofy in kh, and find them generally fun characters despite having limited personal nostalgia about them! they're fine to have around.

if u want to see cloud strife our friend, i will say he isnt there a lot and he's in full sulky guy mode, tho a Lot of final fantasy characters are included until kh3 where i guess they decided they were going to stop putting ff characters in for whatever reason. sephiroth is a major secret boss fight in both 1 and 2. yuffie, aerith, cid, and leon are there immediately. tifa is in 2. barret has never shown up despite all the other ff7 main characters which is a little. raises eyebrow. but whatever

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

[Games in 2023: Pokemon DLC "The Teal Mask"]

*Insert screenshot of Nemona shouting “It’s TIIIME!”*

Given that Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are somewhat controversial, I’ll just get my thoughts on the base game out now.  Yes, they run like shit.  Yes, the most profitable franchise in existence maybe shouldn’t have this problem.  Yes, I dearly hope the developers get more time to work their craft going forward.  Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing Violet.  No, performance issues (which have plagued Pokémon continuously since the beginning) aren’t enough to single-handedly destroy the experience for me.  Yes, I think the performance issues are the only glaring flaw, and that Scarlet and Violet are otherwise excellent Pokémon games.  With that out of the way…

I’m a fan of Pokémon adopting this new DLC model as opposed to creating third versions or second paired versions.  It offers all the benefits of getting a revised, expanded version of the games at half the cost! (Certainly wish the old style had gone out on a high note rather than fucking USUM, but…) And in this case, the remaining mysteries surrounding Area Zero still have quite the firm grip on me.  Like I said before, this is probably the first time (at least in a long while) I’ve actually sought out Pokémon theories rather than avoiding them.  So I’ve been awfully excited to get my hands on Teal Mask and see if it has any answers for us!

This post will contain spoilers for base SV and Teal Mask, so tl;dr: Kitakami is plenty fun to explore and brings back some Pokémon I really like, though I’d always like more, and the story feels just a little like filler.  Also, Gligar is a Scarlet exclusive and that makes me sad. D:

It seems that, like Isle of Armor, Teal Mask can open up early in the main game, and then the levels all jump after you clear…well, I’m not sure how much exactly, but after endgame stuff.  This sounds neat but I’ve already beaten the game, so there’s not much more I can say on that point.  After a bit of story you obtain the Teal Style Card to unlock new customization options, though only a few caught my eye personally. (You can buy Professor Laventon’s hat now!!) The boutiques and salons all have a little teal card icon next to the new stuff, which is a touch I really like, makes it easier for me to skim the new stuff rather than going through everything.  I can’t remember if this was done in SwSh or not?  There are also 30 new TMs available using materials dropped by the new Pokémon ranging from exciting choices like Solar Blade and Scald and High Horsepower, to…Roar?  And, uh, Super Fang…huh.  But of course, new DLC means more Pokémon!  There aren’t too many brand new ones—four legendaries and a new two-stage convergent Pokémon—but that feels about on par so I’m not complaining.  As for newly returning Pokémon, about 100 are brought back, which is…a relatively small amount if I really think about it.  I dunno, each game having limits on what can be transferred in is still new so I’m not quite sure how to judge this sort of thing yet.  If nothing else it makes it pretty quick to complete the Kitakami Dex, getting you a charm that increases the number of Tera Shards you get from raids.  I haven’t been changing my Pokémon’s Tera Types yet but I’m thinking of experimenting once I get this.

The new map added in this DLC is the region of Kitakami, based on an area of Japan just a bit south of Hokkaido/Sinnoh/Hisui (note this, it’s important).  It’s really cool to be able to go to a completely separate region like in the Johto games, even if the scale here is noticeably smaller.  The map is centered around Oni Mountain much the same way Paldea is centered around the Great Crater, with some fields, wasteland, and a forest surrounding it.  There’s a lot of Pokémon and items all over the mountain, plus several paths through it, and at the very top is a pool of water containing terastal crystals…interesting.  The peak’s music even has a hint of Area Zero in it. (I’m going to put a pin in that for now.) If you do want to go back to Paldea, all you have to do is open your map, press a shoulder button to switch regions, and fly there—it’s wonderfully convenient!  There are also new icons for the loading screen when flying: a taxi being carried by Noctowl if you’re in Kitakami, and an airplane briefly crossing paths with a Dragonite when you move between regions.  It’s a charming little addition.

Now then, let’s talk about the story.  Once you gain access to the Teal Mask content, you receive a call from Mr. Jacq informing you that you’re one of four students who have been randomly selected to go on a school trip to the faraway Kitakami region!  Upon heading back to the academy for details, you encounter Ms. Briar, a teacher at your sister school Blueberry Academy—she’ll be chaperoning you in addition to a few Blueberry students.  She very quickly brings up Area Zero and drops that she’s a descendant of Heath, pulls out the original manuscript of the Scarlet/Violet Book, and shows you an unredacted version of the passage about Terapagos.  Okay.  Sudden, but interesting.  She’s also going through the process of getting permission to enter Area Zero herself, so I guess that’s going to be how the DLC storylines lead us back there.  Her motivation of proving Heath was right interests me, there are a few potential directions it could go, but for now it’s…well, I’ll save that for later.  When you arrive in Kitakami you encounter a pair of Blueberry students: Carmine and Kieran, siblings who originally grew up here in Kitakami.  An overbearing older sibling and a quiet younger sibling, that’s a fine enough place to start.  Your assignment for the trip is to search out signboards relating a legend about Pokémon known as the Loyal Three sacrificing themselves to protect the region from a rampaging Ogre, and midway through you attend a festival that celebrates that same legend.  And, to your surprise, the Pokémon Ogerpon makes an appearance!  However, she makes a hasty retreat, dropping the titular Teal Mask in the process.

This is where the story really kicks off…and it’s a rather contentious inciting incident.  You see, Kieran always loved the ogre from the legend (obviously Ogerpon).  But during the festival, only you the player and Carmine saw Ogerpon, and Carmine immediately decides we need to hide this from Kieran because he would be sad that he missed out…or something.  It’s honestly pretty flimsy, and as you can probably guess this secret eventually comes out and causes some completely avoidable tension between the characters.  From here Carmine warms up to you and Kieran develops some kind of inferiority complex (I think?), which…as a trajectory for these characters, developing in ways inverse to your initial impressions of them, is a perfectly sound idea.  The execution here, though, is serviceable at best.  Obviously we’re going to see more of these two in the Indigo Disk DLC, so I’m hoping they’re improved upon there; myself, I think they both need more concrete backstory as a start.  I don’t really understand why Carmine is Like That, or why Kieran has such a deep well of rage to tap.  I dunno, after Starfall Street and everything with Arven I had my expectations set a little higher.

One thing that did intrigue me: Carmine and Kieran’s grandfather explains that the legend of the ogre and the Loyal Three is actually bullshit!  Ogerpon and a human came to Kitakami from a faraway land long ago, but the people were scared of them, so the only way they could live in peace was with the help of a mask maker.  The beautiful masks he made concealed their identities, but also attracted the attention of three greedy Pokémon, who stole three of the four masks and killed the human.  Ogerpon then killed the three of them, but was unable to retrieve the masks, and the people assumed she was the one in the wrong.  That’s really interesting!  Especially since these Pokémon were inspired by the legend of Momotaro—I didn’t expect they’d be willing to turn things around like that.  In any event, the Teal Mask needs repaired, and that requires a special crystal that Ogerpon’s trainer brought here from his homeland…a crystal at the top of Oni Mountain which is confirmed by Briar to be terastal crystals…hmmmm.  So I guess Ogerpon and her trainer were originally from Paldea after all?  Unfortunately, this is the only thing other than Briar’s motivation that feels like an addition to the lore of the base game, which is disappointing.  Not entirely a surprise, I guess, since we’re in a different region and all but…I don’t quite understand why the DLC pass as a whole is called The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero?  Again, it seems like Briar will lead us back to it after everything’s said and done, but it’s weird to group our exploits in Kitakami and Blueberry Academy all under that umbrella.  Well, I should probably reserve judgment for now.  Anyway.

The Loyal Three come back to life, which while not properly explained, I interpreted as being Kieran’s frustration and negative energy revitalizing them.  Whatever the case, the toxic trio reclaim the masks they stole from the villagers who still think they’re the good guys, and the poor saps even feed them stat boosting mochi (pretty funny tbh), so they then go after Ogerpon to take their revenge.  After saving Ogerpon you then have to track the three down individually, fight them in a Titan-style battle with Carmine’s help, and recover Ogerpon’s masks one-by-one.  While this is going on, Kieran actually goes and tells the town the truth about Ogerpon and the Loyal Three, and to everyone’s surprise they’re willing to accept the truth and actually apologize to Ogerpon in a fairly heartwarming moment.  When it’s all over, Ogerpon wants to come with you, but you first have to fight Kieran (who wants Ogerpon to stay with him) and then Ogerpon herself.  The Ogerpon battle is pretty neat: she puts on one of her masks and Terastallizes it, getting a boss health bar and everything, then when you defeat her, she pulls out the next mask and you have to beat her again, repeating until you’ve seen what all four masks can do.  It’s a fun way to showcase Ogerpon’s unique gimmick, and since each mask has a different type and boosts different stats, it forces you to adapt quickly in order to come out on top.  A great way to cap off your adventure!

After that, you can go battle the Loyal Three again to catch them, keep checking the new raids, hunt down the members of the “Ogre Clan” for some relatively tough trainer battles with tempting rewards…and finally, there’s one notable sidequest you can do.  Almost as soon as you arrive in Kitakami you can meet with Perrin, a photographer who looks suspiciously similar to Adaman. (She also has a Hisuian Growlithe, which I like—I can believe a family descended from the Diamond Clan has been selectively breeding Growlithe to maintain its Hisuian Form throughout the years.) She has a job for you, but before she’ll tell you what it is, you have to catch 150 Pokémon in the Kitakami Dex.  That, uh…I mean I can understand using that as a milestone to unlock stuff, and I can see a logic to follow, but it was a bit jarring for her to just flat out tell me to complete the Dex out of nowhere.  Anyway, once you’ve done that and had a battle with her, you head to the Timeless Woods (hmm) to hunt for a mysterious Pokémon who shows up on foggy nights. (She tells you what kind of Pokémon it is, but this specimen is unique and hasn’t been properly documented or anything yet, that kind of mysterious.) You then play through a sort of minigame where you’re put in the woods on a foggy night without Koraidon/Miraidon, and need to sneak up on the Pokémon there to take decent pictures of them.  It’s fairly generous, they don’t exactly have to be expert shots.  Doing this allows Perrin to calibrate some tracking device even she doesn’t understand to pinpoint the location of the only Pokémon not photographed (idk), and I believe it’s here she tells you her reason for doing all this?  If not here then it must’ve been a little earlier.  She talks about how she’s lost her passion for her art and came after this Pokémon because she thought it’d be the inspiration she needed.  That’s, uh, that’s something, honestly, hits pretty close to home for me personally, so it may be bias but I appreciate her character despite the short amount of screen time she gets.  Anyway, you’re able to track down the strange Pokémon: an Ursaluna.  Cool, what a neat way to justify the presence of another Hisuian Pokémon!  But, wait, it’s not a normal Ursaluna…it’s bigger than usual, and walks on two legs…the mud caking its fur has changed, encasing it like armor and covering one eye…and the moon on its forehead has turned blood red.  This is Bloodmoon Ursaluna!  It’s a special attacker instead of physical; it’s got a signature move that’s the special equivalent of Gigaton Hammer; and it has a unique ability that combines like three other abilities into one!  It swam here from Hisui long ago, awakened a mysterious power, and I guess is just immortal or something?  You fight it in a boss battle and catch it, and while it’s a bit sad this is the only Ursaluna you can catch, it more than makes up for it by being so fucking cool.  Ah, anyway…Perrin tells you that the shots she got of Ursaluna are too blurry to be of any professional use, but that they’re some of her favorite photos she’s ever taken.  With her creative passion reignited, she heads off…I wonder if she’ll be in Indigo Disk…or maybe instead there’ll be someone there who looks just like Irida?  Either’s fine.  Or both.  I’ll take as many of this slick character designs as I can get.

One final thing before wrapping up: I have something of a conspiracy theory that some elements of Teal Mask (or at least Kitakami) were originally conceived as DLC for Legends Arceus, but were then retrofitted for SV after some corporate meddling.  Like I was saying before, there’s really very little here tying back to the main game, and Kitakami is just about the size of one of the zones from PLA.  Take into account that the region is based on an area that’s quite close to Hokkaido/Sinnoh/Hisui, and the real-world mountain used as a base for Oni Mountain has an Ainu name, and there’s really only one town and no formal Pokémon Center, and the entire Perrin sidequest.  An Adaman lookalike takes you to an area called the Timeless Woods, where Pokémon who don’t usually appear there suddenly spawn during a strange weather event, and you end up fighting a special Ursaluna? (The Timeless Woods also have White-Striped Basculin for some reason?)  Like, it can’t just be me.  Right?

All in all, I’ve had a real good time with Teal Mask, and I’m still having a good time trying out the rest of what Kitakami has to offer!  It definitely adds to SV, though I wouldn’t say I was as impressed with it by itself as I was with the base game.  If I were to make changes, I would definitely smooth out Carmine and Kieran’s arcs, as well as extend the Perrin sidequest and do a bit more with Briar…and have more returning Pokémon of course, heh.  I’m looking forward to Indigo Disk, though I am sort of hoping it gets delayed a bit; I don’t like the idea of the devs being pushed to follow-up that quickly.

[the-writing-mobster]

ACK! I'm so mad that all my cool action sets and Mafia scenes are spoilers! The plot is literally so complicated that even the slightest blurb with any dialogue has like 7 different spoilers! SOooo frustrating!

[arbitrarygreay]

So @mimeparadox and I were discussing PoI S5/S4B's problems, as you do, and one of the things that stood out was the way so many of the strong developments of the last few eps weren't allowed to breathe. This synthesized with several other percolating ideas into "what if the core thrust of S5 wasn't bringing various things to a conclusion, but about the developing transhumanist love story between Shaw and TM!Root" Boom. Shot to the arm for plot, character, and themes, while still having the space for the show's procedural requirements. (As well as continuing my running gag that PoI is actually Nolan/Plageman's Angel fixfic)