#vs how i rarely play video games ever. like oh my god at this point its gonna take me a year to finish lor

[smokewars]

no bc now im thinking of how both hokma and roland (tried to) have faith in angela choosing the right choice in the end and to not be selfish. how many opportunities both of them gave her and hokma stuck to his hope while roland faltered and felt like he couldn't have faith in her anymore. how angela both depends on hokma, who she sees as a fatherly figure, and roland, who she sees as her first ever friend. how she asks for advice from both of them and turns to them for guidance. how they both act as the first person she's ever trusted (benjamin being the first person she ever did so with and roland being the first person who wasn't a part of l corp)

[batarangsoundsdumb]

guess fucking what? my inbox is so fucking full right now i'm unloading all of this shit in one post.

For the 11th gotham memes: gothamites react to bruce being jacked in a tiktok he made with kids, like super yoked, ripped as hell

fucking hilarious thanks. i think i did it in one meme post, but i genuinely don't remember which one

i dunno which of the batfam would do this but one time i was sleeping over at a friends house and ended up on the floor bc the bed was so very small and i just stayed there because the rug was soft

that's a drunk jason move i don't know what to tell you

tim and jason are "i listen to pop punk" solidarity. whenever jason highjacks the batmobile theyll go on long ass car rides blaring mcr and paramore and then never talk about it again

as they should!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tim: no jason it's my turn using the aux cord i gotta put on my jams jason: don't you dare put on weird shit tim: don't worry, you're gonna love this *plays fearless (taylor's version)

hear me out hear me out, red hood stans 🤝 nightwing stans t h i g h s

holy shit yes.

SNL au: Bruce breaks character when pretending to superman and says something like "I'm not superman! You've seen his gps!! It's from 2001!!!" @sabeanybabe

superman flies past the snl building the next day just to say 'actually it's from 2005, i'm not a heathen'

does your back hurt from carrying the batfam fandom

it hurts more from the exotic rock collection i keep in my backpack, but thanks for the concern.

I love your posts by why would you always leave the best parts in the tags?

as a treat for the people that check the tags ;) (and also because i'm committed to the short post aesthetic)

somehow your playlist was everything i never knew i needed. i mean it. this is my new favorite playlist.

and don't you dare get a new favourite playlist!

babe ur stoner tim playlist is exactly too perfect, earth is literally blessed by ur existence

babe thanks so much! i love my stoner tim playlist because it's just my usual playlist but people think it's an artistic choice that i put taylor swift and britney spears in there, when it's just what i unironically like listening to

JANDKSKDK BILLY RAY CYRUS ON THE STONER TIM PLAYLIST I LOVE IT IT

again it's not even an ironic choice, i know every single word and i genuinely like the song

The last chapter of Fundamentals of Casework has me crying at work. Thanks I love it @dudelookitsalesbian

oh babe, i'm sorry, but also, not sorry i love chapter 4 so much it's my lovechild with the 'mental illness' tag

soooo....stumbled on your tumblr by some stroke of fate??? read your DC fanfic first. which is PHENOMENAL btw. then found all the batmemes; the funniest thing EVER bc everyone forgets about regular old gothamites. kept scrolling and your blog pops up as recommended. clicked on the ao3 for shits and giggles and waddaya know?!?!? it's YOU!!! you're LEGEND!!!! ever seen that meme? it's a video of a cat that got into a baseball field and the two announcers get really invested in his escape attempt and start giving a play by play of the cat instead of the game. memeable moment: "GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!"

i seriously think about this ask every single day and it's so fucking funny to me that i've never seen the meme you're referencing, but i still find myself going 'GREAT stuff from the Cat!!!' whenever i see something funny. but wow i'm glad you liked this steaming pile of garbage

Fav dc character overall? And fav batfamily character?

don't ask me to pick between the loves of my life, but i can tell you i've cried about every single batfamily member and also wally west (my beloved)

What's your opinion on fans having a problem with batfam being "too big"? And some even claim that batfam is just "Bruce Alfred Dick Damian" and the rest of them are just "friends and allies" (source: reddit) Personally, I like batfam because of this reason but idk

stupid. a family can never be too big. i'm not that big a fan of like huge batfam stuff with everybody from every single universe, because as much as it's funny for bruce to have like 30 kids, it just feels a little too OOC for me.

This is the best tag I've seen involving the batfam, thanks for thinking of it

This is canon now @nctxrejects

lmao yeah i think at that point alfred has had to sit through like at least a dozen coming out talks and just has a pride flag collection in the attic that he pulls out whenever a kid comes out

idk why batfam hits different as compared to any other superhero family

bc it's found family and usually the other superhero families are almost all genetically related in one way or another

I don't know if you watch the umbrella academy but I saw your last post about batcest and saw the similarities. But the thing is (although I think it's weird) in TUA, they addressed it by saying "they were raised as weapons, not siblings" or something along those lines, which is simply not the case with batfam.

yeah i watched tua but i also thought it was ridiculous and they still treated each other as siblings so i didn't like the luthor/allison thing, and am glad they stopped doing that shit bc it fucking sucked.

Hot take: Batcest shippers are the same people who believe adopted siblings are not actual siblings

smoking hot take: batcest shippers are the people who watch 'my sister got stuck in the washing machine' porn

Duke was adopted by Bruce?

not technically no, but do i, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb, look like i care?

True story but I had to change my freaking name because it used to be "Damien" and most people would go "OH LIKE DAMIAN WAYNE" like please I'm just tryna live

true story, but i don't actually think of damian when i hear the name damian, literally the first thing that pops up is damian darkh like bruh what?

apparently dc comics company supported comic stores by giving out new titles and stuff during the beginning of the pandemic to help them run and I just think that's wholesome

ah yeah that's so fucking cool, still don't like dc, the company, because this world is a capitalist hellhole and we're all owned by warner brothers or disney with no in between.

ayo looking at tumblr head canons and finding out bruce is actually a terrible father is a punch in the gut

lmao yes, in like 50% of comics bruce is a terrible father and it gives me whiplash

oooh I just saw the jason todd vs winter soldier post and the real question is: batman vs iron man

while iron man has like hundreds of cases of armor, batman could throw out an emp and have the guy dropping out of the sky in 2 seconds.

dickfast = fastdick = quickdick = quickie

magnum hot take

hey bata(?) just thought I'd let you know I have copied the obnoxious emoji and Billy Ray post for use on simping men going forth

thank you 😘🌷 (@spacebarsidecar)

why would you do that to your followers???? i get why i did it, but why would you???

what is scarecrow made the nightwing funko pop himself, like those diy-ers that paint over other ones

oh god no, horrible take, horrible take, that's a disgusting thought oh no

I see your HC that Bruce and Oliver fucked and raise you this: Dick and Roy ALSO fucked

yes they did and it was a horrible moment for jason to find out dick has fucked both of his best friends

"at this rate bruce adds like 1 child to his family every decade or so" Duke is introduced in 2013, Damian as Damian, not as an unnamed child, in 2006. And he is already 14 years old, Robins rarely remain Robins after 16 😬 It looks like a new Robin and Batkid will appear in a couple of years

i mean i can't wait? but somebody will probably die first tho, we're due for another major character death. my money's on either cass or duke this time.

BRO you're so right all of your Bruce's ex headcanons are amazing but they aren't ships, that's kinda wild. Like I don't want any peeks into how their relationship was I just want to see everyone make fun of them

lmao YES it's just i love bruce being a slut, like good for him.

I am in love with your posts your honour thank you

omg thanks are we like,, gonna kiss now?

The justice league needs to have a meeting to discuss how many of their members/partners have slept with bruce. Because through a combination of cannon & fannon (if DC wasn’t homophobic) we have AT LEAST: 1) clark 2) lois 3) oliver 4) dinah 5) john

Thats not counting villains or random civilians @dudelookitsalesbian

yes yes yes, they'll have a yearly meeting about how many of their collective exes could be out for revenge and batman's list just keeps getting longer.

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

and what about it?

when steph's fighting livewire and she zaps her with lighting and nothing happens and then they both just. stand there awkwardly for a second and talk. yeah i couldn't stop laughing at that batgirl steph is the BEST

oh yeah that was fucking hilarious and i think it would be so cool and sexy of dc to give steph a little comic series,,, as a treat

Hi I absolutely adore all of yours "Bruce and Oliver very badly pretending they didn't fuck each other" memes

lmao i do too

I need you to know that “Bruce Wayne had frosted tips” is one of my favorite Bruce takes of all time it’s so galaxy brained. you’re right and you should say it

he also painted his hair blonde once when he was travelling and in conclusion, this is why he's being blackmailed by the gotham gazette.

you know my thing about gordon being branded as the only good cop in gotham is its a load of shit like arguably he's a good person and not working to screw people over or anything but the fact that he also works w. batman makes him a shit cop. like yea batman is better than the mob but its still illegal its still an abuse of power he just not making bank

babe, all cops are bad cops. (but yeah youre absolutely right, working with vigilantes makes you a shit cop, but also working against vigilantes just makes you an asshole cop yanno?)

ruh roh i think i’m about to add “so not yeehaw” every time i don’t like something

that's a very good vocabulary upgrade

somehow i feel like steph already knew. like babs obviously knew but i feel like bruce got high/drunk in front of steph and started telling his boarding school stories and steph was just like “oh you fucked up i’m never gonna forget this”

steph and bruce have weird uncle/rebellious niece dynamic and they just hang out sometimes and bruce will be like 'i once broke my arm when i tripped over a hedge when i was drunk so oliver drove me to the hospital on an electric scooter' and steph will just have to sit there with that knowledge in her head.

Hello I just wanted to tell you you are So right in all your steph opinions bc she is, in fact amazing and I think that's very sexy of you. Ps. Your Bruce/Oliver fic is hilarious

babe, thank you so much and yes steph is amazing and i love her and she deserves the world and she's the best member of the batfam hands down. also thanks

In Supersons we see a couple of kids that are implied to be Damian and Jon's children and the boy has laser eyes and can fly, so I asume he's not adopted. The girl, who calls Bruce grandpa, can also fly, btw. So it's canon (probably by accident) that Jon can have kids and he must have married one of Bruce's kids. (I'm hoping for Damian, mostly because any other of his children would be waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old.) @artemisa97

lmao that was probably an accident seeing as jon is a 17 year old superhero in the year 3000 (by the jonas brothers)

You know, I'm a die hard fan of your memes, but I gotta say one thing: if Gothamites actually took gas mask everywhere with them, then the Scarecrow would just be a weird dude in a weird costume, and not a villain oh so scary. DC really should just takes notes from you.

bold of you to assume there's no gothamite anti-maskers

How does it feel being the funniest person on this app?

horrible, next question.

I can't listen to Green Day or Billy Joel without thinking of your post about how Bruce got arrested at a Billy Joel concert @nightwings-kid

yeah that's your mistake, i on the other hand can't enjoy billy joel without thinking about the glee rendition of 'uptown girl'

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

superman: so what do you do in your free time? batman, thinking about the superman fanfiction he's writing on the batcomputer: i have no free time

bruce and oliver be like boyfriends to co-workers 401k (do the justice leagues get 401ks??? not that bruce and ollie would need them, but-)

lmao yes just 400 thousand words of bruce realising 'oh dip oliver is such a fucking dumbass' (also i don't know what a 401 k is but i assume they don't?)

Gothamites would totally boo superman as he saves Gotham while batman is out. @meenje

he's like 'okay think about that next time you want to be saved from an alien octopus'

I just took long break from dc comics and I come back to see ric grayson ??

i think it's very cool and sexy of dc to see dick and just think 'you know what? let's just give him a traumatic brain injury' and then didn't develop his character in any real way

SPEAKING OF RIC GRAYSON, gothamites making confused memes out of ric grayson is much needed

'dick grayson is my taxi driver? can anyone explain what the fuck happened he looks like an italian plumber?'

i hate to say it but batfam are def "marvel characters" in that sense they are characters who are human but become superheroes unlike most dc characters who are gods trying to be human maybe this is why I like batfam

fair enough

[jackrrabbit]

it will come back [pt. 2] /// Yandere Shigaraki x f!Reader

Summary: You have a bad habit of picking up strays, and the half-dead villain you find bleeding out in a dumpster is no exception. [Part 1] [Part 3]

A/N: Title from the Hozier song—“don’t let it in with no intention to keep it / jesus christ, don’t be kind to it / oh honey don’t feed it / it will come back.”

Tags/warnings: yandere, violence (not directed toward reader), crying, Shiggy REALLY likes you, reader needs a friend and a good night’s sleep, non-explicit sexual content. [In later parts: 18+, sex, other stuff]

He—Tomura—keeps visiting.

At first you think it’s because of the free medical care, and you wish you had the spine to tell him to suck it up and go see a professional. After a couple weeks turn into a couple months and his wounds fade into ragged purple scars, though, you start to think differently.

Within a short time Tomura has figured out your work schedule, and he does a decent job of not showing up after your long shifts. The unavoidable consequence of this is that he ends up monopolizing your precious days off, but you come to the realization about a month and a half in that you don’t actually mind. You like it. It’s like spending time with a friend.

Mostly you guys talk. It doesn’t seem like Tomura really has anyone to talk to the way the two of you do, but that’s probably just you projecting. It’s usually shallow stuff—TV shows you like, video games he plays, funny stories from patients you treated. Sometimes when you’re cooking for yourself, you make extra for him. (It happens a lot, actually, and at one point you bring up how much his appetite is costing you and the next time you see him he brings a bag of rice and makes you a porridge that crunches between your teeth when you try to eat it. You can’t finish yours, but he eats an entire bowl and insists that you’re being picky.)

Sometimes he sleeps over on the couch, but he’s always gone when you wake up.

The two of you skirt around the heavier stuff, and you know it’s intentional on his part. You have to resist the urge to ask him about being a villain—he’s all but confirmed it for you, and it’s human nature to be curious, isn’t it? In the same way you can’t help looking at a car crash, you want to poke and prod and find out what it is, exactly, that Tomura does for a living. That part of his life is suspiciously absent from your discussions—if you didn’t know better, you’d think he spends all of his time sleeping and playing games and breaking into your place.

On the other hand, you don’t want to know. Plausible deniability. You can accept criminality in the abstract, but you’ve treated too many victims of the bullshit hero–villain battle to be comfortable really knowing why Tomura avoids public places.

So you don’t ask about it, and Tomura doesn’t tell, and you don’t look up his name. And it’s easy. It’s nice. You’d forgotten what it’s like to come back to a home that isn’t empty.

And then one day when you get off a few hours early from your shift, you stop by a convenience store to pick up some snacks for yourself (hey, you’ve been working hard, you’re entitled to binge a little on foods that you’re afraid to look at the fat content for), and you think, Hm, I wonder if Tomura wants some.

[You: 7:49 PM] > Are you coming over today? [T: 7:49 PM] > Yeah why [You: 7:51 PM] > Getting snacks > Want some? [T: 7:51 PM] > No

[T: 8:12 PM] > When r u coming back to ur place

[T: 8:58 PM] > Hey where are you

[T: 9:39 PM] > (Y/N)?

There’s a man with a gun in the convenience store.

It takes you a second to process at first. You’re standing in the snack food aisle seeking out Oreos and debating the merits of Double Stuf vs. Mega when you catch the mumbled demand and the metallic clicking noise you’ve only ever heard in movies before. It’s a gun—you know that, but your mind dismisses it because it’s ridiculous. Guns are rare in hero society. People don’t go around robbing bodegas at gunpoint anymore.

(You should know better. You work in a goddamn ER. But you compartmentalize, and the crimes you see written across your patients’ bodies stay out of the realm of your personal life because you need them to.)

It’s only when you see the muzzle of a hunting rifle pushed up to the cashier’s sweaty neck that you really understand what’s happening.

You drop to the ground immediately, looking toward the exit but it’s shut and there’s some kind of metal…thing holding the door closed. The cashier mumbles a denial and you can hear him fumble around with the cash drawer for what feels like ages.

It’s real. This is real. You’re in the middle of a robbery. Where are the heroes? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?

God, you’re a hypocrite, cowering behind the aisle divider and waiting for someone to step up while the robber’s demands get increasingly louder and more frantic. He wants money, and the cashier (who, you remember, is a man in his sixties with hands that shake with Parkinson’s when he holds out your receipt) isn’t being fast enough.

“That’s it? There’s no more? Are you fucking kidding me, there’s gotta be a safe or something—“

“No! No, p-please, I’m sorry, this is all I have!”

You cringe, crushing your eyes closed as if that will make it go away. You’re surprised you can hear at all over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears.

“Don’t fuck with me old man, I know there’s more! Show me the safe or I’ll blow your goddamn brains out!”

No! You have to do something. You can’t just sit here. You’ve heard plenty of death threats from your patients (not to mention that one from Tomura), and you know the difference between a bluff and a serious warning. Maybe you can catch the robber off guard, try to pull the gun away? You stand up quickly, hoping against hope that you won’t regret this, but in a split second you see that the cashier has the same idea and he’s trying to pull the rifle out of the robber’s hand and—

BANG.

Something warm and wet splatters across your face.

///

Tomura is angry when you get back to the apartment. As soon as he hears your key in the lock he rises from your couch so he can grab your collar with three fingers, jerking your head up to force you to look at him. “Where have you been? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting—“

But he cuts short in the middle of his sentence. Maybe because he sees the look on your face. Or maybe he just notices the traces of blood you haven’t been able to wipe off.

“What happened,” Tomura says. It’s not a question. He adjusts his grip slightly so it’s not quite as punishing, but you hold still anyway.

You have to force your mouth open in order to speak, but when your voice comes out it’s more steady than you thought it would be. “It’s not my blood. There was a robbery at the store. The cashier got shot.”

“Oh.” He releases you and frowns. “That’s it?”

“Fuck you.” You push past him into the kitchen to get yourself a drink with trembling hands. Pantry’s out of shōchū, whiskey will just make you sicker—ahh, there it is. Baijiu. The glug glug glug of the liquor into the glass does nothing to put your nerves at ease, but you pour yourself a double anyway.

“Wait—wait.” Tomura’s hands twitch and rub over his arms like he’s trying to stop himself from grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you. “Calm down. Why are you so upset? Don’t you see this stuff every day?”

You do. You’re an ER nurse. There’s no injury you haven’t seen. But it’s not about the blood. “I...I knew him. The cashier. He was nice. He had a grandkid on the way. I—“ You bite your lip and down the baijiu in one gulp. It burns.

Tomura clearly doesn’t know how to comfort you; probably doesn’t even really know why you need to be comforted. What does it mean that death is so meaningless to him? you wonder. But you need someone to listen to you, clueless or not, and Tomura will have to do.

The baijiu is still bitter and hot down your throat when you speak again. “You know something? Know what they asked me when the heroes finally showed up and pulled us out of there, me and the corpse?”

“…What?” Tomura asks warily.

“They stuck a camera in my face and asked me if there was anything I wanted to say to the hero who saved me. Any words of gratitude I wanted to share,” you spit. Now it’s your turn to feel your hands making fists at your sides. Your fingernails scratch into your palms like the pain can be an outlet for the sudden overwhelming fury spilling over you. “They didn’t save him. They were too late.”

Tomura’s eyes widen, and through your curtain of anger you can tell he’s looking at you in a way he’s never looked at you before. It’s unlike him to even look directly at you, and when he does it’s usually in disinterest or half-sincere irritation. This, though…this is different. He’s watching you like a believer watches a prophet. You can tell—or at least some deep, ugly part of you that you hope is wrong can tell—that he’s trying not to smile.

“I hate this,” you say, and the first tear drips out of your eye and runs down your cheek. It’s awful. You don’t want to cry in front of Tomura. You don’t want to show him how weak you are. But before you can wipe it away, Tomura’s hand comes up and does it for you, smearing the tear over your cheek in a gesture that—for him—is oddly tender.

Then he hugs you.

It’s stiff and awkward, like he’s forgotten how to do it, but the intention is clear. His arms fold around your back, pulling you into his chest while his chin makes its way to rest on your shoulder. He’s leaning into you so deeply that your spine is arched back, and you stagger away from him only for him to step closer again to make up the distance.

“It’s not fair, hm,” he murmurs into your hair. His tone is the closest thing to sympathy you’ve ever heard from him, but there’s an undercurrent of excitement you can’t ignore. “They’re always too late, aren’t they? The heroes… And everyone will watch that video of you thanking the heroes, and they’ll think they’re safe too. They’ll keep going about their lives and think that nothing bad can happen to them because a hero will always be around to save them…but you and I know that’s a lie.”

It takes you a second to recognize the emotion that’s raising goosebumps over your arms while Tomura rubs circles into your back, but when it clicks you shiver because it’s fear. You’ve never really been afraid of Tomura before, even when you should’ve been. Does he realize he’s backing you up with how forcefully he’s pushing himself into you? The backs of your knees hit the arm of your couch and you topple onto it with Tomura following.

He holds himself above you on his hands, legs tangled with yours. His eyes are wild and he’s not even trying to suppress his grin now. You’re trapped lying on your back under him—pinned like a butterfly under glass.

“Get off of me,” you say as calmly as you can.

“It’s all a lie, all of it…” A hand comes up and strokes your cheek, rubbing with two fingers at a stray fleck of blood on your neck. “I’m sorry it had to be like this, but I’m so glad you understand…”

“Let me up now, Tomura.”

He holds still for a long moment—waiting, thinking, considering—and then sits up, still straddling you but loosely enough that you can scramble back away from him on the couch. Your heart is racing, but you try to slow your breaths so he doesn’t pick up on how scared you are.

“Don’t freak out. You’re no fun,” Tomura says, and you exhale a sigh of relief at how normal he sounds. You never thought you’d be so happy about him looking at you like you’re nothing.

“I think you should go,” you say carefully.

He rocks back on his heels and runs a hand through his hair. “Are you mad? I thought I could stay here tonight, like usual. Since I waited for so long.”

“I’m not mad. I just…want to be alone.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone tonight. Not after what you’ve been through.”

Oh, now you care. “Fine. Okay? Fine. You can sleep on the couch.” You’re too tired to argue any more, and you’ve never really been good at convincing Tomura to do anything he doesn’t want to. It’s a miracle he listened to you when you told him to get off you. Considering how often he breaks into your apartment, it’s not like you could keep him out anyway.

So he stays the night. He doesn’t bother you when you take a shower and go to bed, he just lies on the couch in his street clothes. When you wake up in the morning he’s disappeared like he always does, and for the first time since you met him you’re truly relieved that he’s gone.

///

You always thought it would take some level of courage you don’t possess to actually bite the bullet and look Tomura up. To do so would mean saying goodbye to whatever strange relationship the two of you have built over the months, and you’re just not brave enough to risk it.

Turns out it’s not courage that makes you type his name into the search bar. It’s cowardice. You’re lying in bed under the covers when you do it, and the blue-white screen of your laptop is the only light in the room. Your comforter is pulled up almost over your head like it’s a wall that can block out reality.

“tomura”, you enter into the search bar, but you don’t hit return. Instead, you look at the search suggestions.

> tomura shigaraki > tomura shigaraki league of villains > tomura shigaraki decay

Something about it sounds familiar. But you’re not ready. Still, after everything, you’d rather keep your eyes closed. You backspace and snap your laptop shut, and when you do your room is so dark that you think the emptiness might swallow you up.

///

[T: 5:52 PM] > Are u going to be at home tn

[T: 6:14 PM] > Hey check ur phone

[T: 6:42 PM] > Stop ignoring me > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N)

[T: 6:46 PM] 3 MISSED CALLS [You: 6:50 PM] > I’m at work [T: 6:50 PM] > Don’t lie > you finished an hour ago

[T: 7:13 PM] 1 MISSED CALL [T: 7:14 PM] > You said you werent mad [You: 7:15 PM] > I’m not [T: 7:15 PM] > Then stop being a brat > im coming over > ill bring takeout

You’re nervous about seeing him, but in the two weeks since he pushed you down on the couch you’ve found yourself…missing him. Like it or not, he’s made himself a fixture in your life. So when you get home you’re brimming with anticipation, wondering who you’ll get when you open the door—the normal Tomura you’ve come to like over the past few months, or the one from that night. The villain.

But it’s just him. Good old Tomura, laden with plastic bags and containers of greasy fast food for the two of you to gorge yourselves on. You tease him for being cheap and he argues that you’re just a snob and everything seems so normal that you can almost forget the look in his red eyes when he told you that you understood.

Almost.

///

You probably have no idea how good you look when you’re crying.

Of the couple thousand views on the news channel video of your “rescue” from the convenience store robber, at least a tenth are from Tomura. Eventually he just downloads the video onto his computer so he doesn’t have to read the inane comments that the other viewers leave on the webpage. It seems like everyone but him thinks you should feel lucky that you were saved by a hero before the robber could get to you, too.

As always, the public are a bunch of shit-soaked morons. Reading the comments makes him angry, so angry he’s tempted to look into a few of these brainless sheep and see how lucky they feel when they’ve caught the attention of a violent criminal. But that wouldn’t be productive, so he saves the video externally and leaves the news website alone. It’s for the best. Besides, seeing the “views” counter on the website tick up and up by the dozen every time he refreshes is just another reminder that other people are watching this; other people are seeing how delicate and vulnerable and pretty you are with tears spilling out of your eyes and the cashier’s blood sprayed over your clothing.

Thousands of useless fucking NPCs are looking at you just like Tomura is. They’re probably thinking about how sweet you look, just like he is. And they’re probably imagining all the ways they can take advantage of your fragile emotional state, just like him.

You’re too trusting for your own good. Tomura used to think it was a virtue, and it is, but only when it comes to him. Whenever he thinks about how your face is slapped over a dozen different news websites for the whole world to see, he has to dig his fingernails into his neck to keep calm. It’s better when he can just watch the video and pretend he’s the only one seeing it.

And it’s not like not watching the video is an option. Tomura can’t resist your crying face. There’s a point around the three minute mark where your voice breaks in the middle of your statement, and sometimes Tomura skips there in the video just so he can hear that pathetic little sob and replay it over and over and over. Maybe it’s sappy, but Tomura really does feel his heart skip a beat at the way your eyes and nose are rubbed red from your misery.

How fucked up is it that he gets off watching you cry?

Would you be angry if you knew? You probably would, but you put up with so much from him already. Maybe you’d be okay with it if he told you he really and truly tried to hold out. The first dozen times Tomura watched the video, he refused to touch himself no matter how tight his pants got while you choked out your stilted answers to the reporters’ questions, but at this point he barely has to click “play” on the video before he gets hard and takes matters into his own hands.

At the end of the day, it’s your fault. Everything about you is so erotic, from your shaky voice to your pouty, bitten-red lips. Isn’t it completely normal to be aroused while looking at the person you like? And Tomura likes you, he really likes you. He doesn’t have any pictures of you, and with the high definition of the news channel’s video he can see every perfect contour of your cheekbones, every pore in your skin, every glistening wet eyelash.

It’s not that Tomura doesn’t feel sympathy for how upset you are in the video. He does! Not even just sympathy, even—he’s empathetic. He knows exactly how it feels to be let down by the heroes. How dare they tell you you need to be grateful while you’re still trying to wipe brain matter off your shirt? Always too little, too late. It’s not fair.

But if he’s being honest? As miserable as you are, Tomura is happy that you were in the store when that robber came in and that you had to watch a man you knew get his brains blown out in front of you. You need a wake-up call to lose faith in hero society. If you have to suffer some emotional trauma in the process, that seems like a fair price to pay.

And the fact that Tomura gets to jerk off to it? It’s almost like destiny.

➠ [Part 3]

[honey-coloured-passion]

It’s A Secret (Sapnap x Reader)

first fic first fic!

summary: Dream convinces you and Sap to join a competition where the loser gets exposed, but nothing ever goes as planned when your favorite boy is involved : )

“That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard in my life.” you laughed, rolling your eyes at Sapnap and Dream’s antics. “C’monnn it’ll be so funny the viewers will eat it up!” Dream cooed while you groaned “you say that cuz you always get like more views than Sap and I combined!” To which Dream choked out laughter through his familiar wheeze. “Oh come on, how much money for you to do it?” you heard Sapnap die from laughter over the call at Dream’s bribe before he piped up, “whoever gets exposed you’re buying dinner Dream,” and Dream immediately agreed. “Absolutely worth it, you in y/n?” and you shook your head, “why the hell not I guess.”

You started up your stream, adjusting your headset nervously as you watched chat speed up at the title “Least viewers gets exposed vs Dream and Sap” all confused as to what was going on as their three favorite streamers all went live simultaneously. “Gooooood day chat what’s up!” you grinned, thanking a couple gifters and waiting to see Dream pop up in team speak to give the challenge information. “You guys better stick with me today, I don’t wanna lose the secret challenge,” you laughed, noticing Sap and Dream joined the channel.

“Ready to learn the rules dear viewers?” Dream laughed maniacally. You watched your chat going absolutely crazy. 

“Here’s how it works, we are gonna stream for thirty minutes doing everything we can to get the most viewers, then the person with the least at the end has to tell a secret they wrote down on stream, and trust me guys they’re all sooo good.” Dream wheezed while Sapnap chuckled before continuing. “We all told our secrets to George who didn’t want to stream with us cuz he’s lazy but it works cuz now he’s our keeper, so it’ll be fair and George can confirm all the secrets are crazy,” Your chat was losing it’s mind asking you what your secret was. 

“So let the view-competition begin” and with that, Dream left the call. “Sap you gonna stay and hang or leave?” you asked, racking your brain to find a way to get hella viewers as soon as possible. “I’ll hang” Sapnap answered to your relief. “Good I can farm your viewers then,” you teased with a giggle. Then your phone started to buzz, and you saw Dream was tweeting out the information and begging for people to come to his stream. “Oh hell no, chat help me out!” you laughed, going to tweet on your own account. 

10 minutes in: Dream 68k, You 43k, Sapnap 39k.

“Sapnapppp I’m so excited to learn your deepest darkest secret” you cooed with an evil laugh while Sapnap punched your minecraft character. “Whatever I’ll clutch up, work smarter not harder dear y/n,” you could hear the playful tone in his voice, swallowing the butterflies that kept trying to surface. “How can you work smarter if you barely have a braincell dork!” you teased, beginning to crit out his character when he realized, pearling away with a screech. “You do NOT want to play this game with me I’ll destroy you,” he ate a golden apple then began running towards you axe in hand while you screeched, running away. 

15 minutes in: Dream 65k, Sapnap 45k, You 44kk.

“Sapnap how the hell did you convince four different channels to raid you in the past five minutes WHAT” you pouted with a laugh, knowing you could beat him in viewers if you just got one or two more raids. “Mhm a magician never reveals his tricks,” you rolled your eyes though your chat kept spamming “why is y/n blushing so much?” and “SIMPNAP SIMPNAP” because Sapnap was helping you decorate and finish the design of your house. You had to agree with chat, he was adorable, bringing you flowers, collecting the exact type of wood you needed, helping to fill your chests, you were beginning to forget about the competition and just enjoy his presence. 

20 minutes in: Dream 68k, Sapnap 46k, You 45k.

“Oh my god it’s so close between you guys” Dream wheezed as he joined your voice channel. “Hey Dreammm wanna send me some stray viewers?” you giggled while Dream denied you. “Mhm no but maybe you can ask Mr. Simpnap to send you some of his? Heard it’s not the only thing he’s been giving you and I figured I’d crash the date.” Dream teased, his tone dangerous while Sapnap exclaimed, “hell no I’m not losing this competition and I am not a simp, especially not for y/n” Sapnap drew out your name, you could hear the smile you adored dancing on his lips. Chat was going crazy, though it was pretty well known how close you and Sapnap were due to the two of you always being on call together and just being found on the SMP hanging out, it was rare the two of you gave the fans this much flirting in one stream. Not that there weren’t hundreds of Y/N x Sapnap compilations on youtube of people pointing out how you and Sap had been in a TeamSpeak room together alone for five hours straight, or him getting defensive of you on the SMP, or him constantly complimenting your skill during MCC’s. Not to mention you always asking where Sapnap was, or someone else asking and you answering quickly, showing how frequently the two of you talked. Needless to say, he was one of your best friends, but that wasn’t gonna stop you from destroying him in this competition. 

25 minutes in: Dream 78k, Sapnap 54k, You 51k.

“Hello to my new viewers! Glad you came back to support! Huge shoutout to Niki for the raid and all the raiders who stayed I love y’all!” Your palms were getting sweaty, you needed to get 3k viewers in five minutes or George was gonna drop one of your most embarrassing secrets to the world. “How are you feeling Miss Y/n?” Dream teased, he knew he was safe. “Shut up Dream if I lose I’m ordering some expensive ass food for you to pay for,” you shot back, making him die of laughter. “At least I’m not the one who’s gonna get exposed in front of like 180 thousand views,” you flipped off the camera with a grin, hoping he was looking at your stream. 

28 Minutes in: Dream 78k Sapnap 55k, You 51k.

“Man I think it’s over what do you think Sap?” Dream teased while you laughed, still hopeful that something could happen in two minutes. “Eh I say give it another minute then we call it. You never know” Sap replied cooly. “Shut up you’re like 4 thousand people ahead it’s over for me” you pretended to cry, making Sapnap and Dream break into laughter. “You really don’t wanna lose huh.” Sapnap said, “um duh, this sucks,” you answered, quickly refreshing your view count. 

Then something crazy happened. 

~Sapnap is raiding with a party of 55k~

30 minutes, time up: You 110k, Dream 78k, Sapnap 0.

“WHAT” Dream was the first to scream. You did a triple take before screeching into the mic “SAPNAP WHAT ARE YOU DOING” to which he quietly replied, “I didn’t want you to be sad.” making your cheeks flush to an ungodly warmth. “Oh- uh does this still count? What’s happening?” you reached for your water bottle when George joined the call. 

“Interesting ending, but I know the secret so I guess I’d say it makes sense” You froze. “What the hell does that mean?” You said, noticing Sapnap had turned on his camera function in the call. “O-ok, George you gonna announce his secret?” Dream tried to take control, noticing his chat was spinning out of control. George piped up, "I think it’s better Sapnap says it. I’m just here to make sure he doesn’t chicken out,” Then Sapnap cleared his throat. “Well so uh, I guess my secret is...” You saw him look straight into the camera, his eyes felt like they were meeting yours.

“I like you y/n. Like a lot.”

Your jaw fell open, George and Dream began screaming and whooping, and your chat absolutely lost it’s mind, going so fast your chat function crashed. Your immediate reaction was to mute yourself on stream. “I’m muted now- Sap- Nick, are you serious?” you gulped, staring at Sapnap’s video while he couldn’t stop grinning. “You really think I’d do all this just to lie? No chance in hell. We can talk about it after stream but I thought it’d be fun to do it live. I can help you end stream if you want?” Your brain was flying high, your heart beating out of your chest, and your mods were begging for help. 

“O-okay. Uh hey chat! Nice stream today, record high viewer ship thanks to uh- Nick- Sapnap, thanks to Sapnap um, I’m gonna get off now,” You took a few deep breaths, gaining your traction before continuing. You hovered your mouse over the end stream button but decided you had one more thing to say. Leaning close into the mic with a smile you whispered, 

“Oh and Sapnap, I like you too” 

~live ended~

checkout my other sapnap fic!

[taylornock]

how cell phones made our lives better while simultaneously ruining them

hi fam!! it’s me, again. are you tired of hearing from me? me too. that’s why I’m here to rant about social media / phone / technology. bc i hate it… but in a loving way???

everyone remembers when they got their first iPhone. seriously. why is that such a monumental moment in our lives? i can hardly remember what i felt like freshman year of high school but can pinpoint the feeling of sheer glee unwrapping my iPhone 6 in eighth grade. i have this thing that is attached to me 24/7 - when I go anywhere (even downstairs) without my phone i feel weird. that is f***ing SAD! PATHETIC. i hate feeling that dependent on what is essentially a pocket robot.

for what it’s worth - phones have done INCREDIBLE things for the world as we know it. for example, this quarantine shit has been testing all of us; and our phones are helping us get through it in so many ways. our phones let us see the faces of those loved ones we are missing, our phones provide us with stupid tik tok content to keep everything light hearted, and our phones let us check in on each other. all amazing things! when we are at school, we have instant access to our lives at home . being able to call my mom whenever i want is something i definitely abuse. “mom, I’m on my way home from Thompson right now and i think i have a brain aneurysm but my bio final is at 11am tomorrow will i make it” … an actual conversation i had with my mom at the end of freshman year. needless to say i was medicated shortly after THAT meltdown. I am such a brat that i don’t know what i would do if i couldn’t text my dad and have him immediately get me the password again to our Uverse account…… god forbid i miss an episode of the bachelor. i have this phone, and that’s what i do with it? abuse its powers to ask my parents for medical advice or a password i forgot? have we lost sight of everything here?

throughout life and especially throughout quarantine… my phone is the definition of a possession that is a blessing and a curse. I’m so grateful to have the ability to bother my friends - whenever i want! the options are endless! i love keeping in touch with people i thought id never hear from again, and being able to talk to so many people in my life and make my heart swell. now, when a conversation with someone other than my two roommates (shoutout parents) is so rare ⎯ that phone is my weapon and i use it to help flatten the curve: flatten the curve of covid19 and flatten the curve of my mental illness 🙃 [humor is a coping mechanism okay let me live] but like, i KNOW i’m not the only one that looks at my screen time and immediately wants to die. how can i honestly be looking at my phone for that long? picking it up THAT many times?????? my phone is the best distraction and also the most toxic - it makes me feel better but has a tendency to bring up all my issues and blast them into the reflection of my blue light glasses...... its called fashion look it up.

to give some examples - let’s open up my most used app: snapchat. I go on snapchat with the best of intentions - to see a memory from a year ago that makes me smile. to respond to my friends and see what their mood today is based on the look on their face. to creep on snap stories and see what everyone’s cooking and doing with their lives. somehow, tho, after spending a few minutes on the app.. i end up with a pit in my stomach most of the time. the person i want to respond hasn’t responded in 4 hours. oh god lets overthink this- they don’t like me anymore and are no longer interested in speaking to me and only respond every once in a while out of pity or because they are uncomfortable. everyone hates you. oh and GOD FORBID someone leaves me on open??! I am not funny nor interesting nor worth a reply - suddenly, i have equated my value to receiving or not receiving a photo of someone’s blank stare. this is extreme, and this is dramatic. but trust me —— this is the hamster wheel always turning in my head. I’m not even going to touch on snap maps; that feature is pandoras box and someone better fucking shut it.

second most used app is instagram. i scroll for hours, i have time limits set for the app acting like i’m actually going to listen to them and get off. lmaooooooooo. i love looking at aesthetic stuff and dogs and food and recipes and my friends’ beautiful faces. but you know what i don’t like? constant nudges to compare myself to others. oh look at her having a party with all of her friends even though we aren’t supposed to be. am i a loser for trying to be safe? oh look at her washboard abs, i’m never going to look like that and will never live up to the standard of beauty society has set for me. look at all of these people in their happy relationships. why can’t i have that? it goes over and over and over. its not like i sit there and think of these things just like that, its a precedent in my mind when i stare at everybody else that i am going to size my own life up against theirs. for years i followed every single elite model / VS angel on instagram to motivate me to do better - to start being psycho about what i did to my body so i could be as gorgeous as them. what kind of fucked up mindset is that? i would literally watch their footage of them eating rice and vegetables once a day and try to copy it. i would watch their runway walks obsessively trying to recreate them in heels alone in my house - like that was all i could imagine doing with my life. did i ever stop for a second to look at that photoshoot of gigi hadid and wonder if she was happy? wonder if the constant pictures she saw of herself ever made her insecure? what was i doing? the day i unfollowed those girls was a monumental day in my journey to a better self image. i didn’t realize the people i thought were my “motivators” were actually my triggers. i have grown to a point in life now that i would much rather eat a stack of chocolate chip pancakes that make me dance in my chair like an infant than practice my runway walk and shame my body in the mirror. and i am so freakin happy! 

i could go app by app for hours. but moving on to the next thing i hate about cell phones - how they have destroyed our biological methods of communication. you hear about those psychos who think the world is destroyed by technology and we are going to be overrun by robots. but hey, I’m with the psychos on this one. i have this amazing friend, Trevor Wright, who without fail at EVERY dinner announces “phones off friends on” and collects our phones into the center of the table. yes, we are 20 year old adults. yes, we hand our phones over to Trevor and let him yell at us for trying to see if ~that person~ snap chatted us back. i have so much respect for him because of this. there is nothing worse than staring at your phones when you could be having a good conversation about life, about love, about laughter + memories, about “do you think hellen keller is real?” anything, bro, anything. anything but snapchat messaging your hoe of the week or mindlessly playing tetris to twiddle your thumbs. we all need to start loving a little harder, and the first step to doing that is to communicate better. communicate smarter. I’m guilty of alllll of the above, don’t get me wrong. and I am ADD asf and constantly playing mindless games just to stimulate my brain. but i need to stop that! even writing this is taking some time away from the dumb shit on my phone - and encouraging me to communicate how i     r e a l l y   feel to my homies that will read this. communication - especially body language - is fascinating. I’ve studied it in  psych, I’ve learned the neurological bases of behavior and why we do what we do. I’ve learned how much our life experience impacts who we are as a whole...and it! is! fascinating! i also think that’s why i love film so much. because it can capture the raw moments of your friends just being your friends, of you just being the person you are, and the world around you just existing as it exists. i love the raw moments; and not just because indy blue posted one youtube video of her slow mo laughing and now thats the only footage i find myself shooting. 😚

im not quite sure what this post is, lol. but - just a rant on technology. so listen to me:

take advantage of technology + social media! it CAN BE GREAT. for so many reasons. but, don’t let technology + social media TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOU. stay true to you - know how to communicate with yourself and your loved ones without the use of a robot. remember that feeling when you setup up your first iPhone? imagine if you could feel that again, with your phone nowhere in sight. if you don’t know how to communicate with yourself yet, start by journaling. WRITE! TYPE! SPEAK! do what you want. getting your thoughts down even without an audience is so crucial to understanding yourself and others. if you don’t like to write, reflect. breathe. meditate. make art. do what makes you feel at peace, and do whatever makes you feel like the world makes a little bit more sense than it does. 

IF YOU ARE READING DOWN TO HERE, I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU, SAY IT BACK! LIFE IS A FUCKING HIGHWAY. AND IM SO GLAD YOU’RE ON MY INTERSTATE. <3

xoxoxoxo

gossip girl

[noccalula-writes]

What are your favorite games and franchises? Top 5?

OH BOY have I got feelings on this subject. 

Please keep in mind - I’m a storyteller and a writer. I fucking /love/ a good story. I DM a DnD game and my biggest weakness is that I don’t often include enough combat because I am so much more interested in telling a story. So for me, there’s got to be an emotional investment for a game to really land. I also hyperfixate like a motherfucker so I often refuse to pick up new things purely because there’s not enough space in my head for them at the time, so I’m slow getting to things as they come out. 

So, I’m first and foremost a survival horror bitch. I cut my teeth on Parasite Eve before I played any others - my mother scrimped and saved and fought her way through Wal-mart back in like 1998 to get me the original Playstation gaming console and Tekken 2 (which was my first PS game, I played it in an arcade near her barber shop as a child - Tomb Raider 2 was my second). The old Playstation discs at that time came with demos for different games, including Metal Gear Solid, which I replayed until I could have done it in my sleep because poverty meant I wasn’t likely to get another game anytime soon. I mention this because the Parasite Eve trailer used to give me nightmares but I was super, super hooked. 

I am a huge Silent Hill fan. Huge. That is a tragedy I could write a whole ‘nother post about, because as excited as I am to finally get my hands on Death Stranding (again, poverty, so it’ll be another minute before we can get a PS4), we’ll never get another SH game again unless some major reconciliation happens with Kojima and Konami, which is unlikely (and also hard to hope for - I’m happy Kojima now has the creative freedom to go as balls to the wall as he wants). 

I am an equally huge Resident Evil fan. I’ve always maintained that my first fandom was The X Files, but my wife pointed out a few nights ago that my RE love started around the same time in the late 90′s, so now it’s a chicken and egg kind of thing. Point being, it’s either The or One Of my longest lasting fandoms/interests. RE and Silent Hill get compared to one another a lot - RE7 did nothing to help that - but they really are apples and oranges to me. Fruit, sure, but two totally different tones and experiences. 

I’ve been a huge Tomb Raider fan for forever - my first high school boyfriend was loaded and bought me Angel of Darkness to come play at his house and while it was def critically panned, I do recall enjoying it - so that’s been fun to get those games remade with updated graphics. I’ve only played the one but the others are def on The List. 

So now that I’ve talked for an hour, my Top 5 fave games ever - 

#1 - Resident Evil 3 I am beyond jazzed for this remake, and a lot of people in the 90′s complained about RE3′s lack of clear cut boss battles, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. The entire fucking game is a boss battle - Jill vs. Raccoon City, and of course, Nemesis, who used to give my mother nightmares and caused me to sleep with a leaf-stabber by my bed for years. Jill is far and away my favorite protagonist in RE; she’s got a resilience of the spirit that somehow isn’t conflated with naivety, which is uncommon in ‘nice’ female protags. She’s savvy but she’s still kind, and she’s committed as fuck to survival - not to mention, as zealotous a Chris and Jill shipper as I am, she and Carlos had hella chemistry and I’m excited to see where that goes (JD Pardo would have made a fuck of a Carlos Oliviera, btw). It was An Experience and it’s forever at my #1. 

#2 - The Last of Us 

There is no comparison for emotional weight in video games, as far as I’m concerned. SPOILERS if you don’t already know the ending (this game came out in what, 2014?) but to me one of the biggest thing in the game’s favor is that the protagonist made the wrong choice. He had an option to potentially eradicate the cordyceps fungus and maybe save the world, turn the tides back for humanity, and with the weight of the world in the balance, he chose to save Ellie instead. It was, on a global scale, the wrong choice - but it was the human choice. It was the thing that a dad who never properly grieved his dead daughter would do for the surrogate daughter he inherited by accident. As for Ellie, there is no other character quite like her in games, and she’s fucking quality LGBT representation, especially considering how little we see queer children in media. I still cry every time, we play this game twice a year like clockwork and every single time, I still cry. 

#3 - Silent Hill 3 

All of SH’s games will have a special place in my heart - and if you wanna talk shit about Downpour, I’ll meet you in the Denny’s parking lot at 11, you better square the fuck up because I will defend Murphy with fists - but 3 is the best, hands down. I felt like it did the best job of streamlining the series’ ... uhm... somewhat complicated lore into something more understandable. SPOILERS: The villains are horrific - the Missionaries strike fear into my heart every time I play, and Claudia eating a miscarried god fetus to become god herself? Fucked up on a level you rarely see. I suppose if you didn’t catch it in the last sentence - your protag Heather vomits up a fetal god late in the game. Yes, you read that right. The best thing about this game though? Heather. I could climb up my feminist soapbox and talk about Heather as a subversion to video game tropes all fucking day - she’s a nonsexualized teenage girl whose father is killed for her character development. She’s self-sufficient, tough but still vulnerable, and hard as nails in a fight. As I might have mentioned a time or six, she also voluntarily aborts a god because Fuck Your Plans, She’s Got Her Own. 

#4 - Final Fantasy X 

Listen. I don’t know how much of this is because of actually enjoying playing the game and how much of it is emotional attachment. As most of you who follow me know, my mother died when I was sixteen. When I was about fourteen, I dated a rich kid who used to bring his PS2 to our very not-rich house and play games for us to watch - the sort of neophyte version of Watching Guys Play Videogames, if you will, which is another rant for another time. He got a Gamecube specifically so I could play RE Zero and Hunter The Reckoning. He was a neckbeard but he was also desperate to keep me from ditching so he did the smart thing and plied my very poor ass with money and food. The #1 game in the watching roster, though, was FFX - and if you know anything about the game, you know how heavily spirituality features into the story. My mother, very caught up in a very Eastern Philosphy Meets Quantum Physics internal seeking about the nature of things, was hooked from the word Go. She used to sit and watch Trey play for hours - we all did, but having her join us and love it that much? Wonderful. Half my memories of this game are both of us crying - crying when Yuna dances to send the souls, crying when Yuna reveals she’s on a suicide mission, crying when she and Tidus fall in love anyway, crying when she sends her Aeons to die in the final fight, crying over ‘the fayts are waking up’, crying when the big reveal about Auron comes up, crying crying crying. My wife bought it in 2011 and I watched her play through it again and while it suffers from the same issue as all FF games - too much filler and weird battle scenarios - it was cathartic. I miss my mom. 

#5 - Resident Evil 6 

Eat my entire ass. You already knew this was coming. I will defend this game to my grave for the fact that we have complex, interesting narratives surrounding female characters who have actual personalities. Was it perfect? No. Did it take RE out of horror territory and move it more into action? Woefully, yes. Is this series deeply problematic for where it chooses to set down your mostly-white protags and have them kill their way through? Big time. Don’t gloss those facts. But it’s got emotional punch in spades and a few weird character breaks that ended up being kind of brilliant - Chris has been so resiliently relentless in his fight against bioterrorism that a major PTSD break was inevitable. Leon would of course risk life and limb to help Helena, even though she implicated herself in something terrible. The icing on the cake to me was a grown up Sherry Birkin, wide eyed and believing like hell in the fight she thought she was on the right side of and getting knocked down only to get back up. Ada’s entire side campaign was brilliant. I hate some of the control choices they made in this game - the running from the Haos scenes near the end of Chris and Piers’ campaign makes me want to eat my own fist - but so it goes with most RE games (until RE4, moving your protag was like driving a tank). Jake and Sherry are My Unsinkable Ship. There are at least six scenes across this game that never get easier to watch - when the bomb hits the city and the cut scene of the mass infections begin, I still get sick to my stomach - and that, to me, is the mark that this game struck a hell of a chord in terms of storytelling. 

This was long. 

[actually-impostor]

Hey uh... I have a friend who does not particularly ship Analogical so I was hoping you could help me out with a list of reasons why they are adorable and amazing together? (No pressure) Thanks and hope you have a lovely Mother’s Day.

Well, I can understand why you wish for them to ship your ship, but also please don’t push others to ship it if they really don’t wish to, darling.In any case, on to the list of reasons why Analogical is Great™

under a read more cause while I was writing it just kept getting longer

Logan moved out of his first space to make room for Virgil [During “My true identity” Logan was in front of the stairs, from “A new year of lying to myself” he moved to in front of the door]

their first recorded interaction was Anxiety telling Logic “Get over it, you’re the least popular character and you know it”, and it turned into a mutual respect where both are there for the other

Logan was the first to acknowledge the logic in Virgil’s statement “Well, looking at facts we have been pretty bad about sticking to goals in the past”

When Patton during “The MIND vs the HEART” criticise [not the right word, but he does make a comment]  Anxiety role and actions, Logan is quick to attack Roman [Right brain vs left brain]

Even though Virgil says, in a bad way “Yeah, if your life is a Sims game” Logan doesn’t dismiss his comment as what it is, but proceeds to give example as to how a Sims game would actually be.

“Plus the diamond industry is incredibly unethical“ “Sure! have you heard of blood diamonds?“ THEY KNOW THINGS LET MY BOYS TALK ABOUT THEIR DARK KNOWLEDGE

“Can I take a stab?“ “WHO GAVE HIM A KNIFE?!”“an idea, he needs an idea”“Oh, yes”“and in order to do that, he needs to be creative. You're looking for his fanciful side” Look at Virgil using logic and reason [the things Logan most understand] in order to let him know he is kind of in the same page as he and Patton

The only one Virgil gave a genuine compliment in “My personality Q&A” was Logan [Logic, you understand reality better than the other two, and that is very comforting]

Virgil usually support Logan comments and vice versa

in “Am I original?” Logan looks to Anxiety for support with his statement “Do you understand how rare that [pure originality] is?”, to which Virgil answers by rolling his eyes and nodding. Nonverbal communication is a theme regarding Logan and Virgil that is constantly touched on during both this video and the following ones to continue [Such as minute 4:50 of the same video, where Virgil looks at Logan, nods, and finish Logan’s statement]

To continue on from my last point, during “Am I original” we have Logan state “This is what we get for making him the leader”, and then look at Virgil with a smirk, smirk that Virgil also answered back with a smile [which is absolutely adorable and kills me]

Virgil’s reaction to the Logan part of the rap battle. All I had to say about that was in this post, but if you wish to avoid the ship reactions, you can say that he feels positively surprised and is kind of rubbing it in Roman’s face [kind of “look at this person I’m kind-of-friends with, he’s destroying you and I’m proud”]

“-And that was surprising“ Virgil just giving out compliments subtly

Virgil just looks so sad when Logan says “But I'm no defeatist”. He completely takes out of context what Logan said, and considers an opinion [a truthful opinion, let's be honest] as a personal attack.

Logan takes Virgil and his comments seriously and literally. Meaning he thinks he can trust in the information Anxiety gives. At least in the verbal information

During “My NEGATIVE THINKING”, even though Logan was supposed to be playing the opposite of Virgil, he still managed to agree with a lot of his points [“I mean, it was colorfully phrased, but it’s not an unfair point“]

Even though he does oppose Virgil’s statement once is not the statement in and of itself, but the fact that it’s “Very emotionally charged”, and he keeps on making sure that during the video Virgil reasons in a clear way without beings obscured by his more feelings-related role

“See Logan? I even used your reasoning to come to that conclusion“ Virgil does take Logan’s opinions into consideration, he just gives them a twist

“I mean, you did a good job”“how? I was barely trying. I hissed at you”“yes, I must admit that is a fairly uncommon debate tactic. But despite you clearly not enjoying taking part...”Logan notices things about Virgil, like his lack of enjoyment but his effort during the debate

“[...] kind of thought you didn't like me. Especially after last time when you called me a defeatist.”“Well, you are wrong about a lot of things, but I don't necessarily mind your company”“I guess I just kind of assumed that-”“You jumped to a conclusion”

All that dialog has one point. Logan makes sure that Anxiety knows he doesn’t consider him an enemy. When Virgil understands that [which is shown here] he realizes that Logan didn’t actually mean offense with the defeatist comment

“now that we are at a little bit of a standstill I finally feel a sense of peace in this household”

Logan has, on multiple occasions, gone out of his way to make sure Virgil is okay [He is the first one to offer to go to Anxiety’s room to check on him, he continues the trend of 100% effective non-verbal communication with the whole curve thing of Anxiety/Motivation, he tries pushing the others away from Patton’s room when he realizes that Virgil is overwhelmed to the point of going actually non-verbal and he is the first and only one who realizes that [Link] Also, Logan ducking out of Patton’s room but still being present “Im not a feeling” moment when Virgil gets angry at him for leaving him alone, Logan immediatly disperse that fear “Even if it seems im gone I’ll always be there to some degree” it’s made first and fothermore to calm and comfort Virgil]

Both complement the other. And both work on and off the other [Virgil can’t calm down without some logical input, and Logan can’t make Thomas listen to him without the pressure Anxiety offers [LINK TO A WAY BETTER EXPLANATION THAT I COULD EVER OFFER]]

Virgil tries to stop arguments from scaling to the point of aggravating Logan [he always gets in the middle of the fights between Logan and Roman, tries to distract Logan when he notices the others taking too much of the known role, denies the fact that he helps detect problems so that Logan doesn’t feel his territory is being tresspassed]

they smile at each other a lot [LINK] and that is only like a small part of all the smiles both have shared

and god, so much more, but its already so late and i’ve been working on this since i got home. I have so much more links to post and to offer as a second reading! but i hope the links i added to the post are also usefull ahaha

[cyberramblings]

3DS: Time for Playtime

It's been fun getting a Wii U lately, but I wanted to look back on all the use I've gotten out of my 3DS in the last year by running down my most played games.

Super Smash Bros. - 154 Hours

This is still my most played game after recently getting back into the 3DS, despite playing zero Smash in that time. I played a lot of this game when it came out and then leading up to the release of Ultimate. This game was a godsend for someone like me who didn't own a Wii U but wanted to stay involved with the series.

Pokemon X - 56 Hours

Again, this is from when I first got my 3DS. I played this one over a whole summer vacation off and on! I still can't decide how I feel about XP Share.

Pokemon Ultra Moon - 51 Hours

Okay, this one is this high because after beating the game, my girlfriend tried to catch all the Pokemon and collect all the totem stickers. I really enjoyed this one, but the Ultra Necrozma fight kicked my butt.

Link Between Worlds - 49 Hours

I actually own the special edition Triforce 3DS which came bundled with this game! As my first game on the system, it is no surprise to see it so high, even though I got stuck on the final boss. I consider this to be one of the best Zelda games.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask - 41 Hours

This one makes a lot of sense. When I played all that Smash Bros before the release of Ultimate, this was the one other game I played during that time, to the point of actually beating it and a good chunk of the daily puzzles! I even missed a college lecture because I was so wrapped up in the climax.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire - 27 Hours

Finally, a game I played recently with no shenanigans or excuses. This was an interesting "book ends" with Omega Ruby, as OR was the first Pokemon game I played in my recent endeavor to play them all, while AS was towards the end. Backwards of their names, huh?

Pokemon Omega Ruby - 26 Hours

Fitting that this game should be so close to Alpha Sapphire. I would think that one of these two games would've been left running overnight or somehow had the playtimes differ more, but it somehow makes me hapy to see them side by side. I appreciated Wally's Theme much more the second time through.

Pokemon Y - 23 Hours

Considerably less than the time I spent in X all those years ago. This was one of the last Pokemon games I played in my recent playing of all the games, since I had already technically beaten X. It was a lot of fun to revisit though, and I love Sylveon!

Ocarina of Time 3D - 21 Hours

This one also makes sense, since I owned it during my original teenage years of owning the 3DS. I can't believe I paid 40 bucks for this just to get stuck on the Forest Temple for years! OoT doesn't resonate with me the same way as everyone else seemingly.

Pokemon Red - 19 Hours

Again, this makes sense. I think this was the third game of my recent Pokemon marathon, right after Alpha Sapphire and Ultra Moon. It was a short run thanks to an overlevelled Venasaur and the three legendary birds. I enjoyed crushing this game.

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy - 16 Hours

This is the game I just finished. I love the series and it was nice to finish it out. I think the ending was silly but the presentation value was nice to see.

Pushmo - 14 Hours

This was my go-to breakfast game for weeks, but phone-scrolling has replaced it as my morning activity while eating.

Shovel Knight - 14 Hours

This used to be the premiere downloadable title on 3DS. I think this game still holds up, but it has lost the sheer novelty of being a Kickstarter retro success over time.

Shin Megami Tensei IV - 13 Hours

I liked Persona 4 so I thought I would like this. It was too difficult for me back then, but now I don't have the patience. This was one of the games I actually paid 15 bucks to download back in highschool.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate - 13 Hours

The first of my several attempts to get into Monster Hunter. I bought, played, quit, and sold this game all back in high school. I would later go on to buy, try, and sell Monster Hunter World as well. It just isn't for me.

Metroid: Samus Returns - 12 Hours

I tried and hated this game on PC emulator, but it has a lot more charm on the actual system. I still generally dislike the melee mechanic but I generally enjoyed this game. It helps that I even beat the original first! Hopefully Dread fixes the few things wrong with this game.

Kid Icarus: Uprising - 12 Hours

I don't know if I ever fell in love with the "unique" control scheme of this game, but I definitely fell in love with all of the characters! This was a great one to play with my girlfriend watching. It's also great to have more of a context for Pit, Palutena, and Dark Pit in Smash now!

Pokemon Sun - 11 Hours

I haven't beaten it yet, whoops.

Rhyhm Heaven Megamix - 11 Hours

One of the last purchases I made before the Switch came out and killed my 3DS playing nearly permanently. I paid 30 bucks! As much as I love this game, I don't know if it was worth that.

Super Mario 3D Land - 10 Hours

A rare game that I played before AND after the rift of me playing 3DS. It's...fine. Definitely Mario.

Picross 3D: Round 2 - 9 Hours

I have always loved Picross and this is no exception. I really should dive back in sometime!

Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 8 Hours

I just can't get into it, I've tried but I can't.

Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright - 8 Hours

This was actually a birthday gift! I was very excited for the concept but hugely turned off by the time travel and setting. I need to give it another shake, perhaps after replaying some of the Ace Attorney games.

Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D - 7 Hours

One of my few highschool digital purchases. I played a lot of Mercenaries in 6 and 5 (which this is based on, seemingly). It's...fine. But I should have just replayed Revelations on 3DS instead.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy - 6 Hours

It was 7 bucks at GameStop used, so I guess I almost got a 1:1 ratio of hours to dollars. I would've enjoyed this game more now, after playing FF7 Remake.

Pokemon Picross - 6 Hours

Free AND Picross? Yes, but also grindy and scummy. I wish you could just buy a physical copy of this game with everything unlocked.

Paper Mario Sticker Star - 5 Hours

Ten dollars on clearance was too much for this game. Maybe I will try it again sometime knowing ahead of time that it is a joke of a video game. I spit on this game's grave.

Mario Tennis Open - 5 Hours

A lot of the games I acquired within the last year have much lower playtimes, so I was not expecting to see this game this high. I guess I played a few tournaments. I feel like I quit because Waluigi cheated, then played just the tutorial of Mario Golf before quitting that too.

Elite Beat Agents - 4.5 Hours

This game rules.

Tetris Axis - 4.5 Hours

This game drools.

Kirby Planet Robobot - 4.5 Hours

Cute game, but I only play it with my girlfriend.

New Super Mario Brothers 2 - 4.5 Hours

I am surprised it is this low considering I got stuck on the final boss in single player and beat around 2 worlds in coop.

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward - 4 Hours

I need to play more!

Super Smash Brothers Demo - 4 Hours

Hell yeah this was such an exciting time to be a Nintendo fan! Trying to get ahold of this demo was like getting a Willy Wonk golden ticket. I was so excited to play as Mega Man, Villager, Mario, Link, and Pikachu even if just on Battlefield.

Kingdom Hearts 3D - 3.5 Hours

A surprisingly competent action RPG. This game kind of reeks as part of the PS4 collection, but it really shines on the original version.

Layton's Mystery Journey - 3 Hours

I like the idea of playing as Layton's daughter, but I don't like having a talking dog and an insufferable simp as sidekicks. I hope the next game just returns to the original crew.

Mario Kart 7 - 3 Hours

It's...Mario Kart. Not a ton more to say.

Mario Party Island Tour - 3 Hours

I have trouble keeping the different 3DS Mario Party games separate in my mind, but anything that's not Top 100 is fun with friends. Top 100 only has one, miserable board! Why???

Ultimate NES Remix - 3 Hours

A great game for pick up and play, but not for long sessions.

Art of Balance Touch - 3 Hours

Recently got into this. Tons of fun until the difficulty gets a little too high!

Warioware Gold - 2.5 Hours

I completely beat this game and it is still this low. Fun, but hard to recommend at any price but free.

Luigi's Mansion 2 - 2.5 Hours

Cute game....but feels hard to play for more than 20 minutes at a time.

Dead or Alive Dimensions - 2.5 Hours

Again, all I did was beat the game and then quit. Surprsingly competent for a 3DS fighting game, but too barebones with content compared to Smash.

Boxboy - 2.5 Hours

I feel like I played this game way more. It's cute and fun, but now I have a hard time picking up the puzzles where I left them.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Demo - 2.5 Hours

This tricked me into buying the game! Dangit

Mario Party Star Rush - 2.5 Hours

Oh god, I can't keep this one and Island Tour straight.

Pokemon Shuffle - 2 Hours

I feel like I played this one way more, but that is probably because the phone version also exists.

VVVVVV - 2 Hours

Beat the whole game! Not a bad way to spend time, but this makes it worth only 2 dollars according to my 1:1 ratio of dollars to hours.

Final Fantasy Explorers - 2 Hours

I like some things about this game but I just cannot play anything related to Monster Hunter.

Tri Force Heroes - 2 Hours

This suffers from "Overcooked syndrome" where you have to rely on your teammates so much that it becomes a total chore.

Theatrythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call - 1.5 Hours

I played that much just to unlocked multiplayer.

Super Street Fighter IV - 1.5 Hours

I think I paid for this game full price back in high school and then barely played it. I've always tried to delude myself into thinking that I can play real fighting games that are not Smash.

Hatsune Miku Project Mirai DX - 1.5 Hours

Again, I feel like I played this game for days and days. I suppose rhythm games feel like time slows down when you play them. Thumbs up for including Puyo Puyo! I am surprised this game released in the West at all.

Rune Factory 4 - 1.5 Hours

I got this far as a favor to a friend. I just can't play any game where there is an optimal way to act that sounds exhausting but possible to me. I know I could easily talk to all the NPC's every day... but I do not want to.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate - 1.5 Hours

This was exclusively played with friends. Not a fan.

Pokemon Rumble World - 1.5 Hours

Free games. Novelty as a kid. No time for them as an adult. Nothing about this game is appealing beyond the price point.

Attack of the Friday Monster - 1.5 Hours

My biggest memory of this game is playing it on the schoolbus when a little kid asked if he could play/watch and I told him I was playing a boring game that he wouldn't like. As cute as this game is, yes, it is boring and not very fun.

Sonic Generations - 1.5 Hours

I somewhat enjoyed this game until the Shadow boss fight. Can't figure it out. Not fun.

Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn - 1.5 Hours

Cute, played it with girlfriend.

Super Mario Land 2 - 1 Hour

I think I got this with Club Nintendo points?

Rage of the Gladiator - 1 Hour

Medieval offbrand Punch-Out.

Mario Party: The Top 100 - 1 Hour

ONE BOARD?!? At least it has the storybook minifame from gamecube Mario Party.

Trace Memory - 1 Hour

Bought used from GameStop. I was told it was a hidden gem, but I didn't have the patience.

Mario and Sonic Rio 2016 - 1 Hour

Cute game to play with friends but some of the minigames suck. Thumbs up for less common Sonic characters.

Azure Striker Gunvolt - 1 Hour

Not bad, just helped me realize that I don't really like Mega Man style games all that much. The genre of "Mega Man" just feels like a Metroid with no exploration or meaningful progression.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - 1 Hour

I tried to get into this franchise but it is so booooorring and slow and unappealing to me.

I've been rounding to the half hour, so the next game is Zelda Oracle of Season at 44 minutes, which would round down to half an hour. I will take that as my cue to finish here.

In conclusion: games I owned longer tended to be played longer. Shocker. This was all just an excuse to ramble about Nintendo games anyways.

[aaronpullinteeth]

Top 10s: Video Games

Ok, I got inspired to do this after watching UpUpDownDown and might do more of these for different topics. Right, quick rules. 1 game per franchise and an explanation as to why I love it will be given. No spoilers either.

10: Tomb Raider 1

Ok, there’s going to be a lot of PS1 games in here. It’s my era and the first console I got so deal with it. Nostalgia is powerful shit. I remember being really young, like 4 years old and watching my step dad play this game for hours. After awhile we started playing it together, we would play for hours and I was so hooked. The story was so good Lara Croft was the first human main character for a game I can remember playing and it will always have a special place in my heart. This is why the new Tomb Raider games have been so hard for me to get on board with.

9: Spiderman PS1

The first game I ever finished, start to finish, on my own. I finished it so many times I unlocked all the costumes without the cheat. I then lost my save so begged friends at school for the cheat so I didn’t have to do it all again. But ended up doing it all again anyway. I am a massive superhero fan and Spiderman was my first favorite superhero and I dreamed of a day he would get a game, so when he did, I played it to death. I loved it so much. It was like playing a season of the 90s animated tv show. Pure superhero gaming perfection.

8: Mass Effect 2

In the modern era it’s rare I actually finish a game. Modern games either have gameplay that just entertain (either handling terribly or just plain boring) or the story is terrible. This was different. I never got to play the first Mass Effect as I believe it never released for the PlayStation and I never had an Xbox. But I found the second one years after it released on the cheap. Figured I’d give it a go, I didn’t have plans that weekend. It was something else. It was the first time since....a game later in this list.... that I had experienced such great and interactive story telling in a game. And by that I mean a game where you actually felt like you shaped it. For those that haven’t played it I wont spoil anything, but when you get to the last mission, it really shows how a game can handle your choices.

7: Croc 1

The only game on this list I haven’t actually finished. But my god it was fun. Another example of games on the PlayStation 1 that were such simplistic perfection. Without much of a clear story and other than “save these creatures from the bad things!” it was engaging and that soundtrack......oh my god that soundtrack.

6: Medievil 2

Play it. Just play it. And the first one too. i struggled with which one to put on this list. And while the first one might have had a few more funny moments with dialogue, the variety in levels, weapons, environments and story for a PS1 game were way way WAAAAAY ahead of their time. A game that somehow took a great dry sense of humor, an engaging story, a lovable protagonist that wasn’t your usual “badass” (again, I wont spoil anything) it was just pure fun, start to finish. The dark, gothic yet funny aesthetic didn’t hurt either

5: Tekken 3

Fighting game perfect. Disagree? Fight me. I know the argument of “Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat vs Tekken” has been going on for ages. I am team Tekken. The massive shifts in tone between characters and story is so good and keep it entertaining no matter how many times you play. But the thing that puts this Tekken ahead of the others is the Tekken Force mode. Not only did you have one of the best one on one fighting games ever, but you also had a multi leveled side scrolling beat em up in with it. What was not to love? Sidenote: King is my character. I once was at a house party and we have Tekken set up and I beat everyone else there two times over playing as King to the point we changed the game because I just wasn’t losing.

4: Fallout New Vegas

In my humble opinion, the greatest RPG experience ever. I know a lot of people wont agree. A lot wont even agree with it in the case of only Fallout games. But this is my favorite and I pumped so many hours into this game. You could play it 20 times over and never play the same way twice. No matter what you did, it had an impact. You could start the game and kill the first person you see and that would have a massive effect on your game. You could be good, evil, smart, dumb, a scientist, a fighter, a talker, a lover, a loner almost anything you want. The only game (other than the next on this list) that I have finished without killing anyone in it....I mean games where that is actually an option, you can finish the game without killing. It’s amazing.

3: Undertale

What can I say that hasn’t been said? A game where it will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will make you fall in love with side characters that you might only meet once, hell it’ll make you fall in love with the generic “enemies”. Everyone and everything has a personality in this game. And when it comes to being inclusive to all, this game is the best I’ve ever seen. Every character is different and so deep it’s amazing how much time and effort must have gone into it. If you haven’t played it for yourself, do it. I mean. You’ll get at least 2 playthroughs out of it that will be different. 3 if you have the time.

2: WWE Smackdown Shut Your Mouth

The game that I have lost the most hours of my life to....I think.....either this or number 1. Almost all WWE games have the same format, at least this era of WWE games. The mode that I will focus on is the season mode. 2 full years worth of storylines and madness. All different, all fun. Some based on real WWE storylines but with twists. If you are a wrestling fan, well a WWE fan, this is the best game for season mode.....well, this and Here Comes The Pain. It;s very close. This one wins for me because you get 2 full years worth. 

1: Crash Bandicoot 1 

The first game I ever owned. The day my dad brought home a PS1 and this game I was hooked. Hours of my childhood were lost to this orange, spinning asshole. Who doesn’t love Crash? He’s the best character ever created for PS1 in my opinion. Without saying a word he was amazing. The best. And the levels were all so good and challenging. But not bad challenging. You always knew what to do, just doing it was hard work. But the feeling you get when you beat the game......it’s so good. And shoutout to the music. Best soundtrack!

[furederiko]

Countdown Counter: 11. Kyuranger 38 is a martial art fan-service fest! And a story of a Commander and his hesitation regarding his chain of command...

- The downside of having a large team is that every now and then, several members would be eclipsed by the others. Such is the case for Commander Xiao who unfortunately happens to be NOT Red, thus his leadership is being overshadowed by both Reds. Tsurugi is calling the shots to the operation, and Lucky gets to lead one Away Team. Xiao (and his rigged Kyulette) is definitely ignored! - There are some neat little things in the opening scene. Though it's disappointing that all of them are seemingly male, we get to see the 4 Barrier-breaking Sages in Tsurugi's story. I don't know about you, but I would love to see more of the 88 Warriors of the past, like these guys and also Kuervo whom we'll see more in the episode. And then there's that bit with Lucky taking off his new white royalty coat, and exchanges it with the usual Rebellion jacket. He might be a King he says, but when he heads out for mission, he's a regular Kyuranger like everyone else. No special treatment. Nice excus... I mean attention to details! - The team is split in two as they head towards different directions. Tsurugi, Garu, Naga, Hammy, Raptor, and a slumped Xiao head to the Yin-Yang landscape of Planet Atchaalk in the Cepheus System, while Lucky and the others depart to play video game Planet Ghem in the Perseus System. The latter team immediately runs into a newly upgraded Mecha-Madako. She's now the Menaster of the system and is exclusively tasked to stop their mission. Hmmm... first Akyanba, now Madako, Toku designers sure are obsessed with mechanical boobs, huh? - Team Tsurugi arrives at the Kyulin Temple. In the past, Tsurugi and Kuervo had to overcome the Nine Trials of Cepheus before they could gain the trust and assistance of its warrior. This time around, the Kyurangers need to defeat Menaster Deathgong, if they ever want to move ahead to locate the Constellation's power. Let the trials begin!!! Fun fact: Setting for Kyulin Temple is a commonly used Chinese-themed location in Tokusatsu. In Super Sentai alone, it has been used plenty of times, most notably in the wushu-themed "Engine Sentai Go-onger vs Juuken Sentai Gekiranger". Then again, I think pretty much every scenes involving Gekiranger's Rin JuuKen practitioners were filmed here! As for the 'Trials', it's obviously just another playful use of the number 9, and doesn't have anything to do with mythology. In the Greek stories, it's Herakles who had to undergo 12 Labors, and none of those was even related to King Cepheus. Sure, the demi-God hero DO know of a King by the same name, but he's a completely different person unrelated to this Constellation. - 1st Trial - 'Hellish Chamber'. The team needs to defeat 99 Indavers in just one minute. Phoenix Soldier takes care of this in a zippy, by Phoenix End-ing more than 1/3 of the army. Gotta love Garu's reaction to being outmatched by Hammy. LOL. Draco Commander's back gets in the way, so he only gets 5 Indavers. Ouch! Tsurugi tells Xiao to don't mind that, because Kuervo also scored the same number back then. Team encounters the first crossroads, so they pair up and split into three groups to take on challenges in separate paths. - 2nd Trial - 'Muscle Building Chamber'. Basically, they need to perform 9999 sit-ups. Tsurugi gets to deliver another sweaty shirtless fan-service scene, while Raptor... cheers. Yep, lately the extra member seems to be in charge of shirtless fan-service spree, and Tsurugi firmly joins Zyuohger's Misao and ToQger's Akira in this category. To be honest, what he's doing is a little cheating, because a proper sit-up requires to lean a liiiitle bit lower. This is more in the line of abs-crunching. But I guess there's no definite rule for this trial, and it's still a demanding task nonetheless. Hold on... I wonder why Raptor doesn't take this challenge instead? She's an android, so doing repetitions like this shouldn't be 'exhausting' for her, right? - 3rd Trial - 'Kitchen Chamber'. Hammy and Garu are tasked for a cook-off and impress the Indaver-judges. This one is another cheat, because they immediately contact Spada for clue despite being star systems away. Hammy whips up the Pisces Kyu Globe, and the two serves... fresh SUSHI to win the trial. For the record, making Sushi isn't as 'easy' as this episode suggests. But it's reasonably quick, and can be done by people with limited cooking skill and utensil knowledge. So uhm... you get the point. LOL. - 4th Trial - 'Game Chamber'. Red Light, Green Light. I'm personally not familiar with this game (we don't actually play it in my country... but I'm an introvert, so who am I to say XD), but once again, the team has an upper hand in Naga's ability. Xiao and his weak back might not be up for this posing game, but that's not a problem for Naga's freeze glare. - 5th Trial - 'Dance Chamber'. The title says it all, as the team unites for a quick rock n' roll... I mean Kyulette the Chance 'Just Dance' session. Daang, I wish this scene is muuuch longer. Seriously producers, we need a Kyuranger Musical!!! - 6th Trial - 'Resilience Chamber'. Hammy partners up with Raptor for... a nice hot spring bathhouse challenge! Yep, we finally get the ladies moment, and it's totally fan-service. Aaaawwww.... *v*. But really, I wish this scene plays out muuuuuch longer too. Not because I'm pervy or anything, but because we rarely see the female members in this show hug... I mean hang around casually like this. I could be mistaken or anything, but we haven't had that annual girl-power trope episode so far, have we? By the way, I'm surprised that Raptor can endure this challenge without getting... rusty. Oh well, carry on! - 7th Trial - 'Funny Face Chamber'. Garu and Naga engage in a staring fight against the Indavers, a challenge that even yours truly would lose pretty instantly. It's a nice callback to the fact that neither of them knew the Indavers are wearing masks! Naga is hilarious, and it's even moreso because he doesn't realize it. LOL. - 8th Trial - 'Shooting Chamber'. Tsurugi steals Xiao's thunder all over again, by blasting all the targets away... with his SHIELD-BLADE. I did NOT know his armaments can do that. Even Deathgong sees Tsurugi as the only major threat of this group, a premature assumption that would backfire very harshly. - Before they head to the last one, Xiao and Tsurugi have a sweet heart to heart moment that pretty much serves as the highlight of this episode (at least for me). Ignoring how or where Tsurugi can even obtain those canned coffee, it's a surprisingly stark metaphor to real life situation. In all honesty, Xiao is like an old man whom his family slowly ignores the more they grow up, while Tsurugi is that hip trendy outsider who just recently becomes a new addition to the pack. This sweet intimate moment gives Xiao a chance to reflect on his limitations, but also allows Tsurugi to prove his kindness and wisdom. "You assembled the brightest stars in the universe into a single team", he praises. To which he also reminds Xiao that the Commander has his own way of handling thing. As in, everyone has their own role and place in the world. That's a strong message right there! - 9th Trial - ''Infighting Chamber'. Expecting a Jark Matter MotW to play fair and square would be a fever dream. Deathgong has captured Garu, Naga, Hammy, and Raptor as soon as they completed their challenges, and now pits them against the Cold-Sleep Duo. This is where the Menaster learns that underestimating Xiao becomes his fatal error. True to his words, Xiao knows each and every Kyuranger thoroughly (most of them at least... am I right, Naga?). It doesn't take long for him to realize that the seemingly-controlled Kyurangers attacking them are nothing but FAKES. This is how he's be superior than Tsurugi, because he has the power of perceptive! Aside from spending more time with the team to know that their reaction feels off, of course. LOL. - Freed from Deathgong's clutches through Xiao's signature sleazy trick, the four Kyurangers get to perform wushu-style attacks against the Indavers! Aquila Pink uses #81 Grus, Chamaeleon Green uses #85 Lynx, Ophiucus Silver uses #65 Hydrus, and Lupus Blue gets to shuffle (to genuine hilarious effect) both #52 Canis Majorand #66 Canis Minor Kyu Globe. Totally neat! Too bad Tsurugi doesn't get a part. He could've used the Bird of Paradise or Peacock constellations, if you ask me *grins*. - Draco Commander closes the curtain with a flashy end though. In a neat wushu-showdown serving as a cool homage to "Gosei Sentai Dairanger", Draco Commander utilizes his 'RyuKenpou' and blasts Deathgong to defeat with a Kameham... er, Dragon Ba... I mean, Energy Ball! - A fun trick is also utilized in the mecha battle. Ryutei-Oh has always been limited as a three-people robot. By borrowing Phoenix Voyager's rocket booster components (that form the hands of Kyutamajin), Draco Commander turns it into a FIVE-people combo. While benching out Phoenix Soldier on the ground as a cheerleader passive spectator. LOL. It's a nice change of pace that probably only toy collectors are aware of. I do hope we'll get to see this form more often, but that likely won't be the case and just a one-off thing. - On the other planet, Mecha-Madako uses a special controller to trigger Champ's malfunction. A not-so-mysterious person handed it to her earlier. Things are only starting to get serious there, but that will be our story for next week. On the bright side, the Kyulin Temple's Head Monk (at least, he looks like one?) is freed. As a token of gratitude, he grants the Constellation System's power to create the #54 Cepheus Kyu Globe. That means TWO down, and two more to go...

Overall: This episode was Goofy Fun! I'm a little disappointed, because I was expecting it to be 'crazier' and MORE comedic. But overall, it had truly fine fan-service heavy moments that once again, would've been even awesome had they played out a little bit longer. Garu and Naga were the MVPs, they stole the scenes and made me LOLed real hard. The warm interchange between Xiao and Tsurugi also worked in favor of elevating this rather hectic episode into a different level. Yep, this was a fantastic focus episode for Xiao, that smartfully harkened back to his early dilemma in the series. Being a hero is what Xiao had always wanted, so it's only natural that he started recognizing his own limitations and doubted if he's even right for the job. I think we can all safely say that this was a nice wrap to Xiao's personal arc. Next week: Fight on R.P.G. Knights, and reclaim your Champ!!!

Episode 38 Score: 7,8 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: November 22nd, 2017 - Version 3.06. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

[panickypansexual]

ok so I had to do this again because I fucked up the numbers but here we go!

Special thanks to @spastikchildren for tagging me; you’re the real MVP

THE LAST:

1.     Drink: Water.  Actually, that’s the only thing I’ve drunk all day…huh…

2.     Phone call: I dunno! I haven’t called anyone in 2017 at all (because I hate phone calls).

3.     Text message: An in depth analysis of a microwave meal. I shit you not.

4.     Song you listened to: I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s that really intense party music going on in the background of the video clip ‘fly vs electric screwdriver’. Yeah, the meme-y one.

5.     Time you cried: Probably recently? Oh yeah, a few nights ago. I was laughing too hard at a shitpost lol

HAVE YOU:

6.     Dated someone twice: God no! I’d rather dieeeeeee (but not really)

7.     Kissed someone and regretted it: Yes, but that’s only because I thought playing the Pocky game with a crumbly wafer was an intelligent decision. Hint hint: it was not.

8.     Been cheated on: No, fortunately not.

9.     Lost someone special: Not anyone super close to me, but yes.

10.  Been depressed: I. Have. Depression. You. Pleb.

11.  Gotten drunk and thrown up: No, I can’t drink. Actually, I could. I just refuse to.

FAVORITE COLORS (this is actually really hard since I love a lot of colors!)

12.  Purple (my all-time favorite)

13.  Electric Lime Green

14.  Black

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15.  Made new friends: No, but I’ve gotten a lot closer to some people.

16.  Fallen out of love: No.

17.  Laughed until you cried: See #5

18.  Found out someone was talking about you: Yes, but it was actually just my mutuals spreading the love, so that was pretty cool.

19.  Met someone who changed you: Not in the last year, no.

20.  Found out who your friends are: No, but I’ve figured out who I don’t want to stay in contact with after I get out of school.

21.  Kissed someone on your Facebook list: No, neither my ex nor my girlfriend have a Facebook (as far as I know).

  GENERAL (ooh, nice module!):

22.  How many Facebook friends do you know in real life: Most of them, aside from my fake accounts….yeah, I had like 50+ lol

23.  Do you have any pets: Yes! I have three lovely cats and a clown loach.

24.  Do you want to change your name: Not particularly; no.

25.  What did you do for your last birthday: I didn’t do anything ;_; They said the place I wanted to go wouldn’t be good for a party, and then my friend just took our ‘squad’ there and we had fun. So, it felt like a birthday. I might have a real one in the summer to make up for it, but that seems a little….selfish.

26.  What time did you wake up: At like 5 AM because I had to pee

27.  What were you doing at midnight last night: trying to fall asleep.

28.  Name something you can’t wait for: Getting out of this shitty education system! That means: having a full-fledged job (which I’m trying to start now), hopefully living with my sweetheart one day and not being surrounded by assholes.

29.  One thing you wish you could change about your life: Less acne!

30.  What are you listening to right now: My fish tank’s usual bubbly noises and my overhead AC

31.  Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: Heck yeah I have! His name’s Tom McCall! But not the governor. Just an eggplant I raised….(along with Bob Straub, because Oregon history ftw).

32.  Something that is getting on your nerves: me myself and I

33.  Most visited website: Probably this one. Youtube would be #2. Or Google, if you could count that. I have a lot of questions. Speaking of that, Wikipedia would be like #3.

34.  Moles: Like 5, but I’m going to grow a lot more as I get older. It’s in my genes.

35.  Marks: I have one scar on my foot (at least, I think it’s going to be a scar) from a mysterious injury involving my chair and a lot of blood. I also have a small scar near my collarbone the size of an icepick, which I’ve had since I was born (I think).

 36.  Childhood dream: Staying alive. In other words, not killing myself! And guess what? I achieved it!

37.  Hair color: Brunette; chocolate brown with caramel colored highlights if you want to get more specific. It’s my natural hair color (including the highlights).

38.  Long or short hair: Everyone loves my hair short, but I fucking hate it. I prefer long hair.

39.  Do you have a crush on someone: Er, does my girlfriend count?

40.  What do you like about yourself: *nervous laughter*….nothing? I guess my eyes are pretty nice.

41.  Piercings: None.

42.  Blood type: Both of my parents are Os, so even though I’ve never been tested (hella scared about that), I’m probably an O.

43.  Nickname: Aside from Panic/Loli, none. Those are just my online tags.

44.  Relationship status: Happily dating a cute girl. It’s unfortunately a long distance relationship for the summer, though…I miss her cuddles.

45.  Zodiac: Aquarius/Capricorn cusp, but I’m much more of an Aquarius (so I just typically go by that)

46.  Pronouns: y’all/yaint. Just kidding, she/her. I’d set the whole ‘y’all/yaint’ thing as my blog title, but I feel like someone would think I was making fun of pronouns so I won’t.

47.  Favorite TV Show: I rarely watch TV honestly, but probably Billy the Exterminator. Reminds me a bit of @spastikchildren, actually. He’s a rocker-type dude who goes around rescuing animals.

48.  Tattoos: None.

49.  Right or left hand: Assuming you mean my dominant hand, right.

50.  Surgery: None yet. I’m terrified of having to get my wisdom teeth out. I’ve never been knocked out before….

51.  Hair dyed in a different color: Not right now, but when I start going gray I’ll just become ‘anime grandma’ and dye my hair crazy colors.

52.  Sport: MARCHING BAND, which is a sport. If you think it is not, I suggest you come watch me perform after putting hundreds of hours into it (all while my arms are practically falling off).

53.  Vacation: I’d rather not. Traveling is stressful for me.

54.  Pair of trainers: I have this really sick ass pair of electric colored New Balance shoes that I’m currently breaking in.

MORE GENERAL:

55.  Eating: Seahorses. Just kidding, they’re actually giant pieces of barbequed chicken that look like giant seahorses, so that’s why I call them that.

56.  Drinking: Water, because these seahorses are (pleasantly) spicy.

57.  I’m about to: I dunno. Maybe I’ll play some Don’t Starve. I just watched someone play it and picked up some new techniques that might make it easier for me to play.

58.  Waiting for: Nothing in particular, really. I guess for me to finish eating and finish this thingy.

59.  Want: To feel like I’m useful and wanted, to have a good career in freelance writing, to take a warm shower because I’m cold, and to ask my girlfriend to spoil me….because I want more hugs.

 RELATIONSHIPS (not a category, but I added it so)

60.  Get married: Sure, I’d like to get married. But I don’t wanna have kids (maybe I’ll adopt some older ones so I don’t have to deal with screaming shit demons).

61.  Career: I’m really hoping I can begin freelance writing, because I really don’t fucking want to go to college (and no, it doesn’t require a degree, I’ve done research on it).  I’m trying to start now.

62.  Hugs or kisses: Hugs. I have no fucking clue how to kiss people.

63.  Lips or eyes: Eyes ftw, though my lips are a delightful cherry pink without any lipstick so I do like that about me.

64.  Shorter or taller: I often like taller people, but I really am sort of indifferent.

65.  Older or younger: I like to date people the same age (or close) as me. Otherwise, I don’t really care.

66.  Nice arms or nice stomach: Uh, I don’t care either way.

67.  Sensitive or loud: I’m sensitive all right. But I’m okay with loud noises; I sit behind percussionists after all.

68.  Hook up or relationship: Relationship. I need attention and cuddles.

69.  Troublemaker or hesitant: HESITANT.

HAVE YOU EVER:

70.  Kissed a stranger: uh no

71.  Drank hard liquor: No, I don’t drink.

72.  Lost glasses/contacts: No. I very rarely wear my glasses anyway, so it’s a moot point.

73.  Turned someone down: No, I’m not cute enough for people to have a crush on me. Except for online creepers (which I always turn down).

74.  Sex on the first date: No thanks.

75.  Broken someone’s heart: No, I get my heart broken most all of the time. I hardly do the breaking.

76.  Had your heart broken: YES. And not just in relationships.

77.  Been arrested: No, but I think the police have a record for me (I wasn’t guilty of anything, though).

78.  Cried when someone died: Yeah, I am a short fuse when it comes to crying.

79.  Fallen for a friend: Yes.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

80.  Yourself: Fuck no. I don’t even know if I’m real. I honestly hope I’m not….

81.  Miracles: I guess. It’s a miracle I’m still alive, I think.

82.  Love at first sight: Yes, but that’s not real love.

83.  Santa Claus: Yes, he’s my homie.

84.  Kiss on the first date: Depends.

85.  Angels: I think it’s possible they exist, but I’m not sure.

OTHER:

86.  Current best friend’s names: Probably Cairo and Ana.

87.  Eye color: Bluish green with a splash of hazel, but for all intents and purposes, just green.

88.  Favorite Movie: Anything really shitty.

 I tag: Whoever’s reading this! (and hasn’t already done it)

[beacon-of-chaos]

Defenders of Aura - A Battle Century G Campaign Diary

Session 9 It's nearly time for the Chinese fleet to arrive. Each of us is preparing for the battle to come... Juyon is working on his mech when he's approached by a young lady- Fiona: If it's Sara Wong tell her to **** off. GM: It is Sara Wong. Fiona: Oh god. -who begins talking about... her life story? (Paraphrasing a lot here, it's been a while and I barely remember this) Sara: We're not too different, you and I. Your grandfather taught you, my father taught me. We both have a certain bond with technology, wouldn't you say? Juyon: Get to the point, Sara. Sara: Do you truly believe your Grandfather's spirit resides in your mech? Juyon: Well, no. It's a metaphor. I don't actually think my grandfather's heart beats within it. Sara: That's a shame. Juyon: Uh... Creepy. There was then a frankly uncomfortable conversation about death, though I'm afraid I've forgotten most of it at this point. Something about dying a hero, I think. Anyway, Sara leaves and Juyon is left incredibly puzzled. Elsewhere, Sinclair is monitoring radio frequencies when he detects a hacking attempt coming from inside the base. He attempts to get a security patrol to look into it but the communications go down as he tries. The hacker seems to be downloading videos. Sinclair: From the security cameras? GM: No, seems to be from an outside source. Sinclair: Huh. I'll attempt to lock them out of the system. GM: You don't need to, it seems they've already locked themselves out. Sinclair: My work here is done! Despite having "solved" the problem, Sinclair decides to see if he can find this hacker. There's a console in a rarely used corridor and using it is a teenage girl. She quickly apologises, saying she was bored and only trying to find some youtube videos since there wasn't any wifi, due to the base being on high alert. Sinclair responds that that's all well and good, but who is she and how is she such a good hacker? The girl responds that her name is Ajini and she is the daughter of General Gana of the Africa forces. Ajini: So you have to be nice to me. Sinclair: Debatable. She asks Sinclair why Aura is gearing up to fight the Chinese. Why not just let them take what they want so no one gets hurt? Sinclair responds that while he doesn't really have a lot of experience in human behaviour, he understand that people who make demands of you don't necessarily stop making demands if you give in. They just take and take until you have nothing left. Adacia responds that Sinclair sounds like her father. The young lady then decides that Sinclair needs to find her some entertainment. Sinclair takes her to the combat simulators for some mech practice (it's basically a video game, right?). And for once Sinclair can choose a mech with actual weapons! Spectre is working on his mech when Eric approaches him. A new battleship, the Argo, had been built and is ready for combat against the invaders. Eric is a seasoned mechanic now, having worked with Spectre on mech building for years. He lets the doctor know that he wants to join the Argo's crew as an engineer. Spectre: We've never been apart before. Eric: I know, but I think I can do more good with them. You don't really need me to help you anymore. Spectre: Promise me you'll stay safe? Eric: As long as you do the same, yes. They give each other a big hug. D'awww. Meanwhile, Ax is meeting up with his band mates. Together they decided that while their lead is out fighting on the front lines that they would help evacuating the citizens of Neovara to shelters in case the worst happens. Ax shares some works of wisdom with them. Ax: First of all, no bottling anyone! Bandmate: There are few problems that can't be solved by bottling someone. Ax: NO bottling anyone! And no setting fires either! Ori, I'm looking at you. Orion: Aw, you're no fun, Ax. Don't they sound like a fun bunch? It's all a bit of banter though and the group shares a tender moment too. Eric shows up here too, and tells Ax he looks up to him. The singer responds by giving Eric one of his limited edition band tour jackets. Finally, Fiona is in the cafeteria getting lunch when Nina Burgess approches her. Nina: Tensions are high at the moment. How are you feeling? Fiona: Fine. Nina: How do you think the battle will go? Fiona: I think we have the best plan we could come up with, considering the circumstances. Nina: ...You know I considered you for the leadership position as well. Fiona: I thought you might... Nina: You could have done well. But we needed a front man, someone charismatic. We've had so many recruits join up thanks to the work you've done. I hope you understand. Fiona: Ax is doing a good job. I'm okay being the one with the ideas. Nina: I'm glad. Back in the simulator, Sinclair is getting his metal butt handed to him by a teenager who's never piloted a mech before. I suppose that's what you get when you pilot a mech with no weapons for a living. (natural 1 vs natural 10 on a d10. Thems the breaks). Ajini is about to deal the final blow when the base alarm goes off. Battle stations! Sinclair: Oops, would you look at the time! I guess we'll call this one a draw, but good job, you nearly got me! See you later! We gather in the war room. So, what's the situation? Have the Chinese fallen for our ambush? Did they avoid it somehow? Actually the reality is the Chinese fleet has... vanished. Sinclair: Job done then! Who's for badminton? Ax: Depends. Do you play that as badly as you pilot in the simulator? Sinclair: *death glare* While we search for our foes, we discover a strange signal coming from orbit. We're not exactly sure what it is, but it seems to just be space debris. We try and get camera footage from a nearby satelite. As we do, another signal starts up nearby. And another. As the cameras move into place, we see what definitely looks like debris parts, clustered into a circle. And then another one appears, quickly at first, before slowing down and moving into place in the circle. Nina realises what's happening: The Chinese have launched their own portable warp gate into orbit, disguised as pieces of debris that we'd just ignore! Fiona: Oh, that's clever! We order the ships in orbit to fire on the warp gate, but before they can move into position three Chinese battleships warp through. We're in trouble. A message from the Chinese General is broadcast down to the surface, demanding that we surrender. No chance! Nina orders us to get up there and destroy the ships and the warp gate before the rest of the fleet arrives. How are we going to get up there in time? Being fired up out of a specialised mecha railgun. Sounds... fun? As we make our way to our mechs... GM: Ax, make an awareness roll. Ax: 6? GM: You feel a sudden stabbing pain in your side. You turn around to see Sara Wong, clutching something in her hand. Ax: S-Sara? ...Why? Sara: You want to be a hero, right? Kill the bad guys and save the world? Become powerful and die in glorious battle? Ax: ...W-what did you do!? Sara: You'll see. For now, you have a fight to win. And with that, she lightly pushes Ax with a single hand... and sends him flying into his mech. Ax: Did she just kill me? GM: No. In fact, you feel great. Better than ever. Ax: ...Huh? GM: You feel stronger, more alert, more confident. Like you could take on the world. Ax: The biofuel! She injected me! GM: You get +1 to ALL of your stats this session. Character and mech. Ax: Awesome! The rest of us don't notice anything as we are busy being launched out of a cannon into space. Sounds dangerous but we have some kind of g-force damping system in place to stop us turning into paste and scrap metal. We get our mission orders: The Cruel Odysseus and the other Auran ships will take on one ship, the Nauls will fight the other. Our job is to take out the third ship, or at least cripple it enough for a ship to get past and destroy the warp gate. We arrive within range and slow ourselves as much as possible. We have one major advantage that we didn't have when fighting the Ebon Order ship: These ships don't have mechs. We're just dealing with the ship's guns, and most of those are designed to fight other ships; they're too slow to hit us. Fiona attempts to hail the ship and offer them a chance to surrender but there's no response. How rude. Juyon, Fiona, and Sinclair begin moving towards the ship, while Spectre lays down cover fire with his laser cannon, adjusting the wavelength to ignore the enemy shields. Ax, on the other hand, begins moving directly towards the gun batteries, opening fire with his bazooka and dealing large amount of damage. The other mechs main targets are the anti-mecha turrets at the front of the ship. Juyon moves in close to attempt to cut the guns apart but is unable to pierce the armour (note: Juyon's player was suffering from a string of bad luck this session, never rolling higher than a 3 and getting four 1s in a row. He did not pray to RNGesus that day, clearly). Spectre overcharges his laser for an explosive blast and Fiona moves in after with her anti-warship sword. Sinclair attempts to hack the turrets to attack each other, but their systems are strong and he only manages to disable one. Ax, meanwhile, is getting a little cocky, hammering the gun arrays so much that he blasts a hole in the hull through them. We all notice he's acting strangely, but we don't get much communication from him. Then he does something... scary. He fires something into the ship through the hole he just made. A spare reactor core, which he then detonates. No one's even sure where he got that. We don't notice the explosion, but we do notice life signs heavily diminishing as the radiation from the core begins slowly killing the crew. There are many cries of "What the Hell, Ax!?" But he doesn't seem to be listening. He makes a willpower check and rolls low. GM: *to Ax* It all makes sense to you now. Everything is clear. This feels amazing. You are unstoppable. After a couple more rounds of combat, there's a warning from our sensors; the Chinese ship is overcharging its shields. If we don't stop it quickly the resulting energy burst will fry us. Fiona moves in to try a risky maneuver and disable the shield generator with melee attacks. Ax hefts his weapon at the shield generator... GM: Roll a willpower check. Ax: ...11? GM: It would be so easy. All you have to do is pull the trigger and blast them to pieces. But you come to your senses just long enough to see Fiona there and you lower your gun. Fiona: Phew. Ax, we need to talk. Fiona tears apart the shield generator. The overload triggers inwardly, crippling the shields and leaving the ship defenceless. Heavy weapons fire comes from the distance and disables the rest of the weapons. It's the Auran ships who have just finished dealing with the other ship. We turn our attentions to the warp gate. We take a few pot shots with our weapons and deal some damage, but it's not enough to destroy them before more ships begin pouring out. We have, however, damaged it enough to send the new ships wildly off-course and a transport ship flies directly at us! Uh oh, time to bolt! We jet away from the battleship as quickly as possible, but the shockwave from the impact sends debris flying and we take some damage. Worse still, more ships are incoming. Nina tells us we're going to have to attempt re-entry. Fiona: Is that even safe? GM: Normally yes, but if your mechs are damaged that could make things dangerous. Fiona: Well I'll be fine then! Thanks, by the way. Sinclair: *just finished repairs on her mech* No problem! Everyone else: Uh oh. We drop into the atmosphere and the GM makes us roll checks which we all pass with varying degrees of success. We land scattered on an unihabited island North West of Soko. Sinclair ends up stuck in the sand on a beach up to his neck (Well, 3/4 perfect landings isn't bad). Ax rolls another willpower check and fails. This causes him to begin burning up, some incredible energy flowing through him and he loses the ability to concentrate. He can do nothing but scream. Fiona attempts to break him out of the mech by ripping the cockpit out. GM: Another willpower check. Ax: *rolls low* GM: This really ****ing hurts! You feel everything that your mech does and it's like she's trying to tear you apart. Fiona, a burst of energy flings you away from Riggnarok. Fiona: Dammit, can't anyone do something? Juyon steps up. There's an access hatch on the side of Riggnarok. If he can just get to it... GM: Roll athletics. Juyon: ****! Another 1! GM: Oh for the love of- here, use my dice instead! Juyon: *rolls another 1* The GM rules that Juyon makes it up to the hatch, but slowly and with a few injuries from the energy field. Eventually he's able to get inside the mech and sees Ax screaming while floating in the middle of a swirling mass of energy. GM: What do you do? Juyon: I punch him in the face! GM: He falls unconscious and the vortex stops. And THAT is the end of the session! <=To Be Continued|/|\ Man that was a good one. Awesome from start to finish and with some brilliant roleplaying from everyone, but especially Ax. I feel like this is the longest journal I've written, too. Or at least the one with the most dialogue. Bonus quotes: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...postcount=1278

[recentanimenews]

A Look Back at the Ways the Mob Psycho 100 Anime Blew Us Away

Mob Mondays may be over, but I just can’t seem to let them go. For a show about an average, everyday middle schooler, Mob Psycho 100 was nothing short of extraordinary. While its first season was tremendous, Mob Psycho 100’s second season set it apart as the once-in-a-decade show it is. It was a rare kind of anime, the kind that’s always delivering itself at full 100% quality. Both seasons have been nothing short of impeccable—the latest even more so. Whether it was delivering raw action, lighthearted comedy, or heartwarming life lessons, the team behind the show clearly poured their whole hearts into it. It may have ended, but I’ve yet to get over it. This show blew my mind at every single twist and turn. Another season chocked full of brand new anime is fast approaching, but before it gets here let’s pay tribute once again to Mob Psycho 100 and the myriad of ways it blew us away.

  Let’s start at the beginning—the opening, specifically. From start to finish it’s an explosion of kaleidoscopic visuals and mind-bending transitions that perfectly exemplify what one can expect from any episode of Mob Psycho 100. It’s filled to the brim with winks and nods to moments big and small from throughout the series, providing both cheeky fanservice for established fans and tantalizing hints of stuff to come for first-time viewers (Oh my god, THE BROCCOLI!!!). Add it’s wide breadth of psychedelic visuals to the head-banging, pulse-pounding beats of Mob Choir’s single “99” and what you get it a strong contender for one of the best anime openings I’ve ever seen. It’s an instant eye-catcher and endlessly rewatchable. Whenever I need to get someone interested in Mob Psycho 100, I’ll just play that opening and watch it work its magic on them.

  Then there’s the most obvious aspect to consider when talking about the ways Mob Psycho 100 blew us away: the action. Oh lord, the ACTION. Studio BONES is no stranger to well-animated action, having produced anime such as Blood Blockade Battlefront, Concrete Revolutio, and My Hero Academia. Their awareness for action comes through in spades in Mob Psycho 100 though, knocking each and every set-piece completely out of the park. Some of the first fights that come to mind as examples of fantastic action sequences come in Mob’s first season. One being the fight between Teru and Mob. It’s the first battle between espers in the series, and boy does it deliver. Prior to that point, we’d never seen Mob use much of his power. Teru being both an incredibly powerful and ambitious esper, eventually drags way more out of Mob than he bargained for. The results are fast-paced, flashy, and massively destructive. Every moment of the fight is carefully rendered to convey the sheer force both espers are unleashing on both each other and the environments around them.

  Another that stood out to me when I first watched it is when the Scars finally reveal themselves with Koyama’s abduction of Ritsu. We see another batch of firsts in this fight. Prior to this battle, the only espers in Mob Psycho 100 had displayed very similar telekinetic powers. Koyama, however, uses his psychic powers in a much more physical way, basically powering up his fists and attacking like a street fighter in an all-out brawl. It’s also the first time we really see Mob struggling and being brutalized by an enemy. It’s a pivotal moment in the series, and is portrayed with the weight it deserves. Koyama’s attacks are rough and brutal to watch, and Mob’s enraged form is adequately terrifying to behold. The one that takes the cake, though, is one I can confidently label one of my favorite anime fights of all time: Shimazaki vs. Everyone. Better writers than me have already dissected this fight to greater length than I ever could, but I’ll attempt to anyway. What we have here is an extraordinary achievement of imagination handed over to some of the best animators in the industry. The result is a top-notch, balls-to-the-wall fight with some of the most powerful espers in the world squaring off against one who’s virtually invincible.

  There’s a moment early on in Naruto where Sasuke finds his Sharingan useless against Rock Lee’s taijutsu. Lee mockingly informs him that just reading ones movements accomplishes nothing without the physical ability to react to them. Shimazaki, then, is like a character created solely to defeat Rock Lee’s taijutsu (fittingly, he’s voiced by Noriaki Sugiyama—the voice of Sasuke Uchiha). Shimazaki doesn’t just possess powerful telekinetic ability, he also has the ability to foretell his opponent’s movements. Of course, that’s useless without the ability to react to them, so he was also blessed with the gift of teleportation. Not only does he know exactly how an enemy is going to attack, he can instantly teleport away and counter with a devastating attack of his own.

So then, how do Ritsu, Teru, and the reformed Scars attempt to counter such an unstoppable combination of powers? Well, with sheer brute force and a few combos of their own. Shimazaki’s foresight requires concentration, so they come at him with a sheer barrage of nonstop attacks, and it’s all painstakingly rendered so that each attack flows seamlessly into the next. I could try to go into detail, but you know what? It’s probably better if you just watch the clips for yourself. I’ve watched this fight more times than I can count already, and each time I’m left asking, “How the hell did they do that?” The word “budget” gets thrown around a lot regarding impressive sequences of animation, which I think is a massive disservice to the people who animate them. You don’t get this kind of quality by just by throwing money at a project. You can only get it by having a talented team of hardworking artists with the time, resources, and skill required to stand as the forefront of what your craft can accomplish.

  Where Mob Psycho 100 blows me away the most, though, more-so than it’s flashy opening or incredible action, is in the lengths it goes to be uncompromisingly empathetic. Mob Psycho 100 might happen to be an anime with intense action and crazy battles, but at its core it’s a show about a kid learning to be just a little more confident in himself. The opening episode of season two doesn’t feature any kind of high-stakes action, but it stands as my favorite episode in the series for its central purpose of teaching Mob that he can’t live just appeasing others. In the end, doing only leaves both yourself and the people who see through you a little more miserable. Considering your own feelings is a healthy step towards self-confidence.

  Of course, what really sets Mob Psycho 100 apart for me is in the distinction it makes between self-confidence and self-importance. A commonly held belief between all of the series’s antagonists is that their powers set them far apart from the rest of the human race. The more powerful they are, the more they believe themselves worthy of controlling those they believe are beneath them. At one point, Reigen chastises the Scars for their childishness. After all, they dress up in costumes and refuse to consider how their actions may affect others. Selfishness is a behavior found in brains too young to have developed empathy, so a selfish adult is one who never quite grew up. It might be easy to misconstrue Reigen’s philosophy as one of conformity. After all, his lecturing does lead them to seek out more normalized lives, and both Muraki and Serizawa don plain suits—the uniform of modest salarymen. I thoroughly disagree with this, though. What Reigen, and Mob Psycho 100 as a whole, condemns is not individuality but rather escapism and individual superiority. What the show asks of its viewers is that they learn to face reality and find their own just place within it.

    This philosophy is best expressed in the scene where a young Mob first meets his soon-to-be master Reigen. Afraid of his own power, Mob seeks Reigen’s advice on how to control it. Reigen of course lies through his teeth about himself having psychic powers, but ends up giving legitimately good advice anyway. He tells Mob there’s nothing positive or negative about being an esper. It’s a characteristic as normal as being smart or smelly. True charm comes through kindness alone. “Become a good person. That is all.”

    My own journey for self-improvement has had some highs and lows over the years. Each and every step I’ve taken was influenced by any number of things around me, and I’m proud to report that Mob Psycho 100 helped me take the latest. While writing this piece I added an activity to my morning routine. After watching Mob steadily improve through the Body Improvement Club’s training led me to start some training of my own. It’s a light workout—and nothing compared to the training I did when I was Mob’s age—but it’s a start. After all, if I keep improving little by little, I’ll find myself in a better place than I was before.

  What were YOUR favorite parts of Mob Psycho 100? Let us know in the comments below!

----- Danni Wilmoth is a Features and Social Videos writer for Crunchyroll and also co-hosts the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.   Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

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