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biinaberry · 4 years

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Potion Parasite Story

Wow, there are a lot of you. I might be writing two fics for this story so I’m going to give the basic premise. However underneath the read more I will provide the entire plot, so if you want to see it, go-ahead.

The base premise starts in S6 during the civil war between Team Star and the G-Team. Team Star, finding themselves on the losing side, realizes they need an advantage to push themselves to victory. False and Wels brainstorm together, as co-leaders in arms, and suggest the idea of stronger potions. Pitching the idea to the rest of the team, and with approval, the group forms a cohesive plan to try and create a super potion that has the effects of instant health, regeneration, swiftness, and night vision all in one. Xisuma is originally against the idea and through some gentle persuasion, and peer pressure, allows the potion to be created. The potion is a success! At the meeting table, the team comes together in the joy of the team's success and after lifting their glasses; downs their potions to victory. The effects are instant as they instantly feel rejuvenated and ready for the next fight as they grab their weapons and gear. However, as time goes on the other hermits start to notice something is wrong with their fellow companions. Xisuma’s visor has a more magenta shade along with Doc’s eye, but it all comes ahead at the next fight. Stress slices False’s arm and for a few moments she sees; her blood is pink.

From then on the Team Star members also start changing personality wise, they still have the same core traits but something has... shifted. They are more driven on healing and making sure the other hermits are okay to an uncomfortable degree. Before, the hermits would trust the others to take care of themselves, but now whenever someone takes a few hearts of damage the members will start questioning them on if they really are okay. They are never without the pink potion. See the potion is a parasite, slowly overriding their mentality to constantly have 3 things in mind: Heal others, Heal yourself, and Spread the Potion. Often combining with the team’s need to protect their friends and making sure they’re alright; what started out as a simple advantage turns into manipulation as it uses their love for their fellow hermits for its gain. Wels is still as level headed as ever and Impulse still has the joy that seeps out of every word he says, but now they feel off. And the infected know they can’t just force the potion onto others, no no no. They just create situations a little more... dangerous, for their friends. Pushing others off of ledges and guided traps for the hermits, they slowly wait their time until their prey to be too hurt to deny some help. I mean, that’s how they got Zedaph anyways. Alongside TFC and a few others. The others hermits aren’t oblivious to whats going on around them, they know that there is a major problem, but what are they suppose to do when they are fighting against superhumans that can take 3 creepers to the face and walk it off like its nothing. And they cant take too many risks because one wrong move and they will make you drink that parasite. Everyone is tense and Tango had to drop out of the war because he was too busy with being the replacement admin because of Xisuma using his powers. Alongside losing his other support pillar to the thing that took his friend. Eventually the war comes to a close because G-team simply can’t beat their opponent and its better to take a loss than to risk getting infected. People can heal from war but not like this, so caution would be their best friend right now. Eventually however, a light was found at the end of the tunnel, because in the chat a simple message read, [Zedaph blew up] And miraculously instead of coming back with pink freckles, Zedaph came back.. as his normal self. The entity was gone, driven from his body once he awoke again in bed. And as Zed shook his head with fuzzy memories surfacing he knew, Tango and the others needed to know this. After some planning, a gamble was taken and as Grian put the finishing touches on the treasure pile, Demise was in effect. And everyone hoped that this would turn out in their favor, for there was only two ways this could go: Success or Failure. But you and I know how this story turned out, the hermits won in the end and the infected was defeated however that sadly enough isn’t the end of our story for one person was left in their sleep, Welsknight. Alone in his house, abandoned by the rest, the parasite started to get more attached to the player. The bright pink filling his veins and gave a pink hue to them in the light. The parasite fused deeper into his body, into his muscles and bones the influence the creature has grew steadily over time as the other players moved onto season 7. When he finally awoke his eyes were different, reflecting a bright pink sheen when light was reflected off of them, but he didn’t mind. He never did in the first place. And as Cub rescued him from his confinements in the dead world he realized that he needed to get his old team back. Needing to stay low to get rid of suspicion he build his base and bought from the cow-mercial district and eventually when everyone was situated with him being back, he flew over to False in search of his co-leader. Instead of meeting a fellow infected he was met with someone cured and no matter his tries as subtle persuasion with the builder, she didn’t seem to take any of his bait. He waved her goodbye and left disappointed but didn’t lose his hopes in bringing protection to the other hermits. Those who were saved from the infection knew how it controlled them and made them lose themselves. With the promise of protection and safety however they later realized how wrong that statement is, but Wels never got that message. Stuck in a mentality that to him seems beneficial but to others it’s a restriction and erasure of individuality. Wels stays undercover until the arena fight with Xb and all hell breaks loose. As one of his opponents drops an anvil on him, that should have killed him, he simply brushes it off and gets back up to continue fighting, but the damage has already been done and Joe witnessed the whole thing. Joe knows how that infection works, seeing it in action right in front of him during the war, and in that one moment he realize how badly they fucked up, because they forgot to account for him too. Joe confronts Wels and tries to reason with the other on how the infection wont help, but Wels is stuck in his ways believing he is helping. A verbal fight happens between the two in hushed whispers between Wels’s exclamation that the hermits will be kept safe with the potion and Joe’s firm stance that the parasite will eliminate individuality and that it cares more about keeping itself safe rather than its host. Wels eventually leaves, knowing he can’t win this one. When Wels’s persuasion with a few other hermits doesn’t go to plan he finally decided to try something new. Go for those who were gone during S6 and the plan was a success. With a new crew of Beef, Etho, Hypno, Xb, the infected decide to bring some more trouble for the rest to deal with. The Hermits, now prepared, work together to slay the new infected and it’s a success. However when they lay the final blow on Wels and he wakes up in bed, they are met with bright pink eyes. It didn’t work.

#potion parasite au #hermitcraft #hermitblr #welsknight #falsesymmetry #hermitcraft au #joe hills #grian #xisumavoid #tangotek #team star #the g-team

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itsdappleagain · 2 years

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3, 4, 6, 7, 11!

3. Oh okay. So. I have a bit of a tangent on this one.

The first scene I had I actually did get to write! It's part of my original story. Very simply, the protagonist is sitting at her dining room table, cleaning her father's gun (wild west era) when she hears a gunshot. Not unusual until she realizes she's holding the only gun they own.

(anyways he dies but yannow it happens)

Secondly there's one I did just write but its not only graphically violent and distressing as many of my stuff is but it's a spoiler for an as of yet unpublished fic so sorry :(

Thirdly, from the same unpublished fic, I think I can share this one (i say as if im under a contract to not reveal my carmen sandiego fanfiction)- the premise is of a spy from vile in acme. taking place at the end of the french connections caper, the spy- beck- spies chief's hologram and julia in the alleyway. he abandons his mission from vile- keeping an eye on shadowsan and brunt- to make the educated and eventually very fruitful guess that this is acme and, dressed as a policeman as he is, he has the perfect chance to infiltrate. he hops down and ithere's more but its in my head and cannot as of yet be described for some reason hdgsfjh

4. One of my favorites for whatever reason has always been:

Keeping herself busy so her thoughts wouldn’t catch up to her. Ever on the run even when she wasn’t wanted.

specifically the second sentence, because is hoved a bunch of meanings into it. 1. physically, carmen is always running still from enemies, though she is no longer a wanted criminal. 2. carmen is physically pacing the room, unwanted by her mother and out of reach from her friends. 3. mentally, carmen is running from her past as a wanted criminal. 4. mentally, carmen is running from the realization that her mother is an evil little meow meow and doesn't want anything to do with her except her worth concerning her own power.

anyway. thats it but yeah :)

6. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo uhhhhhhh that's hard!! maybe ivy actually! i LOVE writing ivy even though i rarely seem to. i have so many headcanons about her though she's more my own than the show's. i also have fun writing chase because i as the "narrator" CONSTANTLY make fun of him. like every time he speaks im like "'what?' chase asked with the sharpness of brie, possibly lowering the iq of everyone in the hospital with every word that tumbled out of his badly shaven mouth" and there's NO REASON FOR IT but he's SO fun to bully

7. I use a lot of metaphors and similes I think. like. a lot. practically tripping over them as you slog through my chapters like a cavalry soldier desperately traversing a painful journey with the faint promise of hope on the other side

see what i mean?

anyways. colorful language, I think, not just in swearing, little regard for canon and a taste for causing pain

i think?

i think i could be agreed with on that one but you let me know

11. how do you is has plot question mark

#itsjoagain!#asks

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valaks · 3 years

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Hey Valaks! I love your blog and your writing!

Please could you do 1, 10 and 18 for the writing asks?? 🌺

Thank you for the ask! I have added a cut to hopefully not be that person clogging up the feed XD

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

I have a few collabs outstanding like Gemini and a Kabir/Alex sequel to Reunion (It’s rated T at the most so still kid friendly) with Lupin and Devil Went Down to Georgia with Galimau. My utter love for both of my collab partners for pulling me through at a time when I’ve been really struggling. I have a WIPs List but I’ll confess to not having touched most of them in quite sometime (partly from life, partly because I’m not sure how interesting they’d be to anyone else other than me which influences my writing more than I would like to admit):

Good Intentions: Smithers never thought he’d be anyone’s moral compass, he was no angel to sit in anyone’s shoulder but trying to keep Alex Rider from following in the ruthless footsteps of his father or worse his former handler, Alan Blunt is as close to hell as he can imagine. (Wherein Alex becomes head of MI6 we watch his morality slip away form the eyes of an increasingly frustrated and heartbroken Smithers - it all culminates when Alex uses a child “just as an informant, simple information gathering” but hidden behind the charming smile of John Rider and the brutal coldness of Alan Blunt’s words is Alex Rider dying as he says them (Smithers just hopes there’s still a part of the boy he once knew in there to mourn)

Walk the Line: Alex thought he was done with SCORPIA. But they kept creeping back into his life in the most unexpected of ways. He thought he could at least count on it being on the other side until he gets teamed up with Walker, his former classmate and current CIA spy. Unfortunately he still hasn’t been able to figure out whose side Walker is really on - attempted deep cover op like his dad, repatriated rogue spy back on the “good” side, or SCORPIA double agent? He doesn’t know but at least he’s nice....in that obnoxious American way.

Temperamental: (Sequel to Sentimental which isn’t all that popular and you would need to read it for the sequel but basically amnesiac Yassen whose memories stop pre John’s betrayal set during the Stormbreaker mission and features him trying to come to grips with the use of chemical weapons against children and how to handle Alex once he snaps back to reality which is where this starts) Yassen had promised Alex Rider that he would be safe from the world of spying but fate had other ideas. In the days after Sarov’s failed plan, Yassen scrambles to find where MI6 have hidden his wayward charge without drawing Rothman’s attention. A request from one of their existing clients to look into suspicious activity at his son’s former school prompts Yassen to investigate under the guise of offering security. He should have known where there was trouble there would be Alex.

10. How would you describe your writing process?

Lordy do I ever not have a good answer for this. Typically it involves an idea hitting me and then the determination: would this idea work better as a short to post on tumblr (because the set up would take away the tension or would require a multi chapter which is not really my strength), as a prompt to lob out into the ether for someone better and brighter to touch on, or a fic. Once fic is decided I determine whose perspective the fic would be the most interesting from either because it would create the most tension or their internal monologue/background knowledge would add the most to it. Then the summary is written and a title is chosen. If it’s something I’m really passionate about and I already have it in my head I tend to write it all in one go, if there’s more I need to chew on then it’s a series of dates with the Evil Writing App. The final determination is whether it’s good enough for Valaks or if it gets sent to an alt account.

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

Allegedly. I’ll try to go in order of posting -

Ruthless has a sequel where Alex just goes *quiet* once the initial dust as settled it’s unnerving to everyone because they’re not used to having to wonder just what Alex is thinking, at least not behind closed doors but what happened isn’t exactly something that can be recovered from easily, not when Alex isn’t sure who all’s in on it no matter what they’ve told him. Failure is the AU where I considered what would happen to Alex to make him want to torture.

Alibi was originally going to have Yassen show up in the end but I found it far more fascinating if MI6 was just testing Alex so out went Yassen and in went Ben. The sequel to it was torn apart and turned into Warm Reception because I wanted to trope flip SCORPIA comes to Brooklands and decided that it was more logical to have a small fight in Mrs. Bedfordshire’s lobby than anywhere else and I wanted to explore some side characters instead of Ben.

Providence’s sequel thoughts ended up inspiring Gentleman’s Agreement but I did write a small short for it “Yassen and Alex encounter each other on mission. Surprisingly they are working to mostly the same goal - Yassen needs to kill the millionaire who Alex needs to get information from. “I suppose I could answer some questions for you, Sasha. /In Russian/“ “Is now really the time for a language lesson?” he ground out in frustration but the man pointedly ignored him “/Fine but I don’t know some of the words/“ “/Then there is no better way to learn/“

I mentioned the Sentimental sequel but changing Sarov to come first and probable for almost a month before Yassen figures out he’s missing made the most sense. It was also a bit of fun at the Yassen would absolutely take Alex away from MI6....just to throw him in a school and throw away the key. Almost had him send him to Point Blanc but decided that wouldn’t quite fit all that well and wouldn’t be as interesting as if Alex had already gotten his feet back under him with MI6 and now sees that Yassen was right that MI6 would just use him until he’s dead but that doesn’t mean Alex wants to be anywhere near Yassen. Julia Rothman might have other ideas when she finds out what her newest second in command is hiding.

Gentleman’s Agreement.....there’s a lot of thoughts on Sequels and AUs, a lot of them have been written by better people, but that fic was written in 45 minutes so there wasn’t much time to recharacterize or change scenes. It did get Turncoat aka the Alex saves Yassen fic I wanted so badly.

Blood Brothers is a fic I really worked hard on considering how John would feel about his son being thrown into SCORPIA assuming Alex was of age. A rocky marriage was characterization that didn’t quite fit what I imagined would have happened but did fit the story so it stayed in. It was a fic that was supposed to get expanded on - the competition between Hunter and Yassen and Nile and Alex who is desperate to beat his Dad and his “apprentice”. I think two teenagers thrown against each other with a bit of a bone to pick, especially Yassen and Alex who can both hold a grudge even if one runs hot and the other runs cold, would have been compelling and a little fun but the premise and specifically John’s characterization doesn’t quite work out to me.

Found and Legends both have their plotting done but it’ll never see the light of day

Little Moments and Sweetest Thing were my guilty pleasure writing pieces for a while and I have about 1000 DMs of scenes for both of them that are lost to the sands of time and an embarrassing amount of self indulgence

Mates has a follow up ending for those who needed resolution in the comments of it. I’m not sure I did a good job of showing that Tom was in a semi abusive relationship since a lot of people seemed to blame him for him and Alex’s breakup. Most of my headcanons for how their relationship goes have them splitting much sooner just because of Tom’s own home life and either being unable to relate/talk to Alex and drifting away because his Mom throwing a plate at his head isn’t being hung over crocodiles but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt or because Alex is just too dangerous/jumpy to be thrown back into a school environment and lashes out even unintentionally especially not under the pressure of being seen as a failure. School is also a barometer of just how much he’s lost of himself and his childhood, bonus points for Alex being completely upfront with Tom about everything he’s done

In My Sights has an AU where this is all post Christmas at Gunpoint and Yassen is there because he knows Ian is already at Sayle’s factory and will have to be...handled. So two weeks of just getting Alex trained for the protection he might need, connecting him to resources, etc. Ian finding out that Yassen had been there was part of a draft at one point which was included Alex wondering about an all too sincere goodbye from Ian “who never hugged him” but I can’t find the snippet anymore ;__;

A Warm Reception was an alternate version. Originally I wanted it to be Alex watching his last chance at normality slip from his fingers and then the crushing realization that it was something that was his own doing, not even MI6 but Skoda who he had picked a fight with and the accompanying breakdown but then decided that Mrs. Bedfordshire was the right way to go upon writing the summary. Because everyone loves some Outsider POV

Adopted was supposed to be a one chapter throw away trope flip of K Unit adopts Alex. I kept it pretty consistent with Amitai and Lil Lupin’s K Units, tried to add in some more characterization just in how they treated some of the details. It has an alt ending/chapter where they find out Alex is Cub when they pull him from Three’s tender mercies almost by accident. I was persuaded into light humored fluff via guilt trip.

The Truth and Other Deadly Weapons has Ben acting exactly like he think he would in front of everyone but my AU was that this interaction happened in the field and absolutely shattered Ben’s trust in him partly because he had worked for the other side and partly because even if it ‘wasn’t as bad as it looks’ it showed a severe lack of judgment. It also featured several chapters of Alex running into the glass ceiling that is having “Member Malogosto Class of 2004” on your resume. Was going to feature Alex running into Walker as well and into problems within MI6 and the CIA but that was eventually cut and it was kept to one chapter.

Guardian....Guardian holds a very special place in my heart. I was given the prompt of a Monster Fic and I wrote what I knew but the interesting parts were all the ones that come after the story but might come across to a general audience as Hogwarts School of Prayers and Miracles. The plotting done post this was going to feature baby Angel Alex reuniting with his parents but...they were strangers to him and so he stayed with Yassen more and more, followed him, learned from him....it encompassed everything from the dynamics of broken families to reflections on theology and references from the Good Book....which is why it’ll never see the fandom but has a very special place in my heart.

In another, more perfect world Glocking Around the Christmas Tree is the Die hard fic this fandom deserves but as Lupin and I untangled the plot of the movie more and more we just couldn’t make it into anything that would be coherent on paper so it was changed and changed and is now a half finished sad abomination that sits on my works list only because Lupin would kill me if I took it down.

Hot Shot was supposed to feature my current favorite character that is not Nile Abara, John Crawley but I wimped out and changed it at the end because I swore I would write the Crawley fic that we all need. Hear me out: John Crawley knew and worked with John and Ian Rider, was respected by both of them, was recruited by SCORPIA within one year in the field, is the Chief of Staff of MI6, the man who “no one gets a knife in the back without him signing off” and is also the man who walks his dog to check on Alex. There’s a mentorship waiting to happen there, preferably in a nice work study program during college where Alex finally gets to see the repercussions of his missions and Crawley helps try and pull him back from the black mark that SCORPIA would have put on him.

My personal fluffy favorite is the spinoff of Devil Went Down to Georgia where Joe Byrne did pull Alex out post Skeleton Key and brought him home. There’s a pretty extended one about where Tom ends up after Mates. There’s also an actual sequel but ask me no questions and all.

Skipping a few collabs and Febuwhump fics but Burning Questions was just supposed to be Branded - a fic where upon being captured by Razim he is brought in and forcibly branded to differentiate the appearances of Alex and Julius (since Razim has decided to have him killed after shooting the Secretary of State). As a result of the pain levels spiking when Alex actually sees that the SCORPIA logo is branded onto his cheek Razim considers that emotional pain might be something to investigate. There’s a couple thousand words on it, one day I might polish it up.

First Impressions is supposed to be a mirror verse of Alex working for MI6 which includes Three as Blunt, Rothman as Jones and of course Sagitta as K Unit while he’s up against his father as Yassen and Yassen as Crawley. But it was cut down significantly even if the ideas are pretty fun to consider.

Sorry this was probably more than you bargained for but it was fun to get everything out there so thank you for asking

#alex rider #alex rider fanfiction #Im so sorry #I just have a lot

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joiedecombat · 3 years

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It's not Tuesday any more, but have a twofer - a couple of Pride And Prejudice AU pastiches with similar themes, albeit differing executions.

Speechless by Jessie Lewis is a good old fashioned hurt/comfort with a simple and surprisingly effective premise: Darcy and Elizabeth snowed in at a small rural inn after a nearly fatal accident renders Darcy badly injured and unable to speak, with (mostly) only Elizabeth available to care for him.

The writer doesn't hold back on any of the physical suffering Darcy goes through, and the first whole chapter (immediately following the accident) is downright trippy. The story takes place in the winter after the Bingley company's departure from Netherfield, and being forced into such close proximity with Darcy dependent on Elizabeth's care leaves them with little choice but to work through their differences at an accelerated rate.

Darcy, predictably, is a terrible patient.

"Is there any warm water left?" he enquired, desirous of talking about something other than his manifold ailments. He mimed washing his face and felt a fool for doing so. He ought not to have, for Elizabeth's smile was all sympathy as she assured him there was plenty.

"Let me find you a clean cloth."

Darcy forestalled her departure with an upheld finger, with which he then indicated the nearby chair. Elizabeth looked in the direction he pointed then back at him, a divertingly sceptical expression on her face. "Truly? After this morning's disastrous attempt?"

"I shall atrophy if I do not regain my feet soon."

She shook her head and laughed lightly. "I am not sure what you just said, but I cannot refuse you when you look so wretched. I pity the woman you do eventually marry, for I am quite sure that look will rescue you from all manner of trouble with her."

Darcy was vastly relieved that she walked away as she said this, for he would not like her to see the effect her words had on him. Nonetheless, as he reached for and gulped from his glass of water, almost making himself choke in his haste, he could not expel from his head the notion that this was singularly useful information of which to be in possession.

I was dubious at first over how much communication they manage via lip-reading - why undermine a key part of your own premise like that? - but it pays off amazingly in the end when they're back in London and Elizabeth becomes the only person in the room who can reliably understand what Darcy is trying to say most of the time. Especially when he gets exasperated enough to abandon filters entirely, secure in the knowledge that nobody else will know the difference anyhow.

Fearful Symmetry by Gailie Ruth Caress has a similar theme of an unexpected crisis introduced into the canon storyline - in this case, a fire at Longbourn shortly after Jane and Elizabeth come back from Netherfield, before Mr Collins or Mr Wickham have even shown up, forcing the whole Bennet family to temporarily accept Bingley's hospitality. Where Speechless is mostly hurt/comfort, though, Fearful Symmetry deals more with the butterfly effect caused by introducing this single incident into the sequence of events and exploring how it would change things.

Elizabeth bit her lip, hiding her smile as he looked up and drew to his feet. With an expression of perfect ease, Mr Darcy crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her with one dark eyebrow raised, much in the manner of a war general awaiting with confident anticipation the news of his assured victory.

"I have come to tell you that I must honour my promise to Mr Collins."

In an instant, his face transfigured to horrified astonishment, his arms uncrossed, and he seemed to fall a little forward as he braced his palms upon the desk. "What? What did you say?"

"I promised him I would apologise to you for ever having questioned the opinions and workings of your mind," Elizabeth explained. "Indeed, I find it is just that I do so. I own freely that your mind holds no equal for me--for that was the prettiest piece of cleverness I have ever witnessed!"

I've read more of this type of AU than any other during my ongoing adventures in Pride And Prejudice pastiche, and it's a lot harder to pull off than it might seem. Most of the examples I've read are either basically the same as the original with only superficial changes, or else involve multiple unconnected changes to canon, sometimes to the point of rendering the whole thing almost unrecognizable and/or void of conflict.

Fearful Symmetry is one of the few cases I've found where it's done well, everything flowing very organically from that one point of divergence. Many of the conflicts of the original are headed off completely, but they're replaced by new ones mostly stemming from the impact of the fire on the Bennet family and how the time and expense involved in rebuilding Longbourn further widens the gulf of status between them and Darcy.

#pride and prejudice #speechless #fearful symmetry #ongoing adventures in austen pastiche #told y'all I had Opinions

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spockandawe · 4 years

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So, my heart keeps circling and circling back to The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, and I was idly prodding at why that is, even more than the other mxtx stories, and then I thought to myself, ‘why not ramble into the internet abyss instead of just in your own head?’ And so here we are.

I love this story so much, seriously. It was maybe the most difficult of the three novels for me to begin, because the translation editing is definitely rougher than mdzs and tgcf, and I think the story itself assumes that readers are kind of familiar with transmigration concepts (teal deer, person from real world reads novel, involuntarily is pulled into novel, often(?) as one of the established characters, lives out the-novel-plot-but-different).

But once I got past like, that first chapter? MAN. I was so hooked.

I think the first thing that really stands out to me is that Binghe as a love interest is...I’m not sure I want to say he’s more “flawed” than the other mxtx love interests, but that’s the best word I’m finding right now. The wangxian ship is mostly in tune with each other in the present, despite a few lingering misunderstandings. And the hualian ship, like, hua cheng rolls up like ‘heyy what up i would do anything you asked of me’ and xie lian was like ‘you. i like you a lottle.’ and their in-book development is mostly about bringing xie lian up to speed on the depth of their history together.

But Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe! The original canon Binghe is specifically a blackened hero, who is casually cruel and manipulative, and has collected up a massive harem of pretty ladies to be his wives and concubines. Pretty much the last straw in that blackening is that his abusive teacher (who he still desperately wanted the approval of) found out he was half demon (also news to luo binghe) and kicked him into the abyss where he had a miserable few years having his demon blood awakened. Later, he came back to the human realm, much stronger and angrier than when he left, and his morally questionable adventures involved de-limbing his old teacher, cutting out his tongue, and keeping him alive for years.

Shen Yuan is a modern-day human bean who has been hate-reading the webnovel of this story, where he can see a lot of interesting potential in the story, but is massively frustrated by the things the author has chosen to do with it. It is a Significant shock to his system when he wakes up inside the story, in the body of Shen Qingqiu. After Luo Binghe has already been his student for some time. Also, there’s a System that’s policing whether or not he acts in-character as Shen Qingqiu, and he’s going to get punished if his points drop below a certain threshold. He gets more freedom to act as the story progresses, but at first he has to do things like argue with the System about why he should be allowed to give medicine to Luo Binghe after he gets beat up (it will shame their sect if outsiders see him with a bruised face). And on the one hand, he’s trying DESPERATELY to avoid a future where he gets mutilated and tortured by his student, but... he is absolutely a massive softy who takes no time at all to start ADORING this kid and being super proud of everything he does. He won’t admit that, even in his own pov, and he has a very, very reserved external manner, but he’s so soft on the inside.

(ps why did using fans as conversational props stop being a thing. maybe sometimes i don’t WANT my face hanging out in public, maybe sometimes it’s extra fun to hide your expression.)

And this makes for a fascinating dynamic, because this new Shen Qingqiu 1) adores Luo Binghe, 2) is terrified of Luo Binghe.

At first, when Luo Binghe is still a teenager, it’s easier to land on the side of just adoring him. The original canon character was a sweet, sweet kid all on his own. And Luo Binghe is still an extremely good boy when this novel starts, even though he’s being mistreated by his teacher and most of his fellow disciples. But when Shen Qingqiu starts giving him support and positive reinforcement, oh my god, he BLOOMS.

But Shen Qingqiu is from outside the novel, and he knows where this is headed eventually. And at the point where the original character shoved Luo Binghe into the abyss for a couple years of misery, the new Shen Qingqiu thinks he’s in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation, and... reluctantly does the same thing.

So here’s the trouble. Luo Binghe is... needy. He’s a needy, needy boy. He loves very hard and cares about his people (person) a lot, but he is also clingy as heck, jealous, and has MASSIVE abandonment issues. Getting this treatment from his favorite person in the entire universe is... not ideal. Having it happen when he’s just found out he’s half demon is even less ideal, especially when the framing makes it look like he’s being rejected because of What He Is, not something he has any power to change. And it ties back into to his oldest, most painful insecurities. His name literally means ‘lowered into the icy river’, because that’s what his birth mother did with him.

So when he comes back to the human realm, he’s not as blackened as he was in canon, and doesn’t have a grudge of the same magnitude as the original Luo Binghe. But the person he loves most in the world hurt him very, very badly, and he :) has :) some :) questions :))))))))))))))

And this is the point where every time Luo Binghe breathes, Shen Qingqiu goes WAUGHHHH

Which is so TASTY, honestly! And the escalation of hurt and mistrust is such a delicious feedback loop! I love a good supportive relationship, but I live for two people who care about each other inadvertently inflicting massive wounds on each other’s hearts.

I don’t want to go into describing the later parts of the plot, because that seems like such a waste, but I feel like transmigration stories are the MOST tasty if having prior knowledge of a novel’s plot makes the leads act as dumbasses in all kinds of new and exciting ways. Which definitely, definitely applies here.

And there are all kinds of DELICIOUS side relationships, which weren’t there in the original canon, and that Shen Qingqiu accidentally discovers/uncovers while he’s fumbling around trying to dodge his canon fate. Like, early in the book, Shen Qingqiu is supposed to kill one of his peers in the sect. The guy was suffering from a qi deviation and the original Shen Qingqiu was like ‘look, he was out of control, and I didn’t want to kill him, but it was him or me.’ Everyone was skeptical, but they didn’t have any evidence to contradict him. This character was the brother of one of Luo Binghe’s eventual wives, so it was pretty much just another bonus reason to hate his shizun once he turned against him.

The new Shen Qingqiu is like ‘okay, so this Liu Qingge is supposed to be strong. Maybe if I save his life he’ll protect me from Luo Binghe?’ And it changes SO MUCH! And Shen Qingqiu is SO DUMB! He’s like ‘wow, liu qingge really hates me, huh.’ And Liu Qingge is like ‘WHY ARE YOU BEING NICE. IT’S WEIRD. ARE YOU REALLY STILL YOURSELF?’ And then later there are spoilery developments, but there’s this act of devotion that moves me so much. (five years!!!!!!!!!!)

And I don’t want to undersell the intense emotions these characters are so frequently feeling in this story, but they are also. so dumb. so frequently, frequently dumb. and I live for it.

Like, I just got past the part in the novel where Shen Qingqiu sees Luo Binghe and Liu Mingyan having their first conversation. Liu Mingyan is a legendary beauty (so beautiful she wears a veil, because otherwise her beauty is just too distracting) and eventually becomes one of Luo Binghe’s favorite wives. So Shen Qingqiu (who hates the original novel, but also sure has a lot of passion for it and remembers a lot of the details, considering how much he theoretically hates it) is like ‘OH, HOT DAMN. MY OTP’S FIRST CONVERSATION. I WANNA SEE HOW THIS GOES.’

And what happens is that Luo Binghe gets so massively jealous. We get a bit of his pov, where almost all of his thoughts are ‘WHY IS SHIZUN STILL LOOKING AT HER?? IT’S NOT LIKE YOU CAN SEE MUCH PAST THE VEIL ANYWAYS. AND ANYWAYS, I’M PRETTIER???????????????’ And finally Luo Binghe goes off out of sight with her so shizun can’t watch her anymore, and Shen Qingqiu is like ‘ah.... alas....... of course the protagonist and his lady get privacy for such an important scene..............’

They are so dumb, guys. They care so much, and they ache so much over each other, and they are so dumb. And the supporting cast isn’t much smarter. Even the smart ones have the dumb ones inflicted on them.

In the extras, at one point demon king Luo Binghe is addressing his main retainers, and he’s like ‘if... hypothetically..... two people’s hearts were out of alignment with each other........ how would u fix that.......... hypothetically..............’ And his poor retainers are like

But I really, really think that the protagonist being afraid of the love interest is a really key point for me, personally. And then it’s extra my favorite, because of 1) him having a good fucking reason to be afraid, and 2) his love interest having no goddamn clue. It makes for such a good blend of humor and sincere pathos. I’m weak to dumbasses-in-love as a dynamic, but it can be hard to have something so lighthearted while also working in painful emotional depths. The premise for this story is hard to replicate, and I’m kind of drawing a blank on anything that I’ve read that measures up to it, and the plot REALLY makes the use of some incredible foundations.

Anyways, thank you for coming to my ted talk, this book is ridiculous and i love it, and it’s also the shortest and most linear of mxtx’s books, and i highly recommend it to everyone.

#svsss #long post/#guess who doesn't want to go back to her workday #it meee

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duhragonball · 5 years

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Dragon Ball Z 280

World is fuck, so I’m gonna write about DBZ for a while until the Benadryl kicks in.

Last time, Goku fought Majin Buu, but he wasn’t doing so great, so he upped the ante by going Super Saiyan 3.

This is where I regret falling behind on the manga way back in the Red Ribbon Army Saga, because the Buu arc is where the anime and the manga really start to get off-track from each other. I mean, the same plot points are followed, but in the manga, Goku fights Buu as a Super Saiyan 3 the whole time, while in the anime, he starts at SSJ2 and ramps up to SSJ3... twice. So it’s kind of hard to match up exactly which parts of the anime version are direct adaptations of the manga. They’re probably all there, but I’d really need to do a side-by-side comparison. A project for another time.

This has gotta be one of the best damn episodes of the whole shebang. Goku and Kid Buu are just whalin’ on each other, and this isn’t even the climax of this arc.

Starting out, Goku deals some pretty heavy damage to Buu, and he has some difficulty reassembling himself. But that’s about all Goku ever does to the kid. I mean, if Perfect Cell took a hit like that, he’d just be dead, or so badly wounded that it would take barely any follow-through to finish the job. But with Majin Buu these kinds of enormous blasts are just chip damage at best.

Something else I want to do one of these days is go back and try to figure out when they screwed up Dende’s Buu-Saga character model. I think most of Dragon Ball Super depicts him as a child, as if he never aged after the Cell Games, but I think that only happened because they were screwing him up as far back as 1995.

Here’s the thing, though: Why was Dende so short in the Cell Games? He had aged four years from however old he was in the Namek Saga. Piccolo Junior was fully grown by age three. Maybe this is the Namekian life cycle. You grow into an adult when you’re three, then you turn into a kid again, then you grow into an adolescent about 11 years after that, and then you just sort of switch back and forth for a while. It’s a good thing Piccolo’s off-screen for most of his life.

Yamcha and Krillin are watching this from the Grand Kai Planet, courtesy of King Kai’s telepathic vision. Why isn’t anyone else grabbing a Kai by the back?

And they’re even screening this fight in Hell, which seems kind of strange to me. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, but we’ve got pay-per-view in the commons.

Hey look it’s Cell! And Dr. Gero. You think they talk much at all? Think about how much it must suck for them. Gero was maybe the only other person Cell ever respected, because he trusted Gero’s grand design for him as the perfect being. And Gero must have viewed Cell as his ultimate hope for avenging the Red Ribbon Army. And then they bump into each other in hell, which proves that they’re both failures. All Cell really accomplished was to kill Goku, and now he’s not even dead anymore. I have to figure Cell/Gero interactions in Hell are pretty uncomfortable. At the same time, who else are they going to hang out with?

Why are all these guys still in their bodies? Everything that happened to Vegeta in this arc implies that letting Vegeta have his body after death is a big deviation from the norm. Episode 195 introduced the idea of DBZ’s hell being like this big Arkham Asylum for all the bad guys. I guess technically all those episodes with the dead Ginyus in the Frieza Saga did the same thing, but you could argue that they hadn’t been dead long enough to lose their bodies. Here, now, we’re looking at characters that have been dead for over seven years. I think the premise in Resurrection F was that the damned get to keep their bodies while they suffer, until they finally learn to let go of their past lives and move on. And I can see why Frieza’s such a bitter fuck that he’d still be holding on for over a decade, but what’s Recoome holding out for? Just get reincarnated as a cockroach or something and get it over with.

Also, why is Gero a cyborg in this scene?

And why isn’t Frieza a cyborg? I mean, he wasn’t a cyborg in Episode 195 either, but that seemed to suggest Gero would be fully human in hell, and he isn’t. And if Gero does get to keep being a cyborg, then why couldn’t he keep his hat?

Anyway, Goz and Mez recognize Goku as the guy who messed with them way back in the Saiyans Saga. Hey, why aren’t Raditz and Nappa in this scene? I watched an AMV where they edited Bardock into this, which seems like a good idea. Did they just not go to hell? I find that a little hard to believe.

Anyway, all the bad guys are salty as fuck to see Goku alive and fighting, and Frieza’s actively rooting against him. He’s just jealous because Buu’s doing better against Goku that he ever could.

Meanwhile, over on the classy side of the villain crowd, Cell wonders who Goku’s opponent is, since he’s clearly impressed to see anyone give Goku a tougher battle than himself.

Then Babidi shows up and announces to everyone he used to be tight with Majin Buu. Actually, he claims Buu was his servant, and that he taught him how to fight, which... yeah. I guess he did help Buu practice punching people’s faces off.

This whole moment feels a bit contrived. Babidi’s been down here for a couple of days already. I don’t know how long they’ve been watching this fight. I would imagine the oni switched it on somewhere when Vegito was on deck, so it kind of feels like Babidi was sort of hiding around back, waiting for someone to ask about Buu, so he could jump out and go “Oh, funny you should ask about that! I was Majin Buu’s master for like six hours, nbd.” I almost wonder if he paid Cell five bucks just to set this up. Cell demanded payment in singles, because he wanted to spend it on the vending machine. He’s a sucker, though, because hell may have a big screen TV, but the bill changer on their vending machine hasn’t worked in 10 million years.

Anyway, everyone’s impressed, probably just because Babidi has the inside track on Buu more than anything. You gotta figure most of these guys have heard it all before, and at least Babidi has a newer story to tell. Everyone’s probably sick of hearing how Frieza ate that crab while he killed Vegeta.

But then Babidi wanders off, and in private he cusses out Buu for, you know, killing him, and he roots for Goku to win. Wait, is Bibidi in hell too? You’d think they could catch up on old times.

Meanwhile... well, this shot had pink and yellow energy trails moving across the planet, and it looks pretty cool, but this screenshot doesn’t quite do it justice.

Kibitoshin is worried about their planet, but the Elder Kai insists that it’ll take more than this to wreck it. I want a woman who believes in me the way the Elder Kai believes in the sturdiness of the Supreme Kai Planet. That sounds kind of masochistic when I put it that way. Moving on.

Writing about all those other villains, it starts to come into focus how little I have to say about Majin Buu. I dig the guy, though. Critics complain that he doesn’t have much on personality or motivation, and they’re not wrong, but I think that’s part of the point with him. Godzilla doesn’t give touching speeches in his movies, but he remains a popular character because of the sheer spectacle of him. He’s a force of nature, a symbol of immense power that the human characters can barely comprehend.

In Buu’s case, he’s just this stubborn, impossible obstacle to peace in the universe. So much has gone wrong, and we could wish it all back the way it was, if only someone could beat this pink little turd. He’s got some personality, but his main purpose in this story is to just be there for the other characters to interact as they deal with the problem.

For example, while all this action is going on, Mr. Satan is basically helpless, but he reassures Bee that he’ll protect him, even though Satan thinks this whole adventure is a dream. This says a lot about Mr. Satan. Yeah, Bee had a big part in reforming the Fat Majin Buu, but he means a lot to Mr. Satan as well. It’s easy to write off Satan as a coward and a fraud, but even when he’s retreating into denial, he still wants to be a hero, even when the rest of the world is dead, even when his only audience is a little puppy. And you could have a moment like this with Mr. Satan regardless of the villain, but I think it stands out better when the bad guy is Kid Buu, who doesn’t get in the way with any big speeches or characterization moments of his own.

Back to the fight, Buu gets the drop on Goku, so he decides that this is no time to hold back...

So he drops a Super Saiyan 3 Kamehameha on the little creep. Yeah!

It blows Buu to pieces, but then the pieces just turn into mini-Buus and they all shoot back.

Goku tries to power up for another round, but suddenly he runs out of gas and collapses.

So Vegeta rushes to his side and offers to switch in. Yeah, this whole part is filler. In the manga, Vegeta only gets one turn, and this ain’t it.

However, I think some of Vegeta’s lines during this scene are lifted from the part of the manga where he fights Kid Buu later. So it’s a little weird here. I’m curious how Dragon Ball Kai handled these episodes, because when they started that project it seemed like their goal was to edit out most of the filler from the original DBZ anime, but in some cases that just isn’t practical. Like Pizza and her entourage in the Cell Games. They weren’t in the manga, but they appear in almost every Mr. Satan scene that was in the manga, so Kai had to leave them in, because the alternative was to painstakingly edit them out of every shot. Here, you may not even have that option. You could edit Goku vs. Kid Buu down to just one uninterrupted string of action where he’s fighting at Super Saiyan 3. Cut out this intermission with Vegeta, cut out the opening bit where Goku fights at SSJ2, but I don’t know if the fight choreography would still make sense.

Everyone watching is horrified that Vegeta can’t even land a blow, and Buu starts openly mocking his lackluster performance. What I don’t understand is why Vegeta would even try to fight Majin Buu in his base form. I mean, the real reason is probably because this fight is filler, and Toei didn’t want it to detract from when he actually fights Buu in the next episode. But it makes Vegeta look kind of stupid. He knows better, and we know that he knows better.

So Buu quickly overwhelms him, and he’s all set to fire a ki blast to finish off. Why doesn’t Vegeta just transform to escape it?

But then Goku jumps in and ruins Buu’s shot. He’s still in base form too, but I sort of buy this, because he snuck up on Buu. Even so, this sort of fast-and-loose attitude with power levels is exactly the sort of nonsense Toei did all through Dragon Ball GT, and one of several reasons why GT sucks. It’s not as bad in filler scenes like this one, interspersed among stories based on the manga, but once there was no manga to work from, they just decided there were no rules, and Base Form Goku was almost interchangeable with Super Saiyan 4 Goku. They just used whichever character design they preferred that day.

Vegeta’s astonished, because he thought Goku was down for the count, but he’s already back up and demanding to tag back in.

But Goku ain’t done yet. This is probably the other reason Toei had Vegeta fight in base form here, so it would make it look cooler when Goku defiantly powers up to continue his effort. And yeah, it works. I really do love this scene, but it’s a pretty egregious example of filler scenes messing with the flow of the story.

Goku ramps up to Super Saiyan 2, then back to 3, and we pick up where we left off. And that’s awesome, but the main idea of this fight is that Goku’s having a hard time fighting at this level. To have him drop out of SSJ3 early, then immediately get back up and resume SSJ3 like it’s no big deal... well, that undermines that premise. I guess you can make an argument that it supports the premise, because having Goku power down twice in this fight only emphasizes how volatile SSJ3 really is, but... I dunno.

Anyway, Goku goes back to fighting Buu, and you know, that may be the real reason Toei did that whole bit with Vegeta tagging in. The alternative is to just have SSJ3 Goku fight Buu for two and a half episodes straight, and that would get dull, no matter how well they animated it. You can have spectators observe the battle, and that’s a great way to break up the action, but a moment where Goku rescues Vegeta adds some drama. The manga didn’t do this, but it didn’t need to, because this fight was much shorter in print.

I guess that’s the main defense of filler. Sometimes, it’s not about padding the anime, or working the studio’s “agenda” into the story, or anything sinister like that. Sometimes it’s just a matter of pacing.

Anyway, in either version, Vegeta watches Goku fighting, and quickly recognizes that Goku is the only one who can fight Majin Buu now. At Vegeta’s level, he’d only get himself killed.

Then he has this whole flashback of his relationship with Goku up to this point, and unlike most flashbacks in this series, this one features all new art, which is pretty awesome. Honestly, they could have used old footage from the Saiyans Saga, but they had already done that recently during the Babidi Saga, so maybe Toei figured they couldn’t do that trick again so soon. Or maybe they knew DBZ wes winding down, so they wanted to do something special while they still could.

Not surprisingly, Vegeta’s main recollection of his first fight with Goku are the parts where Goku beat the shit out of him while using Kaio-ken times three. That fight had a lot more to it than that, and it’s easy to forget that Vegeta dominated most of the battle, mainly because Vegeta himself doesn’t see it that way.

Then we get this part where Vegeta has kittens over Goku beating Recoome, and he begins to suspect that Goku is the Legendary Super Saiyan. Would have been awesome to see another shot of Luffa the Golden Ape from episode 66, but I guess that wouldn’t make a ton of sense in this context, especially now that we know what Super Saiyans actually look like.

For instance...

Vegeta considers that Goku’s secret might be that he’s motivated by a need to protect his loved ones, but even if that’s true, Vegeta has his own loved ones now, so they’d be even if that were all it was. I love how surly he looks here. “Dammit, I can’t believe I care about these stupid people! Now I gotta blow myself up if things get out of hand.”

Also, Vegeta’s observation ties in well with that filler scene from a moment ago. Goku was exhausted, but as soon as he saw Vegeta in danger, he pulled himself together and found the strength to defend him. Goku cares as much about Vegeta as the others.

But the real difference, Vegeta observes, is that he always fought for the fun of it, and for the satisfaction of killing his enemies. Goku, on the other hand, fights primarily to improve himself. That’s why he keeps pushing himself harder, and why he keeps seeing results. It’s not about winning, it’s about not losing. This seems to be a trend with Goku, where he usually says things like “I won’t lose” or “I ain’t lost yet,” instead of “I’m going to win.” Vegeta’s classic mistake is to assume that he’s already going to win, and then he crumbles when things start to go wrong.

And critically, this is why Goku doesn’t kill people if he can avoid it. Well, he killed a lot of Red Ribbon guys, but most of them were cowards and no real match for him. King Piccolo pushed him too far. After that, Goku’s been pretty light on killing enemies, and that’s probably because he reached a point where he became so strong that it got harder to find worthy adversaries. Vegeta would kill his enemies just to watch them die, but in doing so, he denied himself the opportunity to face them in rematches. This was something I read in a Superman comic once, where Superman overpowers an evil-universe version of himself, and he makes the point that his doppleganger kills all his enemies, so he only ever has to fight them once, where Superman has to stay sharp, because he has to mess with those guys over and over again. Same deal.

And you’d think Goku might have killed Vegeta after he surpassed him, like when he became a Super Saiyan, or when Vegeta went Majin, and no one would have blamed him for putting the bastard down. But Goku never did. Not because Vegeta was no longer a threat, but because he knew Vegeta could still catch up to him some day and challenge him again. Goku believes in Vegeta, even when Vegeta doesn’t believe in himself.

It’s like Goku knew Vegeta woud start to turn into a good guy. See, this is where I take issue with criticism of the dub, way back in Episode 36, when Goku asked Krillin to spare Vegeta’s life. The subs focus on Goku’s desire to beat Vegeta on his own, while the dub spends more time on Goku’s hope that Vegeta might see the light if they show him a little mercy. And you can argue that the dub is cramming their own take into the script, except their take doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Funimation’s take in Episode 36 is Vegeta’s take in Episode 280. Call it foreshadowing, or call it putting the cart before the horse, but the line itself isn’t out of bounds, because Goku did hope that Vegeta would learn the value of mercy, and and Vegeta knows it.

Again, let me pause to note that this big epiphany by Vegeta is much more effective when the bad guy is as flat as Kid Buu. We’re not missing anything during this fight because they’ve just been hitting each other, and Buu bites Goku for like half a second while Vegeta reflects.

The main point of Vegeta’s monologue here is that he’s always struggled with the idea of Goku as the antithesis of what he thinks Saiyans ought to be. And yet nothing succeeds like success. Goku’s stronger right now than any Saiyan in the last thousand years. Hell, right now, Goku’s the only Saiyan alive. Vegeta’s dead, and so are all the others. If his kindness is such a noose around his neck, why is he still breathing? Why is he the only Saiyan who figured out how to turn Super Saiyan 3? Why is he the only one who could bite Majin Buu on the head and get away with it? Because Goku’s metal as fuck, that’s why. Because kindness isn’t a weakness at all. It never was. If anything, it’s the lack of kindness that got all the other Saiyans killed.

And maybe Vegeta has to think about that a while longer, but he knows this much, Goku’s better than he is. He’s the best.

But he’s still not beating Buu anytime soon.

There’s a cool spot here where Goku hits him and his upper body stretchs out from the impact, and he waves hello to Mr. Satan before snapping back.

And by “waving hello” , I mean “fires more of this pink crap out of his hands.”

And this right here is the last shot of Cell, I think? There’s some more Frieza coming up, but I’m not sure if we see all the villains again or not.

Babidi’s watching from way back there, because he’s shy. I think Cell would hang out with Babidi. He’s pretty sociable, right?

Anyway, this fight rules, not just because of all the great action and fluid animation, but because of all the cool stuff going on around it. Everyone’s learning an important lesson about friendship today, thanks to Goku punching the crap out of this pink thing. That... sounds vaguely dirty. Let’s move on.

Oh, well, the episode’s over. That’s kind of awkward. Uh. Goodbye!

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msbeccieboo · 5 years

Text

Arrow 7x17 brain dump

So, this week’s episode was ok. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. I had expected to not really be fussed by this week’s offering and as such wasn’t deeply disappointed. I really missed my Olicity babies in this episode though. The upside of the episode being a bit meh, is that this review didn’t take me 57 years to write, which whilst sick, was a bonus haha!!

Olicity

Olicity weren’t the focus of this episode, but we still managed to get some cute little moments and touches thrown in there. Felicity’s praise when Oliver came back to the lair looking like a prize fighter, was too cute! I love how smitten she still is with him even after all this time, and how bashful and blushing and gorgeous he gets in response is just 😍😍

Source: olicitygifs

We also got a lovely little comfort scene once Oliver realised that Emiko was in fact evil (shocker, I know). Felicity cupping Oliver’s face whilst stroking her baby belly was so damned adorable!!

Source: oliverxfelicity

Continued under the cut

Oliver

Oliver being so open and trusting and just happy to be training with Emiko was so lovely and so heartbreaking because you just knew she would let him down. He mentioned Thea (yay!) and said that she’d always wanted a sister 😭😭 Why does this leave me feeling like Thea is gonna come back and try and kill Emiko??

I also loved seeing Oliver telling people the truth straight up, when asked how he knew about Emiko, listening to Dig’s advice (if not his wife’s) and just being an all-round hopeful bean!! The growth he shows is amazing, it’s just a shame that his hope and faith in his sister didn’t pay off. He so badly wants to be in her life, to help her be good, and in turn redeem the Queen family name in her eyes. His line “If I abandon her now I’m no better than my father” just made me so sad. His parents were so important to him he wants them redeemed, so in turn it can redeem him too (not that he needs it). I don’t think he does, or will, find out just how much of a shitty Dad Robert was to Emiko, which is a shame, as I think it would give him some peace that some things just cannot be redeemed and that it isn’t a reflection on him. He had such faith in Emiko being good, he still didn’t think of her at first when he found the signal jammer in the lair. Even now I think he will continue trying to bring her back, despite Dig’s advice and reminder that sometimes evil siblings are just evil siblings 😂 I hope this isn’t foreshadowing Oliver having to kill Emiko like Dig did with Andy?

Bonus: Oliver shooting all the drones was so damn hot 🔥🔥

Source: legends-of-today

Felicity

Our girl didn’t have a huge role this week, but what we did get was fabulous! Felicity’s little pep talk to herself at the beginning of the episode about having it all was too adorable for words!

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

We got to see the beginnings of Smoak Technologies, along with the first name drop of the company I think? I love that she brought Alena in to be CTO, she gets to have a friend in her company that won’t try and mansplain everything to her at last!! Alena’s reaction is all of us!

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

It was so nice to see her back as Overwatch on the comms, and just generally people being back in the lair! We even got a couple of OTA moments! I loved her “computers will never replace people” line too!

Bonus: Felicity being cute in the lair gives me life!

Source: ebett

Emiko/Robert

This was really Emiko’s villain origin episode. We saw her as a child being evicted and abandoned by Robert, who yet again, proves to be the scum of the earth, and the true villain of the entire series. Upon overhearing that Robert was kicking them out of their home and would no longer support them, the only words of comfort he had for her were “Life isn’t fair, we don’t always get what we want”…Robert Queen was a prize dick!! His reasons for abandoning his family? Moira will take his company, money and kids if he doesn’t. GTFO you philandering old bastard, you made your bed…lie in it! Ugh he was the actual worst!

So as a penniless and possibly homeless 11 year old in Starling City, Emiko naturally turns to a life of crime in order to support her and her mother when she meets Dante. (For the record, I found the younger Emiko far more compelling to watch than the adult version 😬) Dante evidently enrols her into the Ninth Circle, who present her with a gift, as her final induction…the plans to blow up the Queen’s Gambit. She goes back to Robert with a business plan for a new subsidiary of Queen Consolidated, a chance to prove herself to her family and earn some money, and despite the solid plan, Robert wants nothing to do with it, telling her that QC is Oliver’s legacy and that she needs to remain a secret, before leaving her again for his trip on the Gambit. Crestfallen and angry, she doesn’t show him the plans and lets him leave to meet his fate. The horrible irony here is that Emiko would have failed the Ninth Circle’s ‘test’ and saved Robert/Oliver/Sara, had Robert not been such a massive douchenozzle.

I like that they managed to link everything with Emiko back to the Gambit, and they did so without retconning. Malcolm still had the yacht sabotaged, but it looks like he did it via the Ninth Circle. The big ‘twist’ we see at the end of the episode is that Emiko is now, in fact, the leader of the Ninth Circle, not Dante, and as such appears to be the season’s Big Bad. Part of me is like yaaaasss female Big Bad woohoo! But then the way it has come about has been lacklustre to say the least, and we weren’t given the time (or the writing) to get to like Emiko in order to actually care or feel the impact or shock value of her turning on Oliver. Instead we’re just all left feeling a bit meh.

Emiko still seems to have a soft spot for Rene (someone has to I guess) and with both of them being Oliver/Team Arrow traitors, they make a good fit 😜 We also found out that she still hasn’t found her mother’s killer. Maybe if Oliver could help her solve her mother’s murder and Rene keeps making eyes at her she will come back round to the good side??? Doubtful haha, but just a suggestion. The season’s theme is redemption after all!

Black Siren

Whilst Oliver is at home, preparing dinner for wifey (adorbs), he gets a visit from an injured Laurel, looking for Felicity. Instead, she tells Oliver about Emiko killing Diaz, and not being as squeaky clean as he thinks. This, as to be expected, leads to a confrontation between the two, which is interesting, because we all know that Laurel is telling the truth. When accused of having a blind spot for his family, Oliver hits back with “it’s called loyalty, I know that’s a concept you don’t totally understand”. Burn. Their scenes are so much better when they are open in their dislike for each other! Much as I have enjoyed Felicity and BS friendship this season, the petty bitch in me still laughs at Oliver’s clear disdain for her…he didn’t even help her with her wound, just gave her some supplies and left her to it 😂😂 He ‘helps’ her here purely for Felicity’s sake, which is lovely though!

Next, Dinah gets on her arse about doing things by the book, which ordinarily I would agree with, but Dinah is a vigilante herself! And although they are now sanctioned by the SCPD, Dinah has herself coerced witnesses, stolen evidence and violated the law in about a dozen other ways in her pursuit of justice. This is the premise of the show people! The hypocrisy is real! BS is just a little further behind on her journey than Dinah. Dinah later accuses BS of killing the gangster guy (I wasn’t really paying attention to who he was), bringing up her killing Vinnie, which immediately gets her back up. BS says that she has earned the benefit of the doubt, which I agree with to an extent. Dinah then effectively washes her hands of her.

I can empathise with BS for trying to do the right thing, and not being believed/trusted by anyone. I think it was intentional to not see a scene with her and Felicity this week, so as to keep her feeling isolated, whereas Felicity would have believed/reassured her. Felicity even defended her in the bunker to Rene. The episode finishes up with Emiko ‘outing’ her to the press, and ‘setting her free’ to be evil again. This will all set up her apparent return to her evil roots next week. I think she will ultimately end up being redeemed. We know (I think we know?) she is leaving for good after next week’s episode, so hopefully she will go back off to Earth 2 or something like that to become Black Canary there, and she can take all her little comic book friends with her, and everyone will be happy!

Other stuff

The drone attack in this episode was a practice run. Is this sarin gas attack going to be the thing that brings down the city, and causes it to turn on Oliver and the team?

Was the episode synopsis written whilst on crack?? I know we all laughed a little bit when we first saw how it was worded, but after watching the episode it was literally nothing like what actually happened??

Why on earth did they bring in Highlander, just for him to end up being Emiko’s lackey?? It’s like Cayden James/Michael Emerson being usurped by Diaz all over again!

Source: arrowdaily

I miss the flash-forwards!! I need me some Mia/William/Felicity goodness now please!!!

Anyway thank you as always to the gifmakers. Fabulous work as ever! 💗

#Arrow #Arrow 7x17 #arrow season 7 #Olicity #beccie's brain

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takerfoxx · 5 years

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And the fav of the day is...

DAVID!

=crickets=

You know, from Animorphs! Sorry, no actual picture exists of him, believe it or not. But you know who I’m talking about, right?

=more crickets=

Seriously?

Okay.

All right, all right, I know most of you probably haven’t read Animorphs and don’t know what I’m talking about. And those of you who have are giving me some mighty funny looks. Like, David? Really? Him?

Let me explain.

Animorphs was a 90′s YA book series about a group of teenagers who are granted the power to turn into any animal whose DNA they acquire through physical combat so that they might fight the invasion of the Yeerks, a race of parasitic slug aliens that are working on infesting all of humanity, slithering into our ears and taking over our bodies. Anyway, despite the rather fantastical premise, Animorphs is still remembered to this day in part for being very well written and having a lot of great characterization, but also being dark as fuck. The whole War is Hell thing is the primary theme, and the kids often experience violence, terror, paranoia, mutilation, and even death on a pretty regular basis, and we’re shown in full detail how the PTSD of what they experience and what they have to do to stay alive affects them.

In no part is this better demonstrated in the David trilogy, a three-book storyline that pops up about a third of the way through the series. In it, a new transfer student named David accidentally stumbles across the alien morphing cube that had originally given the Animorphs their power, which they had presumed to have been destroyed. Naturally, they try to steal it back, but this fails, but it does convince David that it’s worth something and he tries to sell it on the internet. This proves to be a very bad idea, as the Yeerks notice it immediately and come to collect. In force.

The Animorphs show up to save him and the cube, a fight happens, David’s home is destroyed, his family is captured, and the Animorphs barely get away with him and the cube. From their, after an intense debate, they decide not to abandon him, but rather give him the morphing power as well, in hopes that it will start a recruitment trend to swell their ranks.

This ends up being a very, very bad idea, because as it turns out, David isn’t so thrilled about being ripped away from his life and getting conscripted into a horrifying sci-fi guerrilla war. He’s rude, he’s belligerent, he’s a coward who frequently endangers missions with his freak-outs, he challenges Jake’s (the leader) authority more than once, and surprising no one, ends up betraying the group, going rogue.

It is then that the gang see just how far David is willing to go. He uses his power to hunt down and isolate the Animorphs one by one, nearly killing several in the process. He does disappear Jake and Rachel’s cousin Sattler, who was said to be dying in the hospital, and morphs him to replace him, in part to get some semblance of a normal life back, but also to fuck with them. He stalks them and threatens them, in hopes of getting the morphing cube back and either use it as a bargaining tool to get his parents back from the Yeerks or to create his own gang of Animorphs.

Things escalate until it’s clear that the Animorphs cannot let him go free any longer. But they’re still unwilling to murder another human being, so instead, they settle for a terrible compromise. Acting like they’re giving into his demands, the Animorphs trick David into morphing a rat, trap him, and keep him trapped until he’s stuck in that morph permanently. Then they take him to a lone rock off the coast where other rats live and leave him there.

And this is all shown in full, horrific detail.

When I was a kid, I was horrified by this. I mean, sure, David was a jerk, but he didn’t deserve that. Of course he wouldn’t like them, they yanked him away from his home and forced him into a war he didn’t want to be a part of. And even then, they still treated him pretty badly, often demeaning him and making him sleep in a barn with just a few Saltines for dinner and stuff like that. Why wouldn’t he have freaked out? I’ll even admit, I wrote a few early fics from David’s point of view, or at least tried to. It bothered me that much.

Revisiting the series as an adult has given me a new perspective, and I now see that, yes, what happened to him was horrible and the Animorphs did themselves no favors with how they treated him, but David was a pretty terrible person from the start. He was a narcissist, a misogynist, and a coward, who cruelly killed animals for sport even before his betrayal, had no reservations about murdering the other Animorphs afterward so long as they were in morph, and what he did to Sattler and his family was unforgivable. Like Marietta Edgecombe, he was fully condemned by the author during a Q&A as a waste of space, and unlike Marietta, I found it hard to disagree.

Still, he is given a lot of sympathetic moments too, and his fate really hammers home what a terrible thing the Animorphs are forced to do and how it damages them mentally and emotionally. And overall, his trilogy was one of the biggest highlights from an already great series.

So yeah, while I no longer like David as a person and don’t feel all that sorry for him anymore, I still acknowledge what he brought to the series, and how much his trilogy tore out my heart when I was a kid. I guess that’s worth something.

David: Maybe you forget this sometimes, but you are just a girl, Rachel. Rachel: And you're just a worm. Wanna see who wins that fight?

#animorphs #david #fav of the day

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mazojo · 5 years

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Kiznaiver Review

I just finished the Kiznaiver anime and I am not okay, so I decided to do a review with my opinions and thoughts on it, so beware the spoilers and rants on different aspects of it ;w;

Spoiler Free Overview ~

Before actually going into the spoilers, I wanted to leave a little spoiler free plot overview for those interested but not convinced on watching it. Basically Kiznaiver is about 7 teenagers connected by an experiment to their wounds and pain, making the pain of one, that of the others. The anime follows the story of these teenagers and their friendship with the mystery of the experiment and the future of it in their city, making it emotional and addictive to watch.

Although there is a lot more to say, if you don’t want to be spoiled on the anime do not click on read more but if you don’t mind, go ahead <33

Plot

So as mentioned above, the anime consists on the union of 7 characters (representing the 7 sins) through the Kizna system/experiment which bonds them through their pain so if one gets hurt, the other six will feel the pain too. Each of the teenagers choose represents one of the deadly sins, which I will go into further in my description of each character, and they all have to work together throughout the summer in order to free themselves from their Kizna. Everything is running smoothly and they all become friends until some of them begin falling in love with others and it all kind of crumbles. In the final episodes we discover that the experiments have been running for a while and in the past, they were done to kids but it failed miserably as some gathered too much pain from the others while others didn’t, making them feel numb and emotionless. Our main character, Katsuhira was originally connected to the first kizna experiment but became numb to any sort of pain due to another kid (now leading the project?) named Noriko taking all the pain. In the end, Katsuhira is able to convince Noriko to give back his pain and those from the other kids involved in the experiment through a f r i e n d s h i p speech and the whole group ends up becoming much closer, with Katsuhira and Noriko confessing their feelings to each other.

Characters

okay, so I will admit I kind of may have fallen in love with some of the characters from this anime and I am going to list them in order of which I liked the most explaining a bit on who they are and what I believe they must be protected. I also decided to place a song that reminds me of them in order for you to gather a feel of who they are in my opinion.

Katsuhira Agata (Kacchon)

Rise - Ashes Remain

So this gif pretty much describes his attitude and face throughout the whole series (except the two times he actually cries). His sin is “sloth” but referred in the anime as “the imbecile”. This is due to his apathetic behavior to everything happening around him due to the lack of emotions he has. He is precious and even as a kid he has always been looking for those around him (even in his kind of oblivious way) and I love how even after going through everythingg he went through, he is able to forgive Noriko and even loves her with all her faults and imperfections <33.

Nico Niiyama

Hello Kitty - Avril Lavigne

She is one of those characters you either love or hate, and I absolutely looove Nico! She represents the sin of greed I believe due to her wanting of attention and reassurance. I don't know if its because I see myself in her craziness or just her whole attitude throughout the series but Nico is in top place with Kacchon for my favorite characters. She is much more than the I-am-cute-love-me character as we advance through the series we began seeing her need to find friends in those surrounding her and how desperate she tries to fit into this “eccentric girl” stereotype to fit in (if that makes any sense). I also loved how she was one of the first to come back and unite the group after their Kiznas were released even though she was hurting over Tenga, which I thought was really brave and a bit underrated, thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Yoshiharu Hisomu

Highway to Hell - AC/DC

So hear me out, Hisomu is a bit of a weirdo but through the small things he did and said he was able to win me over. Hisomu represents the sin of lust as he is a masochist and finds pleasure over the pain inflicted upon himself. I was a bit skeptical over his character as he appeared on the third episode unlike the others but he grew on me. Not only do I l o v e his character design but I think he has a personal growth over acquiring friends. He is close to Kacchon and never “abandons” him or leaves after all the others decide to part their own ways. Yeah, he may be a bit apathetic and unconscious towards the situations surrounding the others but I think in his heart he is actually a really good friend and sappy as it sounds, he cares deeply about the others and their suffering ;w;

Chidori Takashiro

Camouflage - Selena Gomez

Chidori is our tsundere-ish character. She represents the sin of envy as she is always second best when it comes to her unrequited love towards Kacchon. I really like her character and I feel bad for her as she often throughout the anime feels things very deeply and through Kacchon’s apathetic attitude, she mostly ends up hurt.I enjoyed her reactions as I know in the situations they face, I would definitely react similarly and she is very lovable overall.

Tsuguhito Yuta

Someone you Like - The Girl and the Dreamcatcher

Yuta is a classical popular kid with a soft side character. He represents the sin of gluttony as when he was little he used to eat a lot thus was seen as the fat kid and becomes kind of obsessed with his appearance after the fact. He may seem superficial at first but he is very caring and notices a lot of things others take for granted (like being able to be there for Maki even though she is a tough nut to crack). Also being a fellow cancer according to the wikia he went up my list :3. That being said I felt his character was all about Maki and he never really shined if there wasn’t any Maki story line involve which was kind of sad as I thought he had a lot of potential, but I still love him <33

Noriko Sonozaki

Never Enough - Loren Allred

Noriko is a weird character to me, as in some moments I really like her while in others I don’t really understand her. She has undergone a lot through her childhood due to experiencing the pain of her friends altogether and the constant fear of being left alone and not being understood even though Kacchon often reassures her of this but whatever. She may seem kind of like a psychopath and cold at the beginning but as we learn about her past I guess her behavior is kind of understandable but honestly I prefer the kid Sonozaki version which is adorableee. I like her relationship with Kacchon however and how they are able to grow from each other through their connection.

Honoka Maki

I Found - Amber Run

Maki and Tenga are my least favorite from the group but I don’t totally dislike them, I just don’t connect with he way they act most of the time. Maki represents the sin of pride as she often acts as if she is above everyone and everything going on around her placing a barrier between her and the other Kiznaivers. She has a rough past as she wrote a manga with her best friend Ruru and through their friendship feelings began developing. Ruru had a terminal illness and as Maki was afraid of getting hurt decided to cut all ties with her, which brings her to be the coldhearted person she is. Throughout the series she often rejects the other Kiznaivers refusing to call them friends inserts dramatic eye-roll until at the end she realizes its inevitable and accepts letting people in slowly.

Hajime Tenga

Counting Stars - One Republic

Honestly Tenga is pretty neutral to me and I don’t have much an opinion on his character. He represents the sin of Wrath as he often acts impulsively and resolves his issues through rage and anger acting with his fist rather than his head. He is quite loud and a bit obnoxious at times with his tough guy act but he means good. We don’t get much backstory on him other than he is afraid of dogs? which isn’t mentioned again after the second episode sooo… I mean he is a good character and has good intentions but I more often than not don’t understand his reactions and think he goes a bit over the top in most of them.

Ships

Although I know Kiznaiver isn’t an anime focused completely on the romance but rather a science-fiction/mystery kind of anime, I still had to mention the ships through the series starting from the one I like the most. Also note that some of them are non cannon so keep that in mind and note that this are my personal opinions ;w;

NicoxHisomu (non-cannon)

You can’t even understand HOW MUCH I WANTED THIS TO BE A THING. From the moment Hisomu appeared and had the first interaction with the group I wanted him and Nico to end together sooo badly. I don’t know if its because of their eccentric ways or how they are often looked upon as the weird ones from the group, but I always thought they would make such a cute couple! Even at the end when Nico is ranting on about Tenga, Hisomu is attentive to her and I honestly think their friendship is so pure and perfect ;w; I will be crying in the corner until this becomes a thing.

NorikoxKatsuhira (cannon)

Although I will forever be frustrated that NicoxHisomu didn’t end up together trigger please consider making a second season, I am actually really glad these two did! It was pretty obvious the two wouldd en up being cannon as the whole show premise basically concentrates in their relationship, and I am glad they did. I feel like both complement each other very well and stabilize one another through their feelings (or in this case, the lack of). I feel like both Katsuhira and Nori are very mature and overall I love their pairing as they both deserve all the happiness <33

ChidorixTenga (Cannon-ish?)

I really like this two together and I feel like through the finale we can kind of maybe say its cannon? I mean they never actually confessed their love to one another like Sonozaki and Kacchon (well, Tenga did), but Chidori kinda implied that she was starting to develop feelings? I totally feel like they work together as they level each other out by their protective mama bear attitude of Chidori and Tenga’s impulses leading to him being defensive of those he cares about. Also can we take a moment to appreciate their red aesthetic, like common they are adorable together.

MakixYuta (Cannon?)

This is also an odd pairing, as we see Yuta’s clear interest on Maki since episode 1 and where she only corresponds his feelings at the end of episode 12. Although they never truly became a couple I believe they both like each other so its kind of cannon? I like how they both have rough pasts and they help each other grow from them (cue to Yuta’s scene at the beach were he runs in the water although he may look like a fool) and they level the other out.

ChidorixKatsuhira (non-cannon)

The following two ships are ones I don’t like but I found important to mention as many people do ship them. I honestly can’t see this pair due to Katsuhira’s strong feelings towards Nori. I feel like he sees Chidori as her best friend and will never be able to see her as more than that. Chidori’s often explosive and overprotective character just doesn’t mash well with Kacchon’s laid back apathetic vibe, which is why I wouldn’t see this pairing working at all.

NicoxTenga (non-cannon)

I do not approve of this. I honestly can’t see this working and lets be honest Nico and Hisomu deserve each other so I am too blinded by that. I think their personalities wouldn’t work as Tenga is too aggressive and Nico much softer. I feel like Tenga is most of the times confused by her behavior or just doesn’t understand her eccentric behaviors which would definitely cause a problem if this were to be cannon. I can’t with this ship and if there is a season 2 I really hope this doesn’t become cannon otherwise ill just go cry myself in a corner.

To finish off this review on Kiznaiver, I would like to point out the things I like and the things I didn't like so much.

Liked…

- The characters is one of the things to really highlight from Kiznaiver. They are all so different but so lovable in their own ways and with their own faults which makes everything 10 times better.

- I haven’t been able to mention this before but I really liked the intro and outdo songs, I think they are catchy and represent quite well the anime.

- I adooored the character designs, specially Nico, Hisomu, Sonozaki and Katsuhira’s. I feel like the tones and designs of the characters with their little quirks really lets the audience gather who they are and why they are the way they are.

- I think the concept of the experiment and the characters being connected by their wounds and pain is very interesting! I dint know what to expect at first but as the story developed It really got me thinking what the Kizna system would look like in the real world.

Disliked…

- I feel like the character development could have been a little better for some of them? Specially Yuta, Tenga and Hisomu which even though we got to know, never really learned much about their past other than some random facts.

- The fact that Hisomu and Nico weren’t cannon

- Sometimes due to the small amount of time the creators had to create the episode, I feel like some things weren’t explained very clearly (like Sonozaki’s reasons to try committing suicide when she was young) but maybe its just me being dumb idkk

All in all, I really liked the anime and would definitely recommended to those who enjoy good characters and a little of science fiction as well as troublesome pasts. Remember this are just my opinions and feel free to ask me my opinions on anything related as well as I would love to hear all of yours :33

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theglguidetowebcomics · 5 years

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The Webcomic Graveyard

There are plenty of amazing comics on the internet, but for every good one there seems to be 3 abandoned ones. You never know when one of your favourite comics will be dropped or even simply deleted, and if you’ve read a few webcomics it’s probably happened to you a few times. But, even if unfinished they’re interesting in their own way. So, why not take a short look at some these dead webcomics?

Firstly, the biggest problem with unearthing abandoned comics is they’re quite difficult to find, especially if they’re from the 2000′s or even early 2010′s. Because if they’re old, abandoned and on the internet, the lists that featured them or even the comics themselves can be long gone in hosting archives or lost with the domain, which isn’t a bad thing. They’re dead comics. But if I’m trying to find those neon coloured wonky lined GL stories where Amazons hang out; Main characters abruptly die in flames while everyone gives up on the quest in act 1; or love interests fly around knocking out angsty protagonists with alien comets left right and centre… Digging up the remains of some of these is going to be a challenge.

But that being said, let’s have a look at some of the good, the bad, and the tragic of abandoned WLW webcomics. And let’s see if digging these up is as fun as I thought.

Roxie and the Magic Taco

Years: 2015 - 2017 Pages: 114 Reason: Unexplained

First of all, of course there’s a GL comic about a magic taco. Second of all, what a title. This comic is all kinds of weird. it’s art style is painfully 2000′s with the grey shading, gradient backgrounds, geometric yet empty landscapes, and pixelated line work. And this was presumably made in 2015. Everything about this feels and looks like a competent 2000′s comic (minus the furries), but by far the weirdest thing about this comic was that even if I read it twice a while ago, I had NO idea I had only ever read a third of it until a researched it for this list. It went on a small hiatus in the start of 2016 posting a small how it was made list instead of a page which sent you to another part of the website if you clicked on it, so there was a whole year after that update which I had never read because I kept getting stuck on that damn update page without knowing. So I finally go to finish act 1 of this comic after 3 years, and man, what a page to end on. This comic started out as a small yet surprisingly sweet romance between two characters. Princess a heavily sheltered model(?) who’s father controls her day by the minute, and has lived that way all her life except for the few minutes a day where she takes off all her femme apparel and is allowed to wander around due to a lenient body guard. Think a reverse Hannah Montana if Hannah Monatana was secretly a butchy punk lesbian. And Roxie the stuck in the dead end job for 4 years cashier, who works for an insane grandpa who talks to a “Magic Taco” and has a huge crush on the supermodel princess, well, at least her celebrity persona. And the characters are weirdly… interesting. The plot as batshit as it is is alright, there’s clear conflicts for the characters and the twist before the comic ended revealed the “magic taco” actually existing? There’s definitley a few cons to it too, the art is awkward at times, The backgrounds are weird, and there feels like there’s something missing in the story. But weirdly enough, I still kinda want to know what happens next. But with what comes next though act I wrapped up on the 23rd of April 2017 with a message saying it would update again in June the same year. It never did. No more updates. No hiatus notices. Just an empty Tumblr, Facebook page, and badly designed website. Apparently act 2 had already been written, so who knows the story behind that one. An orphaned series.

Amazoness!

Years: 2007 - 2010 Pages: unobtainable Reason: Unknown/unobtainable

Alright, we’ve finally come across a comic that’s domain has been deleted (most likely due to the bills on the domain not being paid for a few years) and subsequently has had it’s entire archive destroyed (bar a few blurry Jpegs floating around). So information about this one is going to have to rely on what I can remember from 5 years ago. So… Buckle up, let’s horribly stumble through this one! If Roxie and the Magic Taco felt like a little like 2000′s comic Amazoness! by comparison eat’s and breaths 2000′s. From the early anime influences, bold colours, and ms paint vibes coming from every pore (not that ms paint is inherently bad. More that i’s used particularly). And, I swear, every abandoned comic has a bizarre premise and plot. So what is the plot? Good question. I’m not entirely sure myself. Amazoness! is set in 559 BC in a fictional Amazonian empire. Think wonder woman but ms paint, a little anime, and a whole lot more lesbian. They live in a women only empire with a giant infamous army, and generally despise men, which makes finding husbands difficult, they’re also basically all lesbians, which makes finding a husband very difficult. Enter the main character (Left in the panels provided), she’s small and weak compared to her Amazonian peers, which as the next Queen, is a bit of a problem. So she goes on adventures around the ancient world (and by world I mean Greece before being cancelled). It’s a fantasy story with a lot of the 2000′s brand humour, blandish characters, and weird plot. It’s as 2000′s as it gets. But it did have a lot of standout jokes including the dark brooding Amazonian who was originally an ancient goth accidentally starting modern goth fashion in ancient Greece. There was also possibly a trans character, but being the comic that it was, whether that was their gender or whether they were going to become a cross dresser butt of the joke character is up for debate. Considering it was 2007 I’m not the most optimistic about that bit. All in all though it was the standard 2000′s fantasy comedy genre with some nice jokes, a few starts to some promising romances, a few bludges on some touchy subject material, and pretty forgettable art. Who knew what this comic would have become, as a young teen I wanted to find out, but now it’s just another orphaned series, lost to time. This is not a series that’s sorely missed, But maybe foggily remembered. Oh well.

Mora and Stima Apei

Years: 2016 - 2017 Episodes: 27 (Including specials + QAs) Reasons: Hiatus. Moving, free time, and starting another comic

What’s this? A webcomic that doesn’t look like it wears baggy jeans, plays snake on a flip phone, and bedazzle tamagotchis in it’s spare time? And I was this close to have a theme here. But, no. Mora and Stima Apei isn’t from the 2000′s or even 2000′s themed. It’s very modern from its story telling, to its art, to the fact that the authors are qualified in relevant fields. And rather than being specifically abandoned it’s been publicly put on hiatus with a notice and reason why. It’s always nice when creators do that. Whether it will actually be completed story though is still anyone’s guess. It’s still a webcomic. The comic however is pretty interesting, the visuals are a little rough at the start but greatly improve later on. The characters are beautifully designed, the colours are thought out, the tone is pretty clear, and the monsters are dark and twisted. And I’m always up for dark and twisted monsters. Con wise though is it’s a little wordy and poetic at times. Which I do understand is a style choice here, but at the same time I very much in the show don’t tell camp with things like this. It doesn’t do that all the time though. Plot wise though the comic is pretty straight forward, a women wakes up, can’t remember who she is, has a rotten arm, a elf lady in the room, and a skull on her head. Why? We haven’t gotten to the why yet. The art later on is gorgeous, and the mystery is enticing. But there isn’t enough yet to get a grasp on how good it will be, it doesn’t use it’s time well. Its not a bad comic though, it’s mystery and art is very well done. But, still can’t tell what it’s going to be from what there is. On the other hand though their newer comic is still coming out (albeit in early pages) and is extremely well done with nice art, visual story telling, and an intriguing plot. So as long as they keep making comics like that, I don’t mind how long this stays on hiatus at all.

#Webcomics #comics #lgbt #Roxie and the magic taco #Amazoness!#Mora and Stima Apei

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impossible-rat-babies · 5 years

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30 Day Watcher Challenge!

11. COMPANIONS: tell us about your watcher’s opinions on their inner circle! do they recruit all of the available companions? do they do all of their quests? are there any that your watcher is particularly fond of/hostile towards? do their opinions towards any companions change during the game or their personal quests?

This time for the Deadfire companions!

Eder:

Aoife wasn't much surprised to see that Eder had tagged along with him, especially when it came to them getting into trouble. It was pretty easy for the two of them to fall back into their old ridiculous habits and jokes with each other since they never got distant from each other with him only in Dyrford Village. Aoife and him spent a lot of time talking back and forth about Eothas’ plans for the world and the implications of who the gods are. Like are the divine because of their power or how long they’ve been ruling Eora? What qualifies divinity? They bounced loads of questions back and forth like that, never really looking for a concrete answer from each other. It was just to get those questions out in the open. With his personal quest, Aoife got to really see this whole new side of Eder with his struggle on the possibility of being a father. He could see that struggle start the moment in the temple when she talked about Bearn. It was...strange and interesting to Aoife to watch him couple with the feeling of a possible new responsibility and his faith. He also got to see the lot of that in the conversations he had with Eder about Xoti since he immediately saw the tension between them when Xoti joined them in Port Maje. A lot of it was still how you learn new things about someone despite being close with them for years. Aoife also cried when Eder said that he would do anything to help him get his soul back from Eothas.

In the end, they saved Bearn and Eder joined him in Hasongo. Eder and Xoti also became life long friends.

Xoti:

Aoife was a bit taken aback with Xoti when they first met. She was...just very much about her faith and readily talked about her experiences and dreams with others. She was all very free with herself and Aoife is very much free with physical affection, but not all of himself. She was very free with her everything and it was very striking to Aoife. She bothered his nerves with her faith for a bit before he got to understanding where she was coming from. He doesn’t share her faith at all, but he gets how she finds direction and joy in serving Gaun.

But they do have their hiccups and it mainly comes down to how Aoife doesn’t believe in the gods and how he knows their false, but isn’t keen to explain to her why he believes as such. She wants a reason and Aoife thinks he’s plain enough and he doesn’t want to explain Thaos or Iovara to her, even when they’re really close. He will occasionally mention them, but she doesn’t know much more than that. Despite their hiccups, the pair are quite close despite how Xoti originally thought there was something “more” between them. But, once they got past that, they ended up very close friends.

Aoife ended up directing Xoti to caring about the living as much as the dead and she released the souls to the Adra. He also encouraged her to take Eder for more than what he was showing and the two ended up as close friends.

Aloth:

Aoife was a whole grab bag of emotions when he saw Aloth again. He was worried for his safety, anxiety 100/10 over their argument years ago, and incredibly happy to see him safe. They ended up getting down in the Engwithan ruin and Aoife had to stop and spend twenty minutes alternating between laughing and crying over seeing him again while Xoti had no clue what was going on and Eder was like: “another day with this again.” Aoife was very tentative to start their friendship again on account of how things had ended badly before and they hadn't talked since then. He was afraid Aloth wouldn't forgive him for what he said and he wouldn’t have been mad since he felt like he deserved it. But the two had many, many talks over what happened and they settled back into a close friendship. Aoife was infinitely proud of how far Aloth had come in terms of feeling more self assured and confident in his own abilities. He could still see the lot of the anxiety in him, but it was much less than before. It felt more like he would look to Aoife for his opinion and help, but not with the intention of him completely guiding his actions, but to get another view point. But, he could see a lot of regret and that indecision when dealing with the Leaden Key matters. Aoife ended up pushing him to letting it go on the premise that the organization was going to fall apart in time and the agonizing over the mistakes and difficult choices he was making weren’t worth the struggle and stress. It wasn’t that Aoife didn't think he could handle it, but it was a matter of the cause being worthy of the stress and anxiety it was giving him.

So, in the end Aloth abandons his struggle with the Leaden Key since without Thaos the organization was going to crumble.

Pallegina:

Aoife was sad to hear how things had gone so badly for her and it seemed a little atrocious to him how she had gotten banished from the Republics for her part in things. It seemed extreme to him, but he never told her about it. When he saw her again and talked to her in Queen’s Berth, he was fine with her not wanting to come back along with them. Well, he understood why she didn't want to come along with him because his encouragement lead to her banishment.

But, when she was volunteered to go, he took her aid she was at the whims of what the ducs wanted. Aoife didn’t want to force a relationship between them of any kind, so they settled back into being friendly, but nothing really more. He never really shared her intense view with the Republics since he feels like places belong to more than just one people. They belong to everyone in there, regardless of their affiliations.

In the end, he does save Giacolo for Pallegina because she deserved it and he didn't deserve to die for his research. But, in siding with the Huana, he lost contact with her when she left the Deadfire.

Serafen:

After the intrusion into his head by Serafen--intentional or not--he warmed up to him a great deal. They bonded a lot over being self trained Ciphers and Aoife would tell him stories of his own days in the Deadfire +10 years ago. Serafen almost reminds Aoife of when he was younger. They have a sort of kinship based on some shared experiences between them, both good and bad. Aoife was always there as like a steady presence for Serafen when things got bad/uncomfortable, especially during his personal quest when that got heated.

Aoife cares a lot about Serafen even if his tendency to passion throws Aoife on a bit of a loop at times along with his crass nature and general...attitude towards things.

They ended up letting Remaro go free and Malnaj who was chasing him ended up dead due to her involvement.

Tekehu:

Complicated. Aoife doesn't understand his duty and passion and the love of him being a Godlike; he can’t wrap his mind around finding joy in it. He wonders sometimes if Tekehu would be different if he was blessed by Berath or Magran rather than Ngati. He doesn't understand the love of a goddess who blessed him only to be a tool for her own usage if needed. For a time, Aoife had an edge of resentment and envy over the joy of him being Godlike and the love he received from folks. He was careful to not have it be something that showed, but Aoife still felt it.

Beyond that, the pair did get along and Aoife did connect with his search for answers from the gods for his purpose and place in society. They’re both outcasts, but different sorts of outcasts.

In the end, Aoife encouraged him to decide his fate for himself and how he would live his life, regardless of what others thought.

Maia:

The pair got along pretty well in the beginning, maybe with a few hiccups. They shared a lot in them both being Rangers and the difficulties of having birds who think they know best. Ciara did like Maia a lot, but she didn’t get to spend too much time with her because Ishiza would kick her off. Aoife shared with her a lot about her adventures with Kana, especially the things she didn't hear.

He had an idea about the missives they were sending, but they delivered them regardless. He got a much clearer idea of what had been in them when Maia got back from her mission and told him what she had done. He was disappointed and kinda sick about what she had done, but he knew deep down she was hurting and confused about what she had done too. He mainly listened to her and let her talk it out before he told her that she needs to expect more of the people who she takes orders from. Wars need principle as much as bloodshed to be won.

But, by siding with the Huana, Maia left the ship for good and left behind the letter. Aoife regretted what he had done to further a cause, but what Maia wrote stung a lot. Even with what she wrote, Aoife hoped she would do good by herself and visit Kana a lot.

In the end, Aoife did deliver the missives and encouraged Maia to have her superiors think better of the work they were doing before she left the party.

Find this meme here!

#30daywatcherchallenge #30 days of aoife #pillars of eternity #poe watcher #oc tag #oc: aoife

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pendingoomething · 5 years

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The Webcomic Graveyard

Firstly, the biggest problem with unearthing abandoned comics is they’re quite difficult to find, especially if they’re from the 2000′s or even early 2010′s. Because if they’re old, abandoned and on the internet, the lists that featured them or even the comics themselves can be long gone in hosting archives or lost with the domain, which isn’t a bad thing. They’re dead comics. But if I’m trying to find those neon coloured wonky lined GL stories where Amazons hang out; Main characters abruptly die in flames while everyone gives up on the quest in act 1; or love interests fly around knocking out angsty protagonists with alien comets left right and centre... Digging up the remains of some of these is going to be a challenge.

But that being said, let’s have a look at some of the good, the bad, and the tragic of abandoned WLW webcomics. And let’s see if digging these up is as fun as I thought.

Roxie and the Magic Taco

Years: 2015 - 2017 Pages: 114 Reason: Unexplained

First of all, of course there’s a GL comic about a magic taco. Second of all, what a title. This comic is all kinds of weird. it’s art style is painfully 2000′s with the grey shading, gradient backgrounds, geometric yet empty landscapes, and pixelated line work. And this was presumably made in 2015. Everything about this feels and looks like a competent 2000′s comic (minus the furries), but by far the weirdest thing about this comic was that even if I read it twice a while ago, I had NO idea I had only ever read a third of it until a researched it for this list. It went on a small hiatus in the start of 2016 posting a small how it was made list instead of a page which sent you to another part of the website if you clicked on it, so there was a whole year after that update which I had never read because I kept getting stuck on that damn update page without knowing. So I finally go to finish act 1 of this comic after 3 years, and man, what a page to end on. This comic started out as a small yet surprisingly sweet romance between two characters. Princess a heavily sheltered model(?) who’s father controls her day by the minute, and has lived that way all her life except for the few minutes a day where she takes off all her femme apparel and is allowed to wander around due to a lenient body guard. Think a reverse Hannah Montana if Hannah Monatana was secretly a butchy punk lesbian. And Roxie the stuck in the dead end job for 4 years cashier, who works for an insane grandpa who talks to a “Magic Taco” and has a huge crush on the supermodel princess, well, at least her celebrity persona. And the characters are weirdly... interesting. The plot as batshit as it is is alright, there’s clear conflicts for the characters and the twist before the comic ended revealed the “magic taco” actually existing? There’s definitley a few cons to it too, the art is awkward at times, The backgrounds are weird, and there feels like there’s something missing in the story. But weirdly enough, I still kinda want to know what happens next. But with what comes next though act I wrapped up on the 23rd of April 2017 with a message saying it would update again in June the same year. It never did. No more updates. No hiatus notices. Just an empty Tumblr, Facebook page, and badly designed website. Apparently act 2 had already been written, so who knows the story behind that one. An orphaned series.

Amazoness!

Years: 2007 - 2010 Pages: unobtainable Reason: Unknown/unobtainable

Alright, we’ve finally come across a comic that’s domain has been deleted (most likely due to the bills on the domain not being paid for a few years) and subsequently has had it’s entire archive destroyed (bar a few blurry Jpegs floating around). So information about this one is going to have to rely on what I can remember from 5 years ago. So... Buckle up, let’s horribly stumble through this one! If Roxie and the Magic Taco felt like a little like 2000′s comic Amazoness! by comparison eat’s and breaths 2000′s. From the early anime influences, bold colours, and ms paint vibes coming from every pore (not that ms paint is inherently bad. More that i’s used particularly). And, I swear, every abandoned comic has a bizarre premise and plot. So what is the plot? Good question. I’m not entirely sure myself. Amazoness! is set in 559 BC in a fictional Amazonian empire. Think wonder woman but ms paint, a little anime, and a whole lot more lesbian. They live in a women only empire with a giant infamous army, and generally despise men, which makes finding husbands difficult, they’re also basically all lesbians, which makes finding a husband very difficult. Enter the main character (Left in the panels provided), she’s small and weak compared to her Amazonian peers, which as the next Queen, is a bit of a problem. So she goes on adventures around the ancient world (and by world I mean Greece before being cancelled). It’s a fantasy story with a lot of the 2000′s brand humour, blandish characters, and weird plot. It’s as 2000′s as it gets. But it did have a lot of standout jokes including the dark brooding Amazonian who was originally an ancient goth accidentally starting modern goth fashion in ancient Greece. There was also possibly a trans character, but being the comic that it was, whether that was their gender or whether they were going to become a cross dresser butt of the joke character is up for debate. Considering it was 2007 I’m not the most optimistic about that bit. All in all though it was the standard 2000′s fantasy comedy genre with some nice jokes, a few starts to some promising romances, a few bludges on some touchy subject material, and pretty forgettable art. Who knew what this comic would have become, as a young teen I wanted to find out, but now it’s just another orphaned series, lost to time. This is not a series that’s sorely missed, But maybe foggily remembered. Oh well.

Mora and Stima Apei

Years: 2016 - 2017 Episodes: 27 (Including specials + QAs) Reasons: Hiatus. Moving, free time, and starting another comic

#webcomics #comics #lgbt #lesbian #abandoned comics

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lasorciereviolette-blog · 6 years

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On Witch

(So RP’s are a bit slow right now so I might as well continue down the saltapalooza that has been opened up due to a post on how Sega’s flanderized Amitie over the years.

This one’s kind of all over the place, because it’s not a strict flanderization argument per se and since Witch is my favourite I like to gush about her. I’ll try to keep on topic as much as possible though.

So I’ll start by saying that honestly, this could be a lot worse in several ways. Sega’s done at least a little homework on Witch. It took them nearly a decade to put Witch in one of their games (no, 7 does not count since she has no lines) but it looks like she’s here to stay seeing as she was kept on the roster for both Tetris and Chronicle.

But... Now what? See, my analysis has led me to the conclusion that Sega have absolutely idea of what to do with Witch.

I didn’t always have that viewpoint. At one time I thought Sega had done a pretty good job with Witch. She showed up, her story was reasonably funny, and she was actually allowed to behave like a selfish jerk unlike certain characters.

However, a little while ago I came across a translation of Yon’s cutscenes. And I came across an unfortunate discovery: Witch’s campaign in 20th is nothing new at all. Nope. It’s just a copy-paste of her few scenes in Yon, and one cutscene in Sun.

Let me elaborate. See, in 20th Witch is trying to collect ingredients to create a potion in one of Wish’s spellbooks. Collecting these ingredients involves taking parts off of certain cast members, namely Draco’s tail, the Acorn Frog’s eye, an imp’s horns, a ladybug, a dark wizard’s hair, and a fish’s scales. On the surface this isn’t a bad premise. I didn’t mind it too badly before I knew anything about Yon. Except in Yon, Witch’s goals are almost identical. She needs Draco’s tail and Seriri’s scales, and wants to collect Carbuncle’s finger grime (... somehow) just in case she ever needs it. When she comes across a sleeping Dragon, she also tries to seize the opportunity to grab some snot.

The details aren’t exactly the same, at least. Which is nice, because if the scenes were word for word the exact same I’d be even more peeved. I can at least give the writers that much. The thing is, after waiting so long for a beloved character’s comeback, why did they decide just to recycle half the cutscenes from other games? I suppose this can be forgiven since it’s an anniversary title, but it’s still a little odd.

And then we get to Tetris, where Witch has a total of... One scene. When DLC was released, she got another very short scene. While these were both original, there... Really was nothing to them. All she wants to do is perform an experiment with blocks in one, and in the other she mocks Draco, which would have been absolutely unsurprising if you had played either Saturn or Yon in the past. Witch’s appearance is very much a token one and she doesn’t even really interact with other characters besides Draco Centauros when there was an opportunity to have her bounce off of the members of the Starship Tetra, or Amitie, or Ringo. Or maybe to put her in Primp and have her hang out with some of the people she used to. Talk about a waste. Witch is a fun and dynamic character who has been allowed to remain a bit of a jerk. There was plenty of room to have her interact with new characters, but instead they threw her into space and called it a day. Hell, she’s a comet witch and she doesn’t even notice she’s in space!

Which leads me into the next part of this rant, the fact that Sega only really seemed to look at Yon and one cutscene in Sun and determined her entire character from there. Before Yon Witch was primarily a comet witch. While she did make potions in Seriri’s Happy Birthday, Witch’s gameplay was focused more on flight and spellcasting. Based on her moveset in other games, Witch not only shares most of Arle’s spell set (being proficient in fire, ice, and lightning magic, as well as being able to cast Brain Dumbed and Jugem) but has her signature Meteor spell and a few other comet style magics such as Big Bang. These spells have a distinctive star theme when she casts them, distinguishing her from Arle.

Pretty cool, huh? She is also somewhat of a melee fighter, not being afraid to swat people with her broom. (this isn’t the greatest of examples but it’s cool so)

Coming back to her broom flying, a whole game was built around it called Comet Summoner. It didn’t have much of a story, but it did feature a bunch of cute levels and a powerful boss that may or may not have been Witch’s future self. And this future self was strong, with a huge red aura, several health bars, and the ability to not only zip around the stage at high speeds, but cast spells of her own and combo you with a mix of melee and magic if you fuck up and get too close to her.

Witch would make a good fighting game character.

This is getting a bit off topic, but point is, Witch is versatile. But unfortunately it seems that apart from her spell names Sega can’t be bothered to remember her versatility and just wants her to make wacky potions. I’m not opposed to her making wacky potions, it’s not necessarily bad, but at one time she was a lot more than that.

She was more complex as a character than she seems to be in 20th or Tetris. Maybe not in Yon, where she appears very little, but in Madou Monogatari she got some attention. Yes, Witch is selfish. Yes, she’s pretty power hungry. Yes, she’d probably sell quite a few people out for a single corn chip. But there are some people who are dear to her, like for example her grandmother Wish. While again, I can’t read Japanese, Witch Leeroy Jenkins’s into a room when she sees her grandmother’s body on the floor in Tower of the Magician. Afterwards, Witch’s body language is pretty clear to see.

She’s clearly very worried about Wish and does not appreciate any harm coming to her. Even jerks have loved ones, I guess?

Let’s give Sega the benefit of the doubt, maybe that one trait just hasn’t come into play yet. After all, Wish hasn’t appeared (but she has been mentioned). Sure. However, there are other traits that the Sega games ignore when it comes to Witch’s character.

First, Sega has arguably made Witch into an even worse jerk. In Compile’s games, Witch is often abrasive and rude, but she will defer to an expert’s judgment in a situation she doesn’t understand. Case in point, Saturn. Upon coming across the Yog smoke, she avoids possession because she immediately listens to Arle and Rulue’s advice. She doesn’t argue, she just does it.

Contrast this with 20th.

In general, Witch is crafty and rather full of herself in Saturn, but not so much as Rulue. She has a low opinion of martial arts and so that makes her play well off of Rulue (It probably also explains her animosity towards Draco), while she has a high opinion of her magical skill and loves to soak up praise. Witch also shows little ill will towards those who quit the tournament after a Yog presents itself, which might hint at some sensibility the character doesn’t tend to have much of after this.

Witch is also a bit of a snarker in this game:

There’s character here besides her excitability, or getting pissed off when things don’t go her way. Now Saturn does bring up Witch’s legendary temper, but we don’t really see the results of that in-game. 20th really pushes that informed attribute into the spotlight, where all her thoughtfulness and cleverness go out of the window for her to make a bad potion that obviously contained too many substitutions, to the potion not being useful in the first place, to her beating up Lemres for stating the blatantly obvious. Witch doesn’t really come off any smarter than Draco at the end of this, because all of this was obvious! She just comes off as an even worse ass than usual because of Sega’s wackiness mandate.

I also really don’t get what the point of her fighting Lemres even was. Lemres seems disappointed at the end that he didn’t get to talk to Witch more, but the story just ends. There isn’t any kind of payoff or character growth here. Just... Nothing. Again, a total waste of potential, having the two comet mages meet and then do absolutely nothing of value. Love it, Sega.

Oh yeah, there were two more things Sega forgot about. First, this.

Witch is probably an actual pervert, to contrast with Schezo’s fake perversion (which may or may not be real perversion too sometimes, because Saturn’s fun like that). So that’s another thing Sega forgot, for better or for worse.

Which leads me to the last bit that Sega’s forgotten. This too I can’t really say if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I like that it exists in Compile’s games, but if Sega remembered it would likely devour what remains of Witch’s personality. In certain games, there are implications that Witch may have a crush on Schezo. She fawns over him in athletic clothes in Puyolympics and as seen above, asks if he’s cool and wants to touch him in Saturn. Then of course there’s the whole “I want you” scene that solidifies the thing. For all I know there could be evidence for or against this in Tower of the Magician, which is a game where the two spend quite a bit of time interacting with each other, but since I haven’t learned to read Japanese in the last few hours I can’t comment on that, as much as I want to.

Now whether this is a good or bad thing for Sega to ignore really depends on your interpretation of this trait. I’m personally torn, because again I’m glad that Witch has not been reduced to a lovesick one-note failure. On the other, it’s a facet that a more competent writing team could have explored with some success. So it sucks that it’s been abandoned completely, but the end result could have been really terrible had Sega noticed this, so... Yay?

Okay, so I’ve written blocks of text. What does it all mean? Well, it means Witch isn’t immune to being flanderized in Sega’s works. It could be a lot worse, but there’s plenty of Witch’s character that’s been left out of current Puyo and plenty that has been aggrandized into a worse person. Right now Witch reminds me of a mixture of herself and Saturn’s take on Rulue, which... Really sucks, because no wonder Sega can’t figure out how to make Rulue stand out if they give her traits to other characters! Poor Rulue. Give her some love, Sega. She doesn’t deserve this kind of shafting.

As for Witch, you’re not going to get a total sweet kindhearted girl out of her. She was never that kind of character and that’s not a bad thing. But throwing on Rulue’s most boastful traits and making her a worse jerk, then giving her cameos because you don’t know what to do with her isn’t a good way to characterize her. Return some of that sense into the mix! Like I said in my Schezo comments, not everyone needs to be a wacky joke 24/7.

#puyo puyo #witch (puyo puyo)#madou monogatari #characterization #discourse #compile #sega #this one's even longer and less concise than the schezo one so apologies in advance #a lot of it's just generally talking about witch's character

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