#you probably already know most of the sara ones though LMAO i like talking about em to you

[tired-needs-sleep]

Tell me any fun (or not-so fun) facts about your rebornverse OCs! Totally not because I'm planning something...

OOOOH BOY LOADED QUESTION.

i have been waiting for an ask like this. you dont even know. i looove fun facts and i have a few laying around.

gonna stick to my main character ocs since they have the most stuff about them- i have some side ocs like rue and rene but they are not nearly as developed, so there'd be little to no fun facts for them

also gonna try and keep this, somewhat organized but it's bound to devolve.

rhea:

originally she was going to be shipped with. shudders. fern.

don't ask. i will not answer for my sins

i got the idea to kill her parents in a fire from an idea from a year prior to making her, where the main character's home burnt down mysteriously and a wild absol saved them, forcing them to embark on a journey. i never developed this idea much further so i instead recycled elements from this to make rhea and sara.

that main character's pokemon included every eeveeloution, hence where i got her theme from.

originally rhea was also going to be an empath but i figured i liked her being autistic instead, so i switched it.

yes she is canonically autistic

she's polyam! right now the idea is her to be shipped with victoria and saphira.

her family heirloom is called the obsidian starshard- it is the 5th key to the ruins under reborn. long ago one of her ancestors (i assume a grandparent,) stole the starshard and fled reborn for alola. a small branch of the guardians of the ruins chased after them to retrieve it, but they were always evaded. it eventually led to her mother passing it down to her to keep the organization on their toes when they caught up to her years later.

that eventually ended up leading rhea back to reborn. small world, huh?

rhea constantly squeezes her starshard. it comforts her

she's easily flustered

her name is pronounced ray-a. its technically wrong, but i think it suits her more.

as a kid her nickname was ray-ray. which is. longer than her actual name

her birthday is march 14th

she actually had to battle shade twice, since she was too psyched out to focus the first time around due to seeing corey die again.

rhea and hardy are good friends

she has litchenburg figures from being struck with a thunderbolt. most of the scarring is on her back, but you can see some of it on her arms and collarbone

rhea's trainer class is rising star during maingame. as champion it's protector of reborn

after the events of agate city, rhea almost passes out since it was so soon after she got injured

before the amaria incident, rhea loved swimming

she blames herself for that as well, constantly trying to figure out what she did wrong

her natural hair color is brown

she's considered dying her hair pink

pink is her favorite color

she adopted the eevee from the lost railcave. she named him florence after the captain.

she looks like her mom

they were about 8 when their parents were killed

she likes puns only because her dad was a goofball and never passed up a chance to use puns

névé (her a-ninetales) reminded her of winter when she found her as a vulpix

she thinks about the other trainers that were on the train at the beginning sometimes

they looked up to amaria before the whole underwater thing

speaking of water: she loves swimming and pretty much anything with water.. and yet they still remember what happened and can't bring themself to do anything she'd want to around other people. sometimes when she's alone they still feel this dread that it'll happen again….

her flareon never liked amaria

she feels guilty about - (… literally every death)

she is an only child, but always wanted siblings

emphemeon(bug type evo) evolved first, espeon evolved last.

i didn't like how victory road had a lot of self aware jokes. it got old very fast for me, so instead of having the others save her at every turn, i have koa do that since its always out of its pokeball

rhea can understand what her eeveeloutions are saying

koa knows power gem through cavern

nia:

her favorite cereal is trix and she named her scorbunny that because it reminded her of the mascot

she prefers hot springs over pools

she thought she was aroace before she had her first crush

she picked up rock collecting shortly after coming to aevium and since then knows a little about rocks and gems

her favorite rock is granite and her favorite gemstone is sunstone. she also thinks geodes are awesome

in school she played soccer and volleyball

she has an incredibly high spice tolerance

she finally realizes that how she feels abt aelita is not platonic sometime towards the end of chapter 14

instead of arceus she says adrest in common phrases

heavy sleeper. sometimes when someone tries to wake her up it won't work until long after a normal person would give up, but if she's tossing and turning it's a lot easier (which, is like 70% of the game, but details details), and she has a habit of swatting at people that try to wake her up while she's in a deeper sleep. she isn't aware she does that until someone tells her.

i almost named her an A name but i asked one of my friends which one and she chose nia's name

nia originally had gray eyes, but she always had heterochromia

if i could assign a legendary to her, i would choose either virizon, keldeo, or galarian zapdos

nia swears up and down she's killed a fake plant before

her favorite drink is apple juice, but she likes orange soda a ton as well.

^ her favorite food is galarian spicy curry.

she punched a screen in the nightmare school out of frustration and, predictably, cut her knuckles on the glass, but she wouldn't stop picking at the scabs when they were healing so they scarred.

she's a yellow character.

she's the type to confess something before a drop on a rollercoaster

she doesn't like milk. it needs to be flavored or in cereal for her to tolerate it. that's why her favorite cereals are the ones that flavor the milk. besides trix. she'll eat that and only that one dry sometimes

she might have adhd because of accidental projection

she's afraid of her own power

ironically, she's also afraid of heights

she treats her birthday like any other day and doesn't see it as very important, but goes all out for her friends.

instead of cherry like ari hosts usually get, the nickname marianette gave her is tangerine

it becomes her favorite after that chapter, and she has a few outfits with tangerine/orange slice patterns

she looks. really good in orange or yellow, which is a main factor in why they're her favorite colors post valor. before then it was red

for her birthday, she got a toxel egg from amber, a bandanna from aelita, earrings from melia, and the rest i haven't decided on yet

her favorite jewelry is a ring her mother gave her

'through space and time' is a common theme in rejuv so i went wild with it. valen is a perfect example of this. nia has known him since she was a child

her favorite weather is a warm day with a chilly breeze

she has a habit of adopting the younger characters as her siblings. its happened with marianette and mosely. it will happen again.

she and ren are good friends after they made up.

she's terrified of time traveling

the whole gang placed bets on how long it would take for nia and aelita to get together. it was originally venam's idea and everyone got in on it when they saw how the two were around each other

her birthday is november 24th

sara:

hasumi and kisaragi are the same exact age

sara's favorite artist would be odetari

they prefer ice cold drinks, but could handle a hot drink.

their main love language is acts of service (other top 2 are words of affirmation and quality time)

canonically the only gyms they've had real trouble with are reeve, garret, and aaron.

she likes telling her friends she's proud of them.

light sleeper; if you touch them while they're asleep there's a high chance they'll wake up. [iseult is the only exception.]

the main reason why hasumi isn’t a mega (...anymore) is because she doesn’t like changing into that form.

sumi is very protective of sara

they can’t resist a challenge, especially when someone baits them into doing it, even though they know exactly what’s going on

they don't like billionaires

bad spending habits. if they see something they want they will get it.

they probably believe in karma

affectionate name calling. their favorite thing to call people is dumbass.

vision in their right eye is a little worse than their left 

she is a chronic complainer

it deeply pains sumi to see her trainer suffer and she does what she does best: be there for them like they would for her

they tend to over apologize whenever they're being vulnerable

they aren't fluent in pokemon language but can understand the general idea of what its saying

they show symptoms of c-ptsd. i think it's possible they have it

they have depression.

they're left handed

sometimes when they're half asleep their body does that jolt thing (when you jolt wide awake since your brain thinks your heart rate is slowing down too quickly)

they never get used to people just knowing who they are

when fighting any form of pain inflicted on them makes them angrier

their own blood actually freaks them out 

they get motion sickness

sumi and silverhawke will only obey sara, even if they say to do whatever the person says

 she likes her hair being brushed

 their favorite food is sushi and seafood

 she also likes rice

 she's terrified of the doctor because its a scary unknown thing and they don't like the idea of someone just. examining them

 would not like shots either

 tends to prefer laying on her stomach

they keep at least one coin in their pocket for flipping and can do it with their thumb

they hate it when people make "got something on your face" jokes 

they're always wondering when they'll eventually let everyone down

their original nickname was kisara until i shortened it once and it stuck to sara

i would've named hasumi something like prophecy or whatever if it weren't for sara's name

sara's name means devil

their favorite flower is the moonflower. they use shampoo with its scent.

their second favorite is the desert rose.

as hinted with that last one, they like succulents

they would like cheesecake

their favorite flavor type is tangy, their second favorite is sour

their original nickname was kisara but i shortened it once and it just, stuck

the first thing i decided about them was their ace

she has a small collection of fountain pens

i went back and forth between black and white hair for them for a good second before i settled on white. but i like to think that they've dyed their hair black before

their favorite book genre is thriller but mystery and horror come in second and third

doesn't like pineapple on pizza

their spice tolerance isnt terrible. they can tolerate a good amount of spice since they're more resistant to pain, but its just not her thing usually

they walk silently if there's nothing on the ground to interfere with it like leaves

she thought of battle more like a means of defending herself instead of a hobby and finds it tedious at times

…so due to the nature of absol and that, they aren't as fond of battling as the usual league challenger. ava and scarlet had to convince them to give it a try

probably has a resting bitch face when they're tired. so almost all the time

voice can be monotone at times, usually when depression is kicking their ass

they're semi nocturnal- their internal clock is a few hours later than the usual person's so it's harder for them to sleep until it's really late.

[chronicleverse au] the main motivator for sara's hyper independence is iseult refusing to stop caring for them so much

[with r's deso trio]

they love asra and cande's cooking but doesn't ask often out of fear of bothering them

they just let cande pick them up

in fact, they just let all three of them do whatever they want with psychical affection

they're taller than asra lmao

they always wear the bracelets they got for their birthday

they also adore the music box they got then too

their aura exhaustion is worse here

mena likes to drag them along to do whatever her plans are for the day.

they are very fond of cande's siblings, mostly little xiamena.

asra and sara are very close. very very close. they're each other's weaknesses.

as you can tell, sara has a lot more facts. this is mostly because i didn't write down every single idea for nia and rhea like i did for them, and some details may have been lost to time and tumblr void.

as a bonus, here's one more not so serious fun fact: if rhea and sara were in the same game as companions, i think they could work as a ship. it'd be kinda cute.

[roulettefeel]

What's your opinion about yttd?

Ok jokes aside, this will possibly be a pretty long one, but it's something that's constantly at the back of my head. Do you have any headcanons as to what advantages/disadvantages were given to different participants to even out the survival rates (other than the ones we know about)?

I might have more things to say if I refreshed my memory on earlier chapters but at this point I'm waiting for the steam release for a full replay. Starting from the lowest percentages:

Hinako Mishuku: we dont have enough information to make any real statements here but for the fun of it I'll say..... Her little bit of screentime is dedicated to making her sound already done with living. Being paired with Alice in a first trial might be a win-win for Asunaro, assuming Mishuku would never choose to survive alone, because if Alice abandons her that's a lil bit of mental torture Hiyori can sprinkle on the scenario of this otherwise repentant "Murderer" (his job, according to those percentage papers! lmao!). But in the scenario where they both survive that first trial? It might do this kid a world of good if she has built a bond of trust with someone. The trial being designed in a way that they'll have made their bond before ever seeing each other means stuff like Alice's prison clothes bear no weight in judging his trustworthiness (something that could also boost mid-tier Alice). Just some blind faith pulling this kid through a scary situation. Alice may be a blockhead at times but he's also a total sweetheart who has taken care of his younger sister to the best of his abilities his entire life, so he's probably also one of the best picks for a friend and guardian Mishuku could be in desperate need of.

Gin: my bets are on Mew-chan having a way to communicate information to Gin. YTTS even references Mew-chan maybe talking. Where did Gin learn about the Hades Incident? How Did he discover the passage in the room of rubble to the first floor? What made him think going down there was a hint towards escape? What happened with him while he was down there alone? Gin has some sort of information source without a clear indication of where he's getting it from, but it wouldn't be shocking if it came directly from the floormasters themselves.

Kanna: the phone message seems like the most targeted at her, though what specifically it was targeted to do is a little unclear. If I remember right Kanna's first trial was hinted to be set up differently from Sara and Mishima's but I'm not sure what Kugie's death is meant to do for her? Depending on what information floormasters are working with Miley could have teased Kanna about Kugie's death to push her away from Sara so she'll fall under Shin's protection? But that's a bit of a stretch. I get the impression that Hiyori doesn’t like Kanna much and the game does things to make her feel worse when she’s supposed to get help to balance out her percentage. But it cant just be Hiyori being petty over nothing since Asunaro can veto changes he wants to make like the Joe issue.

Mishima: Nao can vouch for his good character.

Dummies+Megumi: not enough info. Hayasaka may have been given a tougher execution style first trial because he has informational advantage over others?

Yabusames: as mentioned above Alice could have been helped had he worked with Mishuku, and all we know about Reko’s first trial is apparently she had no idea people could die doing those things so she must have had a fairly safe one?

Qtaro: his first trial is something that could have made him overly suspicious to drag him down, but the Final Attraction might have also been designed to drag down over performance.

Keiji: either I need to pay more attention to Keiji or I think we need to understand why he attached himself to Sara to get a sense of what his balancing has been. His first trial with Megumi is also strange with how low she is compared to Keiji. Hiyori spent 3-1 playing him like a fiddle but who knows about the other chapters.

[cloudyevaa]

— warning!!! spoilers for the 2.1 genshin impact archon quest, and a lot of disappointment up ahead. also disclaimer: i am not by any means qualified to give this criticism lol this is just my take and my opinion on the quest's execution, and i need a place to rant.

I can't be the only one who feels very conflicted about the 2.1 archon quest, right??

I think one of the appeals of inazuma's main story was the fact that there was a war, an ongoing conflict between a nation and its deity - the fact that the archons' moralities are not so black and white as we'd thought is hammered home by the dictating reign of the raiden shogun, in contrast to both rex lapis and barbatos, who have directly aided the traveller in their previous endeavours.

the 2.1 archon quest, though?? it feels as if ei is played off to just be a lonely and misunderstood deity, and she so easily changes after... what? yae miko visits her in her realm of euthymia? the shogun knew of the repercussions of the vision hunt decree, the tenryou commission's involvement with the fatui, and even the civil war.

so why was the plot building up to the reveal that the raiden shogun may have just been mislead by false commission reports? what difference does it make that both the tenryou and kanjirou commissions have betrayed the shogun if she already knew they colluded with the fatui?

I hold nothing against ei's character — in fact, I love the way her ideals seem perfect on paper, but works in detriment to the very people she wants to protect. I love that she struggles to understand how eternity is not stagnation, and that growth is the only thing that will stay forever unchanging, because all moments are fleeting, and all life ends.

but mihoyo makes it extremely hard for me to enjoy her story completely when all we do is fight her and rely on the power of friendship vision bearers' ambitions to change her mind about the vision hunt decree. like, ,, what gives?? everything happened so quickly, how could she so easily throw away the ideals she's been so adamantly holding onto for decades?

I haven't done her story quest, but it looks like she's not even being taken accountable for being the spearhead in a literal civil war. all those vision bearers who lost their lives ( including kazuha's friend ), all the common people she has harmed because of her tunnel vision - she lifts the vision hunt decree and she is suddenly absolved? of course, I don't want a perfect morally good character, but at the very least mihoyo can show us that she is not so perfect so as to suddenly change her mind about the vision hunt decree and sporadically feel compassion for the very people she knows she has harmed.

I'm sure people are also really shocked about signora's death - I am too. I was never a fan of signora but her presence was always filled with mystery, intrigue, and an impending sense of doom. she was that antagonist - beautiful, hauntingly cruel, and jam-packed with unknown backstory ( as seen with the crimson witch and pale flame artifact set lore ) that I thought was going to be further explored on future quests. but?? she??? just???? dies???? and for what?

I don't mind if she dies ( in fact, I would like for an opportunity to use traveller to execute her myself ), but the fact that her death brings no substance to the overarching story, especially since scaramouche just. got the gnosis from yae miko. like, mihoyo can do signora MUCH better than this. she deserves a glorious death as a fleshed-out antagonist, yet I felt nothing for her, not even the slightest bit of satisfaction, when she disappeared into ashes.

and scaramouche. I like the guy, he's funny-looking, and kind of sadistic. the fact that he was appearing in inazuma was a welcome surprise. it made sense, considering he was confirmed to be from inazuma, and there were theories about he and the shogun's similar appearamces which I eagerly consumed. but he appears for like, 3 minutes, and then we're KNOCKED OUT???? seriously???????

when yae miko suddenly appeared I actually thought she'd betrayed us and was working with the fatui. but then she wakes us up, tells us nothing about the SINGLE MOST important exchange in the whole quest until AFTER the main conflict is resolved, and just dumps scaramouche's identity on us as a SIDE COMMENT. what is this tomfoolery??? we weren't even there to see it? at least give us a cutscene explaining what went down, because this was LITERALLY one of the most important parts of the entire archon quest, and one of the recurring goals of the traveller.

also, can we talk about the resistance? oh wait a minute, we can't, because they literally did nothing. absolutely nothing. they contributed a total of 0 times the whole quest. only teppei was a memorable figure, and he had more lore than the upcoming 5-star master strategist of the whole army; kokomi.

as a person who loves kokomi, i am devastated by the lack of actual role she holds within the plot. she is a famed strategist and the only reason the resistance has been holding out for so long, as kujou sara said herself. but she's not given so much as a 30-second fight scene, and we never see her cunning wits on the battlefield - we probably never will. why, you may ask? well, because the freaking war is OVER. because baal just decided to stop the vision hunt decree.

i sincerely hope there will be more substantial kokomi content during her banner where we get to see her shine, seeing as it seems that mihoyo is already nerfing her abilities and focusing their efforts into promoting ei instead.

however, seeing as the main inazuma conflict ( the vision hunt decree ) is already over and dealt with... what the frick is kokomi supposed to bring to the table??? 😃 the one character i feel that shone throughout the quest was kujou sara, who had actually had a set-up for potential character development from the previous patch. but even then she's rendered unconscious by signora in front of the archon she is the loyal right-hand of??? like y'all pls tell me I'm not dreaming.

I loved the graphics, the concept, the lore - but the execution fell flat and felt terribly rushed. I wonder if it's because mihoyo is very insistent on hyper-fixating upon the raiden shogun this update.

anyway, that was a long tangent lmao. if you enjoyed the quest, good for you!! I enjoyed it, too; but my enjoyment is far overshadowed by the glaring issues that i had with it. i'd love to hear other people's thoughts about the quest.

[esperastra]

Can you help me check my Avalance wish list for S7. Obviously it’s important I get it right. So I want:

1. Ava and Sara referring to each other as wife

2. Someone mentioning the honeymoon period - each other or the legends

3. The legends trying to give them alone time as a newly married couple

4. The legends referring to their marriage eg Mrs and Mrs Captain

5. Ava being called Ava Lance (this WILL happen right? Please confirm)

6. A nice little bed scene - maybe them waking up together (nothing raunchy lol … although I wouldn’t be mad at it!)

7. Someone hitting on Ava or Sara and the other one being like ‘that’s my wife!’

8. As a married couple, them giving relationship advice to others (ideally Astra/Spooner)

9. Casual kisses, hugs, hand holds etc

10. Them dancing together. Don’t even care how it happens or if it’s even relevant to the plot (that goes for all the other points as well).

Please add!!!

Hi, I love this list. I'm gonna put most of my response under a cut though because the ask is already long.

1. Yes, I mean we didn't get them calling each other girlfriend or fianceé a lot and I'm sure they will stick to the 'babe' but I do hope we will get another 'wifey' thrown in there because when Sara said it in the finale I went 🥺

2. & 3. I don’t think they will make a huge deal out of them being married now, but a comment or something like that about not getting a honeymoon would be nice. 

4. Okay, I haven’t really thought about that but now that you mention it I absolutely need the Legends to call them Mrs. and Mrs. Captain. Remember when Nate asked Sara where Mrs. Captain was back in season 3? I died.

5. I’m gonna be honest here, I don’t really want her to be Ava Lance in canon? I get the thought of no longer wanting to have a “fake” surname, but idk, I don’t see them changing their names since there is no legal documents on them and everyone they live with call them by their first names anyway, except for Gideon, but Captain Lance and Captain Lance would be too confusing too. 

6. I def wouldn’t mind another soft bed scene. Them just snuggled up together, talking about something. Besides I would just be curious in general how their sleeping arrangement works while stuck in time. Do Ava and Sara get the one big bed because they are the captains and the only couple left? lol

7. While they are stuck in the past I don’t see them saying “that’s my wife”. They might not have a problem or second thoughts about it on missions, but this is different. I know and am glad that Legends of Tomorrow is not that angsty, so who knows but I think the one being hit on would simply mention being married.

8. We know Sara likes to give (unwanted) relationship advice, like the moment she and Ava got over their issues and were secure she called herself relationship expert. lmao. Since Esperastra is sadly not likely to happen (not in season 7 anyway) let us just headcanon that this will happen.

9. Yes, yes, yes. We got so many hugs last season and barely any kisses, though that probably was due to the pandemic (I imagine most of the hugs would have been kisses in a normal season)

10. We never got a first dance and they haven’t danced together since Nora’s bachelorette party (am I remembering correctly?) so I hope we will get them dancing. I actually think the chances are looking good, wasn’t there a bts pic going around a while back of what looked like Ava and Sara in showgirl costumes and Ava hugging Sara from behind/the side? Somewhere in this scene they could dance together, who knows?

I already talked about my season 7 wishes in general and I haven’t thought about it since so I don’t have anything to add at the moment I’m afraid.

[honeyfizzly]

Not genshin related but instead yttd related. Just some speculations and wild guessing- beware of 3b spoilers

Alright so in Sou route rn there's only 4 survivors while Kanna route has five (smh Kanna route gets all the love huh).

So that means that in Sou route, not only will everyone get one of each role but also the death game will definitely end because there would be only two survivors left after the main game.

My bets on who's getting what role for Sou route is-

Sou with Keymaster (yttd seems like looping back to the begging with things, so having Sou lie about having keymaster first game and then actually have keymaster last game feels fitting).

Since only the people alive in this route are the ones who killed Kanna, I feel like he'd definitely try to get himself voted off to kill everyone or maybe he has an actual redemption arc this chapter and the roles of Sara and Sou are switched from first main game to last (like Sara lying about her role for whatever reason while Sou is guiding the discussion idk why she would but I feel like it would just be cool lmao)

Sara with either seer or she actually has sacrifice this time (like how she found the sacrifice card under the table but didn't get it cause she already had keymaster). Seer is the only card that Sara has never picked up or had so it's a very likely candidate, maybe she would see that Sou is the keymaster and assume that he would try to kill everyone because of how they killed Kanna. Sacrifice wouldn't trigger Sara as much as it did in chapter 2 because she repressed her memories of Joe, and also Sacrifice holds the most power in this game as well.

If Sara does get seer then two other candidates for sacrifice would be Gin or Keiji, maybe if you chose Alice dies Sou route it goes to Keiji or if you chose Reko dies Sou route it goes to Gin.

I could totally see a situation where you get the choice to save either Gin or Keiji.

I think it would pretty ironic if the final survivors of the death game would the girl with highest survival percentage and the man with the lowest.

Also if Sara was sacrifice and did managed to get voted off, you'd get the choice to either save Gin, Sou, or Keiji.

For Kanna route I feel like Kanna would the be one with the seer (since she lied about it in the beginning as well and it just feels fitting) or maybe keymaster

And reko/alice with commoner probably

Sara would have either seer (if Kanna didn't get it) or keymaster (I don't see Sara getting sacrifice this route)

Gin either has commoner or sacrifice

And Keiji either has commoner or sacrifice

I'm less sure about the roles this route cause it wouldn't be the last main game for them, because there would be three left unless sacrifice wins. The death game is meant to go on until only two or one person is left.

Also everytime during sacrifice's death, there's always the button. In Joe's death, sara kept pressing it. While in Nao's death, Sara couldn't press it at all. Idk why this stood out to me but it did

Also new rules keep getting added with the main games it seems, with chapter 2 updated the rules with trades and ties. Maybe some new rules could be adding new cards, a new way to trade cards, ect.

Also there's still some mysteries that are unsolved

Where's Mishima's head

Mishima is suspicious in general- he's the only candidate that passed the first trial who's wish we don't know (besides Keiji and I feel like this is gonna be important), and he shows up every chapter. I feel like he isn't actually the mastermind (I don't feel like there's "one" mastermind like danganronpa) but he is suspicious.

Who was in Sue miley's room? I personally place my bets on Meister since he looks all bandaged up but it could very well be a dummy who didn't actually die, Kai perhaps (since slitting your wrists is actually one of the most survivable methods of suicide I think), or a character we don't know yet (pfft watch it be Ryoko lol)

Who was Sue miley talking to in chapter 2? I don't think it's midori or Meister since the person seemed (the way the person talked didn't seem like how they would act), or anyone we actually met before since Sara and Keiji didn't recognize the voice. It could be that Rei (I think that's the name) person in Ytts that is revealed to actually have been apart of the group before being forgotten (in Ytts when someone dies they are "forgotten" so I think that's the implication with Rei).

So maybe Rei was a possible Candidate but ending up dying before the death game could ever start like how Midori did and their right to the death game was forfeited.

Next up is why was the Joe painted taken during Sou Route. When Ranmaru goes to rest and Sara leaves him before a while before coming back, the Joe painting is stolen. I think the implication is that Ranmaru took it cause in Kanna route that dosent happen. I just find it kinda silly that Ranmaru is jealous of an painting of Sara's dead best friend that she can't even remember. I just find it silly, and I don't know if it'll be addressed in 3-2.

Also who's Sara's real dad? Most of the cast in yttd is missing an father or parents (Possibly because they're parents mightve been in on the deathgame too, since Asunaru has information on them since they were children). A tiny theory of mine is that the person who Keiji killed was not Joe's dad but instead actually Sara's. It dosent really have that much proof other than I think it would be cool and both Sara and Mr. Policeman have red hair.

What got Sara into the deathgame? Sara never signed the contract so what brought her in? The only two candidates for wishing Sara in are Mishima and Keiji since we don't know their wishes. I could totally see an situation where Keiji wished that he got the chance to reconcile with Mr. Policeman's child (since he killed their dad). I'm leaning towards Keiji being the reason why Sara is here but not Mishima since Mishima and Sara don't really have an connection.

Though I guess it would be funny if Mishima wished to have more students to teach and since the death game is probably revolving around Sara, Asunaro just took that has a chance to shove her in.

What were Joe and Kai talking about? In the survalince it shows Kai and Joe both talking, seeming serious but there was no audio so we couldn't tell. My bet is that Joe was confronting Kai about being Sara's stalker or having some connections with Asunaro, Joe isn't as dumb as the fandom makes him out to be imo so it seems reasonable that he would notice that.

Alright I spilled out my brain now, time to wait 50 years for the new chapter byeeee

[lgbtqlegends]

I adore every angsty thing you write, so I come to you with this request:

Headcanons for if Bishop had brainwashed Sara and made her either forget the other Legends or just turn against them? Bonus points for the aftermath after she’s back to normal.

aww thanks!! i'm glad you enjoy all the angst i write!! thanks for the ask n hope you enjoy! (ps sorry it took a while to answer)

also okay so like,, I'm not sure if you wanted these headcanons to be like,, "sara was returned to the ship already brainwashed & clearly turned against the other legends" But,,, reading this prompt has sparked,, a bit of a different, more angsty idea (still the same premise, just a bit of a twist on the when). and, well, i'm sucker for angst so,,

-okay so like. bishop altered her when he cloned her. we Know this. he spliced her DNA with an alien's DNA, obviously, but like. also. we know he has the capability (and no moral or ethical objections at all) to alter other stuff, ie he altered his own pain receptors. so like, it begs the question: what else could he have changed? what else could he have altered that sara didn't notice?

-like, okay, let's be real, bishop would have absolutely No qualms about coding sara's brain to make her turn against the legends at any given moment. and sara would have no idea. like,, he could've coded her brain to make her turn on the legends at the snap of his fingers. he clearly has no moral objection to doing so, and with the way the whole thing has been thus far explained, it sounds like a plausible thing that he couldve done

-so, anyway, onto the rest of the headcanons, assuming that this would be the reality: bishop altered sara's brain and 'coded' it to make it so that he could make her turn against the legends at any given moment

-he lures her into a false sense of security, gives her time to start thinking/believing that the only thing he changed was the alien DNA. he lets her get comfortable, being back with her team and especially being back with ava

-he does it in a moment where everyone would least expect it, in a moment where they're all together, hanging out, and all their guards are down for the time being (because. y'know. Of Course he would choose a moment like that)

-it's like,,, they're all having a family dinner or like,,, having a team movie night or smth. one moment sara is laughing and smiling with her team, thinking about how much she loves this and how there's nowhere else she'd rather be, and then the next minute the switch has flipped and she's been turned against her team, and suddenly she's attacking everyone with like,,, full force, not holding back bc why would she if her brain's been turned against them (think like,,, okay so i'm pretty sure it was divergent that i remember this from: without like,, getting into the specifics of divergent, basically sara's brain, i guess, would be altered so that instead of seeing the legends as friends they become the enemies. i mean like,,, obviously,, but i mean like,, okay idk where i'm going with this whole divergent thing but-)

-so anyway, she starts pretty much full-on attacking them out of seemingly nowhere, and no one knows what the hell is going on, but they know this is Definitely Not sara (like,, okay the Know it's Sara but they know it's not necessarily like,,, her,,, in control)

-the more,,, observant,,, legends noticed a split-second before she started attacking that something in her changed, first by the look in her eyes, and then immediately after how she went from laughing and smiling with the rest of the team to just,,, like,, nothing at all, and a second after that is when she started attacking

-now like,,, anyone on the ship who was there during the whole death totem thing would know like,,, sara when she's not in her own head and not in control of her body,,, is Very dangerous and could be very lethal if they're not careful, so,,, they mostly take an,,, avoid and tactical retreat type of strategy rather than like,,, offensive/defensive type thing (because they know how that turned out last time and they know that they'd most likely lose)

-none of them really know what to do because none of them are really sure if this is something that can be fixed, they don't know if there's any way that they can get sara back to normal,,, and that Hurts them, because they all love her and they really don't wanna think about what would happen if this couldnt be reversed (and also like,,, the fact that they would have just somewhat-recently gotten her back from outer space it's just like,,, it's a lot)

-eventually (and it was,,, Not easy) they get her to the brig or w/e it's called now (i think ava's called it a dais?? idk lmao) and they get her inside and like,,, trap her in there until they can figure out how to get her back. they probably also maybe like,,, take extra precautions and like,,, chain her up or smth (bc like,,, they'd still have to let the barrier down to give her food n stuff so,,,)

-since she's chained up n can't exactly do much, ava decides to go in there one day, "just to see, because we've tried everything we can think of so far and there has to be a way to get her back, there Has to be, and she's strong, alright, and maybe if she just,,, Feels me, maybe she'll come back to us. i have to Try"

-so she does. she lets down the barrier, steps inside, puts it back up. the rest of the legends are in the room for back up (just in case), and they watch as ava steps up to sara, who's struggling against the chains, trying to break free. ava puts a hand against sara's chest, right over her heart, and then leans her forehead against sara's, and she talks softly to her, saying whatever she can think of that might get sara to come back, to Remember

-sara struggles against her at first because she's still brainwashed, but sara is nothing if not strong and stubborn and persistent, so of course she ends up fighting through and remembering who she is and who the legends are

-she's confused for only a moment before she remembers and looks around at her team, and then she loathes herself with every fiber of her being, and she kinda just,,, loses all the fight that she has in her for that moment and just kinda,,, falls so that the chains are the only thing holding her up

-ava undoes the chains and then pulls sara into her arms so she doesn't fall completely. sara tries to push her away because she doesn't think she deserves this and also she's Terrified that she'll end up hurting ava anyway, even though she's back to herself. ava just holds her tighter though and they kinda both slowly sink to the ground

-the rest of the legends let the barrier down and kinda like,,, step closer to her

-normally sara would Hate anyone but ava seeing her this vulnerable but this isn't really a "normal" situation and also she's like,,, a little too wrapped up in self-hatred to be able to make sense of much, so the rest of the team kinda just like,,, piles in n surrounds her in a group hug to like,,, try to get through to her and show her that they all still love her

-it kinda works for a little bit and sara just like,,, lets herself sit there and break down surrounded by her team, but as soon as the night comes and she's laying in bed with ava all the self-loathing comes back again full force. at some point she manages to fall asleep, but not for that long bc she wakes up from a nightmare soon after

-she kinda just,,, shuts herself down for a while and like,,, isolates herself/pushes everyone away as much as she can

-the legends know it's a lot for her to deal with and they can't imagine the guilt and self-hatred she must be feeling (bc they know sara is Like That) but they still like,,, wish that they could get her to see that itll be okay

-it gets so bad one night that none of them get any sleep because they're all really worried about sara (and also because sara is in the gym, working herself out to the point of exhaustion and collapse and,, well,, she's not being very quiet about it)

-so they all end up in the gym with her that night, watching her break Another punching bag. and because nothing seems to be working, she grabs one of her throwing knives and throws it back into the wall farthest from her (nowhere near where the legends are standing) and then she kinda just,,, sits down,,, doesn't do anything else or say anything else, just sits down n puts her head in her hands n her shoulders start shaking

-one by one the legends all go n sit down with her and they get into as much of a group hug as they possibly can. its then that they finally get through to sara, even just a little bit, and nothing's really like,,, okay,,, because sara's still very much Not Okay about the whole thing but like,,, they all have a feeling that like,,, maybe,,, maybe itll start to get better from there on out

[hufflautia]

Where it all started [Part 1]

Chapter 1 

Sometimes links don’t appear on posts. if you can’t see the link to “Chapter 1”, my masterlist is pinned to the top of my blog, and you can find it there.

Summary: Slytherin’s parents have another argument, but at this point, no one’s surprised. After all, they’re her parents. It would be abnormal if they didn’t argue. However, this one’s a biggie. The fight ends with the slam of a door and her dad packing his bags into the car and getting ready to leave. Desperate for him to come back, Slytherin’s mom forces her to go to him with a message that will surely make him stay. Buckle up folks, for this is where it all began. 

Slytherin stood on the sidewalk as she watched her dad pack up his things into the van. 

She dug her fingernails into her arm, her heart stinging with ache as her dad turned around with a smile on his face, a failed attempt to reassure her that it was going to be ok. It was all gonna be ok. After all, this was normal, right? It’s not like it was unusual that her dad was leaving again to go back to Florida, where the homewrecker waited for him, her outstretched hands eagerly opened up to him and his credit card. 

However, this was the first time he left abruptly. A spike of sorrow stabbed at Slytherin’s heart as she thought back to the sound of her parents’ door abruptly opening; soon after, she could hear angry stomps that quickly descended down the steps of the staircase. 

She could almost hear the hiss in her ear as she stood in the archway of the living room, watching her dad leave in the far distance. “Tell him that Ravenclaw’s crying,” her mother spat, pushing her towards the front door. “Quickly, before he leaves!” 

Slytherin internally sighed. How typical. Instead of resolving their relationship issues by going to couples therapy, her mom decided to throw all those burdens onto her daughter, who had already grown tragically used to being used as her puppet. 

She decided not to argue against going after her dad and trying to guilt-trip him into staying home as her mom wanted. Otherwise, she would be lectured on how she’s selfish and wouldn’t do this small thing for her mom, how she’s basically ruining this family by letting her dad leave, how family is so fucking important and manipulating her dad into staying would be vital to their happiness as a whole, how family this and family that. 

You get the point. Slytherin certainly did. That’s why she was currently standing awkwardly behind her dad, staring at his back as he lifted boxes into his car. 

“Um, Raven…” She paused. Her throat felt dry and tight. Swallowing with difficulty, she tried again. “Ravenclaw’s crying.” 

It wasn’t the crying itself that mattered. That wasn’t the main reason why her mom rushed her out the door to deliver the message to her dad. It was simply the fact that it was Ravenclaw who was crying. Let’s just say that he and his dad had a complicated relationship. 

Things were never the same between them after Ravenclaw sent an angry message to him via text when he was in Florida a year ago. The contents of the message reeked of disdain for his constant infidelity. When his mom found out, she shoved the phone into Slytherin’s face in the dead of night and asked if she knew about this. The glaring light from the screen nearly blinded her. 

Slytherin read the text messages through squinted eyes and could make out a few curse words here and there. Though she was slightly disoriented from the sudden ambush of information, it was clear to her that her brother resented their dad for what he did.  

That made Ravenclaw’s anguish even more useful in their mom’s opinion. Seeing the tears streak down his face when he heard that his dad was leaving again, she had a glorious idea. Perhaps if her husband knew of their son’s sorrow, he would reconsider his abrupt departure. After all, it was Ravenclaw who was crying. 

If it were Hufflepuff, that would be understandable—she can get quite emotional sometimes. But it was Ravenclaw, who was usually guarded and distant. One might suggest that he was secretly broken inside. But that’s not the point, at least not in his mom’s opinion. The main thing she was concerned about was that she could use his misery to her advantage! Maybe if her husband knew of his sadness, he would feel guilty enough to stay behind. After all, if his son, who despised him, was upset over his departure, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to stay home and endure his wife’s temper for a little while longer. 

Slytherin’s words did produce somewhat of a reaction. Her dad didn’t turn around for a while, but when he did, his eyes were slightly red and puffy. It was evident that he was trying to hold back his tears. One might think that this means that he’ll stay. He seemed distraught over the news that his son was crying because of his leave. Surely, he’ll stay, right? 

It wasn’t enough. Nothing ever seems to be enough.

“I’ll be back soon, okay?” He hugged her briefly and gave a light squeeze as a sign of reassurance. As a silent message that it was going to be ok. Even though everything was most definitely not okay. A thousand hugs and gestures of reassurance wouldn’t change this. 

Slytherin didn’t react angrily to his refusal, the unspoken declaration of No, I will not go back home. In fact, it seemed as if she didn’t react at all. However, if one were paying close attention, they would notice the sparkle in her eyes dim. But maybe there wasn’t a sparkle to begin with. She had been enduring this shit for so long that she forgot what it was like to be normal, to feel like the white kid you see in commercials, the one who seemed to radiate mirth, a type of energy that said, I don’t have a care in the world because life is so fucking great and I can’t stop smiling. She didn’t even bother to smile, a common facial expression when one is in a difficult situation and tries to diffuse the somber atmosphere by slapping a facade on their face, the corners of their lips upturned to form a grimace that resembles some sort of a smile—a twisted kind of smile, that’s for sure. Why should she pretend that everything was okay when it wasn’t? Instead, she merely nodded in response. 

When her dad pulled away to pack the last box into the trunk, she took a deep breath to diminish the familiar sense of abandonment that flooded her senses, to clear the warning signs that flashed in her mind. He’s leaving! Your dad is leaving! He’s abandoning you again. You’re apparently not important enough for him to stay. 

She stared at the ground, only looking up when she heard the sound of a car door slamming shut. The resounding click was all it took for the waterfalls to finally pour from her eyes, for it was at this moment when she realized that this was actually happening. This was no dream—it was reality. Her sad, devastating reality. Tears blurred her vision as she watched the car drive away, leaving her in the dust. 

Slytherin gasped in erratic breaths between her broken sobs as her eyes hung onto the tiny speck that resembled her dad who was driving 

away, 

away, 

and a-w-a-y.

Through the jumble of thoughts that clashed in her head, one thing was clear. Her dad was her dad, but only sometimes. 

Tears streaking down her face, she tried to soothe her pain with the belief that he would be back soon. If only she had known that it would be a while before he returned. If only he hadn’t left. Perhaps things would’ve been different for her if he stayed, for this was where it started. 

This marked the beginning of it all.   

Comments and reblogs are a writer’s gold!

MASTERLIST ; sometimes links don’t appear on posts. if you can’t see the link to “MASTERLIST”, the masterlist itself is pinned to the top of my blog. check it out if you haven’t already! 

Author’s note: HI! Were you surprised to see that I posted two fics in a row?? I hope you enjoyed this. Most of it was unfortunately based on what happened to me a year or two ago. I based Ravenclaw on my brother, who did actually cry when my dad was leaving after an argument, and yes, my wack mother did force me to run after my dad to tell him. One of the few differences is that I’m not a drug addict and I’m fine now so dont worry. 

Idk how I feel about this series, it is a lot darker from what I usually write. I know I’m gonna have to write more for creative writing class, so maybe i will continue it. I will try to think of how to turn these fics into something more positive, because this stuff is very heavy and depressing. however, that will be a little difficult because the plot itself is naturally drab. however, i will try to think of a happy ending for Faye/Slytherin. 

Shall we look at some wholesome pictures? 

lmaoaoa i pasted this picture from the internet and tumblr glitched and pushed the pic all the way to the top. imagine seeing this dog at the beginning of the fic, that would be funny :’) 

AWWWWWW I THINK THIS MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE

ok hold up i just realized that is probably a stuffed animal 😐 this is so embarassing lmaoaoa when i saw it i was like THAT IS SO FRICKIN CUTE

OK WAIT WTF NOW I THINK ITS AN ACTUAL DOG??? CAN SOMEONE HELP AND TELL ME IF ITS REAL OR NOT?!! at first, i thought it was real, but then i looked at the paws and it looked kinda fake and i was like this dog is too fluffy and wholesome to be real. BUT THEN I LOOKED AGAIN and i think the owners just put the pooh outfit over the dog?? what is going on with my brain.. but at the same time, its 2 am for me rn so maybe i should get some sleep BUT FIRST, LETS LOOK AT MORE DOGS <3 (lmaoaoa i feel like my friend would say “gosh ur such a hufflepuff” (menna im talking about u lmao omg hey gorl)) 

After seeing this gryffindor pup, i immediately searched up “dog costumes hufflepuff” lmaoooooo

OK THATS ENOUGH DOGS FOR NOW. Part 2 is coming soon. I already have it ready but I might not post it right away. 

That’s all for now. Be sure to let me know what you think. TOODELOOO!

TAGS:  @slytherpuff-shenanigans @lokijiro @xxkitsurikaxx @sara-is-boredd @skylee-skz   @determinedpines @draco22malfoy @pancakes-and-sugar  @casteel08 @indigosimon1998 @tell-that-to-my-feather @the-ugly-duck0 @prettyblueskylark  @okiguessimawitchnow @daisyinmyheart @peachyblue @korra4321 @shoyoockbby  @ravenflowersposts @walkinganomaly @parkerthemarker02 @hummingbird-hufflepuff @bumbblebeeeeee @luciferswife16 @iknow-im-cute @maisen98 @shadowsinger11 @tuonglam03 @fanfic-reblogger @mygc0re @rellasworld @sha3thehunter @croctusjuice @jadefox05 @d0uxs @charleii @kaylenthegreat @hufflepufflepukwudgie3897 @insertlongnamehere @trashpannda @ihate-myname @nowheredreamer @history-geek101 @strawberrypanda99 @nikkijovanic @hannanshi @sirenofthe7seas  @johannamariemst @badass-like-damon  @willow-salix @remmyswritings @x-whatsupdoc-x @dracosvftie @hitchhiker-of-the-galaxy @akerlizzie @thatfann @justanxiousme @another-witch @bucinjisung @elegantcroissantplaidpony @treefroggo @narritydream @hufflpuffles @adreameratdawn @leftpeanutturtleegg @turbulentbluebird5 @geekgirl69 @praiseourlordduck @quakemebacktothe50s @nomad-of-the-realms @stardustzainy  @theblackwolf21 @crakencc @introvertedrae @cryinbisexual @bojelina @cocoqueenstheword @manicpixiedreamtarot @velvetstrawberry @jxmpsuitx @simpering-simpleton @urfaveslytherin @asterinatlas @simpforkpop @pufflehuff929 @morallyambiguoussimp @applekenm @chunwest @oncergleekpotterhead @no1-importan @qiaopao  @dulduldoldul @schlongbottom @vickeyunicorn @peanut-in-the-goal @hufflepuffgirly @flvrqnce @nothingtoseehere812 @maxwellsgang @1d-killed-me @betacaroteno-lanudo @dragon-slayer-fairy1 @thatonebislytherin @dragonsandbread @justanotherperson @sophiexteresa @hmilkwhoney @writertwiddle @questionsbecameourocean @anomiatartle @coldsweetharmony @dont-hyuck @fixstationed @kindawannadietbh @trippy-morgan @xo-angel-ox @fangirlgeekandfreak @evolnura @mossy-axolotl @verylovelystars @boilyourteeth @megand2017 @malfoys-demigod @booksntings @joshirlangford @staymoarmyzen @poojxshxh @hedgepuffgirl @alverniaphi @verifiefangirl-mainblog @purpleskymalfoy @roxy3457 @rayanicaraynbow @jess-harrywars @starrysonic @tonksichu @lauxtbs @tumlbr-trasher @chelseasosa @thebiggestnaturaldisaster @swagangelhorsepickle @princessstoopid @pymmoon @emilyaneliperry @pond-waterr @pandapillow @saraleo95 @astrartss @trentalexanders @theoriginaljohnwatsonsblog @nevilletheplantboi @just--another--hufflepuff @yoongifiess @ajdqueen @annie-mcl @coloring-bud @majorfangirl37 @eatacrackerandstop @weasleytwinswheezes @imscaredofhorses @dontmindmeimjustabox @glitterykidlightmug @multi-fandom-nutjob @littleemotionalpanda @thewitcheswords  @blueberry-9-pancakes @worldsbestdilfbecky @qixnsriess @inexperiencedpotathoe @notsowiseravenclaw @captiniminnie @ruinyourface @da-fox-rangerrr @inkedintothepaper  @happy-puff @grandcyclecreation @dawinehouse @catiwisspuff​ @aasa2102​  @mae-25​ @sydthekidd98 @kokichismango @xxavaloraxx​ @iamahufflepuff​ @adoregin​ @sunnniiee @lewispoolerpayton @dumbbitch85​ @bumblebirbs​ @diggorycullen​ @protectorofsk8topia​ @silverhetdanes​ @zuko-28​  @beardedhumanoid​ @arianatorpotterhead​ @shipping-book-keeper​ @marvelenthusiast10​ @i-cannot-do-aesthetics​ @a-huffleing-lesbean​ @kaslec​ @hufflepuffwritess​ @mouthfacereborn​ @kodeinekissss​ @ihavenocontrolofmylifeeither​ @pinqgchuu​ @im-a-solanum-lycopersicum​ @clementines-x​ @stressy-depressy​ @sweetinvisiblewriter​ @absentmindeduniverse​ @asnowpuff​ @theofficialgaybestfriend​ @violayaxley​ @sunshinyyb @colettedelaurel​ @theoriginalsherlockholmesblog​ @i-have-a-bad-feeling​ @jpow345​  @gay-disaster826​ @bloodyxheaven​ @autumnpleaves​ @froggy-failure​ @toomanybandstocare​ @pink1babez​ @untitled-2424​ @sleepdeprivedgurl​  @chaseanders​  @wolfpack-arts-industries99​ @nugnugchick​ @queenofwordsandnerds​ @ganjeolhiddaeng​ @wordy-escapades​ @writtenfoxscreams​ @w0odr0ses​ @coolpetsmcubandit​  @crypticcandi​ @widowsgranger​ @fantasyprincess101​ @wiiltedflowers​ @aestheticworldd​ @miniaturefunnytraveldonkey​ @bucketofdeadroses​ @uwuplsh​ @softedits-exe​ @cel3stialone​ @sofiapeachyy​  @wanderaven92​ @eunnieah​ @marsupialsgotbloodyears​ @eurydicedior​ @neonuzumaki​ @uhhhem​

[likesrandomstuff]

Omg i loved your list!!! It must've been a handful bc it was very thorough, diversified (in genres, year published/updated type of writing and even authors). And you said you were deep into the avalance tag in ao3, so you must've had a lot of work with these. You even included SMAUS!!! I totally forget about them, but they are super fun to read and the ones you selected are really good indeed! Kudos to you!!! Your whole list is AWESOME! And very entertaining tbh bc i was here waiting to see what fic you'd recommend lmaoo did not disappoint, let me tell you! T A S T E hahaha

But wait... You read You Are My Miracle in one go???? How far was it when you read it?? And YEAH once in a while we are hit with a 10k+ chapter and i LOVE IT! Hahahaha idek when i started, but maaan the slow burn kills me!!!! Good fic good fic.

And the HSAU MY BELOVED!!! that's the one you mentioned chapter 27 right? lol A Classic™️ can't express how in love i still am with this fic. It's long, and the slow burn seems even longer bc YOU JUST WANT THEM TO KISS 😭 (and its so worth it when the do!!!). And I loved even more the other fic with Jordan (it's Impossible to not like her!!) but mostly bc when I joined the fandom the HSAU was wrapping up and when i first read it it was already finished. And to follow a fic since the fists chapters, waiting for a new update... I just love it! And the whole story is INCREDIBLE!!! One of my top faves for sure.

The SQ au is also one of my faves, even though ive never shipped sq. And you are right, Lucy knows what she's doing lmao one of the firsts i read for avalance and its amazing amazing amazing!!

There's another one that's one of my favs and I belive it's the very first avalance fic I read (bc i was familiar with the author's works from another fandom): I See My Future in Your Eyes by lizardwriter. Another really great HSAU!! (Also Stuck With You is totally worth the read!!)

Anyways, loved your list and the way you organized it. So fun to be on this journey with you even though i just sat back waiting for your posts and sometimes forgetting to read them 🙈 hahaha

❤️ The Word doc I organised it in is 9 pages and almost 4,500 words. Would not have survived if I didn't edit in there. Just for general reading I filter AO3 into different length fics, and then sort by kudos, so I've probably read the description of most of the fics in the tag over the years. The list was from my own 109 pages of history, not the tag, so I was choosing things I've read. It wasn't a conscious thought to have such a range, really it was looking at my history, and what did I enjoy.

I love the concept of SMAU, and they really get lost to history. Unless you find them by accident, which I did for the first plinys one, there's a high chance you don't know they were a thing. I was following a bunch in early 2019 (that was longer ago than I thought), but plinys was the only one who I saw complete their's, and I know how to find them again, as I also do not have twitter.

The process was worth it if you enjoyed it. Also making my life easier; re-read Better than Ice Cream last night, and was so easy to find.

You're My Miracle was a couple of weeks worth of reading, I think. I keep some of my AO3 update emails (for my Favourites as it makes me happy), and the first one I have for that fic is Chapter 28. I was up-to-date by then. That was published August 1st 2019, which is now also a long time ago.

you make me smile (please stay for a while) was one hit. As I wrote, I read the first chapter when it was published, and the prequel one-shot, back in 2018. Got so irrationally mad about Laurel, and stopped. Not long after I went back to only really reading Supercorp fics. I read the whole thing Feb/March last year. And yes, that is the Chapter 27 I mentioned. For me, I love them both so, so much but this is the way that we love (like it's forever) pips HSAU for me. The scene that had me crying at work was when Amaya and Sara were talking about how the legends fell apart after Sara left; that was my school friends after I moved away for uni. I was the only one to move away straight after school, and I was only 2 hours away. I thought all my friends were catching up without me, but they weren't. There's some guilt in that, feeling like you're the reason why people weren't seeing each other, which I hadn't identified, even after they called me 'the glue' of our group at my 21st, until I read that scene.

Ohh, I'll give that a try! Thanks. I've seen it before, but haven't given it a chance. Stuck With You is grey-ed out, so I guess I've read it at some stage. There's always going to be gems that you didn't see when they were new, and don't know to dig for. That's what I'm hoping I've done for people with my lists.

Organising things is a favourite past-time of mine. The amount of time I've spent on my bookshelves, both books and Pops!, is probably more than I should, but I'm very proud of them. If only there was an easy way to get hard copies of fics to display...

You've been my partner in feels for this, and for that I'm very thankful. :)

[sillyguyhotline]

thoughts about the first trials

hi!! i was thinking about the first trials recently and what they could be testing/how they relate to the characters, so i’m going to talk about them a little bit! just to clarify, i won’t be talking abt the trials for the characters whose trials are unknown (reko, gin, kai) or those for whom i don’t have enough context or genuinely have no ideas for (ranmaru, anzu, mai, haysaka).

Sara, Joe, Mishima, Nao, Kugie, Kanna

I lumped these together because they all have the same premise, but I do think that some of them might have different motivations. Kanna’s and Mishima’s, I believe, were intended to get the non-candidates killed off. We know that Kanna’s bed was the one the key unlocked, and for the sake of this I’m going to assume that Mishima’s was the first unlocked as well (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). The non-candidates mean nothing to the Death Game organizers, and this is an easy way to incorporate them into a candidate’s first trial and get them killed if things go wrong. For Joe and Sara, though, I think it was different. I believe that it was meant to test Sara’s ability to put her trust in the other members of the game, starting with the most trustworthy character: her best friend. The game physically does not let you choose to take the key for yourself, and in the manga Sara deliberates over this for awhile before ultimately deciding to trust Joe. The clear difference between 15.5% Sara and 0.0% Shin is that Sara gathers the group’s trust and that Shin distinguishes himself as a loner... and their first trials respectively set this up well. I believe that Sara’s first trial was meant to set Sara up as someone who is willing to put her life in others’ hands and trust them in order to survive, whether or not this is fully true. I also think, for reasons I’ve stated before, that Joe may have been considered more important to the Death Game than the other non-candidates; there has to be a reason why he has an AI when the others don’t.

Shin

I touched on this in the previous paragraph, and we all already know how central Shin’s First Trial is to his character, but it is the straw that broke the camel’s back. AI Shin seems to have been a very gentle and innocent person, characterized by his weakness and his fear of Midori, and I believe that telling Shin he has no chance of survival forced him to relinquish the weakness and compassion that characterized him at one point. His first trial made him lose all the trust he had in others, the trust that had been beaten down for so long, and it distinctly set him apart from Sara and made him see her as an enemy. Shin and Sara are marvelous foil characters, but I think that they’re only foil characters because they were directly influenced into being that way. Shin has the potential to be self-sacrificial and only acted vicious out of panic, and Sara has the potential to be quite selfish. Shin’s trial was intended to break him and force him to embody that 0.0%.

Keiji and Megumi

I really don’t think Megumi was ever really intended to survive this trial. We don’t know exactly what went on with this, but it seems as though Keiji had the choice between pressing a button to save her or letting her die... and he chose the latter. I think this was intended to test how far Keiji’s trauma and willingness to trust and forgive extended. After all, Keiji’s showdown with Midori revolves around him “confronting his trauma” and “getting over his trauma.” It’s clearly influenced who he is today and it’s key to most of those decisions, so I think that it was meant to test how much it still affected him and (consequently) what potential he had to hurt those around him or hurt himself as a result of it.

Alice + Hinako (?)

Okay, so I know that as of 3-1a this hasn’t been confirmed yet, but I’m pretty damn sure Alice and Hinako’s trials were the ones in the connected room. It would make sense with how Alice remarks on recognizing the room, and how Hinako (presumably) was hanging in the air during her victim video. As with the other trials, it seems to test trust, most notably self-preservation. With what we can tell from Alice, he’s a person who is very compassionate to the people he’s close to but also values himself and his own safety highly. This is a very distinct contrast to Hinako, who seemed to be suicidal and thanked Ranger for killing her. Perhaps it was an easy way to get Hinako killed off, or it was a test of what happens when two people with very different values of their lives become reliant on each other to survive. 

Q-taro

Q-taro’s trial puzzles me, because it presently appears to be the only First Trial that occurred for an extended period of time. Perhaps there will be one that continued past the ending of the others’ that we were unaware of? I’m not fully sure what it was meant to test, but I think it might be significant that they took the character who is incredibly adamant about playing by the rules and made him set up the cards without knowing what the rules were. Or, perhaps he was told what the rules were and he had to deal with the moral dilemma of setting the cards out in a way that could influence who died... but was technically still abiding by the rules?

Naomichi

Naomichi’s seems pretty simple- it looks like he had to run between a pair of closing walls to press a button. I honestly think that his was meant to test his strength and endurance; he has the second highest survival rate, and from what we can tell he’s not particularly cunning or clever. He probably got that rate because of how his strength and physical prowess correspond to his survivability, honestly, and his First Trial was meant to test how far that strength went. 

(as a final note at the end, ik i wasn’t going to cover Hayasaka, but it’s entirely -possible that he and Megumi were both put in unsurvivable First Trials because they had too much critical information on ASUNARO. He clearly did research on the candidates beforehand, and Megumi seemed to be complicit in the ASUNARO-related corruption in the police force. Her trial was definitely biased against her; as for his, I can’t say. Either way, it would make sense if they were intended to die from the start because they knew too much. Thanks for reading, hope this was coherent lmao)   

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #457

“blue are the words i say and what i think  /  blue are the feelings that live inside of me”

Do you buy your lingerie at Victoria’s Secret? No. That shit is so overpriced and not for my size group. Would you ever use an online dating service? I never would again. Are you good at multitasking? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Have you ever eaten Frosted Mini Wheats? Ugh, those are so gross. What does your bikini look like? You think THIS bitch wears a bikini??????????????????????? Does age really matter in a relationship? To an extent, yes. How much does the last person you kissed mean to you? I honestly don't even know if I'd be here without her. Almost like magic, Sara popped back into my life right after I returned home from the hospital following my suicide attempt. She helped make recovery possible as a solid source of support. Do you use lotion? Not NEARLY enough. My skin is so dry; I need to. Do you believe in teenage love? I experienced it deeply and thoroughly, so yes. Have you ever sat on the roof of your house? No. Do you like Sublime? I like that one popular one of theirs. "Santaria" or whatever it's called? What’s your favorite movie genre? Paranormal horror, especially the "found footage" type. It's creepy to imagine it being actually real. Is there a celebrity that you’d be willing to have a one night stand with? If he was single? I know in my gut I would lmaooooo Do you want to live in your current town the rest of your life? OH MY GOD PLEASE NO If you found out today your best friend was gay what would you do? She's demisexual, so. She can like anybody. If you could get a pet for free today-what kind/what name? A tegu, because it wouldn't need an enclosure that I don't have. I'd let it free roam. God, I can only imagine Roman's reaction. How many people have you slept with? If you mean what I think you do by "slept," one. Do you ever wish you had a family business to become a part of? Not really. What’s the most gruesome way you could come up with to kill someone? Hunny, have you seen my dark RP????? The world best be glad I'm a pacifist lmfao Do you think anyone deserves to die that way? I don't believe in torture, so no. If you had to fight for survival, what would your weapon of choice be? A gun, I guess? I'd want something with range and that's quick. I wanted to say a bow and arrow, but preparing another arrow after shooting once could really cost you your life. Where did you buy your favorite pair of jeans? I don't wear jeans anymore. Do you have a large dog? We don't have a dog, period. If not, are you afraid of them? No, I love big 'ole puppos!!!!! I just don't wanna own a dog myself. Are you good at playing darts? Holy fuck no, I have NO hand-eye coordination. I once stabbed the guy at a balloon popping booth thing with a dart in the arm, if that tells you anything, ooooooooooof. Do you like breaded chicken sandwiches? YESSSSSSSSS omg Do your parents know that/if you smoke? They know that I don’t. Have you ever been under a blacklight? Omg so in elementary school, we did this thing once where we all washed our hands as best we could and then put them under some sort of light (maybe a blacklight, idk???) to see JUST how resilient germs are. You gotta scrub the fuck out ya hands, people. How many pounds do you want to lose? I'd rather not share a number, but a lot. What’s your favorite natural phenomenon? The Northern Lights. Do you snore? Very surprisingly for someone with sleep apnea like mine, I actually don't. How many people do you know with the same first name as you? Off the very top of my head, one, but it's spelled differently. I KNOW I know of a shitload more Brittanys, though. Is it possible you could be pregnant? Well, I haven't been intimate with a man in years and just finished my period, so like- Could you go a day without texting? I go most days without texting. Do you have a step-parent? My dad is remarried, so yes. If so, do you get along with them? She's EXTREMELY Christian, so her beliefs wildly disagree with mine, but I keep my mouth shut a lot just to keep the peace. She IS a very sweet woman, nevertheless, and am glad she and my dad are so happy together. Does your current/last job require that you wear a uniform? My last job (which lasted not even two hours lol) did. When will your driver’s license expire? My permit has been expired for like... two years. Do you live in an apartment? No. If the last person you kissed proposed to you what would you say? That's too wild a concept to even imagine. I'd probably ask if she was okay lmao. Would you ever get back with one of your exes? Weeeelp, I want to get back together with Girt. Pretty badly. Write a foreign word, and what it means: "Schadenfreude" is a German term that essentially means secondhand embarrassment, but it doesn't have a perfect translation. Is there an ex you think about everyday? Inevitably. That's PTSD, my friends. Who is the last person that you said I love you to, besides family members? Sara. What's the worst thing you have ever said to anyone? Something along the lines of "no one could ever love you like I do." It boils my blood just typing that; I considered even deleting this question. That quote right there is fucking manipulation, even IF I thoroughly believed it. Who was the last person to comment one of your pictures? I don't feel like looking. Do you tend to go for older or younger when looking for someone to date? It's weird, I'm into slightly older-than-me guys, but probably girls who are barely a bit younger than me. Have you ever been used? I don't think so. Have you ever not been able to get someone out of your head? Like I've said in plenty of surveys: Jason is probably a permanent fixture. But also as of the past two days, Girt's been living up there. I went from "hmmm I just don't know how I feel" to "FUCK I want to talk to him about how stupidly into him I am right this fucking INSTANT" pretty goddamn fast. It kinda scares me just because of how extreme my feelings are. Again. That's only ever gotten me hurt. Buuuut let's not get into that. Have you ever got caught cheating on a test? No, because I've never tried to. Will your next kiss be a mistake? I hope it won't be. But it's not like I know the future. Have you ever worn an oxygen mask? Actually yes, when I was young and thought I was having an asthma attack or something. Mom had one for her own asthma. Then I obviously wore one for surgery. What song do you want to be played at your funeral? "Paradise" by Coldplay is absolutely #1. How many swear words are in the song you’re listening to? I'm not listening to music; I'm back to watching Gab play Sekiro. What color was the last swimsuit you wore? Black. Have you ever kissed anyone of the same sex, and if so, who? Yeah, just Sara. Who did you last tell to ‘shut up’? Ha, I think my WoW friend Lyndsey, but only playfully, of course. We pick fun at each other all the time. Would you ever get a tattoo of a boyfriend/girlfriend's name? NOOOOOOOOO. Are you one of those girls who already have baby names picked out? I know what I'd name my kids IF I actually wanted any, yeah, but I don't. Do you think guys with long hair are attractive? Yessss, I love long hair on guys. Are any of your siblings taller than you? I think Ashley is a liiiiil bit taller? I know my brother is, for sure. Have you ever scared someone so badly that they cried? Yikes, no. When was the last time you wore high heels? Boy oh boy, no idea. Is there someone that you want to hurt right now? Jeez, no thanks. What was the most interesting or colorful birthday cake you’ve had? I don't remember, but I'm sure something from childhood. What was the last thing someone bought you? Was it expensive? Mom bought me food from McD's, which obviously isn't expensive. Do you have any interesting moles anywhere you don’t want people to know of? No. Have you ever gotten high or drunk in a really formal place? Strong "no" there. Do you ever write poetry and post it on any certain websites? On the very rare occasion I write poetry and actually like it, I'll sometimes post it on dA. What do you miss most about your childhood? Actually, genuinely having fun and not dealing with fucking anhedonia. Would you like to know the precise date of your future death? Hell no. Do you photograph well? I'd like to hope so. Are there any animals you flat out refuse to touch? Maggots and similar bug larvae. What super power would you refuse, if it was offered to you, and why? Mind reading. It just sounds... awful and overwhelming. What’s your favorite discontinued product that you wish would come back? Oh, I KNOW I have answers to this, just none are coming to me immediately and I don't feel like sitting here for five minutes thinking about it. If adults had show and tell, what would you bring into work? My snek! :') If you had a reset button for the last 10 years, would you press it? Tempting, but... I don't think I would. I cannot go through how deep my depression was again. Who is someone you would never swear in front of? My nieces and nephew. Yes, I don't believe in profanity being a "thing" and is just a stupid human fabrication, but nevertheless I acknowledge societal standards and expectations, and they're way too young to get when you shouldn't say something like that and why. Have you ever won a contest or competition? A few. Who is your favorite TV character? I don't think I really have one? Do you coo over other people’s babies? Not really, no. Sometimes I'll think they're super cute and be like "awww," but I don't like... squeal and spaz like some people do. What is something that makes you very squeamish? VOMIT. Has there been a celebrity death that really affected you? Steve Irwin got me deeper than anyone else. Chester Bennington hit real hard, too. If you’re out of high school, have you stayed in touch with your high school friends? If you’re still in school, do you think you will? Most of my closest ones, yes, at least via Facebook. What’s a movie that you want to see? Old movie, but Jacob's Ladder. It was a massive influence on Silent Hill, so naturally, I'll probably love it. It's a classic, anyway. Do you use the same username everywhere online or do you have a lot? I use "Ozzkat" in most places, but I do have some other ones for different sites. Who was the last person you know who became pregnant? My friend Ana recently revealed she's expecting her second child, a boy. What fad were you actually into? I have zero clue. Have you ever tailgated? Would you want to? Fuck no. That's how so many wrecks happen. My sister legit got in a wreck with an 18-wheeler mostly because she was tailgating (which she does BADLY); she was trying to pass, and he moved over at the same time because he couldn't see her coming around. It's a borderline miracle she got out with only some cuts, bruises, and a seatbelt burn. Have patience, people. Get off cars' asses. Why did you fall for the last person romantically? Look, don't get me started on this. There are a shitload of reasons and I have been way too emotional over this the past few days laksdfja;lwke What’s the last thing you had to eat? A bagel w/ cream cheese for breakfast. Do you ever pick up your house phone? We don't have a landline phone. Truth be told, are you more into looks or personalities the most? Personalities, for sure. I cannot be into you if your personality isn't attractive.

[gingus-doon]

It's ask time! How about thoughts on the Yabusame siblings? ( by the way, I always love hearing your thoughts on this game! they honestly make my day. <3)

i'll talk about them separately first, then together! so i hope you don't mind if this gets a little long (＾ᴗ＾)

(update after writing this– it got quite long LOL so i'm gonna put it under a read more—)

—

first, alice– i think he's great!! himbo extraordinaire, how could ya not like him :'D i've probably ranted about this before (read: in the tags earlier today lol) but i just love how much of a softie he is. it's especially apparent by how hard he tries to come off as this intimidating lone wolf figure lol. it's funny, because with his muscle and prisoner uniform (as well as actually being a murderer lol) he succeeds on that and comes off as untrustworthy despite being just a softhearted fool 😔 he'll be all like "you fools!!! you can't make allies in a death game!" and all that edgelord junk, insult sara brashly and then feel VERY bad about it as soon as she started fake crying. it's so immediately un-intimidating and i love that lmao. and how COWARDLY he is, despite being a pretty big dude. i think he doesn't perceive himself as intimidating, as some of the moments in his ytts events suggest (i'm specifically referring to when he meets mishima and is like Yikes! and then at the end mishima's like "appearances can really be deceiving huh" and alice is like "?!!??" LIKE SJDHDJ I LOVE THAT DYNAMIC FOR THEM, poor them having that issue 😭😭)

i wouldn't consider him one of my favorites but i appreciate him very much <3

—

okay, now reko– REKO'S CHARACTER FALLS INTO ONE OF MY FAVOURITE TROPES!! angry punk woman is always good（⌒▽⌒）but i also love how caring she is, an even better trope than Chaotic Angery™ is Chaotic Angery with a soft spot!!! it's very good of her and mwah i just love her.

i also think it's interesting that this more caring aspect of herself came out after alice's incarceration and that it seems to have been largely hidden from him throughout their lives?? in the flashbacks when they were kids, she seems fairly nice, but alice describes her as cold when they were adults, and he loves her so much that i trust his opinion. i really wonder what's up with that !! i don't know if i'm forgetting something that implied the cause of this harshness towards him but i'd really like to know ;; (i may be forgetting or misremembering some things, the only part of the game i've played recently is chap 3 and never with reko sjdhd)

—

it's also kinda nice how reko seems to outgrow the conventional morality thing she has going on? because she pushes alice away entirely on the basis of his murder, and that murder was very likely justifiable given that it was of the Bastardest Bastard. perhaps if alice told her the circumstances under which it'd happen, she'd understand, but alice condemned himself as harshly as (if not more than) reko so he wouldn't try to reach out to her when she was already pulling away. regardless though, reko seems to hold the general opinion that you can't just like, kill people, even if they're bad! but then she goes apeshit on rio after he kills alice so i appreciate that lol. though i'm a little upset that there's no epic cg of reko trying to whoop his ass :' we were robbed…..

robbery aside tho, i love reko!! she is one of my favourites and i'm sad that she's logical route bc that probably means she's not going to be part of the good ending (assuming there is one and that it's emotional lol)

ok so now i'm gonna talk about both of them together so this is gonna be sad. IT'S SUCH A TRAGEDY THAT THERE WAS NO OPPORTUNITY FOR THEM TO JUST BE SIBLINGS AND GOOF AROUND?? THAT MAKES ME SO SAD, I WANT THOSE INTERACTIONS THE MOST !! 😭😭 i don't know if we're gonna get them in ytts either since there is still that unresolved tension but i hope we get a taste of it! they're just both so dumb and i wanna see em be happy and just have a good time together 😭 also, reko seemed more like the leader of their duo when they were younger and i think that's a nice dynamic! it sounds endearing. reko seems like the one to say "come on bro!! let's go ___!!!!" and alice seems like he'd just listen to her, and then they'd get up to some shenanigans lol. like i could see reko getting them into a barfight HSHHDJSBSJHD. but i could also see her taking him to an abandoned building and just having a heart to heart after exploring like little kids :'D

oof, and, one of the things that hurt me most in the game was the bongos saga? i genuinely thought getting the bongos was gonna have them make up!! but then after the room of lies thing with reko happened, it dawned upon me that the real reko would not be there to receive them– not just the real reko, but a reko who had gotten a little closer to working out her feelings about alice's murder and was kinder than the one alice recalled. IT FUCKING BROKE MY HEART TO SEE HIM REJECTED LIKE THAT… i was just like "i'm not even an alice stan but i'm abt to cry right now." AND THE SHITTY TIMING OF REKO'S ABDUCTION….!! LIKE GRRR NANKIDAI WHY'D YOU DO THAT 😭😭 IT'S GENIUS BUT I WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY !

a lot of my feelings on characters and relationships in this game boil down to "i just want them to be happy!!! let them be happy!!" so the way only one or the other can survive makes me sad ;; though, i am interested in seeing how (and if, maybe) saving alice turns out to be the better choice, since it is the emotional one. it probably has more to do with the dolls' relationship to humans than alice himself but still lol. and they did get at least a little reconciliation in the end, so that's nice and good.

sorry this got so long!! thank u for the ask and for ur kind words anon (＾∇＾)

[sou-ver-2-0]

hello, your secret fan here!! although I've just realized that I probably already outed myself by liking stuff, haha,, sending another anonymous ask once again just in case though (maybe I should just... dm you... next time... haha, just kidding..,,..,,, unless?? 😳😳) I must say, I wasn't actually expecting you to reply!! Your long response literally made me vibrate while reading it, I'm not exaggerating (idk why or how you prompt such a strong reaction out of me???? what's this sorcery)

anyway, I can't wait for your next meta!! I've never really thought that much about Kugie, so I don't have a very strong opinion about her, it's a very out of sight, out of mind situation for me rn. I'm very excited as to what you have to say about her. I have something I want to discuss (know your thoughts about) regarding that emotions vs logic post, which I still love a lot. I've seen that you've already talked about Nao before, but what about Keiji??

I remember staring at the Sou vs Kanna choice for a long while when I first got to it, unsure of what to do. After a while, I realized that the game never really specified what happened if two normal commoners tied I think?? It says what happens when a sacrifice or a keymaster tie, but it never mentions two commoners tieing.

After I realized that, I kept trying to vote for Keiji lol while thinking "you can't possibly kill them both if they tie, right?????? you can't just add a new rule out of nowhere, right??? this means they can both live, right?????? p l e a s e,,". Maybe my refusal to vote for Logic or Emotion was Denial lmao, but I still wonder what would have happened if they had let us choose Keiji.

He didn't have enough votes to be in danger, I wouldn't have voted for him otherwise. But it still makes me think what if. That small "aha!!" moment filled me with so much hope. In hindsight, it would have been awful if they had killed the two in that scenario lmao, but I was so blinded by the possibility of saving them both that I didn't really give it much thought. Anyway, long ramble over!! thanks for reading haha. I might be overlooking something, I really need to replay everything.

Oh wow, I loved reading your story of how you tried so hard to save both Sou and Kanna omg! I feel your pain haha. It hits you on such a gut level how unjust this moment is. You start clawing desperately for any way out.

I think it speaks well of Sara that she lifted that responsibility from Gin’s shoulders, although she can still betray his trust by choosing poorly. But hypothetically that’s one of the kindest things Sara can do, being a good big sister to Gin by lifting that burden from him. Still, it’s rotten work for Sara and us the Player to make that choice.

As much as I love your story, I believe you’ve answered your own question! It’s most likely that both Kanna and Sou would be killed if they were tied for first place. That’s why Sara couldn’t vote for Keiji. The Floormasters always lean on the side of cruelty rather than mercy when enforcing the rules. They’re adamant that “at least” two people will die in a Main Game. 

Hell, another possibility is that the Floormasters would kill everyone in the group if they couldn’t decide on a single victim by majority vote. That’s not a spoken rule, but we can’t completely discount the possibility, can we? Since the Floormasters like throwing around the rule “Play our games properly or die as a penalty” so much. At the very least, refusal to participate in the Main Game would result in death, as we saw in the First Main Game when everyone was afraid that Kanna would be late and be punished. 

What I’m getting at, is that while it makes perfect sense for the Player to try to “test” the rules of the Death Game, to see how much they can get away with, the stakes are much too high for Sara! So I completely sympathize with you trying to vote for Keiji in order to “trick” the Floormasters, but there is no way Sara could personally take that risk. This is another case showing how the Player and Sara are in fundamentally different worlds. 

Another thought:

Something significant about YTTD as a game is that it mostly has a linear narrative so far. Nankidai has a specific direction in mind for where he wants to take the story, regardless of the player’s choices. This is especially true in Chapter 1, where Sara’s votes don’t matter. Who did you vote for in the Practice Round? It doesn’t matter; Mishima always dies. Who did you vote for in the First Main Game? It doesn’t matter; Joe and Kai always die. 

The story doesn’t branch significantly until we get to Chapter 2, when our actions finally determine which characters live and die. But even so, as of Chapter 3-1A, the different story branches still parallel each other closely. Whether Alice or Reko survived, they both act as “tough, competent” team members, and they perform the same actions in fights. Whether Kanna or Sou survived, they’re both the “spunky waifs” in the group and they also act similarly in fights.

I’ll compare this kind of storytelling to Undertale, since that’s a popular game most people know about. In Undertale, the Player gets to choose from the get-go which characters live and which characters die. So the story has the potential to branch in different ways pretty quickly! This shows how Undertale’s protagonist is more of a blank slate for the Player to project onto, while YTTD’s protagonist has her own personality separate from the Player. We can influence Sara, but there are always going to be some choices she’ll refuse to make.

And that’s all I can think of to say on that! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, Anon. You don’t need to feel so awkward; I love talking about this stuff. :)

(I am a sorcerer though! You got me!!)

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Sarazanmai Episode 4: “I Want To Connect, But You’re So Far Away”

Or maybe I should say, ‘I Want To Connect, But You’re Soba Away”? :V

There’s a whole lot going on in this episode, but above all else I’m gonna have the scene with Mabu saying ‘that’s yesterday’s noodle’ stuck in my head for the next while.

tfw you’re yesterday’s noodle u_u

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

In this episode of Sarazanmai, we learn that on being a teenage drug dealer, Toi has also literally murdered a dude before. Which actually isn’t all that surprising, considering that we’ve already seen him waterboarding a dude with his brother before.

It sure does say a lot about this show that you can say that the reveal of one of the main characters having shot someone when he was a child is almost underwhelming because you’ve already seen him torture a dude, lmao.

I did really like how all of the flashback sequences were handled in this episode, though, especially the secret leaking sequence. This episode in particular makes me feel like I’m missing out because I haven’t watched Penguindrum yet, since everyone says that Nobuyuki Takeuchi [the episode director for this episode and one of the head directors on this show as a whole] was responsible for the best episode of it. But I know him mostly for his work on the first season of Bakemonogatari, and at the very least I can say that you can REALLY tell he worked on that show as well. Especially with all the shots of urban environments and cityscapes and whatnot.

The only thing that really felt weird about the flashbacks was how it felt like Kouki Uchiyama barely tried to change his voice even when he was voicing Toi as a little kid, so that immediately sounded kinda weird and jarring. But other than that it was all great.

You could piece together the gist of Toi and Chikai’s relationship from what we’d already seen of them, but it was nice to get a deep dive into exactly what’s going on. So basically Chikai got involved in gang stuff, stole money from another gangster to pay off his family’s debts, which lead to Toi shooting that dude, and now Toi is trying to become part of the criminal underworld so that he can stay near his brother, even while Chikai is clearly trying to push him away so he can live a normal life.

We’ve technically already heard it from the first PVs ages ago, but Toi’s whole monologue about how anything and everything can disappear and be forgotten is even more interesting now with the whole context of how whenever each kappa zombie gets defeated, they very literally get erased from existence, and from the memories of people who knew them, and even from stuff like photos they were in.

And on the note of kappa zombies, this week’s one was another mostly unimportant background character who was a bit of a sexual deviant that got caught by Reo and Mabu and made into a kappa zombie. It at least continues the trend of the zombie of the week being some sort of a foil to the character being focused on, since this whole episode was about Toi’s history with his family’s soba shop, and the kappa zombie was someone who ran a different soba store, and who basically had a fetish for wanting to use his girlfriend’s bathwater to make a giant soba bowl for them to soak in. With how all of the zombies are silly and exaggerated versions of the sorts of desires that the main characters have, you can see how it relates to Toi wanting to protect his family’s soba shop and live with his brother.

Everyone keeps saying that episode six will be where things really get shaken up plot-wise, but I feel like the next episode might also be pretty interesting, going by what Reo and Mabu talked about with them wondering if they should change things up.

And on the topic of the next episode, I’m hoping that we actually get to see Kazuki’s whole ‘let’s literally kidnap Sara so I can take her place at the handshake meeting all so that I can keep up the weird ruse I have going on with Haruka’ mission play out. It sounds so incredibly bonkers that I just want to see how it goes.

It’s kinda funny that, considering what this episode was actually about for the most part, pretty much everything Kazuki does feels more strange and unsettling than anything Toi’s done. I think it’s mostly because Toi’s motives are spelled out very explicitly, and he doesn’t try and hide any of it, whereas Kazuki’s one big complicated mess of mysterious motivations and feelings. And even though Toi has fully committed to being a criminal, Kazuki is in this uncomfortably creepy grey area where he clearly doesn’t want to acknowledge that anything he’s doing is bad, but he’s also completely willing to happily tell Toi about how he wants him to help him kidnap Sara. He even had a whole map printed out to help illustrate the very specific plan he wants the two of them to go through with to make it happen, which includes Toi knocking Sara’s manager out and locking him somewhere where he won’t bother them. There’s just something distinctly creepy about the boundaries Kazuki crosses and the attitude he has about it, and I kinda love it.

While I’m thinking about it, I should also say that I’m starting to think that Kazuki is very intentionally using his Sara disguise to manipulate Toi. I think he’s already figured out that Toi has a bit of a crush on him, at least in his Sara outfit, and this episode really makes it seem like he’s exploiting that to his benefit. The part where he runs up and hugs Toi stands out in particular, since he didn’t really have any specific reason to be so pushy and suggestive about it. Before the episode came out and we just had the preview images, I thought it’d be the sort of scene where, for example, Kazuki is running from someone and ropes Toi into acting like his boyfriend or whatever, which would have explained the sudden hug and the hushed explanation of what he wants Toi to do, but nah. He just did that, entirely of his own volition, instead of just walking up to him and talking like a normal person. In general he seems to be having a lot of fun getting into the Sara persona when he’s alone with Toi, which I think is very telling in a lot of ways.

I really hope that some sort of a legit love triangle starts to develop here, if only because I think it’ll lead to a lot of juicy drama, and tbh it’d feel a bit weird if a lot of this stuff didn’t actually go anywhere.

And as yet another element of Kazuki being surprisingly hard to understand, we have the whole post-credits stinger scene of him giving his dish to Toi and finally revealing that he actually hates Haruka.

There’s a lot of ways this can go, so for the most part I’m just gonna wait and see, but I agree with basically everyone else that my initial guess is that it’s probably some sort of resentment toward Haruka because of the special attention and accommodations that have to be given to him because of his disability. Which would also make sense based on how apparently the light novel makes it a bit more clear that whatever happened to Haruka might have been a relatively recent accident, and so it might have been a much more disruptive and unexpected force in Kazuki’s life.

As a disabled person, this sort of topic always hits really close to home with me, in some really uncomfortable ways, so even though I’m excited to see where it goes, and I have faith that Ikuhara will handle it well, I’m still kinda apprehensive. It’s not like it’s an unrealistic or ‘bad’ topic to write about, but it just always makes me uncomfortable and self-conscious when stories have able-bodied characters that resent disabled people they know because of their special needs. The fact that Kazuki’s the cagey and neurotic one while Haruka is just a normal little kid who clearly wants to just have a normal relationship with his brother gives me hope that it hopefully shouldn’t at least devolve into straight-up ableism territory.

Either way, I’m excited to see where the next episode goes.

And on a side note, in a few weeks I’m probably going to be importing the ReoMabu prequel manga. I really want to get the light novel as well, but I think I’ll wait until I can at least order both volumes of it at the same time.

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam España, S1 episode 1 reaction

Aka how to troll the part of your audience that’s seen this story seven times.

Sorry this is late, but it took me longer to write this because there were a lot of changes, and that means more to talk about! Skam España surprised me at how much it diverged from the source material. It’s hitting the same beats, of course, but it felt much more like a remix of the original than a remake, if you follow me. 

Thanks to everyone who subs and uploads clips and other content for the non-Spanish audience! You are the best for taking the time to do that for the fandom.

Episode 1

Intro 

So this wasn’t in a clip, but it was included at the beginning of the full episode. We get the iconic intro speech, except this time it’s from Eva. And not Eva reading Jonas’ words, it seems, but Eva herself talking about teenagers presenting a happy appearance that masks their insecurities and loneliness. It’s very fitting for her character and taps into some areas that directly affect her, such as wanting to be liked but not knowing how, struggling with her studies, and not knowing who she is. I’m glad she got to give this speech. 

And actually, I think it’s important that she didn’t give this speech within a clip itself, to an audience of her boyfriend. It’s like she’s talking to us and only us, the audience, and no one in her life knows what she’s thinking or the full extent of her insecurities.

Clip 1 - And now for something completely different

Spanish Jonas (Jorge) doesn’t get his opening monologue but he does get the first words, though they’re very casual, about diving in the pool.

There’s some obvious framing here with Eva and Jorge sitting together on one side across from Lucas on his own, setting up their third wheel dynamic.

Jorge and Lucas tease Eva, like in the original, but it’s very much a good-natured thing, not something that makes her uncomfortable or feel bad. However, I do think you can read into the dialogue - Eva not knowing how to dive in head first is like her lacking confidence or not being able to take initiative.

We get a focus on Lucas’ uncomfortable face as loud smacking kissy sounds play. I’m always mixed on when the remakes focus a lot of the Isak’s discomfort with Eva/Jonas, because it seems to give too much away. A longing look is OK, maybe, but a moment that wouldn’t be noted from Eva’s POV seems too much. Still, that was a nice way to shoot it, and Lucas gets in some nice facial expressions. And at least there’s ambiguity as to why Lucas is not here for it. At this stage it doesn’t mean he likes Jorge; he could like Eva, or he could just feel bored with his friends making out or lonely that they’re paired off, without having romantic feelings for either of them.

Random detail but I love all the dirt and grass on Jorge’s pants when he gets up. 

This is a cute bit of dialogue between Eva and Jorge with him predicting her future. I don’t think this is the case but I would loooove if Spanish P-Chris was Jorge’s height and had curly hair, just for his prediction to happen, just not in the way Jorge means.

I would also love if the money and house on the beach ended up being references to the school trip.

Eva’s future dog being named Nymeria is a reference to Arya’s direwolf from Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire.

This closing image is VERY different. In the other versions of the opening clip Eva ends up alone, setting up her isolation and loneliness. In this one, we close on her and Jorge together, kissing and being intimate, after he’s told her that he’ll be there for her.

Actually, I want to talk about what all the changes in the opening could mean for the season. Hopefully the show takes these changes into account and goes somewhere with them, rather than developing relationships and clips differently but ending up in the same place just because, you know?

So here’s what’s different in the first clip:

Jorge doesn’t have any of that air of condescension that Jonas did, and he and Lucas banter with Eva in a friendly way without any serious insults. (I mean I guess she could be really bothered by them poking fun at her lack of diving ability but lmao, that’s not the same as poking fun at her grades or intelligence.)

We haven’t seen Ingrid or Sara yet and don’t get a hint as to the friction between Eva and them. We do learn that Eva worries about the first day of school but like … there could be literally any reason for that at this point. 

We didn’t hear anything about Jorge hanging out or going to Elias’ and there’s no clip later that night where he’s being shady about his whereabouts. 

Jorge is extremely kind and supportive, telling Eva that he’ll be with her if there are any problems. But we know that he won’t be able to fulfill this promise, so it’ll feel like an extra slap in the face when he disappoints.

Clip 2 - First day of school

Eva is alone this time… and a lot of people walking into the school are in pairs, including two girls swinging their hands together. Sure is a great reminder of how you lost your BFF.

We do get the Ingrid slow-mo death glare in this clip. “Jungle” by X Ambassadors and Jamie N Commons is a good song choice, on the nose, but Eva does feel like she’s heading into the jungle. High school as dangerous terrain is a common but well-deserved trope, like in Mean Girls with the wildlife comparisons played for humor.

Lol and Jorge notices Ingrid (Inés) and her pals, too, then goes back to kissing Eva.

So Lucas interrupts them making out, but he’s with some other boys! Are they setting up the boy squad this early? Is one of them supposed to be Elias? They seem like kind of a cute, doofy squad.

You can tell Eva feels increasingly left out as the boys are wrapped up in a discussion that doesn’t involve her, they’re talking more to Jorge than her and mostly not even looking at her when they tell the story. Although not gonna lie, the story the boys are telling seems kind of inoffensive, not isolating or uncomfortable in itself. I think it’s mostly that she doesn’t have a squad like this herself and has to hang around her boyfriend’s.

And Lucas goes over to her to talk and specifically asks her to the show on Friday, awwww. Unless you think he did it to stir up shit since Jorge forgot to tell her about the show.

Because Jorge forgot to tell her about it, Eva probably won’t be able to get a ticket. So it’s not that Eva invites him somewhere first (like in the original), it’s that he’s already got a thing and that she’s excluded from it. She says she’s cool with it but of course it’s just another small way she’s left out.

Eva ends up outside of the conversation, literally. The boys turn away from her and get engrossed in their own stuff. I was wondering how this was going to go because in the first clip, Jorge was so supportive and she and Lucas seemed tight, and it made a point of showing her together and not being alone. But lmao, teenage boys are maybe not great at living up to their promises.

There was another post about this, but there was a weird zoom on Eva at the end of this clip that felt like someone’s finger slipped on the camera or something. Felt like it needed another take. I hope it was a weird but intentional choice rather than sloppiness. 

Clip 3 - Mystery girl

Eva is sitting alone and SHIT, we see the Sana character walk by! Hajar Brown, her actress, is awesome. She features in her own Skam homage, please watch (this version has English subtitles). I’m really happy that she can be part of this project.

It seems that Spanish Sana (Amira) is wearing hijab for the first time, which was mentioned in the show synopsis. The other girl says Amira didn’t wear it last year. It’ll be interesting if we hear more from Amira herself on this development.

Also, did we ever hear people openly talking badly like this about Sana so early in the show? Because obviously we had Vilde running her mouth, and similarly ignorant comments from people like the biology teacher, but until S4 I don’t think we ever witnessed random students gossiping about her like this. I might just be blanking on some of the OG moments, but here we get to see Amira react directly to random hurtful comments.

And of course there’s Lara.

I was really thrown by this clip because it seems very soon to introduce the Noora. As we all know, she makes a more dramatic entrance later on. And yet they have this character wearing Noora’s signature red lipstick, in an extremely Noora-ish outfit, come in and sit next to Eva in a scene very similar to Noora and Eva in episode 3 of OG S1 (and most of the remakes). Except … this character says she’s Lara. From the press release, Skam España’s Noora is supposed to be called, well … Nora. I was so confused. I clearly heard her introduce herself as “Lara” but I figured I was just hearing wrong and somehow she said Nora?

Anyway, Skam Spain fucked with everyone’s expectations by introducing a Noora expy, with the same personal style, with a scene similar to one of Noora’s first, only not to make her the Noora … just to throw everyone off? Because honestly, I applaud them if this is the case. Keeping everyone on their toes.

My guess so far is that she might be Sara, or a Sara equivalent. She might befriend Inés and end up shunning Eva because she hears all about what a bad friend Eva is.

Anyway, Lara makes an impression right away for Eva, talking a lot about herself.  She’s certainly not shy, and she’s got an interest in theater and photography. She seems a bit humble-braggy, like her GPA is so good that she can do whatever she wants! She seems to have the confidence Eva lacks. If she’s unsure of herself, it’s because she wants too much.

And then Lucas comes in to talk about school elections, setting us up for the Vilde and the russ equivalent of this show. He doesn’t get her name right but he clearly means Viri. Viri is the only one running for president so better just hand off the position to the person who wants it.

Eva checks out Lara, like all Evas do with Nooras, but lmao, this ain’t Noora.

Clip 4 - Eva at home

Eva is doing homework when she gets the urge to check Instagram and ends up scrolling through Inés’ pics wistfully.

Eva’s mom says she’s going to the hospital so I assume she’s a doctor/nurse/medical professional? If she’s working shifts that conflict with Eva’s schedule, that makes sense as to how Eva could be left alone and have a distant relationship with her mom.

Eva gets a little smile on her face when she views Lara’s profile.

Did Eva actually hit the follow button for Lara or not? I couldn’t tell.

Tbh it’s pretty interesting to see the difference in the Evas’ rooms across remakes. For instance, Spanish Eva has pretty light and sparkles and the word LOVE suspended above her bed, whereas in the Dutch remake, Dutch Eva sleeps under the word FUCK.

So this is clearly taking on Eva’s friending Noora saga, but Lara ain’t Noora, so again, what’s going on? What if Lara’s IG reveals her as a huge weirdo and Eva realizes she doesn’t want to be friends with her?

Skam Spain is trolling everyone and I love it. 

Clip 5 - Hello Viri and ALEJANDROOOOOO

Eva is sitting alone in front of the windowsill and skimming through Instagram when Lara shows up! She’s happy to see Eva because she doesn’t know where her next class is. Eva is obviously overjoyed to see her and volunteers to show her where the classroom is. Eva is positively beaming at her. Like she’s in loooooove. But Eva barely gets a second of Lara’s attention before Elvira, aka Viri, aka Spanish Vilde runs up and introduces herself as the class president.

Lara’s outfit seems noticeably less Noora-ish this time around.

Lara shoots Eva a look when Viri is talking, and I don’t know what to make of it. Annoyed at Viri’s attitude? Annoyed that Viri interrupted her moment with Eva? Not annoyed, just trying to check out Eva? IDK, man.

Viri is super grateful that she’s been elected (even though everyone just voted for her because she wanted the job) and is eager to get activities rolling and to get people involved. Lara semi-cuts Viri off from her excited ramble.

We pull back on Viri and get a wide shot … I don’t really know why.

Viri says she’s new, so I guess she doesn’t know Cris that well, which is a big change. Vilde and Chris have always been friends, Chris is the one who’s been her friend all along, but Cris isn’t tagging along with Viri on her quest to recruit more people as in the other versions of this scene. I wonder how they met?

Viri calls Cris “the pretty one” and while I think Ina/original Chris is beautiful, Chris has never been framed as an attractive character in canon so I’m wondering what they’re going to do with this. Cris is also surrounded by people so she seems like a popular, well-liked person. It makes you wonder how she got roped into hanging with the weird girls in school.

Lara says she’s in if Eva is, and Eva agrees. WHAT ARE YOU DOING SKAM SPAIN. You got your Noora in my Lara??? Except Noora only agreed to go to the russ meeting when Sana did. For Lara, it’s Eva she needs to also go. On that note, Lara sure seems into Eva. And Eva agrees because she wants to spend time with Lara...

Viri’s mom is having a meeting, or “meeting,” so maybe they’re going with the same backstory for her as Vilde.

She cuts herself off as she notices William - Alejandro - through the window, and like, if they had named this character Alejandro but not played Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” at some point, I would have felt cheated. I feel like they could have timed or edited the scene better to make it funnier, but I did still appreciate the effort.

I saw people upset that this William looks like an embryo but I’m fine with it. I can completely get why he would be considered a cute boy on campus among these 16/17-year-olds.

Please note Viri’s facial expressions as she takes him in. It looks like she’s glitching. 

She’s so turned on by Alejandro that she’s grabbing Eva’s leg.

LOL at Alejandro looking straight at the camera just to smolder. Wow. I’m imagining that this is just a thing he does on purpose, walk around Blue Steeling into invisible cameras.

Is it just me or does he look a bit like Mikael from the original show? Just … floppier?

Clip 6 - Damn, Inés 

I think that’s Amira walking across the screen out of focus at the start.

Eva walks up to see Inés hanging out with some girls, the reluctance on her face. And then she sees Lara with them, and the despair crosses her face. Fuuuuuck, this budding friendship is over before it really started. (WAS I RIGHT? I knewwwww it! Lara is going to get turned off by hearing Inés tell her side of the story, and she won’t want to be Eva’s friend. Then the girl squad will step up.)

Getting mild Darlene from Mr. Robot vibes from Inés. Except less unkempt. 

Eva going up and talking to Inés in broad daylight, at school, totally sober? Brave, very brave.

We get a closeup of Inés’ face when Eva talks to her so it can sink in that whatever happened with them didn’t hurt only Eva - it’s Eva who seems to be at fault. It’s POV breakage that we maybe didn’t need consider the rest of the scene also establishes that Inés is really hurt by what Eva did, but it did help show Inés as more vulnerable.

Ouch. Inés is right to be pissed (as we know her reasons) but she’s ice cold to Eva, especially with making her repeat that Eva will never be around her again. That is really harsh, worse than any “your eye makeup makes you look like a slut” comments. 

Clip 7 - Interrupted by dancing dudes

Cris is seen leaving the school ahead of Eva and Jorge. I like that they’re planting the major characters around the school, casually showing them going about their lives. I mean maybe they were just filming other scenes that day and used all of the actors they had on set, lmao, but it feels realistic.

Jorge meets Eva and seems supportive, she’s not alone walking out of school this time. But she spies Inés again outside, there’s eye contact, and Eva is clearly upset over what happened earlier. Even Jorge notices.

She doesn’t want to open up to him, he keeps asking her to open up, and just when it seems like she might tell him, he gets a notification of his friends being goofballs and watches them on his phone.

Jorge promises to be all Eva’s tomorrow, and lol somehow I think it’s a promise made to be broken.

Clip 8 - Sad blue-tinted lonely Friday clip

Eva is hanging out in her kitchen heating up food in her not-leaving-the-house attire, alone, not doing anything on Friday night. She gets a text from Jorge and looks at all the fun her boyfriend and his friends are having at their concert.

She watches it fondly and sends him some texts back, then goes back to that solitary microwave life.

Viri sends a message asking if someone can host the end of the year trip meeting. Eva goes back to munching. But we know what she’s really hungry for ... is friendship. 😎

Clip 9 - Goddammit Jorge

Eva is on the sidelines watching Jorge play football. You know, not that you can’t support your significant other, but being a teenage girl and watching your boyfriend be active while you sit there watching is maybe not the most fun activity? Let’s be honest, would a lot of these teenage boys sit and watch their girlfriends play a game together, one that wasn’t like an “official” game for school or anything, and cheer them on while not participating themselves? Girls are expected to support their boyfriends’ activities in a way that frankly is not reciprocal.

Lucas comes up behind the bleachers, wearing sunglasses and doing this face that would probably be meme-worthy if it were more in focus. Like he actually does that peer over the top of the sunglasses look. And I was like, lmao, why is the fuck is he doing that, but then I realized he was probably checking out Jorge.

Jorge comes up to Eva all drenched with water and sweat so you know Lucas is taking advantage of his sunglasses to peep that manly sight.

It sure didn’t take long for Jorge to go back on his promise. Jorge makes a comment about wanting to go home and sleep, Eva says they were supposed to hang out today, he’s like “well I’m going to play video games with the boys, but you can come if you want.” Lmao this is uncharitable but I’m imagining he means “you can come and watch” not “you can come and participate.”  

She suggests they go out together and he’s like, nah, do that shit yourself. Wow, so supportive. And yet a realistic depiction of dating high school boys. He tells her she’ll make a bunch of friends soon and forget all about him, which is sweet, except if you think that later, in the tradition of past Jonases, he’s going to get all miffed about the school trip and be passive-aggressive to Eva about her activities and friends? Less sweet.

I just want to mention that Lucas is oh so casually lying there and soaking in all of this dialogue. Noticing that Jorge is ditching Eva. Not saying a word, but you know. Absorbing this information, in case it’s pertinent.

Jorge asks Lucas if Eva is a good catch, for reassurance, and he pauses before commenting on her hat. Well, he can’t exactly say he doesn’t know, can he?

Jorge and Eva kiss before Jorge gets called back to his game, and Lucas asks Eva what Jorge tastes like, L O L. She answers sweat. We see Eva, deflated now that Jorge has bailed (like “I came to watch you and put on this hat and now you don’t even want to hang out?”) while right beside her, Lucas has … a look. That sweat comment will fuel his fantasies, don’t lie. 

I mean I’m going to be honest, my attention was focused on Lucas instead of Eva at the end, since I was trying to see if he had a ~meaningful look.

Clip 10 - Class trip meeting

This is pretty easily inferred since Eva is desperate to be social but she volunteered her house off screen via text message.

Viri is super hyped about this meeting even though it’s apparently only going to be her, Eva, Cris, and Cris’ friend. She thinks more people will want to come to their meetings once their project gets off the ground. I think she is concerned about popularity, but not gonna lie, I’m getting less “social climber” vibes from her and more “type-A overachiever.” But I guess she could be both!

Ding dong! Who’s at the door? Why it’s Cris, and she brought Amira! Good God, the way the smile drops off Viri’s face when she sees a Muslim is in her presence. She greets Amira and all, but Viri looks like she’s been told her puppy got run over.

She backtracks from Mallorca, and when Amira asks why, Viri’s like, well it’s all beach. Holy shit, Viri, have you never seen Muslims on a beach? Cris is “just like wear a burkini,” Amira says she’ll get one, and even Cris seems to have a moment where she has to backtrack. It’s like she mentioned the burkini as a joke but didn’t take it seriously. Amira clearly is a bit exasperated by this turn of conversation. Like it’s othering to her, she has to hold these people’s hands. 

See I’m really curious about the nature of this trip, because when you say “school trip” I’m coming from my own experience, and I think of like a trip with adult chaperones, guided activities and tours, strict supervision. Partying and sex do happen, but it’s not a free-for-all where the students are running around on their own. What Viri is describing seems more like a casual beach trip? How much independence would the students have? Obviously this is a different culture than my own (and a lot of the strict chaperoning on US school trips comes from wanting to curb underage drinking, which wouldn’t be a problem here) and I’m not familiar with how Spanish schools operate these kinds of excursions, but I’m trying to figure out what are Viri’s plans for this trip.

@skammovistarplus explains some context behind the trip in this post.

Viri gets happy about her trip again and starts talking about it, and she very obviously looks back and forth from Cris to Eva as she talks about it, not making eye contact with Amira. The camera in this part of the scene is pulled back so we can see just how excluded and distant Amira is from this conversation, almost like we’re in her shoes.

Amira talks a lot of sense and says more people should get involved in trip planning. I mean, yeah, otherwise just plan a trip among yourselves and leave the school out of it? Seems easier. 

The doorbell rings again, Eva thinks it’s Lara, but when she opens the door it’s …. Nora! Also wearing red lipstick.

Amira gave Nora the address so they’re already acquainted. That’s a change, Nora joining the group because of Amira. Noora said she wanted to get to know Sana better, but Eva was also the one who got her acquainted with the other girls.

This clip cuts off right at Nora’s introduction, and I can’t help but laugh at the context? It’s kind of dramatic, though less in the full episode. Like if I knew nothing about this show, I’d be like … is this supposed to be some twin shenanigans??? Is one of them the good twin and the other the bad twin? Lara and Nora? But I guess this moment is for the existing Skam fans. It’s …. Nora! The one you thought was Nora was emphatically not Nora! Plot twist!

This was the least gay Noora introduction, though.

Clip 11 - More meeting

There was a post about the clips and problems with the length and timing and I completely agree that posting multiple shorter clips is not good. If they keep doing this, it will minimize emotional investment - we won’t be able to sink into a scene without them cutting it off at a certain point. I guess Viri and Amira have been arguing for like an hour which I’m sure was enjoyable to witness for the other girls.

Viri is getting cringy, like I thought she did an OK job of Tracy Flicking it up but she’s getting OTT in a theater kid kind of way. Stress will do that to you.

So I guess a Mr Wonderful notebook is just a brand of notebook with cheesy motivational sayings, and Viri talks like that earnestly, lmao.

Amira thinks they need cool girls to be at the meeting, like Inés. Eva is affected by this. Nora seems to notice.

Nora is from Madison, Wisconsin, holy shit. As a Midwesterner I am rolling on the floor.

I have been to Madison, Wisconsin. It’s a very nice city! I love Wisconsin! I recommend visiting the cheese castle! But it’s just funny that Nora the cool girl is from a place that’s as mundane as Wisconsin. Like there’s that storyline from Love Actually where the awkward guy thinks he can get laid in America just by having a British accent, so he books a ticket to America, to a “fantastic place” called Wisconsin. That’s the joke. It’s supposed to be funny because it’s Wisconsin.

Hajar Brown does a good job as Amira, I like her. She points out that they’re all losers who have nothing better to do on Saturday so they’re at this meeting. Viri says they’re not weird, they’re unique, and Cris asks what about twins, and Nora seems to laugh at herself. SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT HER AND LARA BEING TWINS… the secret will come out.

Why is Cris here, anyway? I get why the other four would be weirdos and hanging out together - Eva has been shunned, Viri is a racist Hermione, Amira is Muslim, and Nora is the new girl in town - but Cris seems, frankly, not a lot like original Chris and appeared to have some other friends in our first glimpse of her.  What’s her deal?

Nora asks why the cool girls would want to come to them and Amira’s like, well, you’re very pretty, Nora. Eva, you could be pretty if you wore some makeup. L M A O. I think Amira was saying that to fuck with Viri, since she gave her a considering look before moving on to Eva, and Viri looked offended, but lol, as if the four who are supposed to flirt aren’t all pretty, skinny, conventionally attractive girls. (I mean, I hate debates over which characters are the best looking, I just don’t give a shit, but if you ask me, Nora is not noticeably prettier than the other girls. Tbh I kinda didn’t like that they changed it to Nora from Eva since, if they follow the rest of the show, Noora was so singled out for being special and attractive among the girls anyway.) 

Viri is beside herself with rage at how this meeting turned out.

Lara never showed so presumably she heard all about Eva’s history from Inés. She also leaves the trip group chat later.

Clip 12 - Eva spies Jorge

Eva is guiding Nora to her bus an hour later. Nora questions whether there will be another meeting and Eva says she supposes not because they don’t have anything in common. Nora says nay, they’re the weirdos at school. It’s cute.

I was about to ask what was the point of this scene since, other than a moment between Eva and Nora, it’s not adding much, but then “Jungle” kicks in again, a bus goes by, and Eva sees Jorge on that bus. Looking like he is talking to a girl. Who may be Inés. Eva realizes she’s been duped! Dramaaaaaa!

That does appear to be the same shiny backpack that Inés had earlier in the episode.

General Comments:

Regardless of execution, in a lot of ways this is what I want from a Skam remake? If I can’t have brand new stories and characters, I’d like to see remixes of the scenes with new dialogue and focus. Very little of the dialogue was taken straight from Skam, iconic moments were left out, new plot elements were introduced. So it makes me want to keep watching to see what else they do.

Unless Skam Spain has a different contract than the other remakes, so far it’s ripping holes in the idea that the remakes were required to be exactly the same as the original.

They sure crammed three episodes into one. I will give them credit, though, it didn’t feel rushed for the most part. I think the girls’ meeting suffered the most since we basically had to meet a bunch of characters at once (only Viri had really been introduced), whereas in the original we’d gotten a solid scene with all of the girls by the time of the meeting and had an inkling as to their personalities. However, the Jorge stuff and Inés and the other elements felt fine, pacing-wise. I love S1′s beginning episodes and things like the cabin episode, but they can easily be condensed if needed.

There was controversy over Chris being skinny in this version, and just to go over that - this isn’t the first version of Skam that’s had a thinner Chris, Druck and Skam Austin had Chrises who weren’t fat, Skam NL does too. I think Skam España got the most flack for this because the Chrises in Druck and Skam Austin were WOC, and while race and body size are two different areas of representation, those characters were still members of an underrepresented group. Skam NL has a thinner white Chris, but it also has the first Noora who’s a WOC so the girl squad has additional diversity besides the Sana character. So I think it’s a combo of everyone being thin + everyone other than Amira being white that made Skam España get criticism in particular.

I do think it is disappointing that all the main girls appear to be thin, because overall I think the various Skams have done a decent job of showing girls with a variety of shapes - not just in terms of skinny or fat, but even the “thin” characters often have different body types than are often seen on TV. And I hope there are more POC in the cast later. That’s all I really want to say about it at the time. 

I mentioned this in my Skam NL recap, too, but I think so many characters are called Lucas because it’s a religious name that can be used for symbolism, like Isak.

I feel like some of the more technical aspects are off, like camerawork/editing, and the acting overall is mixed, but it does feel like a down-to-earth low-budget production that cast actual teenagers and that’s my jam, so I am very willing to cut it some slack in this regard.

Some highlights of social media: Lucas posting a shit-stirring #TBT post with him, Eva, and Inés, that’s pretty cold, dude. Eva and Lucas taking turns third wheeling in it group photos.

@skammovistarplus is writing some awesome posts detailing some of the cultural aspects in the clips, go check it out!

I’m not Spanish so if I misunderstand something, feel free to let me know!

Thank you for reading!

[nightslain]

SHIPPING INFO !! Answer the following for your muse so people know how shipping works on your blog.

WHAT IS YOUR OTP FOR YOUR CHARACTER[S]?:

Leon has been alive like 3 days he has nobody yet ya’ll LOL but I am definitely interested in the potential the fandom also sees for his relationship with Mathias, even if that is inevitably destined for failure one way or the other, but I don’t mind that? I enjoy exploring not only successful and long lasting relationships but those that crumble down the line and end in tragedy or even with the two becoming enemies just as much, and you know I’m Weak As All Hell for villain/hero ships. It’s ripe for the exploration of tragedy, complexity and emotional gravity. Obviously his canon ship with Sara is one thing too, and he clearly loved her very dearly if he was willing to take on a vampire with theoretically his bare hands for her LMAO SO WE CANNOT FORGET THAT and I wish a little more time could be spent devoted to their relationship as well in the series for us to measure it more tactfully. But she’s also dead af now so tbh it seems Leon is just not fortunate in the romance department you guys. He put all his stats into combat skills. 

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO WRITE WHEN IT COMES TO SHIPPING?

The standard stuff you’d expect I guess. I am willing to explore and stretch my wings as it were in a ship in search of more interesting dynamics than just being blissfully in love, which is why I have a leaning towards more dramatic scenarios as listed above lmao. But I do just as much enjoy a couple who can just be happy and have an easy-going relationship with NO DRAMA LOL WE NEED BALANCE. But it is a firm rule of mine that everything that happens regardless of the context or dynamic needs to stay consensual and of age.

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE?:

If the character is underage then it is unacceptable regardless of any other contributing factors, simple as. In a more general sense, I prefer ships where everyone is at least in their twenties or above, but apart from those hang-ups though? Age gaps of any size after that cap don’t much bother me, given all parties involved are willing, informed and consenting adults.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING?:

Somewhat! I don’t just ship with whoever comes along, that’s for sure. I like to build some rapport and chemistry between myself and the mun as well as our muses at least for a while before the possibility of ship is going to be explored. It happens quicker sometimes more than others and really does just depend how well I gel with a person as a whole. I usually know quite soon if I would entertain a ship with a person albeit, just based on their personality and conduct.

HOW FAR DO STEAMY MOMENTS HAVE TO GO BEFORE THEY ARE CONSIDERED NS/FW?:

As soon as the moment is actually steamy enough to warrant hitting up that NSFW tag pretty much. All the preamble of kisses and wandering hands and whatnot doesn’t really qualify for that as far as I’m concerned. It’s not until things take a turn for the truly graphic that I tend to bust out the read-more’s.

WHO ARE OTHER THE CHARACTERS YOU SHIP YOUR CHARACTER WITH?:

Nobody right now! I haven’t really seen any potential for ships even in the plotting stages with other muses just yet or any chemistry bubbling under the surface that suggests there might be. We’ll come back in a few months and see if that has changed at all. And we’d be here for ages if I delved into all my other muses and their potential other ships LOL but needless to say, ships come from the funniest and most unexpected of places, so it’ll be interesting to see if anything similarly wild brews over here in the coming times.

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU?:

Yes! Hints will probably either fly over my head or I’ll just assume you’re not serious about it if they aren’t upfront enough to express a desire to ship and we will just go in circles for eternity lmao. All my ships have come about just by one person or the other expressing it in plain terms that hey, these two are great together and I think it could work, and I’ve almost always been inclined to agree! With my very close friends though, it’s pretty much a given I’ll say yes to giving a ship a whirl and signing away another fragment of my dying soul to them forevermore.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU LIKE TO SHIP?:

With my friends? Any amount of time, any amount of ships; given the muses involved are multiship and available or otherwise just inclined towards having relationships in the first place. I love exploring ship dynamics with my partners since they make the experience such an utter joy and always surprise me with the things we end up brewing together. With newer folks I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to shipping in general.

ARE YOU SHIP OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE-OR-LESS?:

Ya girl is very ship obsessed and I treasure all my individual ships very deeply. If I feel that you’re cool with me spamming songs or quotes or whatnot to your DMs all the time, boy I sure will, and a good amount of my time online is spent discussing the various relations my muses have built with others. They’re such a fulfilling and rewarding thing to have and I cherish them all, as well as the people that have given me the pleasure of being their shipping partner in the first place. I love ships, I love my ship partners, I love the magical things we can create when we put our heads together. Just a whole lot of love, you guys.

ARE YOU MULTISHIP?:

Depends on the muse! Some of my muses are singleship, some are only single ship in their main verse, but most of them are still very much on the multiship market and staying there for the foreseeable future.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM?:

I HAVENT CHOSEN ONE FOR CASTLEVANIA YET ACTUALLY LMAO. Actually Drac x Lisa makes me cry real tears but we all know how that ended. And pretty much all my fandoms except VKC have like no fodder for ships I’d be interested in backing. Robehira is forever though.

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH YOU?:

Approach me! Talk to me, plot with me, laugh and joke with me, just make friends with me in the most general of senses. The more approachable we are to one another, the more likely there will be room for something to start bubbling in our muse’s relationships too. As I said before, pretty much all my ships come from people who I spent a lot of my time talking to, plotting with and making friends with, whereas ships that came from more casual acquaintances always fell through because they simply lacked the magic and depth that my other ships carried with them. My friends at this point by contrast only have to say the word and I’m probably already aboard, and that’s because I already know they’ll make it a truly wonderful experience. In short, communication is key!

Tagged: @pennadus ❤❤

Tagging: whoever has not done it yet LOL

[bigskydreaming]

notjustawave replied to your post:

If the only evidence of a character not being...

me seeing ppl act like deadpool movies are the pinnacle of representation like i HAVE to laugh

Like....we’ve been hearing this “oh, progress takes baby steps, one little thing at a time” crap for our entire lives, and guess what? With the exception of representation created by actual marginalized creators who manage to get a platform for it against all odds, most other so called representation from major studios and companies and franchises looks barely any different from the scraps they were giving us twenty years ago.

Baby steps my ass. Just say you’re trying to keep marginalized viewers on the hook watching your stuff without pissing off the homophobes and racists enough that they stop watching your stuff. That’s what it comes down to. That is the only reason most representation is still half-assed, blink and you miss it.

Major billion dollar corporations and highly successful and influential actors who makes millions off every movie honestly have people bending over backwards to say they’re trying or progress isn’t easy and it takes time, like these people are actual victims and like....boxed in by the evil homophobic society or whatever....instead of the tastemakers whose prioritization of straight white heroes for generations is the reason we have to fight so hard to get actual representation in the first place! 

They’re not powerless to do more in the face of a still largely homophobic society, they’ve just made the conscious choice that they care more about making sure homophobes still buy tickets to their movies than they do actually making a difference.

And like, if that’s what they want to do, then fine, they can do that, but what kills me is this idea that we’re supposed to be grateful for whatever little hint of not-straightness or not-whiteness that they shine a spotlight on for 2.5 seconds in a movie before its back to business as usual.....as though they’d do more if they could, really they would, but that’s just the best they could manage because The Homophobes and the Racists, y’see.

The movie Deadpool only happened because Ryan Reynolds wanted it to happen so badly, he wouldn’t let the project die in development hell. He kept making the rounds himself, kept the push on to keep new scripts for it getting made, and he has enough star power and a big enough fanbase that he was able to make it happen when lots of other actors couldn’t. There’s that post going around about how there’s a Bea Arthur T-Shirt he wore in the movie that they had trouble getting in because copyright stuff, so he paid $10K out of his own pocket for the licensing stuff to go through. And on and on.

Like, these aren’t small, innocuous things, they’re a display of the fact that people have power and influence in Hollywood and use those things every single day to get what they want or do things they care about. If the Deadpool production team and star really WANTED Deadpool the character to be the kind of meaningful representation they’re obviously all too happy to accept accolades for having provided already? Then they absolutely had the power to to give Wade an actual romantic history with one of the men in his films, or even one of them as an actual love interest or reciprocated flirting with one of them responding to his come-ons with like, interest of their own. Because notice how that suddenly, magically, turns what WAS just Wade obnoxiously using suggestive humor purely aimed at getting an audience laugh rather than an actual reaction....into two men having a moment like happens hundreds of times throughout every other summer blockbuster between a man and a woman and given the same degree of consideration and attention.

And yes, before someone comes at me with ‘bi and pan people don’t need to be in a romantic or sexual relationship with the same gender to be bi or pan’, like yes, thank you, I, a bisexual man, am aware of the fact that I remain equally bisexual when single, dating a man, dating a woman, or mid-orgy. My sexuality is not dependent on anyone or anything other than my own identity.

But we’re not talking about a real life human being’s identity here. We’re talking about REPRESENTATION, which is a thing created deliberately by human beings making conscious choices about what they want to display and what they don’t, and their reasons for both.

So yes, a bi or pan character is still bi or pan whether we see them kissing the same gender or not, but you can not act like a living bi man’s romantic and sexual interests being driven by his own unique choices as an individual....this is NOT the same thing as a bi or pan character who just so happens to be romantically interested in women love interests save for the occasional suggestive joke aimed at the nearest male character.

Because the former is born of that real life bi man’s entire life, experiences, personality, his BEING. The latter is born of human agendas and creative decisions and studio politics and yes, the fact that Fox and the Deadpool production are more than happy to throw LGBTQ+ viewers just enough table scraps that they’ll stay invested in supporting it, but not so much that it might risk them losing tickets in large numbers from the homophobic sector of their audience.

If I ignore the five men in my vicinity and focus on the one woman because I feel more of an attraction or connection to her for whatever reason, I get to do that because I am my own person, and people can assume whatever they want about what my motives or thought process might be but guess what? It doesn’t matter, because my choices are for me and me alone.

If Deadpool ignores the five men in his vicinity to focus on the one woman, its NOT because he feels more of an attraction or connection to her, because HE DOESN”T FEEL ANY OF THOSE THINGS. He is a fictional character. He only feels and acts upon whatever the writers decide he should feel and act upon, and THEIR motives and thought process absolutely get to be called into question, because they are not individuals making personal choices that are for them and them alone, they are creators of content that benefits and profits from the positive responses and continued support of whomever they choose to cater that content to in order to gain their support and positive response.

And bottom line, they still care more about selling tickets to homophobes than they do about creating real, positive, meaningful representation, and like....people should say that?? We do not owe it to million dollar franchises to say thank you, can we please have some more because of whatever they deign to dole out. Not while still blatantly making it clear PS, glad you liked that little moment there in Act Two Scene Five but tbh, we still care more about not pissing off the dude who lives in his parents’ basement in Kansas and has five guns and every Deadpool action figure ever made and cries into his pillow every night because Sara Lee rejected him when he asked her to his high school prom because he’s weird and ugly and nobody understands his pain like Deadpool, who is also weird and ugly and thus he NEEDS him, and just because he makes dumb jokes to guys onscreen sometimes, that’s no big deal, everyone does that sometimes, its not like he’s REALLY into guys, that’d be weird and also he can’t be because then he wouldn’t be like that homophobic shitbag who lives in his parents’ basement and trolls LGBTQ+ fans on twitter with “Lulz, dumbass losers, just accept that Deadpool doesn’t really represent you and never will, he’s OURS.”

They understand what actual representation looks like, because they’ve been representing the infinite shades of Shitty Straight White Human Being for generations now, and every single straight white man in Hollywood has a story about the character they identified with most as a child and made them want to write or act and basically shaped their entire life.

They know what actual representation looks like and what it means, but they have no interest in providing it so long as it might alienate who they see as the real moneymakers still, knowing they can still keep marginalized viewers watching by doling out the bare minimum and saying “there’s more coming, its just progress takes time, we need to take baby steps” like they’ve been doing for actual, literal decades, with very little actual change to show for it.

Sorry not sorry, but you tell me here’s five cents for you and hand me a nickel and then turn to the shitbag human being standing on the other side of you wearing a GOD HATES GAYS T-shirt and say “and here’s a twenty dollar bill for YOU, don’t spend it all in one place, lol” and then you and he share a hearty laugh while I’m standing there holding a fucking nickel?

LMAO, you can keep your five cents, you’re not like....actually doing me any favors there and I’m not going to feed your ego by pretending you did anything other than give me a shitty fucking nickel you probably picked up off the sidewalk.