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basedkikuenjoyer · 2 years

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Things I Think About, Vol. 56

Because I love y’all, a silly little bonus one that was always worth doing. Surprised we didn’t get it before. Something that’d be a lot more fun to check if this pet theory ends up surprising us all but either way we have enough to go on. Kiku’s one of the ones who met the entire Straw Hat crew, spent a lot of time with them. What did she think?

Luffy - Funny one. Same love for the goofy charmer and his antics...but also because of the fun quirks of their story together probably sees him as way more mature than most. The one person who might actually describe that rapscallion as well-mannered.

Zoro - Skilled, but rather rude.

Nami - It’d be a shame if we didn’t get more of this one because it has the most potential. The bath scene was really cool, it implies a fair amount of trust was there already and Nami not caring would naturally be meaningful. But...she’s Nojiko’s age and the little bit we see of Shinobu/Kiku tracks too. These two spend much time together it’ll inevitably end up looking like female Zoro/Sanji. Catty, sisterly bond complete with that “Only I get to mess with her” vibe. (Robin can, but chooses not to because it’s funny)

Usopp - Poor girl. Brother Izo vouched for him. She’d be more gullible than Chopper. It might reach critical mass and actually leave Usopp feeling a little guilty about his shameless lies.

Sanji - Another one with a lot of potential, 1000x better if you let Sanji be the butt of the joke over her. If you even need to. Like, being real for a sec would Sanji even care in a case like this? Always felt it could go either way, or just dodge the question. Or...the best way. Fucking with him. What I wouldn’t give for a scene of Sanji going gaga over some local lady, only for Kiku to run him down acting like a jealous girlfriend just to get him back on track. Or an old Honjo joke, teasing young Yahiko that if he tried really hard, “you could grow up just like me.”

Chopper - This is just canon. What a lil cutie. Girls like cute things. Would like to knit silly costumes because Kiku’s lowkey a lil weird, but exercises restraint because that territory is claimed by...

Robin - Looks up to her, but this is an easy trap. It wouldn’t be like Toki or Tsuru, they’re more different personalities than it looks on the surface. Two takes on the same struggle. Robin’s the wallflower, Kiku the people pleaser. One’s quiet and cool on the outside but has a way weirder thought process than anyone would guess, the other melodramatic and cutesy because she’s actually pretty intense & high strung.

Franky - Obviously more -_- than *_*. Given. But there’s a respect there, he does give off major Oden energy. The one of the gang that will never fall for the little miss innocent act.

Brook - “This one has so many questions, but it’d be rude to ask.”

Jinbei - Friend shape detected. Shark Daddy is basically what I’d imagine Kawamatsu’s dad being like. Even though I think they’re about the same age now. Though the reason her and Matsu probably get along doesn’t apply. Earnestly believes the “new guy har har” jokes because that track with what she knows. I always thought a cool scene for end of Wano would have been Jinbei making good on that by putting his foot in his mouth with Kawamatsu.

#one piece #okiku #straw hat pirates #akazaya headcanons

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dewdropreader · 2 years

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3, 5, & 8 for the new years writing ask!! Happy new year :)

3. Do you anticipate writing for a new fandom this year? Which one?

I have no idea! It’s definitely possible but I have no plans for any other fandoms at the moment! I’ve definitely had ideas for other marvel fandoms (especially crossovers with Loki characters but also others being involved) but other than a vague idea I jotted down for Sylvie and Peggy Carter meeting I don’t have any planned fics for other fandoms!

If I had to predict, the only one I could imagine is if my rewatches of Steven Universe allow that show to dig it’s claws back into me lol. I wrote a few snippets for things when I was like 17-18, after I’d stopped writing/posting fics officially but had short little scene ideas I wanted to write down. I adore that show still but I’m not at peak obsession/interest like I am with the Loki fandom! But we’ll see! It’s always possible that something like that (or maybe even season 2 of Our Flag Means Death?!) could inspire me enough to write something else!

5. Which WIP is first on your list to complete this year? Will you post a snippet?

I have a few that are first up! The main one is my 5+1 Christmas/New Year fic, I need to finish that soon so it’s not *too* far beyond the holidays lol. I’m a bit over half done and it’s short little sections so hopefully soon! Here’s a little preview!

Sylvie shrugs and starts tearing into the present, the goofy mustache themed wrapping paper being shredded effortlessly. She pulls out a long piece of fabric, bright green and covered in a slightly gaudy combination of gingerbread cookies, candy canes, Santas, snowflakes and reindeer. Holding it up in front of her and shaking it out reveals a long fleece onesie.

Loki gives an exaggerated frown that doesn’t stick as he lets out a laugh. “Shall I guess what mine is?” Loki gestures to his identical package.

“I have one too,” Mobius grins, cheeky and way too proud of himself. He clearly knows that his two much more stylish partners aren’t taken by the loud patterned pajamas, but when he’d seen them at the store he couldn’t resist.

“We’re meant to wear them and, ah, ‘twin’, are we?” Sylvie smirks slightly, her eyebrow raised.

“Triplet, yes. And I have more for the other Lokis when they come over tomorrow. Croki included.”

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

It’s not fully in the vault, as I do have a bunch of notes and planning and even a few snippets for it, but it has been dragged along for a while and beyond what I have on the page there has been an insane amount of just sitting and thinking about it trying to sort it out in my brain and make it click! And that would be my Boastful Loki fic! In the vein of having written origins and/or rescues for the other void Lokis, I’ve wanted to tackle Boastful’s story for so long. I have a whole document of outlines and notes from conversations with people like @insert-witty-user-name-here where we discussed ideas and thoughts, all trying to build to the full fic, but it just hasn’t come together yet. Because we know so little about him (barely a personality beyond a few traits and no backstory) there are so many directions it could go, and I already have the main event that causes his deviation (briefly hinted at in “In the Middle of the Night”) but deciding exactly how I want the story to unfold to make it as impactful and fitting as I want, it’s just not there yet 😅 I hope this is the year it finally gets done!! I’m not sure if it’d be better or worse to finish it before Season 2, it’d be nice to solidify it with my own ideas but there’s a possibility he could show up again and we’d get some canon stories for him 🤔 Ideally I’d like to finish before summer/season 2 but we’ll see lol. Even if not the origin, I do have some plans for Boastful to show up and get some more time to shine in the found family series!!

Thank you for the ask!! ☺️

#loki #fanfic #fanfiction #lokius #sylkius #loki fanfic #writer ask game #answered asks

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m1ckeyb3rry · 19 days

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LMAOOO casually drops 200k wc avg…classic Mira but ooooh yes I’ve def seen some stuff floating on your page about it from the occasional asks! It’d be really funny if the bllk one followed your typical wc projection inaccuracy although reaching orv levels is probably a stretch HAHA

MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH ummm I’ve let myself get too comfy in the crack/stupid loserverse ummm hahahaha ummm wait WHAT??? I did not that fact you really said “let me put my two faves against each ofher” it would go hard tho….

LMAOOO OOPS ok well either way it’s still funny I love the miraverse…..miraverse chigiri >>>>> circling back to the drunk Kira moment it’d be funny if reader was like “huh….when did you shrink….” LMAOOOO

No because niko gives such sidekick vibes it’s so funny but SHSKSJSJ I will shut up about oaeu for the time being to help you resist temptation it’s time for you to do some doom scrolling on tiktok /j

FR SHSHAJA they’re all just ganging up on him and he’s also a first year right??? Damn theyre fr bullying a child IM CRYING THE VISUAL OF KARASU BEING TALKED DOWN stop im imagining that alpha wolf meme I can’t

I’m laughing so hard that was fr my first thought like “they really gave him the extra eye sparkles” ONE MORE GOAL GUYS please I need the match to go faster only because seeing it chapter by chapter with no goal is lowk agonizing (it’s fine all together I’m just impatient when flipping through the panels) PLEASSEEE BARCHA MANSHINE SNEAK PEEK IM BEGGING someone give otoya a little spotlight too kaneshiro please I know you’re reading this

- Karasu anon

LMAOOO it’s so insane because 200k is so long for most people but for me it’s like okay regular that’s calm 😭 and yeahhh for a while my tumblr was solely asks about ship in the harbor tbf it was/is a very interesting story in my humble opinion…that y/n was hollyhock y/n before hollyhock y/n and she was also 10x more interesting somehow?? which is saying a LOT 😰 PLSSS nah imagine the bllk fic ends up at 500k that would be insane i’d have to have crazy plotting skills for it to get that long (or an idea i’m really inspired for 🙂‍↕️)

EEK i always forget that people who joined me in my bllk era don’t know i am FAMOUS for angst!! i neverrrr used to end my stories happy in almost all of them either reader or the love interest died it was literally to the point that pomegranate ink was considered me being kind to my readers since both yuta and mc lived 😭😭😭 nah because it was honestly a really fascinating concept wherein hak was soowon’s guard and shinah was a legend from reader’s province who comes to protect her in the palace after an assassination attempt and when hak kills shinah it’s not because he wants to but because he has to DJFNSJSKSNSN omg it’s a very insane story idk if the bllk fandom could handle it honestly especially if it’s rin killing nagi…like what would they even do

MIRAVERSE ON TOP FR omg miraverse chigiri is such a king i have this vision of may and reo being that really annoying couple that posts cute tik toks and do adorable trends together but then immediately after they post reader and chigiri stich the video recreating it while laughing and making it goofy because they’re menaces 😩 and PLSSS “nagi did the changes in elevation compress you a bit?? your hair is less voluminous too…”

NIKO IS LITERALLY JUST THERE TO RELAX and erm it may be a tad bit late…

I HAVEN’T STARTED WRITING YET JUST FORMATTING BUT SEEING IT SITTING ALONGSIDE THE REST OF MY WORK IS TORTUROUS 😭 i have to resist temptation though…i have to…

NOOO POOR KIYORA IS A BABY he should be hanging out w hiori bruh free him ‼️ SEISHIRO NAGI SAVE KIYORA ASAP 😭 omg no literally the alpha wolf meme is exactly the vibe i was going for FJSKFJSJ it’s canon dw i’m just going to manifest in there

HAHA we are on the same page idk what that was all abt…anyways agreed i think pxg will be one of the most hype games to read all at once but chapter but chapter is exhausting 😭 OTOYA SPOTLIGHT he literally scored a goal OFF SCREEN??? wtf 😓 and ofc yk i need my man to get his screentime back please it’s been too long since we last saw nagi in the main manga and he’s so hot in the manshine jersey can we get him back kaneshiro please i’m begging on my knees for a return…a mention…even a single panel…😩🙏🏻

#answered asks

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dehydratedpercy · 3 years

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So, when I hear about the Prophecy of the Seven, I thought about Luke being the one "foe" that they would see on the Door of Death. I love Bob, and Damasen, but now I think that there was a Big Wasted oportunity.

Because while in Tartarus Percy starts to really understand Luke's view. And imagine him there?!

First. "Why" it's the question. It was his punishment? Please, Zeus wanted to send his family that wanted to form a democratic Olympus and he didn't because the one that helped him made him promise that he wouldn't.

Bringing Kronos? Free Pass to Tartarus. And Percy and Annabeth how would react? And Luke, would he want to help them o Gaia or Tartarus make him work for them?

But maybe not? He was actually in the Fields of Punishment, and as a Son of Hermes, the God That Can Do A Lot Of Stuff, like travel between other god's domains, he may manage to escape the Furies. And his dad the Messenger Divine Dude he may have heard some way that Annabeth and Percy were on Tartarus and he... jump to join. Three is better than Two, right?

So either the motive, we have Luke. In Tartarus. Along with Annabeth and Percy. Who are so done with their fate.

And how would that be? Luke as "Oh, the gods didn't respect their words? I'm so surprised" or "Mood. Let me help you save the world this time". Luke as "Goofy Ex Villain". And either he sacrifices himself, or manage to escape along them. Or try to betray them? A sort of Marvel's Loki? Who knows?

Who knows?!

I'm gonna just go ahead and assume you're talking about in canon, and not in PoR bc PoR Luke doesn't get a redemption arch.

But I've heard mention of this idea before and I really like it! Damen and Bob were okay, but they were very much disposable characters that were created just to serve a purpose, so it'd be interesting to see an alternate option.

I like the idea of Luke escaping the fields of punishment bc he's a willy son of Hermes-- maybe also, it's easier to escape if you literally escape to tartarus? So like, maybe his punishment included him walking near an entrance to tartarus or something (maybe he had the leaky bucket punishment) and he always looked at it and then one day he heard a rumor that Annabeth and Percy were down there and he was like oh worm??

So Luke jumps down to tartarus, bucket and all. He's still very much dead, but dead in a "fields of punishment" kind of way. This means he can't sleep, he can't eat, but he always can't exhaust himself (he's supposed to walk, carrying this heavy bucket, for all eternity, which means he'd be constantly tired but could never run out of steam). Let's say, more specifically, his punishment involves walking a long distance, past a pit of tartarus, dumping his bucket in the river Styx (or another river), which burns his hands and makes them raw, and then he has to walk back to where he came from and dump the water out, but by that point most of it had leaked out anyways. There's no way to keep the bucket from leaking, and his hands heal naturally, so every time he dumps his bucket in the river there is fresh pain from his hands burning again and again.

Which sucks. BUT. When he escapes into tartarus, he retains those traits, which means that he can't tire, he doesn't need food or sleep, and he heals automatically (though slowly). This would be a big advantage in tartarus.

I imagine him jumping down and saving Annabeth and Percy from a baddie at the exact right moment. They're fucked, they're injured and weaponless, the fight is not going well, and then the monster is about to make its kill shot when BAM! It's hit over the head with an enchanted celestial bronze-infuzed leaky bucket, and it dissolves into dust. And there's Luke.

Who's to say how Percy and Annabeth would react. I'm gonna go ahead and guess "poorly", because damn, they almost died and now here's fucking /Luke/. Maybe, they were told that Luke went to Elysium because he was a hero in the end, but the gods had actually lied, always intending to send him to the fields of punishment for betraying and trying to overthrow them (regardless of how he was manipulated into that choice, regardless of how he changed his mind and defeated Kronos in the end). So now Percy is feeling /really/ fucking betrayed, because shit man, the gods really are just liars and cheats and torturers.

I feel like this would naturally settle into a very of HoO that ends with the gods being overthrown as well. Which, imma be honest, its not my favorite version-- who would run the place? Will demigods die out? Will the current demigods absorb the old gods powers and rule like they did, eventually becoming more and more corrupt? I don't know. BUT, I feel like in this version of the story, Luke helps Annabeth and Percy through tartarus and his mere existence feeds into Percy's already-present anger at the gods and subsequent rejection of them. Luke dies at the doors of death, idk how, but somehow he is the sacrifice, and there's no coming back this time. His soul will be scattered in the wind, not going to the Underworld again, and in some ways its a tragedy because he deserved Elysium, and in some ways its good because he was never meant to stay in one place for all eternity, and now the willy son of Hermes is free for good.

So Luke's gone. Annabeth and Percy go up to the mortal world again. Grover is there (in this version, he'd be there instead of coach hedge), and he knows something is very very wrong, but Percy won't talk to him about it. Eventually Annabeth does, though, so Grover understands why Percy does what he does next.

Gaea rises in Greece, and Percy and the others fight her, and make it seem like they're just killing her. But, at the same time, they manage to connect all of the Olympian life forces to her, so when she goes down, they go down with her. The gods only realize too late. They are killed, and their power is transferred, making the 7 questers the New Olympians.

#not preserve or raze #canon #luke castellan #tartarus #doors of death #ask

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Goof Week: Sports Goofy in SoccerMania: GoofTales Woo-oo! (Paid For for WeirdKev27)

Gorsh all you happy people and welcome back to Goof Week, my Weeklong Celebration of everyone’s favorite goofus.

And today we have a special treat, something nice and obscure but something that still has a vital place in Disney History. Welcome folks to Sports Goof in Soccermania!

So yesterday in my Goof Troop review I wished there had been another DuckTales episode with Goofy, you know maybe find out what happened to Peg, see Max and Roxanne again that sort of thing. Whelp SOMEONE must’ve hid a Monkey’s Paw around here somewhere because I got this special instead on comision. This is a VERY intresting little artifact as it came out only 4 months before DuckTales, was produced around the same time, and was written by Tad Stones, who would both go on to work on DuckTales and even more importantly create Darkwing Duck.

Not only that but it has some odd things attached to it: it’s the first major production starting Scrooge, as he had an educational short about him, the first animated appearance of the Beagle Boys and most important the FIRST time Russi Taylor would voice Huey, Dewey and Louie, something she’d do till her passing a few years ago. At the time of this article she has not been recast, though I personally vote for Cristina Valenzuela, who took over the role of Young Donald and frankly does such a good job with that voice I didn’t know if Russi had already recorded lines for Season 3 before her passing.

So what IS Sports Goofy in Soccermania you ask? It was a TV Special from 1987, again four months before DuckTales, that was later sold on VHS. My guess is Disney intended for this to become a regular thing like the Charlie Brown or Garfield specials, but my honest guess is with DuckTales MASSIVE success they wanted to put all the TV Animation resources into making more shows to go with it. The fact the special is essentailly a Scrooge story with Goofy in it and Scrooge and the Boys were now tied up in DuckTales probably helped the decision. So we only got one of these and i’m proud to share it for Goof Week. So join me under the cut to see what a Sports Goof is, what Scrooge sounds like without Alan Young or David Tennant andto see me refrence the film UHF because I likes it.

So we open with the titles which are neat and then open at the Money bin, we even get a great sign gag that looks like something Carl Barks would write.

So Scrooge greets his nephews the way he greets everybody.. with a canon to the face... though he backs of firing once he realizes it’s them. The boys ALL wear red this special so .. I guess Huey won and now rules all three bodies with an iron fist? So the Huey Hive Mind asks Scrooge for a donation, a standard Scrooge setup, ask the rich asshole for money, as their trying to help the local soccer program and they need a buck fiddy for a trophy.

Scrooge’s voice here.. is terrible. I do not like to bash voice actors, they are hard working talented people who do a lot of great stuff, often for less pay than they deserve, and this blog ALWAYS makes that painfully clear. And Will Ryan is not without talent: While he hasn’t done much i’m familiar with he did play Petrie in Land Before Time and was great in it. So while I don’t dislike him as a person.. he did an utterly DREADFUL Scrooge. He dosen’t really attempt to do a scottish accent despite the character still saying cannae at one point, and as for what accent he is going for...

His Scrooge just sounds like someone trying to do a “foreign” accent and failing. It just sounds weird and makes every bit of his dialouge aside from one a chore to sit through. And the dialouge isn’t bad dialouge, it’s a well written and animated Scrooge even with the lower budget than Ducktales, but the voice just ruins it for me. Even without Young and Tennant to compare it to this just blows and the fact it’s paired up with the iconic Russi Taylor voice for the triplets.

This being Scrooge he instead fishes a Trophy out of the bin that’s all banged up and dinky and shoos them out. So in natural Barksian fashion the trophy turns out to be worth a million dollars. So we get some reaction shots.. INCLUDING GRANDMA DUCK!

For DuckTales fans joining us who have ZERO idea who that is, since she sadly did not make it into the reboot and Frank did have ideas, Grandma Duck is Donald, Della and Gladstone’s grandma. She’s a sweet old country woman who lives on a farm and is in fact the one who sold him Kilmotor HIll, with her husband renaming it from Killmule hill. I like her a lot since she reminds me of my own grandma and like her she still works when she can. Donald’s cousin Gus loafs around and eats as her farmhand. As you can tell I like her a lot, agani because she reminds me of one of my grandmas so this was nice even if she was only around for 20 seconds of screentime.

This ends up in the paper and sends Scrooge through the roof, literally when he finds out.

Two notes before we move on: The bin has a unique really cool design , though I get why other productions haven’t used it: besides this one’s obscurity while cool it just looks a bit TOO nice for Scrooge. Even in 2017 while still damn cool looking it still looks practicle. This .. is not that.

This looks like MC Hammer built this. It still looks awesome bu tit’s just not Scrooge sadly.

The other is that his Butler is named Jeeves here, but looks almost exactly like Duckworth. Just feels weird is all.

Naturally the Beagle Boys happen upon the paper too and their leader, no name given has a plan: Enter legitmately and win the cup all legal like, which dosen’t sound like it lives up to the beagle code of no hones twork.... until he brings up theri going ot cheat their asses off.

Meanwhile Scrooge tries bribing the boys with a giant trophy at their house... with Donald oddly absent despite Anselmo having taken over for Nash by this point. I know he was still a bit rough at the roll, but come on. It’s just.. weird especailly for reasons i’ll get into soon.

So Scrooge agrees to sponsor the boys teams so he can get the trophy back square, and is forced to buy a knew ball and here we FINALLY get Goofy. I say finally because this special is 20 mintues long and it takes almost a fourth of it for him to arrive. It’s just weird for him to not be in it for so long. I mean I don’t want THIS

Flashbeagle didn’t take a fourth of the special to get to Flashbeagle. It did take longer than that to get to the title track but when your sitting on THIS

youtube

You gotta use it JUST right. Goofy here is not played by Bill Farmer, which IS odd as he did start playing him that year, but my guess is they weren’t sure if they were going with Farmer or the actor who played him in this special, Tony Pope, so they were trying out both as whoever DID get the role would have it for life. Disney takes the casting of the sensational 7 VERY seriously, as evidenced by the fact most cast changes are caused by death and unlike with Tony and Donald it’s clear Colvig hadn’t picked a succesor. I can also see why it’s a hard choice: while farmer IS excellent and was the right man for the job, Pope is still excellent in the role, bringing the warmth and energy you’d expect from Goofy and having excellent comedic timing that’s vital to getting the dog man right. I can see why this was such a hard choice, even if I also see they went with Farmer: Farmer just has slightly more energy to the roll. It’s a small diffrence and something that dosen’t effect the special, but it is a KEY diffrence and the reason Bill’s THE goofy to me even over his original voice actor Pinto Colvig.

Also I may of mispoke there... see it’s not Goofy in this special it’s SPORTS Goofy. No really every bit of dialogue refers to him as Sports Goofy. It’d be like if they refered to then CEO Micheal Eisner as Won’t Think Through Eurodisneyland Micheal Eisner.

So Sports Goofy helps them get a ball in an honestly awesome way and shows despite his clumsy manner, he’s damn cordinated, easily putting everything up and showing some real skill with the ball. So Moneygrubbing Scrooge decides Sports Goofy is his ticket to get the trophy back and recuits goofy as coach and star player for the boys team.

So Asshole Scrooge meets his team the Greenbacks.. which are a bunch of random animal characters with no real personality. They are a hippo, a goat, expresso the ostrich, a navy (blue) seal, an elephant in a beanie, a killaroo and a cheetah or leopard. But I have one question, really simple really easy one...

You need 11 players for a soccer team, thank you google. So they DID get that accurate. With Goofy and the Triplets you only need 7 more. THIS is why Donald’s absence is glaring: he’s just oddly not there when they needed 7 other characters but Elephant in a Beanie gets in there. And it’s not hard ot fill either: Donald , Daisy (Because duh), Gyro and Grandma Duck (Because both cameoed but I only mentioned Grandma Duck, though this is ALSO Gyro’s first apperance), Gladstone (who as it turns out had a cameo storyboarded that didn’t make it into the final product), Gus (Since grandma duck) and Scrooge’s butler since he was in an earlier scene anyway so why waste the character model. They could still play the same roll as easily steamrolled underdogs and it’d make more sense. It just baffles me that with such a deep bench to play from, they don’t use ANY OF IT in favor of the cast of Animal Soccer World.

The Greenbacks can’t play for greenjack, which worries Scrooge.. but Goofy is able to carry them to the finals, while the Beagle Boys make their way there too. We find this out.. via newspaper transition. We get a bunch of headlines telling us what happened instead of you know a montage because that costs money and they already spent 1.50 making this special.. they only have 50 cents left.

So the Beagles recognizing Sport Goofy is the only thing in their way plots a kidnappin. We get a gut busting scene of the beagles all hiding in Sports Goofy’s house with him being oblvious only to spring on him.

The next day with Sports Goofy a no show the team is bummed, even mor ewhen they find a kidnapping note from Don’tGetNotToLeaveEvidence Beagle Boys. Seriously give that to the officals.

So Asshole Scrooge tries to give a rousing speech... and it is a sight to behold and the one highlight of pope as scrooge... it’s why I picked it as the article image. That glitching isn’t me by the way: it REALLY does that. Coupled with the yellow eyes i’ts just fantastic. So the team decides to morosely play the game and Hivemind Huey boos scrooge for not having faith in him. Instead of again you know telling the officials. Maybe assimilating the other made Huey dumber. I

So the game begins and the Cheating Beagles cream the Give Up To Easily Green Backs, while Sports Goofy watches from the other Crime Beagles hideout. It honestly reminds me of UHF: a dumb well meaning guy whose vital to something succeding is kidnapped.. it dosen’t involve Weird Al dressing up as rambo but still. It also makes me want UHF but with the disney cast. Fethry as weird al, Donald as his best friend, Fethry’s girlfriend for the comcis as weird al’s girlfriend, Gyro as philo, Goofy as Stanley, and Pete of course is Stacey Keach. I could go on but you get the point. Someone draw this. Sport Goofy is a clever bastard and escapes by working one of his shoes off, taking a nearbye knife and cutting himself free.. and almost stabbing a beagle boy in the face but that would just make two. Sport Goofy escapes and the lunkheaded beagle boys chase after him IN THEIR CAR WHILE GOOFY RUNS AHEAD OF IT. Goofy, he can really move! Goofy, he’s got attitude! Goofy HE’S THE FASTEST THING ALLIIIIVEEEEEE. Sport Goofy makes it in time fo rhalf time, rallies the troops and it goes how you’d expect: They overcome the beagles blatant cheating, win the cup, the beagles attempt to cheat with a rigged ball backfires and they all get arrested. It’s by the numbers stuff. We end with Scrooge deciding to dontate the trophy instead (though in a great bit asking if it was tax deductible), and posing for a team shot> We get some awesome credits music and we’re out

Final Thoughts:

This special is mediocre: There are only a handful of great jokes, it’s your standard “teamwork makes the dreamwork plot” that dosen’t work because our underdogs really CAN’T play without their star, and Scrooge’s voice hurts to listen to. Pope and Taylor are great and while Will Ryan is an awful Scrooge, he is a good Beagle Boy or five.

It IS worth a watch though. It’s riffable enough with the sometimes sloppy unfinished animatoin in the last part and Scrooge’s terrible voice, and it is still is a neat oddity for 90′s kids like myself to not only see Russi’s first thing as Huey Dewey and Louie, but to also see Scrooge and Goofy with vastly diffrent voice actors, as well as Gyro and the Beagle Boys first animated apperances. The fact this came just months before Ducktales makes it all the more intresting. So if your looking for a legit good Disney product.. this is shoddy at best if well meaning. But as a bit of disney history, especially only clocking in at 20 minutes so it’ sa brisk watch, it’s worth a look if your into that.

Next On Goof Week: We come on in To The House of Mouse where goofy becomes faster than a speeding punchline, more powerful than pete when his family has to wrestle him to the ground to take him to the doctor and able to make tall leaps of logic in a single bound. it’s SUPER GOOF!

So thank you for reading and if you liked this review give it a like and consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As a patron you’d get access to exclusive reviews, the patreon’s discord and to pick a short each time I do one of these shortstaculars. Donald’s comnig next month and the deadline is in only a few days to join up for said month so the clock is ticking. Even a dollar a month helps me reach my stretch goals so please i fyou can sign up today and if not, I understand and i’ll see you at the next rainbow

#sports goof #soccermania #goofy goof #goof #scrooge mcduck #ducktales #huey duck #the beagle boys #gyro gearloose #grandma duck #animation #disney #soccer #football

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jcmorrigan · 3 years

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What movie or tv show scared you the most?

OH HEEHEEHEEEEEE MY TIME HAS COME

I think this was probably the sign I was meant to be a horror fan, because I'm gonna talk about two movies here and neither one is a standard horror film. Now, I avoided horror films like the plague, but I now realize that's because of my aversion to jumpscares and gore, which have very little to do with actual scary stuff. I feared actual horror imagery as a small child, but basically once I read Coraline it all just turned around because that book gave me nightmares but I actually WANTED those nightmares and kept going back to the book. So what are the movies I just COULD NOT contend with?

First up, I have found that a lot of people have said this one, but really and truly, fuck Chicken Run.

I was...maybe ten when I watched it. Signed up for a goofy claymation adventure. What did I get? First of all, a whole lot of bleak color palette that warned me that this was not going to be a happy story. We are then shown the stakes right away: our entire main cast lives in a dystopian prison and if they do not find a way to escape, they will die. One DOES die. This is where a lot of people say they noped out right away, but actually, the execution of the dinner chicken in the first scene was tame for me compared to what would come next.

The pie machine. It's assembled, it's talked about, and eventually our two leads fall into it in a way that is designed to be fatal. Look, there are a ton of horror tropes in this scene alone. I haven't seen it SINCE THE ONE AIRING and I can still vividly tell you a lot of this. And if I walked into a horror film and asked for this, I'd come out super satisfied, but I was not expecting horror from this. First of all, I remember vividly the shot where you're looking from Ginger's POV falling down the shaft and the divider comes up to shunt her into the "meat" line. It's incredibly claustrophobic and you just get this almost jumpscare reminder that the character through whose eyes you see is regarded as nothing more than meat to be consumed. There is then an array of blades designed for close calls, and dough that essentially glues the lead characters down to a conveyor belt so they have to helplessly watch the death machines that are coming. Sticky stuff that roots you to one spot; that's another thing that just REALLY unnerves me and I love it if I'm reading CreepyPasta but I was not reading CreepyPasta; I was watching a children's film. The leads escape certain death by jamming the gravy system, causing the machine to overload on pressure, and here I feel like I should've been relieved that they escaped but instead I was the most unsettled of all when the pressure meter started climbing. I don't know if this film *gave* me a phobia of industrial accidents or if it just awakened what was already in my OCD little brain, but suffice to say that after this movie, I was hyper-aware of my own fear of things like hissing steam, rising pressure meters, and being in a room where large metal things were clanking. (I'm since over it; I've been exposed to it in enough things.)

Now, I was no quitter. I should have just noped out. But I didn't. I continued to traumatize myself. The next part of the film until the climax I don't remember so well - it wasn't as traumatizing - EXCEPT for the part where Ginger finds and rebuilds Rocky's circus poster. And now, as an adult, I can see how that was kinda supposed to be funny, like, "The goddamn chicken padded his résumé and the way they found this out was a circus poster." But little me was invested in these chickens, I wanted them to be happy, and what I saw was basically their death notice being signed with that scrap of paper with a cannon on it. I FELT that in my bones.

STILL NOT HAVING THE GOOD SENSE TO JUST EJECT THE TAPE ALREADY, I proceeded to the climax, in which what happens to Tweedy might be one of the most fucking awful things I've seen ever? Pinned upside-down in a superheated, confined space with rising liquid from below as the pressure meter starts climbing again. And her husband arrives just in time to see her like this but not in time to actually stop the explosion. Thank God it didn't actually kill her because even though I was already traumatized, that would've absolutely made it worse.

Thing is, ever since this movie scared the absolute shit out of me - and was probably the cause of the weird stomachaches I had for A WEEK after - I've kinda had this thing about reclaiming the scary parts and stomping on them while laughing maniacally. I feel like every time I've done a crossover project, there's been a temptation to write in an arc where the mains go up against THE PIE MACHINE and fucking win. And also there's whump with tons of comfort in my version to mitigate it all. I haven't done any such thing for TBTC...YET. But I know what I must do. I know who must destroy the machine and the Tweedys along with it. Buckle your seatbelts.

My final word before I move on is that as I ascend into adulthood, I think that for the most part, a rewatch of this film wouldn't traumatize me so badly. It'd still be gross and creepy in a way I think shouldn't be sent to children without warning, but I could deal with the imagery, maybe enjoy using it as whump fuel even more, maybe my horror side would really get into the peril this time. But the one thing I've realized is that this premise is fucked EVEN MORE if you're a grown-up, because as a child, you're sympathizing with the chickens. You want them to get free of this death camp environment. But as an adult, you start to realize that all Tweedy wanted to do was be a chicken farmer who sold pie, and her supposedly nonsentient animals ganged up on her in a display of unheard-of intellect among farm stock. This would then lead to her undergoing at least one near-death fate. Think about being a farmer in our world and the animals you keep GANG UP ON YOU LIKE PEOPLE because you're killing them for food. No thank you, no THANK you.

But surely this was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. Surely, after this...after so many other people agreed with me; "Fuck Chicken Run"...no animation studio would ever pull shit like this again.

I had hoped that was the case until Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

This is one I don't actually see lambasted as often. Maybe because the Chicken Run trauma crew grew thicker skins before this movie. I only sort of did. Maybe because no one ever actually invested in this film, having already predicted how much it would be garbage from the dumb humor in the trailers. Oh, but not me. I was a fool. Also my family picked it for a movie night so my fate was sealed anyway.

The original book is actually pretty frightening on its own. Food falls from the sky in such great numbers that it starts to destroy the world. Okay, that's terrifying. But kind of in the alluring way. I would keep coming back to the one page about the giant pancake on the school because the way it was drawn unsettled me so, with something huge and immovable blocking off the way to a building that usually has hundreds of innocent children inside. The film built on this and made it a thousand times worse.

Let's start with the goddamn Spray-On Shoe. Our main character is a mad scientist (but the good kind, apparently) whose list of bumbling failed experiments dates back to when he was a child and invented a spray you could put on your feet to coat them in shoes. He then gets laughed at because he didn't engineer a way to get the shoes off, and runs home in humiliation. Guys, the teasing/bullying factor is...not the most worrying thing about this story. There's a throwaway line about how Flint wears THE SAME SHOES into adulthood because to that day they simply cannot be removed. This seems like an incredibly urgent medical problem? Having your feet encased in the same rubber for years? The same rubber as when you're a kid? I just found myself thinking "What if my shoes never came off one day" and that terrifies me, okay? It's stupid and it's silly and it scares me. Even more than that, though, is the canonization of a polymer in this universe that can be sprayed on sticky and will literally never break no matter what you do to it, because that goes back to the pie machine dough principle. Being glued to a surface permanently is inherently terrifying and we'll go over this later because this is not the last fuckin time the glue shoes get brought up.

Flint invents a food-spewing machine. It ends up in the sky. He rides his popularity as it rains larger and larger food down upon the town and also the world. Most of this film up until the climax is unsettling but not AWFUL. Where it starts to go to shit is when Flint realizes his machine is too dangerous and shuts it off, only for the town's local greedy politician to switch it back on into an apocalyptic mode. So can we start with "Local town finds out its elected official is willing to sabotage their well-being in order to capitalize on the fame of a disaster-causing object?". Like, the whole film would've been solved so much sooner if there hadn't been a saboteur in the works - not a fun campy villain, mind you, but a saboteur who exists to drive the plot to the scary place. But I guess we need that narrative tension to justify having a film in the first place, so fine, I'll ride it out.

The main crew saddles up to fly out to the machine, which is now encased in a FLESH LABYRINTH of food, and...I'm just gonna rapid-fire the shit that happens at this part:

-The food turns sentient in order to defend itself. The cute animal sidekick brutally dismembers an army of gummy bears that is fully sentient and rips them apart to devour them.

-We enter the flesh labyrinth and it's exactly as much a horror RPG setting as you think it is.

-Now sentient cooked chickens besiege the party. The comic relief character is consumed by one, only to kill it from the inside and decide to WEAR ITS SKIN in what is seen as his defining character arc's conclusion. Wearing the skin of a dead monster allows him to forge his new identity.

-One of our party has to go back because of a tight passage lined with her deadly allergen, causing her to undergo anaphylaxis after an accidental mild nick. In the flesh labyrinth.

-The entire horrific journey is instantly INVALIDATED when it turns out that instead of the kill code for the machine, all Flint has is a file of a cat video. Which he finds out as the town is about to be obliterated off the face of the earth.

-So he solves it by jamming the works with the spray-on shoe and DID I NOT JUST GO OVER HOW HORRIFIC INDUSTRIAL EXPLOSIONS ARE IN KIDS' MOVIES? DID I NOT? ARE WE REALLY DOING THIS AGAIN? Anyway it's canonical proof that NOTHING can break the shoe glue and I should be happy for the town and happy that there's no more flesh labyrinth of living meat but instead I'm just terrified because of the door we have opened. We have imparted the existence of an indestructible sticky polymer upon the world.

-It's later seen used in a credits sequence to repair damaged houses. Which, first of all, given its flexible nature, is fuckin stupid. It won't serve as an actual wall. Second, that got me thinking about construction accidents involving the fuckin shoe glue. If that stuff gets dripped on a person's face -

-So then cue me sitting awake in bed later thinking wide-eyed about Cloudy with a Chance of Fucking Meatballs and realizing that this compound that is essentially a chemical weapon in the making is now in the hands of the mayor who deliberately caused an apocalyptic event over the town because he wanted the food rain. And THAT'S not going to lead to pretty circumstances.

I think you'll see that a lot of my fears with these two movies is "THINK OF THE IMPLICATIONS!" and I think that just shows how my mind works and why I'm drawn to fanfic so much. I'm all about diving into a universe, exploring its corners, analyzing it to death.

And with the industrial horror stuff, I kinda wanna bring it around to two other films that actually really subverted my expectations and made it fun. 102 Dalmatians was a fave of mine through middle school, but I remember when the climax took us to a big ol' factory and I got plumb nervous. After the usual blades and ovens of horror, the fact that it concludes with Cruella basically wearing a cake and a lengthy montage of the dogs kicking toppings onto her is just one of the most wholesome imageries. She survived the thing and now you get to watch her be decorated Lisa Frank style by her victims who are more interested in humiliation than murder, and I love that.

But maybe more prevalent is that I'm well aware that if certain filmography or plot points had been handled in different ways, The Boxtrolls might've actually frightened the ever-loving fuck out of me what with all the industrial stuff and medical horror, but I just...felt like that film was holding my hand the whole way through going "It's okay." The industrial stuff was framed in a way that was just campy enough and yet also taken seriously. Putting a really charismatic villain - ACTUAL VILLAIN, NOT CHICKEN FARMER OR CORRUPT POLITICIAN SABOTEUR - at the wheel was just such a mitigating factor that it gelled the whole thing together and I ended up LOVING what was done with giant machines and garbage crushers and explosions. And as for the medical body horror, I really appreciate how it was so baked in that Snatcher did that to himself - that everyone, EVERYONE warned him "Do not do this, you will probably die, I'm serious, bad fucking idea" up to the point of Eggs trying to plead him during an anaphylaxis attack, one last time, DO NOT continue down this path, we can find a way to heal you psychologically and get you some self-fulfillment. And Snatcher fully chooses hubris over the many, many opportunities offered him to be able to step down onto a safer path and that removes the fear and pulls it more into a tragedy for the villain. Not at all the same thing as "Sam the reporter is trying to save the world and doing her best until a fixture of the landscape accidentally sends her into anaphylaxis."

(Oh, and by the way, can I just - when I do see CWACOM brought up these days, it's always in the context of "This is the one movie where the guy tells the girl it's okay to look nerdy!". Well, no, not the way I remember it. The way I remember it, Sam basically tells Flint "I used to have really tacky style but have since changed it up of my own volition" and Flint is just like "NOOOOO YOU NEED TO WEAR GLASSES AND A SCRUNCHIE. I WANT A HOT NERD GIRL." This could've been pulled off right with some more introspection into female beauty standards, even in a tongue-in-cheek way, but right now it really looks like Sam just wanted to make herself more glam for a new image and Flint bullied her into regressing her style. Which I've also realized meant he bullied her into dressing more like she did as a teenager and normally I think that kind of shit is just "You're overthinking it" but since it's CWACOM and I spelled it out on paper like that, I'm just now realizing how that can be seen as pretty...icky.)

The one saving grace of CWACOM is that I was older by that time, and so it didn't affect me as hard as Chicken Run. But I still hold it dearly to my heart as one of the MOST DISTURBING movies I know, and by "dearly" I mean "fuck this movie, really and truly." I want to extend my thanks to 102D and Boxtrolls for giving me industrial-horror-based climaxes that were actually really comfortable, and again, probably what drove both of these was the fact that we had a campy diva villain in the lead for the potential scary stuff to surround and radiate off. Not a fuckin...ordinary chicken farmer who is just trying to make bank but is somehow passed as a Nazi allegory for trying to live her life as a farmer? I dunno, maybe if I rewatched that film I'd see she has a thirst for human blood too, and if I could fix fic Chicken Run my first order of business would be to give her a thirst for human blood instead of/in addition to chickens.

Anyway. Fuck both these films, EXCEPT for the fact that traumatizing scenarios can always be recast as whump material, and the next time I wanna do some crossover aftercare from a physically and psychologically damaging mission, I have a pie machine and a flesh labyrinth to exploit. REALLY HEAVY ON THAT AFTERCARE COMFORT THOUGH!

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duhragonball · 4 years

Text

‘21

Amidst all the popular hype for seeing the end of 2020, it didn’t hit me until about lunchtime what the real highlight is that I’ve been waiting for: For the first time since 1999, the year finally ends in “numberty-number” again. It low-key irritated me that we had to call it “two thousand three” and I was relieved when “twenty-thirteen” caught on, but it still wasn’t right because it was too short, and now we’re back in the sweet spot, and I should be safely dead by 2100, so that’s one less thing I gotta deal with.

Really, even “numberty hundred” rings true to me. “Nineteen hundred” sounds like a year. “Twenty-one-oh-six” sounds like a futur-y year, which is even cooler. So did “Two thousand five”, until I was actually living in it, and it sounds even worse now that it was a long time ago and adults will talk about their childhood happening in that year. Daniel Witwicky would be old enough to get married and grow a fancier beard than me. That’s nuts. My point is that, honestly, it’s the year 3000-3019 that I have to worry about, so if I ever decide to go vampire, those will be the years I hide in the ocean or force society to reset the calendar, whichever’s easier.

I spent New Year’s Eve finishing Superliminal, which I bought on Steam after I watched Vegeta play it on YouTube. It has a similar look and feel to the Stanley Parable, so if you liked one you’d probably enjoy the other, although Superliminal has a different theme. I kept hoping I’d find some secret passage that I wasn’t supposed to take, and a narrator would scold me for finding the “Chickenbutt Ending”, but it doesn’t work that way. Superliminal’s all about puzzles and awesome visuals, but it does have the same soothing design aesthetics as TSP. Honestly, I enjoyed just wandering around in Stanley’s office, and Superliminal does the same thing with a hotel and several other settings. It’s nice.

This got me thinking about how I kind of did everything there was to do in The Stanley Parable, and I sort of wished they would add new stuff to the game, but I’m not sure there would be much point to that. I could play the older version, but it presents the same message, just with different assets. The Boss’s Office would look different, but it’d be the same game. And this got me thinking about various “secret chapters” in pop culture. Secrets behind the cut.

I first heard about this idea in the 2000′s, when fans invented this notion that there was a secret chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I read a website that tried to explain the concept, and of course it lauded J.K. Rowling with all this gushing praise for working an Easter egg into the book, a literary work of “well, magic.”

That pretty well sums up my distaste for Harry Potter, by the way. These days, JKR has thoroughly crapped all over her reputation and legacy, but in the 2000′s it felt like half the planet was in a mad rush to canonize her as a writing goddess, to the point where fans were congratulating her for writing secret chapters that didn’t actually exist. The idea was based on lore from the books about Neville Longbottom’s parents. They were patients in a mental hospital, and he’d go to visit them, and they would give him bubble gum wrappers, intended to demonstrate how far remove they’ve become from reality. The secret chapter lies in those wrappers, which all read “Droobles Best Blowing Gum” or some such. What if Neville’s parents were only pretending to be mentally ill, so as to throw off their enemies? Naturally, they would want to stay in contact with their son, so the bubble gum wrappers would have to contain coded messages. Said code involves unscrambling the letters on the wrappers to make new words, like “goblin” or “sword” or “Muggle” or “Dumbledore”. The problem is that you can also use it to make other words like “booger” or “drool” or “booobbiess.” Play with it enough, and you can make the code say anything you want it to say, which means it’s no code at all.

But the idea was that the not-yet-published sixth HP book would reveal all of this gum wrapper nonsense, and Neville would decode the messages and discover all of his parents’ super-cool adventures. I’m not sure why we needed a secret chapter if Book 6 was going to explain all of this anyway in several not-secret chapters, but that was the whole point. Fans didn’t have Book 6 yet, and they were so desperate to read it that they started trying to extrapolate what would happen next based on “clues” from the previous five. That’s like trying to figure out what Majin Buu looks like by watching the Androids Saga. I guess some wiseguy would have guessed that he’d resemble #19, but that’d just be blind luck.

And when you get down to it, this whole secret chapter business is really just a conspiracy. This is literally how Qanon works. Some anonymous jackass posted vague “hints” on an imageboard, and people went goofy trying to interpret them and figure out what would happen in the future. They call it “research” because they spend a ton of time on this, but there’s no basis to any of it. It took me a few minutes to figure out that you can spell “Muggle” with the words in “Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum”, but that’s not research and it doesn’t prove anything. But all these guys keep looking for “Hilary Clinton goes to jail next week” and lo and behold that’s all they ever find.

In the same vein, the gum wrapper thing was really a complaint disguised as a conspiracy, disguised as a “magical secret chapter”. At least a few fans wanted to see more Neville in their Harry Potter books, they wanted Neville’s parents, or someone like them, to have cool spy adventures or whatever else. The point is, they clearly weren’t getting what they wanted out of the printed works, but they didn’t want to turn against their Dear Beloved Author, so they started casting about for an alternative reality, one where J.K. Rowling wrote a cooler story and hid it in the pages of the one that actually went to press. So instead of just saying “Hey, Order of the Phoenix was kind of a letdown, I hope there’s more ninjas in the next book,” they said “Rowling is a genius because I wanted ninjas and she’s definitely going to give them to me, I have the gum wrappers to prove it.”

The same thing happened all over again when the BBC Sherlock show took a turn for the nonsensical. I don’t know from BBC Sherlock, but I watched the fascinating video critique by Hbomberguy, and it sounds like the show did tons of plot twists until it stopped making sense altogether in the fourth season. If you skip to 1:09:00 in the video, you’ll hear about fan theories that suggested that season four was supposed to be crappy, as part of a secret meta-narrative plan that would be paid off in a secret, unannounced episode that would not only explain everything, but retroactively justify the crappy episodes that came before. But it’s been a few years and it never came to pass, so I think we can call this myth busted.

Most recently, I think we’ve all seen a lot of talk about the final season of Supernatural, where I guess Destiel sort of became canon but only one guy does the love confession and the other doesn’t respond. But I guess he does say “I love you too” in the Spanish dub, which means the English language version was edited for whatever reason. It’s not exactly a secret episode, but the implication is that there’s more to this than what made it to the screen. So the questions turn to what the screenplay said, what the writers and actors wanted to do, etc. etc. My general impression is that SPN fans are a bit more used to crushing disappointment, so they’re not quite as delusional about this show being unquestionable genius, like Sherlock and Harry Potter. Maybe this is an Anglophile thing? Like, if you suck at something with a British accent, people will accept it more unconditionally?

I had seen something on Twitter about how there should have been a secret Seinfeld episode in the 90′s. Someone suggested it at the time, they tape a whole episode, then wait until 2020 to air it, because by then it would be worth a fortune. But they didn’t do it, because it costs a lot of money to make a TV episode, and if you don’t air the show right away, you aren’t making that money back any time soon. Yeah, you might recoup a fortune someday, but Seinfeld was making a ton of money then. It exposes the fannish nature of the idea. A fan would love to discover a cool secret chapter, but a content creator isn’t necessarily keen on making a cool thing and then hiding it where few people would find it.

I thought about doing this myself recently. Maybe Supernatural gave me the bug, but I thought “I’m writing this big-ass story, so what if I wrote me a secret chapter for it? Wouldn’t that be cool?” But no, it wouldn’t be cool, because it’d be the same work as writing a regular chapter, and the same stress I feel when I hold off on publishing it. Except I’d just never publish it, I’d put it in some secret hole on the internet and hope that some superfan who might not even exist can decode whatever clues I leave.

I mean, it’d be awesome if it got discovered and everyone loved it. “Hey, I found this hidden chapter! Mike’s done it again!” And I could bask in the glory. But what if no one finds it? Then I just wasted my time, right? I want people to read my work. My monkey brain needs the sweet, sweet validation of those kudos and comments, folks. Once I realized that, I understood why no one else would want to do a secret chapter either. Easter eggs are one thing, but the bigger bonus features they put on DVDs were pretty easy to find, and with good reason.

I think that’s what made the Stanley Parable so appealing to play, because it teases you with the idea that you can “break” the game and find some extra content that you weren’t supposed to see, but as you go exploring all those hidden areas, it gradually becomes clear that this is just part of the game; you were meant to find all these things, and that’s why they were put here. It’s hidden, but he secret aspect of it is just pretend.

I suppose that what I like about games like TSP and Superliminal is the illusion of secrets more than the secrets themselves. I like roaming through the hallways, having no idea what I might find ahead. I kind of wish I could open all the doors, and not just the ones the game designers put stuff behind, but the reality is that there’s nothing on the other side. I used a cheat code once to explore the unused doors in TSP and it’s just a bright white field on the other side. Interesting to look at, but not much of a reveal. Honestly, the doors themselves are more appealing than anything that could lay behind them.

And that’s probably what makes secrets so fun. They could be almost anything, but once you open the present, the number of possibilities drops to one. If they had ever made that Secret BBC Sherlock Episode, I doubt it would have lived up to expectations, but fans could amuse themselves by imagining what could have been in it. In the end, though, things usually don’t justify the hype. For every Undertaker debut at Survivor Series 1990, there’s a Gobbledygooker debut at Survivor Series 1990. It’s impossible to manufacture a secret with a guaranteed payoff.

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quintessence-sentimentalist · 4 years

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Hey, thanks for answering my Hay LinxEric question. Now, how would you fix IrmaxJoel?

Sorry for the delay on this—I haven’t been in quite the right mindset for the in-depth analyses as of late, and the question of how to fix this couple is a tricky one.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a very good one. Compared to a number of the other relationship fix-its I’ve considered (CxC, Nigel x Taranee) where I haven’t had a particular attachment to the couples, I actually have a lot of feelings about and adoration for Irma and Joel. And while that can also be said about HLxE, my perspective on Irma x Joel is a bit different.

Namely, the fact that I love their platonic relationship as it was presented in canon, and would actually have been pretty aligned if they were kept that way for the rest of the series.

(But of course, we couldn’t even have that, as any sort of acknowledgement of their relationship was wiped out of existence, and then referenced out of nowhere and without explanation many, many issues later with Joel thinking on how “Aw, we used to be friends, but not anymore.”)

I’m not saying I don’t ship them romantically (I do, and we’ll get into my fix-it of that later on in this ramble), but it wouldn’t have necessarily been a deal-breaker if they didn’t end up together. Admittedly, I’d probably be eating those words if Irma and Joel were still hanging out by the time Stephen (or, really, any brand-new love interest) came into the story, if only because throwing Irma into a romantic relationship without any real on-page emotional buildup doesn’t sit right with me no matter how I slice it. To be fair, that’s also just a me thing, because I prefer my ships to have a strong personal foundation over having the characters be drawn together primarily because of looks, etc., so there’s definitely room for different views.

For me personally, though, the only way I’d really be behind a non-IxJ endgame is if a) Irma didn’t end up with anyone (which could have been great! The other girls were single at various times in the series, but having Irma be the one who’d never been in any sort of relationship would have been good to show that it’s more than okay to not have a significant other at that age), or b) Irma ended up in a relationship with someone else with whom she already has a long-established emotional connection (i.e. I’m not counting an old summer camp crush that we’ve only just learned of when it’s convenient to the in-story events). Seeing as that second option pretty much leaves us with either the other girls (which is fair) or Martin (not as sold on this one, but it’s a little bit better than their animated series counterparts), that would potentially have to be a fix-it as well.

Regardless of Irma’s relationship status—in a similarly meaningful one or not in one at all—let’s look at a fix for platonic Irma x Joel. Honestly, this one can just be summed up as LET THEM REMAIN CLOSE FRIENDS.

Really, it’s… it’s not that hard. Kandrakar knows that I love these girls and their bond, but I also like to see their lives outside of Guardianship, and that means that they can have other friends beyond each other. (Which they did try to do with Taranee and having Luke and Sheila, and I appreciate the effort, even if it wasn’t really executed in the best way.) Irma and Joel were something special, with their shared adoration for Karmilla and complementary senses of humor and, frankly, the fact that neither of them initially considered each other in a different sort of light. They had so much in common, their personalities resounded with each other so beautifully—all these qualities building up to what I’d dare call soulmate material—and all either of them can think is, “Hey, this is an awesome friendship!” And I adore that.

Which is why I can’t fathom why they’d suddenly do away with a relationship that had been lovingly (and largely platonically) tended to on the side for a number of story arcs.

I’m going to caveat that I have only read New Power and beyond but once in my life so far, and a good number of years ago, to boot. I have no actual recollection of whether or not there was any sort of explanation for why the two of them stopped hanging out (besides that offhand comment that they just don’t anymore, which was given to us… oh, three or four arcs later?). No idea if there was any sort of confrontation between Joel and Stephen and Joel out-of-character gets jealous—I wouldn’t put it past them to have done this (which is awful), but given the notoriousness of vanishing things without any warning that inspired this whole damn fix-it series, there’s a fighting chance for it to have gone either way.

Regardless of what actually happened in canon, there is no concrete reason why Irma having a healthy, happy friendship with someone of the same gender as her new significant other had to be done away with. Even if it could be argued that Irma and Joel had romantic chemistry and ooooooohhhh that could be a threat to her new relationship (um, no.), the two of them had already dealt with those potential feelings back at the end of the Book of Elements/beginning of the Ragorlang arc, and while they didn’t deny that the potential was there, there was unspoken agreement that both were more comfortable as friends at the moment. If we were to use that attraction as a justification against keeping their friendship around while one or both were in other relationships, it just wouldn’t—in a very apt turn-of-phrase—hold water. And there isn’t a reason at all to drop it if there’s no romantic relationship(s) happening whatsoever.

So yeah. Base-level fix-it for Irma and Joel is keep their friendship.

But let’s take it a step further and look at a fix-it for an IxJ romance. I’ll admit that I volleyed around a couple different thoughts about this, even going so far as being sold on an end-of-series-payoff slow-burn like I originally thought we got with Cornelia and Peter (back when I thought the series ended at issue #74 like the Philippines comics did). And while that could have worked for them, I thought back and realized that so many of the canon ships had big moments like that. Will and Matt have their Big Damn Kiss after facing off against Cedric and Matt discovering the truth. Hay Lin and Eric have their joyful spur-of-the-moment kiss when Hay gives him the CD he wanted. As mentioned, Cornelia and Peter have their supposedly-final issue culmination of long-brewing chemistry. And of course, let’s not forget Cornelia and Caleb’s fairytale romance in the early days.

Really, all the relationships—except Taranee and Nigel, although the tradeoff for that was long, drawn-out conflict—officially kick off with a fireworks-level big bang. It’s a Moment when the couples come together, something to be remembered. And with Irma being Irma, loveable loudmouth as she is, it’d make sense for her to have something like that as well—a blurted confession, maybe, or a deep, passionate first kiss.

That’s why I’m of the camp that would have a quiet, but no less meaningful resolution to Irma and Joel’s romantic feelings.

We all know Irma’s the outgoing type—natural comedian always on-hand, outspoken to a fault, passionate and unabashedly loud. But a number of times over the series, we’ve seen her have to get introspective or at least a bit more low-key (oftentimes in the wake of an outburst that hurts someone else). These quieter moments usually offer some great character studies and development for Irma, and I’d like to think that, if given the chance to accept and want to act on her deeper feelings for Joel, it would happen in a similar way.

Just give me the two of them hanging out like usual, but maybe with not as much chatter. Joel is playing his guitar, Irma’s kicked back with a magazine that she’s only half-paying attention to as she listens. Eventually, the magazine drops further and further from her face as her gaze drifts fully to Joel and that goofy face he makes whenever he hits that one chord and that warm fond feeling she gets…

Her thoughts skitter to a sudden stop, but she tries not to let it show outwardly. It’s been a long time since Irma’s thought of Joel in any more-than-friendly terms, probably not since the mix-up with the note to Karmilla that first brought the idea to her mind. It had been an accident, and maybe she hadn’t fully realized—or at the very least hadn’t been ready—to confront those feelings by that point, but the inklings were there. And they’re still here, and maybe a little bit more than just inklings, and maybe she’s actually ready to admit them.

So Irma sets down the magazine altogether, and carefully slides a little closer to Joel’s side. The movement doesn’t go unnoticed, but he looks up only in faint curiosity—not at all startled or displeased. Irma just returns with a small smile, maybe a little nervous (is this too much too fast? Does he even feel the same way anymore?). But there’s no need for worry—or even words, for that matter—as the two of them have always been so in-sync, and are in perfect alignment on this in particular. That’s clearly proven when Joel grins back and carefully shifts his body and guitar so Irma can comfortably settle in right next to him.

(There are words later, of course, if only to make absolutely certain they’re both on the same page, and just because hearing it out loud makes it feel so real. And really, things don’t change that much in their relationship—they still laugh and crack jokes and tease each other to no end, just with a bit more cuddling and kisses and comfy quiet between them, where neither feels the need to fill the silence just because.

And because I’m predictable, a situation wherein Joel gets clued in to the Guardian Secret would involve Joel being very understanding and patient… and also terrifyingly aware that he is never again going to win in a water fight against his girlfriend.)

So. Apparently I had more thoughts on Irma and Joel fix-its than I thought, but I also have zero regrets and too damn many feelings.

#quintessential asks #thanks for asking!#quintessence-sentimentalist's one-woman mission to fix W.i.t.c.h. canon ships

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leonidas1754 · 4 years

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Preface: I don’t hate Akane/Junpei

Mostly saying that upfront bc like... I do enjoy the ship, especially in any sort of non-Nonary Games context and even within canon. But I think the reason why I tend to enjoy and do more with other ships/noncanon is the simple fact that in canon, Akane and Junpei’s relationship is... Pretty iffy, overall.

And I’m not even talking from the stance of “Akane is manipulative” or whatever. In 999, she did what she had to do, same with VLR, and with ZTD, everything bad she’s done has either been with the express notion of “we need to do this to move forward” or under extreme emotional duress with only one real questionable moment that’s more due to iffy writing than characterization. There is absolutely the sense that she genuinely cares for and loves Junpei, and circumstances have just prevented her from legitimately pursuing that.

It’s actually Junpei’s side I always end up questioning. Because sure, he ambiguously had a crush on her as a kid (and even that’s not necessarily explicit within the story? Honestly it always read to me more like they were just really good friends), but that was nine years prior to 999, when they were little kids. And for the most of those hours they spend in the Nonary Game, they’re actually separated.

Sure, times of extreme duress can absolutely lead to stronger than normal feelings, but on that same notion, you could argue that he has nearly as much reason to form a connection like that to any of the other participants. The main things that set Akane apart are her previous connection and her status as Zero, leading to her being the one Junpei needs the most to have answers (though it’s never really acknowledge that Aoi would also have said answers, even his existence is barely noted in VLR/ZRD despite his importance in 999).

Him pursuing her for answers makes complete sense. What doesn’t is the explicit and strong romantic lean there, especially in ZTD, but also in VLR considering he pursued her for decades until he found Quark, which was apparently the only thing that stopped him and even then, he still ended up going after a lead on her. I think I would have much preferred seeing a romance rekindling rather than the “I want my fucking answers but deep down I love you” that we got. You could certainly argue that that is, at least in part, what we did get, but the fact that he bought a ring with the sole intent to give it to her kind of fudges that idea.

I think what I would’ve liked to see was them rekindling that, with Akane fully and forwardly admitting her feelings and how circumstances haven’t allowed her to go further with it. Hell, have her be the one to have gotten him something, be it a ring or more likely say, a necklace/locket? Perhaps with a picture of them as kids together within, having planned to give it to him if she ever got the chance. Have them acknowledge that even if she was just doing what she had to, she damaged him, and giving him the question of whether or not he wants to try again.

Give us Junpei not knowing whether he wants to do so until the end(s). It’d make the ending leading to VLR all the more tragic as he decides he wants to be with her, to help her, only for her to have to hurt him again in order to set things in motion for VLR. God, that would hurt.

For the true end, fuck, have them end up acting a bit like they did in 999, with Akane being a bit shy and Junpei being a little goofy. I think it’d be a nice way to show that Junpei could recover and that how Akane was in 999 wasn’t just an act but part of the real her.

And of course have Carlos still be his usual supportive, shipper-on-deck self, because that shit was funny and precious and Carlos is great. And I think it’d be nice to have someone else also give Junpei validation in how he feels, once given a short rundown on what actually happened. While canon never really seems to look down on or paint Junpei as being in the wrong for feeling the way he does, they also don’t really paint him as justified either.

I dunno. I like Akane/Junpei, but I just can’t really enjoy it fully with how canon is. I always enjoy writing them as best friends in AUs, though, it’s fun.

#999 #Zero Escape #Akane Kurashiki #Junpei Tenmyouji #Idk what their ship name is #Simon Says #Just blurbing out my thoughts

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vateacancameos · 4 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1555 Fandom: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus Characters: Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Gideon Nav Additional Tags: Autumn, Established Relationship, Foliage, Picnics, Post-Canon, Post-Alecto, Banter, sort of but not really a wedding, perfect lyctorization, lyctor? i barely know her, One Shot, Victory Tour Series: Part 4 of snapshots of autumn Summary:

Part of the snapshots of autumn series, which tells stories of ladies in love during autumn, this story can be read independently.

Harrow and Gideon have won against God after several years of hardship apart. They deserve some time alone. Harrow grumps. Gideon frolics. The end.

Story:

“Holy shit, I’ve never seen this much color in my life,” Gideon groaned, head whipping every which way as if she’d miss something if she wasn’t looking at everything at once.

Harrow rolled her eyes and flapped her arms, hoping for a breeze. It was too warm, and the sun beat on her dark hair, making her sweat in her black robes. Gideon had stripped down to a tank and trousers in the shuttle, leaving her robe in a messy pile on Harrow’s seat.

“Are you frolicking?” asked Harrow, absolutely zero percent surprised, but feeling like she needed to at least make an effort at being annoyed. Gideon once said her resting bitch face was one of the things she loved most about her, so she tried to make it at least once a day. Gideon had argued that the point of RBF was its natural state, but she’d kissed Harrow anyway, then promptly wiped her mouth and “yeched” at the paint that had stuck to her lips.

read the rest under the cut

“Why shouldn’t I frolic?” Gideon yelled, halfway across the meadow they’d landed in. “We’re the good guys that beat the bad guys. We deserve a victory tour, adoring fans, parades, music lauding our heroic deeds.”

“Then why are we in a garish field on a foreign planet by ourselves?” Harrow pulled her robes away from her neck in hopes of coaxing a breeze to cool things down. The only thing it coaxed was a whiny bug that bit her on the back. “Ugh.”

“Because you don’t like crowds or music or anything fun, oh night mistress of zero fun.”

“So you brought me to hot meadow filled with bugs, sun, and bright colors? Are leaves even meant to have that many colors? I thought they were all green.”

“We did the dank and dead church thing yesterday. My turn to pick. And it’s not hot, it’s just a little warm from the sun. Also, Camilla said the colors were fantastic here this time of year. It’s called autumn.”

“I know what autumn is, dumb ass.” Harrow crossed her arms over her chest, even though it was far too warm to have anything touching.

Gideon sighed dramatically, made a final prance, then loped over to skid to a halt in front of Harrow, who raised an eyebrow. Gideon simply grinned.

“What are we doing here?”

“Looking at pretty colors! Have ever seen red this deep? Orange this bright? Gold this glimmering?” She waved her hand at the nearby trees at the edge of the meadow.

“Yes, I saw red this deep yesterday evening when you pricked your thumb while testing your blade. I see orange this bright always when I look at your ridiculous hair, and gold this glimmering every time I look in the mirror.”

Gideon winked one her own now-black eyes, which still threw Harrow off. At least they were the familiar black of the Ninth, and not the creepy oil sheen of God’s own. Thank God (no pun intended) that Gideon shared very little physically with her birth father, apart from their brown skin. And the horrendous sense of humor, but that wasn’t physical and therefore could be ignored by tuning the woman out. Which happened less these days, as Harrow was still so grateful to once again be able to talk to Gideon face to face, no longer parted by the River or physical distance.

“Come on.” Gideon grabbed Harrow’s hand, hauled her back to the shuttle, where she rummaged around until she reappeared with her robes and a knapsack that she slung onto her back. She grabbed Harrow’s hand again and this time hauled her to a nearby stand of trees, where she threw her rumpled robes onto the shaded ground in a sort of flat manner, then pulled the two of them down on top of it.

“Nav! You’re going to ruin your robes.”

“Better mine than yours. Although, you really should take those off. You’re going to roast. And there’s no need for roasting, I already think you’re hot.”

Harrow’s glower was hot enough to start a fire, but Gideon just laughed.

“Come on! We are the champions! Take a load off. Eat some lunch. Enjoy the views!”

“The colors are making my eyes hurt.”

But the protest was half-hearted. It was hard not getting caught up in Gideon’s enthusiasm. After the past couple of years, they deserved a break from the madness, and although this was so not her scene, she had to admit it was a nice change from space and people and death. She closed her eyes to feel the thalergy of an un-flipped planet, safe from future run-ins with Resurrection Beasts. The life wriggling around her was an unfamiliar shock, even after all the time she had spent flipping thalergy to thanergy during her training. It was nice to not think about wading into the disgusting, brackish waters of the River and taking all of this away. It was nicer seeing Gideon happy and goofy and alive, even if her eyes still weirded Harrow out. A small price to pay to have the person who understood her best back by her side. Forever. Well, for myriads at least. The perks of perfect lyctorization. This terrible meadow didn’t even seem that bad when she put it in that context.

Gideon sprawled on her side and leaned on an elbow as she dug through the knapsack, materializing a few half-smooshed sandwiches, apples, two bottles of something, and a box strong enough to come out of the knapsack unscathed.

“White bread, no crusts, bland tofu and cheese for Miss Picky,” Gideon dropped the sandwich in front of Harrow’s crossed legs, “and a gorgeous everything sandwich for me.” She kissed the package before unwrapping and taking a big bite, some sort of pink sauce dripping down her chin. She grinned. “Eat! And for Me’s sake, take off the damned robes. You’ll sweat out any calories otherwise. Plus, I have to sit with your stinky ass the whole way back in the shuttle.”

Harrow pinched the bridge of her nose. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not God. You can’t curse in your own name, Griddle.”

“God, daughter of God.” Gideon shrugged. “Same same.”

“Not remotely. Thank- somebody.”

“Thank me.”

“Definitely not.”

“Please, Harrow?”

“I’m not thanking you.”

Gideon waved a dismissive hand and furrowed her brow. Harrow knew that furrow. It meant she was about to be mother henned. “Not that. I mean, please relax. Eat. Enjoy the colors. Soon enough we’ll be back on dreary Ninth. Home sweet hole-in-the-planet. You’ll be busy running the House, I’ll be … I dunno, posing for tourists to feel my amazing biceps? Re-enacting the battles I fought in? Whatever.” She looked remarkably serious for once. “I just wanted us to have a little time to ourselves, before things get crazy again.”

Despite the solemnity, Harrow felt a grin lift a corner of her mouth. “This isn’t a victory tour. This is a honeymoon, isn’t it, Griddle?”

“What? No. Not- No.” Gideon looked away, scratching the back of her neck. “Just, ya know, some … quiet time.”

“What if I want it to be?”

Gideon whipped her head back around, eyes wide. “You’d want– But it’s– We’re not married.”

It was Harrow’s turn to pretend nonchalance. She shrugged. “Well, it’s just that there aren’t too many immortal people in the universe, and you’re the only one I can stand. I’m not about to go search out another partner, just after I got you trained up.”

A suddenly shy smile played at Gideon’s ever expressive mouth. “You like Pal and Cam well enough.”

“At a distance. I’m happy sending letters and visiting on occasion. But you’ve been by my side most of our lives. It’d be weird for you to leave.” Starting to panic after showing her hand, Harrow began to backtrack. “That is, if you want to. I know you hate the Ninth. And you have friends scattered all over. I’m sure you want–”

Her mouth was stopped by another mouth, warm and soft and comforting yet somehow exciting.

“Yes.” The words were whispered against her lips before the kissing began anew. Having this, for eternity, Harrow could get used to.

They eventually fell back onto a robe-covered ground softened by leaves that crunched. Harrow looked up into the fiery canopy above them as Gideon traced soft squiggles up and down her bare arm (yes, she’d finally removed the robe). The orange really was remarkably close to Nav’s hair. She could finally see the beauty in it that Gideon had seen upon landing. She didn’t want it forever, but for now, it was … very nice.

“So,” Gideon whispered into her ear. “I just realized that as your cavalier primary, and us being basically married, I can now say that I–”

“Don’t you dare, Nav. I had to hear it from Magnus already. I do not need an encore to that terrible joke.”

Gideon cackled and kissed Gideon’s cheek. “You’re no fun.”

🍁🍂🍁

Forever perfectly preserved on Harrow’s desk was a black metal frame, the clear plex displaying three leaves—one as red as blood, another gold as coins (or eyes), and the last the same riotous orange of Gideon’s hair. When asked what they were for, Gideon always answered first: “a marriage certificate.”

#locked tomb trilogy #gideon/harrow #harrow/gideon #fanfic #ficlet #autumn #autumn mood #meagan writes #ao3 #wlw #f/f #griddlehark

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analyzingadventure · 4 years

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SO, this isn’t gonna be quite V-Tamer Special speculation because we really don’t have anything information to speculate on beyond Tamer!Taichi meets TaiPsi, but I do have many questions and thoughts laying around in my head so I figured I could just get them out of my system

So crossover chapters are no strangers to V-Tamer, during V-Tamer’s original run in V-Jump there were three crossover specials, first one with Daisuke, second with Ryou and the third and final one with Takuya. None of these crossover specials really fit anywhere in the timeline of the V-Tamer’s storyline, the chapters sometimes coming out in the middle of a storyarc or a battle, so it’s usually been easy to just think of these chapters as non-canon. They’re just promotional material for the latest new mon/game/series, they don’t need to be canon at all

I do still wonder where this crossover would take place in the V-Tamer timeline if you had to place it somewhere roughly- like would it be somewhere early on when Zero was still a V-Dramon, towards the middle/latter half of the series with Zero as Aero V-Dramon, or even post-ending with Ulforce V-Dramon?

That also makes me wonder what evolutions we’re gonna see of Agumon- it’s possible they might try to keep Agumon and Zero at the “same power level”, so if they’re not gonna “reveal” WarGreymon for us and instead keep Agumon at Greymon level at most, maybe the crossover could “take place” early in the V-Tamer storyline and have Zero at his Adult stage still?

I’m also wondering if this story will take place in V-Tamerverse or Psiverse... Like who’s getting spirited away in this one... Also I’m wondering if they’re going to acknowledge how one Taichi comes from 1998 while the other is from 2020. ‘Cause that could make for some fun gags

The previous crossover chapters never really acknowledged each other, so I’m not holding my breath for this, but... You remember how in the 02 Crossover, Daisuke did pretty much explain to Taichi that he came from a different universe where the Taichi he knew had given him his goggles? So theoretically, Tamer!Taichi should already be aware of there being other universes with different versions of himself, which is gonna make it interesting to see how he reacts to TaiPsi

Like either they don’t acknowledge the 02 Crossover and the Tamer is gonna be completely shocked by TaiPsi’s existence, or he’s gonna be like “well that’s new but okay, kinda saw it coming”. And if it’s the latter, is TaiPsi gonna learn about there being ANOTHER Adventureverse with another Taichi out there?

I remember some people kinda hoping the Digimon multiverse being a thing in Psi and them acknowledging it’s an AU and like. This is it, this is The Place where that theory can become semi-canon and actually happen

God when Psi was announced somebody made an edit of the Spiderverse movie poster but with Taichis so it’d be Taichi: Into the Taichiverse and like. THAT WAS A PROPHESY LMAO

I think I had something else I wanted to talk about but it’s completely escaping my mind rn... Point is though, it’s gonna be fun, no matter what they do in the chapter it’ll be a fun time. And we’re gonna see two Taichis play off one-another, the more rascal-y, goofy but also serious at times Tamer and the generic protagonist TaiPsi (also it’s gonna be interesting to see how they’re gonna characterize TaiPsi ‘cause as far as the first two episodes he has been kinda lacking in personality) (which I’ve only realized because man, Chosen Taichi was kind of a dick at times in Adventure’s first few episodes lmao)

#V Tamer #Psi #Text post #I'm so excited you guys this crossover is literally gonna be the highlight of the year for me #I think the last time I was this happy and excited about something was either before Psi was fully revealed or when KH3 came out last year

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evilisk · 4 years

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Reading Len’En Profiles Pt 5

We round off the RMI cast with the New Emperor, their Anachronistic Advisor and the short story detailing how they met. (The illustration above was done up by JynX for Len’En’s 2nd anniversary)

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While Iyozane’s profile is very conventional and barebones, Fumikado’s profile basically has extra details about Iyozane too, which is why I decided to split their profiles off from everyody else.

= = =

How Fumikado and Iyozane Met

I love how half of Fumikado’s backstory is an actual short story. As far as the writing goes, it’s not bad. One issue is how confusing the profile is as a result of all the characters being “they” (e.g. “When Fumikado asked that question, they smiled slightly” is very confusing). Otherwise, I really like how much atmosphere is packed into this little story.

I love how we basically get the full context behind the naming of Iyozane’s musical theme (”In The Gloomy Straits, Steady As She Goes”). We also get a bit of theming with Fumikado in regards to the stars (note that one of Fumikado’s spellcards is constellation)

Oh and the Bridge in BPoHC is alluded to, and Suzumi’s role, and so many other things. It’s crazy how ambitious this profile is. You’d never see ZUN setting up the boss characters of a following game in a profile.

... I can’t believe it took me one short story to instantly want to ship Fumikado and Iyozane. Either I’m getting really soft, or JynX is just way better at creating ‘shipping potential’ than ZUN is

= = =

Stage 3 Boss - Fujiwara no Iyozane

Original Opinion: To me, Iyozane is the weak-link in the “New Emperor Trio”. Their petty ambitions are fine but they really don’t stand out compared to the stoic Tsugumi or the over-the-top Fumikado. It’s a shame too, as I do love their design, their fight and their musical theme (their RMI theme is especialy good. Like, I could listen to that melancholic melody all day~)

Comments on Profile:

I see JynX is just taking the piss out of the species section again (with Iyozane’s race being “Human, aspiring to be a pirate”)

So Iyozane hates the cold too. I find it hilarious that a whole bunch of people involved in this incident actually hate being in the cold (so far, we’re at Iyozane and the two Adagumo siblings).

I relate to their angle of ‘is ambitious, has no clue how to achieve said ambitions’ so much

So Iyozane apparently uses their flute to control the spirits in their spellcards. That’s cool. Especially since their (godly) theme includes a woodwind instrument... I think? I tend to confuse instruments

Does this mean Iyozane is the first musical Len’En character? I feel like they have to be. I do like how JynX avoided the ZUN cliche of “gotta have a spellcard with musical notes, just so you know that they’re a musician!”

I just want it to be know that I totally wrote half of this profile analysis while listening to Iyozane’s theme on loop. It is just so damn good.

Comments on Short Story:

I like the Iyozane portrayed in the short story. Iyozane’s kind of a typical arrogant, villainous noble type in-game but here they seem so full of energy, with how talkative and open they are, how they’re nervous to perform in front of Fumikado etc. While I’m all for Fumikado becoming the new Emperor, I’m a bit bummed out over how boring “Iyozane in active ambition mode” is

I don’t know the full deal with the name “Fujiwara” (other than Fujiwara being the name of some ancient Japanese clan, oh and Mokou having the same surname, of course) but Iyozane gets points for the strangely mysterious backstory

New Opinion: I have mixed feelings here. The short story kind of turned me around on Iyozane, in theory, but I still don’t really like ‘petty advisor’ Iyozane. Until I’ve played BPoHC, I’ll have to hold off on having a final opinion on Iyozane as a whole.

= = =

Stage 6 Boss - Taira no Fumikado

Original Opinion: For all the jokes about Fumikado having a ghost horse stand, Fumikado gives me such strong Joestar vibes. Like, I hear that “Fumikado fought and then ran away from Shion” and my mind instantly goes to Joseph Joestar running away from Straits or Kars. It’s the combination of arrogance, shameless pragmatism and the talent (Fumikado is actually strong... just not “main character” levels of strong). What little I’ve played of BPoHC and their route only cements this Joestar impession I have of Fumikado.

Though I was incredibly disappointed with Fumikado’s badassery and final boss status being deconstructed (seriously, Fumikado would have broken the curse of “lame Len’En final boss” if they’d been played straight), I think JynX has done a good job of transitioning them into something way more enjoyable than *just* a badass final boss... even if that’s more to do with their BPoHC portrayal.

Comments on Profile:

There is strangely zero mention of Taira no Masakado in their profile (despite him being very, very important to Fumikado’s whole deal)

While it was said in-game that they’re supposed to be the vessel for Masakado, I was not expecting Fumikado to have been groomed from such a young age. It’s actually kind of messed up. Especially since you need to ask “what the hell is gonna happen to Fumikado if they’re successful in their goal?”

I also just want to mention the body switching stuff. It is wild that Fumikado can apparently just do that, and that they apparently grew up in somebody else’s body (while somebody else grew up in their body). I don’t write fanfiction but it’d be quite an angle you could explore in fanfic.

Fumikado’s grandpa is like the first canonically male character, right? Not that it matters, he seems like a jerk for convincing kid Fumikado to go through with all this.

Despite my goofy interpretation of them, Fumikado is surprisingly restrained, introspective even, in their short story.

New Opinion: Wow, uh yeah. I think after all of that, Fumikado might straight up be my favourite character in RMI now.

I already liked Fumikado just on a surface level (theme, design, personality) but Fumikado’s profile adds so much pathos to the them. They’re not some failed supervillain. They were someone trained and groomed from birth to do this one role, this one role that could have lead to the erasure of their own existence; and they failed at this one role due to complete bad luck. The irony would be palpable were it not for the fact that they now have a chance to have their own existence, not as Taira no Masakado, but as Taira no Fumikado. Is that not a lot to take in or what?

= = =

Final Thoughts

Though I don’t quite like RMI as a game, I have a lot of respect for it from a writing perspective because holy crap is JynX’s ambition just bleeding through. There’s so many plot threads going on even without adding all the setup and foreshadowing in BPoHC. You got the New Emperor Trio, Tenkai, Yaorochi and Saragimaru’s ‘meeting’ and Shion and Sese’s side stories all packed into one. JynX has set the storytelling bar rather high with this game.

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Ranking the RMI Cast

Taira no Fumikado

Tenkai Zuifeng

Sese

Tsugumi

Shion

My ranking of Iyozane isn’t decided yet. Don’t expect the BPoHC profiles any time soon. Dear God, JynX is a madman for adding two different routes with two completely new sets of bosses and for bringing back every single character.

#len'en #len'en lore #reactivate majestical imperial #len'en project #len'en content #len'en reiretsuden reactivate majestical imperial #taira no fumikado #fujiwara no iyozane #not a reblog

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