twinhood-2dot0

[twinhood-2dot0]

Superhero media

I watched Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3 and Blue Beetle a few days ago and like I don't really have very many topics so here you go :P.

Popularity of superheroes seem to have a lot of ups and downs. Ever since they started appearing even, and now seems to be on the downturn. It reached its peak in 2019 with Avengers: Endgame and then seems to be tapering off. The movies still make hundreds of millions, buuuuut.

Blue Beetle.

GotG Vol. 3 did make 845 million, which I'm glad for, it's a phenomenal movie. Blue Beetle tho... It didn't have the fanbase of James Gunn and 2 prequels, and well, DC doesn't seem to have much of a reputation, so it was pretty much set up for failure. The movie was meh too. It's not awful, but like, it's so generic. I am very hopeful for Gunn's DC Universe though, I trust him to make good Superman and Batman movies. Plus, Batman: The Brave and The Bold seems to set much later in his career, so I'm hoping to see characters like Nightwing and Robin. I would love to see Tim Drake and Jason Todd too but like, it's very unlikely. Batgirl is slightly more likely tho, which would be awesome but seeing as a completed Batgirl movie got shelved uhhhh idk how much faith they have in her. I wanted that movie so bad, you know how much I love Batgirl. I can't believe they shafted a completed movie. Marvel however... Well, let's just say I hope to god they don't fumble Secret Wars.

Video games are a whole another story. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was the fastest selling video game in the Playstation's history. And we already know how legendary the Arkham games are. Marvel's Avengers is awful, Gotham Knights is apparently mediocre, and Rocksteady, please, we know you're capable of making good games, hell, you made some of the best games ever made, please for the love of god ditch microtransactions and battle passes, it's not worth it, I really want Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League to be good. The premise is genuinely so interesting, and your gameplay seems fun. Please don't screw it up for the sake of a few extra bucks. This shit is why I'm socialist smh. Comics are still pretty niche I guess, but I do love the stories.

TV too, seem to be doing pretty well. The Boys is so freaking good, Invincible seems to be pretty popular. Harley Quinn is pretty good, Peacemaker is awesome, we don't talk about the Marvel TV Shows.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Spoiler-free rambling about Attack On Titan

“The world is cruel, yet so beautiful.”

These are words uttered to Mikasa by her mother and are, in my opinion, at the very core of Attack On Titan.

From the very beginning of the series, humanity is faced with insurmountable odds. Humanity is caged within three concentric walls, with the rest of the world overrun by grotesque, giant, nigh-unkillable creatures dubbed Titans. Yet humanity fights against them because the world is worth fighting for. The goals and worldview keep changing as it goes on, but this quote holds true for all of it.

AoT is also about the horrors of war, the effects on the people and the children, and how it never ends. I think people severely misunderstand this point when they criticize the ending. Yes, the ending may not be perfect, but it is thematically consistent.

Attack On Titan is a storytelling marvel. Ever heard of Chekhov's Gun? Well, AoT takes that to the extreme. Every minor detail you think may not have any bearing on the story, it probably does. Every single frame is chock full of detail and symbolism. And as the story goes on, you see how meticulously planned out it all is. Hajime Isayama apparently planned out a lot of the story before putting the pencil to the paper. Like, even the very first frame of the anime builds up the ending. I'm not even joking. A lot seems inconsequential when you first read it, but by the time you reach the ending you realise that all of it has been building towards this.

The last episode just aired yesterday, and well, I don't know if I'm looking in the wrong places but it seems to be unilaterally hated. iMDB reviews seem to be very polarizing, with reviews being either 10 or 1 or 2. As of writing it's at 7.1/10, which, well, AoT never has dropped below an 8, but it seems to be much better than I thought. I personally felt it was a logical conclusion, I think there are a few plot point that seemed to be going somewhere but just didn't, but it is still a fitting ending.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Shinzo Wo Sasageyo

6 days from now, the final part of the third part of the fourth season of Attack On Titan will air, and with that, bring this journey to an end. And what a journey it has been. I won't rehash stuff I've already said, but next time I write here, I'll be a changed woman. I mean I already finished the manga that ended a whole 2 and a half years ago, but you know. I think for AoT the soundtrack and animation just elevates the anime so much it's a whole different experience. I can't wait to see what Kohta Yamamota and MAPPA have cooked up. We're probably getting a 1:1 adaptation but I don't mind, I've made my peace with it. The ending may be imperfect, but it feels like a logical conclusion to the story and themes, and the rest of it is just perfect so ehhh. I may be blinded by my love tho, but whatever.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Eek, I'm further into :re, I see what you mean now. I'm at Chapter 123 and I have no clue what's going on with his character.

Tokyo Ghoul

I know I should be finishing Tatsuki Fujimoto, but I spent the whole week reading Tokyo Ghoul, so let’s talk about that.

I really love the premise for Tokyo Ghoul. In the world of Tokyo Ghoul, the Earth is inhabited by “Ghouls”, who are pretty much the exact same as humans, aside for 3 defining factors. Their kakugan (literally “red eye”), kakuhou (“red wrap”), and the fact that they can only eat humans.

Kakugan are, as the name suggests, the red eyes that ghoul’s possess. They usually have eyes that humans have, but they can change it at will, and they activate involuntarily when they’re starving or fighting.

Kakuhou is a sac-like organ that only ghouls possess. They store Rc cells, which provide them nutrition and only ghouls and humans possess them. Ghouls have them in higher concentration than humans. The Rc cells can pierce the skin and form a kagune (“red child”). The kagune is a flexible yet sturdy weapon that all ghouls possess. They can take different forms and can emerge from the shoulder area (“ukaku”), below the shoulder blades (“koukaku”), the waist areas (“rinkaku”) and around the tailbone area (“bikaku”). They all have different fighting capabilities but not getting into that here. It also provides them with tougher skin, increased agility (Ghouls apparently produce 4 to 7 times more kinetic energy than humans)

As previously stated, their nutrition comes from Rc cells, and only humans and ghouls possess it. Other foods are not only inedible, but taste awful too. They can eat ghouls too, but they apparently taste worse, and are much harder to kill than humans, and you know, it’s cannibalism. Cannibals don’t seem to be looked at with as much disdain as human society though. They can also drink coffee. Just coffee. Never explained why.

Do you see why I like the premise so much? It presents us with ghouls, who prey upon humans and are a danger, but wait, they have no choice, oh wait, the protagonist is a ghoul, guess they’re not that bad? But there are still sadistic ghouls so… Oh wait, humans indiscriminately kill ghouls too. Like, you can’t pick sides in this fight. And the manga (emphasis on manga, the anime botched it so horribly even I hate it. Partly because they adapted a 143 chapter manga into a 24 episode anime. That’s like 6 chapters per episode.) makes full use of that, developing every character pretty deeply, humans and ghouls alike. The main reason I hate the anime is not because I have some undying love for TG, but because character development is key in a story with two opposing but morally gray sides. In my opinion, at least. The characters are pretty well written, except for a few LGBTQIA+ characters who are portrayed in a questionable light, yeah it’s so bad I don’t want to elaborate anymore. I also disliked Ken’s development after <significant event near the midpoint of the manga>, like, I don’t like “I want to become stronger so I can protect my friends” kinda character motivation. But okay, whatever, the focus kinda shifted at that point too, so I’m willing to ignore it.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Okay, yeah, that does make more sense. Tbh I'm gonna need a reread to comprehend everything from Yamori to the end of TG (btw this blog was written by me and a friend, but they're pretty busy so I do all the writing now, so my intended audience is mostly them, so I try to avoid spoilers as much as possible :)). I get what you're saying but yeah, Kaneki's actions after that are pretty confusing for me at the moment. I'm still in the process of reading :re btw, so maybe that will also provide more clarity.

Tokyo Ghoul

I know I should be finishing Tatsuki Fujimoto, but I spent the whole week reading Tokyo Ghoul, so let’s talk about that.

I really love the premise for Tokyo Ghoul. In the world of Tokyo Ghoul, the Earth is inhabited by “Ghouls”, who are pretty much the exact same as humans, aside for 3 defining factors. Their kakugan (literally “red eye”), kakuhou (“red wrap”), and the fact that they can only eat humans.

Kakugan are, as the name suggests, the red eyes that ghoul’s possess. They usually have eyes that humans have, but they can change it at will, and they activate involuntarily when they’re starving or fighting.

Kakuhou is a sac-like organ that only ghouls possess. They store Rc cells, which provide them nutrition and only ghouls and humans possess them. Ghouls have them in higher concentration than humans. The Rc cells can pierce the skin and form a kagune (“red child”). The kagune is a flexible yet sturdy weapon that all ghouls possess. They can take different forms and can emerge from the shoulder area (“ukaku”), below the shoulder blades (“koukaku”), the waist areas (“rinkaku”) and around the tailbone area (“bikaku”). They all have different fighting capabilities but not getting into that here. It also provides them with tougher skin, increased agility (Ghouls apparently produce 4 to 7 times more kinetic energy than humans)

As previously stated, their nutrition comes from Rc cells, and only humans and ghouls possess it. Other foods are not only inedible, but taste awful too. They can eat ghouls too, but they apparently taste worse, and are much harder to kill than humans, and you know, it’s cannibalism. Cannibals don’t seem to be looked at with as much disdain as human society though. They can also drink coffee. Just coffee. Never explained why.

Do you see why I like the premise so much? It presents us with ghouls, who prey upon humans and are a danger, but wait, they have no choice, oh wait, the protagonist is a ghoul, guess they’re not that bad? But there are still sadistic ghouls so… Oh wait, humans indiscriminately kill ghouls too. Like, you can’t pick sides in this fight. And the manga (emphasis on manga, the anime botched it so horribly even I hate it. Partly because they adapted a 143 chapter manga into a 24 episode anime. That’s like 6 chapters per episode.) makes full use of that, developing every character pretty deeply, humans and ghouls alike. The main reason I hate the anime is not because I have some undying love for TG, but because character development is key in a story with two opposing but morally gray sides. In my opinion, at least. The characters are pretty well written, except for a few LGBTQIA+ characters who are portrayed in a questionable light, yeah it’s so bad I don’t want to elaborate anymore. I also disliked Ken’s development after <significant event near the midpoint of the manga>, like, I don’t like “I want to become stronger so I can protect my friends” kinda character motivation. But okay, whatever, the focus kinda shifted at that point too, so I’m willing to ignore it.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Tokyo Ghoul

I know I should be finishing Tatsuki Fujimoto, but I spent the whole week reading Tokyo Ghoul, so let’s talk about that.

I really love the premise for Tokyo Ghoul. In the world of Tokyo Ghoul, the Earth is inhabited by “Ghouls”, who are pretty much the exact same as humans, aside for 3 defining factors. Their kakugan (literally “red eye”), kakuhou (“red wrap”), and the fact that they can only eat humans.

Kakugan are, as the name suggests, the red eyes that ghoul’s possess. They usually have eyes that humans have, but they can change it at will, and they activate involuntarily when they’re starving or fighting.

Kakuhou is a sac-like organ that only ghouls possess. They store Rc cells, which provide them nutrition and only ghouls and humans possess them. Ghouls have them in higher concentration than humans. The Rc cells can pierce the skin and form a kagune (“red child”). The kagune is a flexible yet sturdy weapon that all ghouls possess. They can take different forms and can emerge from the shoulder area (“ukaku”), below the shoulder blades (“koukaku”), the waist areas (“rinkaku”) and around the tailbone area (“bikaku”). They all have different fighting capabilities but not getting into that here. It also provides them with tougher skin, increased agility (Ghouls apparently produce 4 to 7 times more kinetic energy than humans)

As previously stated, their nutrition comes from Rc cells, and only humans and ghouls possess it. Other foods are not only inedible, but taste awful too. They can eat ghouls too, but they apparently taste worse, and are much harder to kill than humans, and you know, it’s cannibalism. Cannibals don’t seem to be looked at with as much disdain as human society though. They can also drink coffee. Just coffee. Never explained why.

Do you see why I like the premise so much? It presents us with ghouls, who prey upon humans and are a danger, but wait, they have no choice, oh wait, the protagonist is a ghoul, guess they’re not that bad? But there are still sadistic ghouls so… Oh wait, humans indiscriminately kill ghouls too. Like, you can’t pick sides in this fight. And the manga (emphasis on manga, the anime botched it so horribly even I hate it. Partly because they adapted a 143 chapter manga into a 24 episode anime. That’s like 6 chapters per episode.) makes full use of that, developing every character pretty deeply, humans and ghouls alike. The main reason I hate the anime is not because I have some undying love for TG, but because character development is key in a story with two opposing but morally gray sides. In my opinion, at least. The characters are pretty well written, except for a few LGBTQIA+ characters who are portrayed in a questionable light, yeah it’s so bad I don’t want to elaborate anymore. I also disliked Ken’s development after <significant event near the midpoint of the manga>, like, I don’t like “I want to become stronger so I can protect my friends” kinda character motivation. But okay, whatever, the focus kinda shifted at that point too, so I’m willing to ignore it.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Huh that's really interesting. I would love to read what you write on the topic! I'm not very good at critically analyzing stuff yet hehe 😅.

Rating all of Tatsuki Fujimoto's works (Part 1 because procrastination)

I could talk for a while about Tatsuki Fujimoto and how his works have impacted me but eh. Everyone’s done that already. I’ll just talk about his works, in chronological order.

Spoilers for everything but Chainsaw Man and Fire Punch. CSM because it’s a masterpiece, Fire Punch because my brain just melts thinking about it.

A Couple Clucking Chickens Were Still Kickin' in the Schoolyard (庭には二羽ニワトリがいた, Niwa ni wa Niwa Niwatori ga ita) (2011)

???/10

Niwa ni wa Niwa Niwatori ga ita iru is apparently a Japanese tongue twister. The story goes, aliens have invaded Earth and they have a taste for human flesh. Apparently they were smart enough to travel vast distances through space but they didn’t know the concept of delayed gratification and rearing, so humans are basically wiped out. So these two kids dress up as chickens because these specific aliens hate chicken and only recognize things by face and hide out in a school backyard. Stay with me here, everything Fujimoto writes is incomprehensible in an amusing way.

Then, a transfer student apparently likes chickens. So this one kid who fed the “chickens”, apparently knows that they are actually humans, and tries to save them, because he apparently harbored humans, but while he’s explaining stuff to them, the chicken lover finds out about the chickens and goes on a rampage, and the alien runs with the kids (the aliens can transform into hulking beings), then it’s revealed that the older kid is apparently alien and then he saves the girl??? Maybe??? I would rate this one but I have no clue what the hell this is. Seriously, I can’t make head nor tail of it.

Sasaki Stopped a Bullet (佐々木くんが銃弾止めた, Sasaki-kun ga Juudan Tometa) (2013)

Rating: 5/10

This school student, Sasaki, has the hots for his teacher Kawaguchi-sensei, and he somehow surmises that she is god. His logic is “I would think about Kawaguchi-sensei before I go to sleep, and I often dream about her too. Only god would be able to do extraordinary things like this.” And then a shooter walks in, who was a high school classmate of Kawaguchi who was doing well in school when she dumped him and he apparently lost everything. So he wants to punish her for it. So she tells him that he can do anything he wants to do to her but leave her students alone (Sidenote: really convenient dialogue. Like, I’m no expert in socialization, but is that something someone would say?). And he demands sex because of course. What else could it be? And Sasaki loses his mind because he can’t comprehend god having sex with a pervert. So he goes on a rant. And he shoots him. And he has a flashback about him telling her his dream, about wanting to go to the moon because his dad said that he’d become the first Japanese to go to the moon even if he died and he died before he could go to space, so Sasaki wants to go to the moon to meet his dad. And that’s when Kawaguchi tells him that she is God, and she goes on a rant about how people say the probability of something impossible happening is 0% but it’s because they’re too lazy to calculate the probability. So he eponymously catches a bullet. Because he believed in the miniscule probability of something that impossible actually happening. And then he convinces the shooter that he’s a time traveler and that that’s how he knew how to catch the bullet and that he will be arrested, but with the knowledge he gains from his 10 year long incarceration, he will join the University of Tokyo, and he’ll live a happy life. He believes him and accepts his fate. 20 years later, Sasaki is on the moon, and Kawaguchi asks him whether he found his dad. He says of course not, but that doesn’t matter, since he became the first Japanese to reach the moon (If you couldn’t tell, I didn’t pay much attention when they taught indirect and direct speech in school), and he asks her whether it was her power that allowed him to accomplish something physically impossible, and she confirms it, and Sasaki says “No matter if it was before or now… it was only a bullet but I’ll always be able to stop it.” and the story ends on the note “The only necessary power is the power of belief.” As with some of Fujimoto’s works, it’s wholesome in a very weird way, and it’s much better than the previous story in coherence, at least.

Woke-Up-as-a-Girl Syndrome (目が覚めたら女の子になっていた病, Me ga Sametara Onnanoko ni Natteita Yamai)

Rating: 8/10

When I first read the title, I was overwhelmed with curiosity. And fear. With a story with a title like that, it has the potential to go like super transphobic, but it actually was quite good. We’re introduced to the main character, who, as the name suggests, woke up in a female body, and is told that there is no cure. He goes to the school, and the teacher tells the class to treat him like a girl, and he’s harassed by the perverted boys in his class, and his girlfriend’s brother comes to his rescue, and he goes home. He talks to his girlfriend and starts to believe that he actually has become a girl and confesses that he might have a crush on her brother. She demands to have sex but her brother walks in and she tells her brother to go out with him and runs off. He remembers his childhood when he cried very easily and everyone made fun of him for crying and finally overcomes toxic masculinity and asserts that he is a man no matter his feminine qualities and kisses her. I really love how it breaks down toxic masculinity and the difference between sex and gender. It’s kinda like a cis person who became trans which is sort of a subversion but shows aspects of the transgender experience™.

Fire Punch (ファイアパンチ, Faia Panchi) (2016–2018)

Rating:7/10

Ah, Fire Punch. The manga I read shortly after finishing CSM. Seriously, I took one whole day to watch and read all of CSM and then I finished Fire Punch the following night. I can safely say those 24 hours shattered whatever sanity I had left. Fire Punch is the weirdest, most disturbing thing I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve watched The Boys. I wrote quite a bit about the first chapter but oh my god, I’m not familiar at all with Tumblr’s rules so I don’t wanna risk it. It's really that bad. Anyways, I’ll just say, I love the premise, the theme, the story is a little… all over the place, there’s a lot of things done for pure shock value, I love shock value but this is just weird. Oh yeah, and there’s a pretty well written trans character. I personally love it, but it admittedly isn’t that good but… that’s what his next work is.

I just discovered a word. Well, two words. “Shock Fatigue”. From TVTropes, When a form of entertainment relies too much on shocking its audience, they may eventually become desensitized to it. In some cases, an audience may become so desensitized to shocking content that it no longer has any effect on them, leading to a feeling of being bored or even jaded by material that would have previously been found offensive or shocking. 

Holy crap, this is exactly what Fire Punch is. My brain has become so horribly desensitized after reading Fujimoto’s works.

Chainsaw Man (チェンソーマン, Chensō Man) (2018–present)

Rating: 10/10

The manga that shot Fujimoto to stardom, and the manga that set me down this path. Chainsaw Man has a pretty simple premise. The story follows Denji, who’s a man who has chainsaws sprouting from his arms and head. Beings called “devils” inhabit the earth, and this is the interesting part, devils are stronger the more they are feared. So a Car Devil would be stronger than a Coffee Devil. Fujimoto makes a lot out of this premise, the worldbuilding is stellar, characters are extremely well written (Denji himself is a , the story itself is well written, and the deaths, oh my god, they really make you feel the impact. So, uh, try not to get very attached to them, you can never know who’s gonna die and who’s not. I won’t comment upon Part 2 because ongoing series are awful. But Part 1 is so, so good.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Rating all of Tatsuki Fujimoto's works (Part 1 because procrastination)

I could talk for a while about Tatsuki Fujimoto and how his works have impacted me but eh. Everyone’s done that already. I’ll just talk about his works, in chronological order.

Spoilers for everything but Chainsaw Man and Fire Punch. CSM because it’s a masterpiece, Fire Punch because my brain just melts thinking about it.

A Couple Clucking Chickens Were Still Kickin' in the Schoolyard (庭には二羽ニワトリがいた, Niwa ni wa Niwa Niwatori ga ita) (2011)

???/10

Niwa ni wa Niwa Niwatori ga ita iru is apparently a Japanese tongue twister. The story goes, aliens have invaded Earth and they have a taste for human flesh. Apparently they were smart enough to travel vast distances through space but they didn’t know the concept of delayed gratification and rearing, so humans are basically wiped out. So these two kids dress up as chickens because these specific aliens hate chicken and only recognize things by face and hide out in a school backyard. Stay with me here, everything Fujimoto writes is incomprehensible in an amusing way.

Then, a transfer student apparently likes chickens. So this one kid who fed the “chickens”, apparently knows that they are actually humans, and tries to save them, because he apparently harbored humans, but while he’s explaining stuff to them, the chicken lover finds out about the chickens and goes on a rampage, and the alien runs with the kids (the aliens can transform into hulking beings), then it’s revealed that the older kid is apparently alien and then he saves the girl??? Maybe??? I would rate this one but I have no clue what the hell this is. Seriously, I can’t make head nor tail of it.

Sasaki Stopped a Bullet (佐々木くんが銃弾止めた, Sasaki-kun ga Juudan Tometa) (2013)

Rating: 5/10

This school student, Sasaki, has the hots for his teacher Kawaguchi-sensei, and he somehow surmises that she is god. His logic is “I would think about Kawaguchi-sensei before I go to sleep, and I often dream about her too. Only god would be able to do extraordinary things like this.” And then a shooter walks in, who was a high school classmate of Kawaguchi who was doing well in school when she dumped him and he apparently lost everything. So he wants to punish her for it. So she tells him that he can do anything he wants to do to her but leave her students alone (Sidenote: really convenient dialogue. Like, I’m no expert in socialization, but is that something someone would say?). And he demands sex because of course. What else could it be? And Sasaki loses his mind because he can’t comprehend god having sex with a pervert. So he goes on a rant. And he shoots him. And he has a flashback about him telling her his dream, about wanting to go to the moon because his dad said that he’d become the first Japanese to go to the moon even if he died and he died before he could go to space, so Sasaki wants to go to the moon to meet his dad. And that’s when Kawaguchi tells him that she is God, and she goes on a rant about how people say the probability of something impossible happening is 0% but it’s because they’re too lazy to calculate the probability. So he eponymously catches a bullet. Because he believed in the miniscule probability of something that impossible actually happening. And then he convinces the shooter that he’s a time traveler and that that’s how he knew how to catch the bullet and that he will be arrested, but with the knowledge he gains from his 10 year long incarceration, he will join the University of Tokyo, and he’ll live a happy life. He believes him and accepts his fate. 20 years later, Sasaki is on the moon, and Kawaguchi asks him whether he found his dad. He says of course not, but that doesn’t matter, since he became the first Japanese to reach the moon (If you couldn’t tell, I didn’t pay much attention when they taught indirect and direct speech in school), and he asks her whether it was her power that allowed him to accomplish something physically impossible, and she confirms it, and Sasaki says “No matter if it was before or now… it was only a bullet but I’ll always be able to stop it.” and the story ends on the note “The only necessary power is the power of belief.” As with some of Fujimoto’s works, it’s wholesome in a very weird way, and it’s much better than the previous story in coherence, at least.

Woke-Up-as-a-Girl Syndrome (目が覚めたら女の子になっていた病, Me ga Sametara Onnanoko ni Natteita Yamai)

Rating: 8/10

When I first read the title, I was overwhelmed with curiosity. And fear. With a story with a title like that, it has the potential to go like super transphobic, but it actually was quite good. We’re introduced to the main character, who, as the name suggests, woke up in a female body, and is told that there is no cure. He goes to the school, and the teacher tells the class to treat him like a girl, and he’s harassed by the perverted boys in his class, and his girlfriend’s brother comes to his rescue, and he goes home. He talks to his girlfriend and starts to believe that he actually has become a girl and confesses that he might have a crush on her brother. She demands to have sex but her brother walks in and she tells her brother to go out with him and runs off. He remembers his childhood when he cried very easily and everyone made fun of him for crying and finally overcomes toxic masculinity and asserts that he is a man no matter his feminine qualities and kisses her. I really love how it breaks down toxic masculinity and the difference between sex and gender. It’s kinda like a cis person who became trans which is sort of a subversion but shows aspects of the transgender experience™.

Fire Punch (ファイアパンチ, Faia Panchi) (2016–2018)

Rating:7/10

Ah, Fire Punch. The manga I read shortly after finishing CSM. Seriously, I took one whole day to watch and read all of CSM and then I finished Fire Punch the following night. I can safely say those 24 hours shattered whatever sanity I had left. Fire Punch is the weirdest, most disturbing thing I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve watched The Boys. I wrote quite a bit about the first chapter but oh my god, I’m not familiar at all with Tumblr’s rules so I don’t wanna risk it. It's really that bad. Anyways, I’ll just say, I love the premise, the theme, the story is a little… all over the place, there’s a lot of things done for pure shock value, I love shock value but this is just weird. Oh yeah, and there’s a pretty well written trans character. I personally love it, but it admittedly isn’t that good but… that’s what his next work is.

I just discovered a word. Well, two words. “Shock Fatigue”. From TVTropes, When a form of entertainment relies too much on shocking its audience, they may eventually become desensitized to it. In some cases, an audience may become so desensitized to shocking content that it no longer has any effect on them, leading to a feeling of being bored or even jaded by material that would have previously been found offensive or shocking. 

Holy crap, this is exactly what Fire Punch is. My brain has become so horribly desensitized after reading Fujimoto’s works.

Chainsaw Man (チェンソーマン, Chensō Man) (2018–present)

Rating: 10/10

The manga that shot Fujimoto to stardom, and the manga that set me down this path. Chainsaw Man has a pretty simple premise. The story follows Denji, who’s a man who has chainsaws sprouting from his arms and head. Beings called “devils” inhabit the earth, and this is the interesting part, devils are stronger the more they are feared. So a Car Devil would be stronger than a Coffee Devil. Fujimoto makes a lot out of this premise, the worldbuilding is stellar, characters are extremely well written (Denji himself is a , the story itself is well written, and the deaths, oh my god, they really make you feel the impact. So, uh, try not to get very attached to them, you can never know who’s gonna die and who’s not. I won’t comment upon Part 2 because ongoing series are awful. But Part 1 is so, so good.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Japanese

I have to catch a train in 4 hours and I'll be laptopless till Monday so I'm going to make this quick.

Admittedly, I've only watched a relatively few anime, but I have an interest in linguistics, so I pay a little attention to the language and its intricacies. And from my experience, Japanese is wildly different from other languages I know somewhat (it's only 2 Indo-Aryan, a Dravidian, and 3 Germanic, so my sample size is tiny :P). For one, there's a weird amount of first person pronouns. From what I know there's (I'm sorry I have no idea how Japanese scripture works I'm just gonna use romanizations) "Watakushi" which is the most formal. "Watashi" which is formal, for men. Women use it in casual context too. "Ore" (read phonetically like most of these, o-ray, not as in iron ore) is used by men and more informal. "Boku" is informally used by male people of all ages, and if used by female peeps, it has tomboyish or feminist connotations. There are apparently more but these are the ones I've seen so far. There are also second person pronouns, but in formal contexts, name + honorifics is used depending on the other person's status. In casual contexts it's common to use name + honorific too, but pronouns exist. "Anata" (or shortened to "anta") is the closest to the English "you", used with friends, or someone whose name you don't know or, interestingly, used by women to address their husbands, somewhat like "dear". "Omae" is more informal, used alongside "ore", and as the male equivalent of "anata" in the latter sense. "Kimi" has the formality of "boku". "Temē" is used in confrontational contexts, like "you" in "you @#$!%@#$" (channeling the comic book nerd 😎). You can also pluralise these pronouns with suffixes like "-tachi" e.g. "anatatachi" or "watashitachi". Third person pronouns are mostly gender neutral which was kind of a surprise to me considering how gendered the other pronouns were. There's "ano kata" which is very formal, "ano hito" which is informal. Funnily, there's "kanojo" which means "she" as was created as an equivalent to the female pronouns in European languages and can also mean "girlfriend", and "kare", which literally means "that one" and "he"/"she"/"it" in classical Japanese and can also mean "boyfriend". I don't speak Japanese so I can't comment on how common it is, but it in the anime that I've watched I've maybe heard the gendered ones like 2 or 3 times.

Honorifics, as I mentioned earlier, are used pretty commonly.

"-San" equates to Mr./Ms./Mx.

"-Sama" is for higher status people.

"-Kun" is a semi-formal honorific used for men usually of same or younger age.

"-Chan" is used for girls, small children, friends and lovers.

"-Tan" is used for babies and uh... moe anthropomorphisms??? idk how to describe it just check it out for yourself.

"Senpai" is for seniors.

"Sensei" is for teachers.

What else...? Oh yes, insults, the cornerstone of every language. "Baka" famously means "idiot", "kuso" with a really short u means "damn" or "shit". Yeah that's all I know. Although, you can add "-yaro" to either word to increase the severity. Also, Levi Ackermann from Attack On Titan calls Hange Zöe "kuso-megane" which is translated as "four-eyes" but literally means "shit-glasses" because they look like this.

I love their relationship so much 😭.

The word "wa" stands in for "is" and "are" and "am" and used in conjunction with "desu" as in "watashi wa Alia desu".

"No" means "of" as in "Imouto no ane" (Little sister's older sister, also the name of a Tatsuki Fujimoto manga that I would highly advice against reading but I'm gonna mention anyway because I'm in love with Fujimoto.)

Okay, that's it, you know all the Japanese I know now, bye gotta go!

[twinhood-2dot0]

More J-Pop :P

Yep, doing this again. I've discovered so many more songs that I wanna share.

Yorushika/ヨルシカ

Yorushika has become my favourite band in the past few... months? idk when my last post was. The vocalist is awesome and I really love their guitar and piano instrumentals.

Parade/パレード - I discovered this song yesterday so I haven't had the time to look into the lyrics yet. Will update when I do. I really love the instrumentals though. The violin is just awesome, and like in every other song, the piano is perfection. This is from the album That's Why I Gave Up On Music though, so it's sure to have deep lyrics, since the whole album is telling a story

Algernon/アルジャーノン - The music video doesn't have translations :(, so I didn't look into the meaning of this song either, but the music video looks awesome.

The next few songs I don't have too much to remark upon. (yet)

Say It./ヨルシカ- Okay I haven't looked into the meaning to most of these lmao. Gotta get on that. Has great guitars though.

Ghost In A Flower/花に亡霊- Awesome piano and guitar.

Setting Sun/斜陽

Spring Thief/春泥棒

That's Why I Gave Up On Music/だから僕は音楽を辞めた- Title track from the album. The album tells a story (that I haven't read yet) that concludes with this track. I especially love the piano-guitar duet after the opening verse, it's just, wow. Suis (the vocalist) did an exceptional job on this track, and lyrics are also just so good. The music video is just too good and you should read the lyrics so I'm dropping the youtube link for this one.

Also an English translated version by Rachie because she did a great job on it.

Minami/美波

Another artist I've come to adore very recently.

DROP - Just sounds really good. Will update if I look into meanings later, goes for every song I don't remark upon here.

Waiting For Rain/アメヲマツ- Words cannot express how much I love this song. One thing I really love about Minami is how expressive their voice is, and that is exemplified in this song. She explained that she did intend for this song to be conveyed through feelings and emotions more than words, and I think she succeeded in that. The lyrics are also awesome, the music video is awesome, the instrumentals are eargasmic. Music video for english translation and awesome animation.

Crying For Rain/カワキヲアメク- The first song I heard by Minami. It also does the same, being very expressive. It's the opening for an anime called uh Domestic Girlfriend. Not gonna be watching it purely for how weird the name itself is, but the song is awesome. As far as I can tell, no relation with Waiting for Rain.

Lilac/ライラック- The depressed gamer in me is in love the lyrics of this song, and the music lover in me loves the instrumentals. Seriously, just read these lyrics.

"Life's rough, Life's tough, It would be great if life could be as simple as a video game. There are even futures that I would like to bet on by pressing the A/B buttons."

yikes that's ugly, not doing that again.

"Life's rough, Life's tough, Genuinely, staying alive would be easier if life's a video gameThen a life where you can change the course of your future using A,B keys would exist."

The instrumentals are deceptively happy.

Monogatari series

It's an anime series I've heard good things about but haven't watched yet. Looks pretty long, but the songs are tantalizing. These songs are uh very cutesy and upbeat in a way I can't explain why I like it.

Chainsaw Man

One of my favourite anime as you already know. The S1 of the anime has 12 episodes, and it also has 12 ending songs. Anime usually have 1 for each season but they went above and beyond. I dislike metal, but I do like insanity so, despite that, I still love most of the tracks here for the sheer insanity. But Time Left by ZUTOMAYO and Chainsaw Blood are still my favourites tho. And can't forget KICK BACK, it's such a banger OP and the opening animatic itself is awesome with its foreshadowing and cinematic references. You can read more about what I think of KICK BACK at Alia's Corner.

Heh I just realised how ridiculous Chainsaw Man looks with chainsaws sprouting out of his hands and head and... a formal shirt and pants and a tie.

Song from Your Lie In April. Just sounds really good.

A jem from Attack On Titan that I somehow overlooked.

I hit the audio limit, damn you Tumblr, why you gotta make this so hard?

Anyways, you can sort by newest and see my newer favourites. Some particular standouts are 色彩/Color by yama, 三時のキス/idfk by Rokudenashi/ロクデナシ, again by YUI, 君のことじゃないよ by ZUTOMAYO, NIGHT DANCER by imase, Massarana Daichi by Higuchi Ai, from the same album as Akuma No Ko, the ED song for AoT Final Season Part 1, the two Natori songs, Overdose especially, Asphyxia, Kyouran Hey Kids!! by THE ORAL CIGARETTES and No Title by Reol.

Watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood now, you can read what I think of it in my page, and also updated my AoT thoughts.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Attack On Titan's Anime Original Ending

I have an unhealthy obsession with this animanga. There, I said it. No, but really, it’s more than just love. You know I parade it around like it’s a gift to humanity from god and it’s the perfect work of fiction, but it’s not (UNLESS you scrap everything past chapter 90 in which case yes it is perfect. I’d rather have a partial conclusion than an awkward one.), because we got Game Of Thronesed. With the release of the final chapter, the fanbase was extremely divisive, and with the 8 extra pages included later on because only god knows why, everyone just hated the whole thing. And that gave birth to AOE, Anime Original Ending, because you know, AoT, AoE, you get the point. When I caught up to the manga in 2021, it was at 137 and I read every chapter (2) since then in the few minutes since release, and I was pretty much okay with it. Like it was not the masterpiece I expected from Hajime Isayama (I also have a huge problem with idolisation. Like every single person I idolized has let me down terribly. Thank god I still have Toby Fox and Tatsuki Fujimoto.), but still, it was just fine. I just went two years pretending that never happened and Attack On Titan is still the same perfect manga that inspired me to pursue writing. 

That was until last Wednesday, when I went down the AOE rabbit hole and spent like 24 hours doing nothing but that. I slept like 2 hours in between I think. And now I have crippling anxiety about the last episode of the anime. As a redditor aptly put it

 “If it happens Yams will turn into one of the greatest creators of fiction in history

If it doesn't he will turn into one of the greatest clowns in fiction history”.

I’ve read every theory that people have written in the subreddit, and it’s pretty compelling. There are some subtle differences between the anime and the manga that could either be just because he forgor or foreshadowing, and knowing Isayama, it’s highly likely the latter. Seriously, the plot consistency and subtle symbolism and foreshadowing and the storytelling quality of everything up till chapter 90 is unparalleled, so as awkward as the rest of it was, I’m still holding out hope. If the last episode just turns out to be a straight adaptation I am going to be so pissed because with how much evidence there is it just feels like the dumbest freaking thing to do. I would agree that some parts are a bit of a reach but like, the rest? Impeccable. I kinda wish I didn’t read the theories like before when I thought this was just delusional because if this happens, this is going to be like the biggest thing to happen in anime history. It would be flipping game changing.

I know I shouldn’t care this much, it’s just a dumb anime, who cares, right? But as I alluded to before, I have sort of a personal connection to this, even when I joined at like the very end of it. I was born too late :(, I would have been 7 when the first season aired. It meant so much to me even when I joined this late, imagine how much more it would have been if I had been reading it as it aired (emphasis on read, because Season 2 came out a whopping 4 years after Season 1.) I really hated doing art as a child. Not because I had a distaste for it, but I was kind of a perfectionist. I didn’t want to make anything that wasn’t a masterpiece. It’s dumb, and I still have that feeling, but seeing Isayama make such a storytelling marvel at his first shot at a serialized manga, that was really inspiring (and caused me to set a nigh-unattainable goal :P). It is dumb, but I hope you see now why I want to see it become the best that it can be. There is just so much freaking potential in all the theories that I have read. I know I’m hoping for too much but I just can’t accept the fact that it has such a mediocre ending. \*sigh\* I really need to get a life don’t I?

[twinhood-2dot0]

Banana Fish

:P I have like 3 topics thought out but I was too busy watching Banana Fish and playing Pokémon Legends: Arceus and apparently it's Sunday today.

Anyways, Banana Fish. The anime I told you I was gonna watch last week. And I did. Turns out, it's sad, weird and disturbing all at the same time. And obviously, I loved it. Okay, I guess that's not a huge thing considering I pretty much love everything 💀 but still. It has death, although not too many of the main cast, it has an awesome soundtrack, it has a gay romance, what more do I need? The story follows Aslan "Ash Lynx" Jade Callenreese, a charismatic young man and infamous gang leader. The story begins with Ash finding a dying man in an alleyway, who gives him a vial saying "Banana Fish" and an address before dying. He meets Eiji Okumura, pole vaulter who gave up on it after an injury who came to the US with Shunichi Ibe, a photojournalist who is reporting on street gangs. Through the story we see Ash and Eiji investigate the drug and explore Ash's past as a child sex slave and discovering a normal life through Eiji. Really well done, and it doesn't pull punches being disturbing or sad.

[twinhood-2dot0]

Tell Me Why

I’m a total cheapskate. I have around 150 games I got for free from Epic Games, and a few on Steam, and I’ve paid for a total of 7 games. So in June I found that a game called Tell Me Why was free on Steam so I just got it and never thought about it again. Until later on when I was watching a video on why you shouldn’t buy Hogwarts: Legacy, when they mentioned that you should instead support games made by LGBTQIA+ people, like Celeste and Tell Me Why, and my ears perked up, and I went to my Steam library and there it was! So I immediately installed it, and wow. It is awesome. I have one gripe with it though. More of a gripe with me but whenever I think about the game my brain just jumps to Jake Peralta singing “Tell me whyyy, ain’t nothing but a heartbreak”. Anyways, that aside. So the story is about twins, Alyson and Tyler, Tyler is a trans man, who were separated from each other after their mom was killed by Tyler following a supposed psychotic episode where she tried to shoot Tyler. 10 years later, after Tyler is released from juvie, they reunite, and go back to their childhood home to sell it and put their past behind them, but they find things they did not expect to. I won’t go into much more detail for now.

I really love the story and where it’s heading and oh my god, the interactions between them, so great. Gameplay-wise, it’s sorta like a visual novel but you get to play, instead of choosing dialogue options and reading text, sorta like a Telltale game (Telltale Games was a development studio that made episodic games with choices that branch the story, like choosing to be an asshole or choosing between characters to die. It’s fun. I never played any because cheapskate, but I watched like a ton of playthroughs and could probably detail the story and branches of Minecraft: Story Mode). There’s also a really interesting mechanic that I don’t really want to spoil too much, but they help tell the story through flashbacks and make for some interesting interactions. I also really love the portrayal of dysphoria and the struggles of being trans, they put a lot of effort into getting it right, which I really appreciate, and the voice actor for Tyler is also himself trans. :P I wish I took more screenshots, but you’ve seen those that I did take, so eh.

NOOOO DAMMIT, I COULDN’T GET A SCREENSHOT. Anyways, it’s just dialogue that went

Alyson: So do you want instant coffee or… instant coffee?

Tyler: Hmm, nah. I’m more of a T person. Get it? Like T as in-

Alyson: Mmmhmm. How long have you been waiting to make that joke?

Tyler: Longer than I’m willing to admit. 

(Sorry, I’ve been waiting to use this meme for longer than I’d like to admit too.)

(T is short for Testosterone if you weren’t aware)

Uhh what else have been up to, oh yeah, I finished 2 anime. Your Lie in April and Tokyo Ghoul. YLIA is certainly something. My heart aches just thinking about it, and I’m not one to get emotional about much. Seriously, it has this really cool opening, https://open.spotify.com/track/2BlDX1yfT0ea5wo0vjCKKa?si=7b95e588be604494

 and I learnt to play the intro on the piano, but whenever I do I’m like goddammit I can’t deal with this pain again. It’s about a piano prodigy who stopped playing after his mom and tutor died, and him getting back into it because of a violinist. She forces him to be her accompanist and then picks it up again. Again, don’t wanna give out too many details, although, it is romance so you probably won’t watch it, but whatever. I would make a comparison with a certain novel but that would be giving out too much. I’ve vowed to never spoil anyone. I think I’m finally shedding toxic masculinity and allowing myself to watch whatever I want. Overtly edgy stuff still has my heart tho. Tokyo Ghoul is… weird, in a bad way. I watched the first two seasons and I’m like huh??? in a bad way. I usually like going huh??? but like, nothing mad e sense. Turns out the anime adaptation is garbage. Gonna have to read it :P. So I started Banana Fish. My first shoujo! I heard it’s… sad? Weird? Disturbing? I don’t remember, but all of those are right up my alley so I’m gonna watch it anyways.

(Okay, I'm 3 episodes in, definitely disturbing. Yay! It's created by MAPPA??? Why does MAPPA have everything, like what? Attack On Titan, Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, literally every recent anime is MAPPA lmao)

Also, I played this really cool demo of a game called Paper Trails, by the creator of Hue, another puzzle platformer game that I got for free, with an interesting mechanic where you use colors to make stuff appear or disappear, so like if it's a red platform and you switch to red, the platform will disappear, and if you switch to something else it reappears, and Paper Trails did not disappoint either. So, the basic mechanic is, it's a top down puzzle game, where the levels are paper. So the level has two sides, and you can fold the paper to create pathways and solve puzzle. Really innovative, can't wait to play the finished game.

[twinhood-2dot0]

DC (Cinematic) Elseworlds

Now that I’ve detailed every single DCEU film, I’m going to get into James Gunn’s vision for the franchise, but since Sunday came upon me way too fast, I’m only doing the Elseworlds part today, James Gunn next week.

What’s Elseworlds?

So, DC Comics has a number of imprints, or rather, had apparently??? That’s news to me??? Yeah, I’m kinda behind the times, I seem to kinda keep jumping forwards and backwards. I read every Batman, Nightwing and Batgirl comic from 2009 to 2018, then I kinda went back to 1980s Batgirl??? When I desperately need to catch up to Rebirth Batman and Flash??? I’m dumb, I can’t do consistency. Anyways, wow, I really need to learn to reign in my tangents. I bet I have more tangents than actual content in my posts. It’s a wonder how I have like 60 notes. Maybe I should highlight tangents or something. Anyways, DC had various imprints that it uses to publish different kinds of comics, like my personal favourite Black Label, with darker themed stories about mainline superheroes outside of continuity, like HOLY HELL DCEASED IS NOT BLACK LABEL??? IT HAD SO MANY GRUESOME AND UNCENSORED DISMEMBERMENT AND MURDERS. Anyways uh Batman: Three Jokers, oh, oh, Batman: White Knight, Batman: Last Knight On Earth That’s a lot of Batman, I kinda don’t read much outside of Batfam and The Flash :P. So, Elseworlds was once an imprint like that, tackling“What if?” scenarios of superheroes. That is what The Batman and Joker’s retroactively called, Elseworlds stories separate from the main DCU.

This is what it looks like. Look me in the eyes and tell me it deserves the name.) as early on as Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and the first Avengers (2012) movie. It also makes an appearance in Captain Marvel which I completely forgot about.

The Mind Stone is a huge part of the plot of both Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).

The Reality Stone appears in Thor: The Dark World (2013).

The Power Stone appears in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 (2014).

The Time Stone appears in Doctor Strange (2016).

The Soul Stone doesn’t appear in earlier movies.

So you see what I mean, even though the solo movies are mostly disconnected, they still serve the plot.

And Marvel has Kevin Feige to thank for this. He helped shape the narrative that he wanted to achieve using every Marvel film released. That is seemingly what DC wants James Gunn to do for them. I’ve already explained why I think James Gunn is so perfect for the role. The DCEU of old was so disjointed and messy, in complete contrast to Marvel, so I’m excited to see what James Gunn does for the franchise.

Elseworlds Films

Joker (2019)

A character study of the infamous Batman villain, the Joker. Aw man, Todd Phillips uses the word “woke” unironically. God help me. Dude made a movie about the failures of society, I did not expect this. Why does this happen so much 😭??? Thank god I didn’t adore him, unlike a certain author and a certain indie game dev I could mention. Is not hating people for no reason that hard? Okay, well, if there’s anything I learnt from history it’s probably that not hating people is hard. Anyways, politically charged tangent aside, the movie is an unreliable origin story through the eyes of Joker. Why is it unreliable? Well, the movie is from Joker’s perspective, and Joker’s alone. And some events make us question whether it actually happened or was a hallucination or Joker’s imagination or whatever. Here’s a great video if you wanna know more.Joker: An Unreliable Character Study and the One Scene That "Ruins" It

It’s an awesome movie. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is stellar, and watching his slow descent into madness with everything in his life coming tumbling down. It’s a unique look on the character of Joker, and the unreliability adds to it, because of the multiple choice past and all.

The Batman (2022)

The Batman directed by Matt Reeves is the third live-action reimagining of the character in this century alone. A solo Batman movie for the DCEU has been in the works since 2014, and was set to be directed, written and produced by Ben Affleck himself, with influence from Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Knightfall, and Batman: Arkham Asylum, the game. Then in 2017 he announced that he was stepping down as director, but would still star. So, they brought in Matt Reeves to direct the film following Affleck’s departure. The movie was initially planned to be connected to the DCEU, but was later reworked to be earlier in Batman’s career, and then later was written to be in a separate universe altogether. Reeves wanted more of a recluse, like Kurt Cobain, because of “Something in the Way” by Nirvana, which is featured in the proportional material and in the movie itself and got a 1,200% increase in Spotify streams after the movie’s release. I still can’t comprehend how wild that is. Like, 1200%. Anyways, that resulted in emo Bruce Wayne instead of the playboy socialite Bruce Wayne every other movie depicts. The movie is also heavily inspired by the Zodiac Killer and other noir films, leaning into the “World’s Greatest Detective” side of Batman that most Batman films neglect.

Might be a hot take, but The Batman is probably my second favourite superhero film slightly behind The Dark Knight. Probably my favourite movie. As awesome as TDK is, this felt much more Batman-y. I’ve watched it like, at least 10 times.

Plot: Batman, in his second year of crimefighting, doubts whether he is actually making a difference, while he is faced with political killings perpetrated by The Riddler, who leaves clues at every crime scene for Batman. A small tangent, but each of them seems to be in something that looks like a greeting card, and good lord the Batman fangirl in me was bursting with excitement. It feels awesome to get like every single easter egg in the movie. Can’t find the pictures :/ but there were easter eggs galore to Hush, The Court Of Owls, Hugo Strange, comic storylines, etc. Anyways, I adore this movie too much to go into too much detail, so go watch it.

Upcoming Elseworlds Films

Just sequels for the previously mentioned movies. There are basically no details about The Batman’s sequel, but the Joker sequel is going to be called Joker: Folie á Deux literally madness [shared] by two.  It’s obvious what that means, that’s right, Harley Quinn, played by uhhh Lady Gaga??? Idk much about her except she’s an ancient singer, but ig it’ll be interesting to see.

Prepare yourself for another huge post that you probably won’t ever finish :)

[twinhood-2dot0]

Pokémon

Saying that Pokémon is a franchise very near and dear to my heart is a bit of an understatement. Pokémon Emerald was one of the first games I played, and the anime was probably my first anime. I'm pretty sure I've watched every Indigo League, Hoenn and XY(Z) episode, and I've played at least one of every single mainline Pokémon game. So I made a tier list because I can't think of a topic and I'm currently playing Scarlet and Violet so :P.

Get ready for some hot takes. Also, I know you won't find this interesting at all, but at this point I'm writing these more for myself so sorry :/.

S Tier

Pokemon Emerald was among my first Pokémon games along with Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed and LeafGreen, so I look at them with extremely rose tinted lenses, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people grew up with them too so I don't think that's a very hot take. (Yes, I know it came out 2 years before I was born, but I never had a console, much less a Nintendo one, so I played the Gen 3 games in a browser. And plus, I think the remakes of Ruby and Sapphire, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are regarded as some of the best games?[citation needed].) Even so, Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald are still really awesome games. With Gen 1 and 2 games being very linked, with even the ability to travel to Kanto in the Johto games, RSE was sort of a soft reboot, introducing 135 new Pokémon, and very little repeats from older generations. It was also the game to introduce abilities, inherent traits to Pokémon that assist in battles or in other ways outside of battle, and separating the Special Attack and Special Defense stats completely, which had the unfortunate side effect of making transferring from Gen 1 and 2 games to Gen 3 games impossible, so they created FireRed and LeafGreen, the first generation games, remade for the GameBoy Advance, and Emerald, to introduce the rest of the Pokémon yet to be obtainable from the previous games. Emerald was basically an enhanced version of Ruby and Sapphire. A slightly different story involving both Team Aqua and Team Magma (basically, every Pokémon has an evil team, with different goals. In RSE, Team Aqua and Magma want to submerge the earth and create more land respectively), animated sprites, and the third of the Weather Trio, Rayquaza, gets a role in the main story. And the best thing from the Gen 3 games, the Pokémon.

The Gen 3 games gave us:

The cutest Pokémon ever

Some of the coolest grass types

KFC.

A pretty cute and interesting line. (Art by RoastedStix on DeviantArt. Although, I'd advise against searching up Gardevoir art. Some terrible people exist on the internet.)

Computer.

Okay, I'll refrain from flooding this post with images from just this game. But you get the point.

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are the Gen 3 games remade for the 3DS, with 3D Pokémon and features added in from Gen 4-6, including, Mega Evolutions, basically beefed up cool looking fully-evolved Pokémon, like the 4th in the Sceptile line.

A Tier

Heart Gold and Soul Silver are remakes of the Gold and Silver Gen 2 games. Decent enough games, but the inclusion of walking Pokémon bumps it up significantly.

This is what I was trying to achieve when I accidentally released the Grovyle that I cried about. The Pokémon admittedly are kinda forgettable, except for Quilava who is one of my favourites.

And the level curve is terrible. I somehow didn't even evolve Quilava by the time I beat the Champion, and the Gym Leader levels are weird. Otherwise, pretty fun, along with the new features from Gen 3 and 4.

I haven't finished Legends Arceus yet because of my ancient laptop and inability to afford a Switch, but from what I played and heard and watched, looks pretty fun.

I put Black and White and its sequels in the B tier in the tier list, but I think they're A tier games. Stellar story that stands out a lot from the other pretty much cookie cutter stories, it goes over the morality of Poké Balls and owning Pokémon, and some of my favourite Pokémon. The Pokémon in Gen 5 doesn't seem to be very popular, but I love them.

These two starters are among my favourites, and picking one of them was so hard. I ended up picking Snivy in Black and Oshawott in White 2.

Huh, I just realised, the Oshawott line is one of two starter lines that go from biped to quadruped from all 27. I found a post analyzing the walking habits of every starter to predict what the Gen 9 starters would evolve into.

Ah, poor /u/RazarTuk, all your predictions were wrong.

A mole that's literally a excavation drill.

A literal Hydra with a little easter egg for people who know German numbers. Deino, Zweilous and Hydreigon. (Art by SeleneEde on Deviant Art.)

Electric Zebra.

Alright uh I don't think I have the time to get into the rest so, I'll sign off with a hot take. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are not awful.

[twinhood-2dot0]

My Turn Ons (in fiction) aka Attack On Titan/Chainsaw Man obsessive appreciation post

I started writing this post about what I liked to see in works of fiction, but uhhhh it quickly devolved into just praising every aspect of those previously mentioned mangas. Look I swear I like more than these two, they just seem to hit every single one of my spots??? These are the first works of fiction I really obsess over because of the plot and the storytelling and not just characters and worldbuilding. Like, most of my favourite franchises are mostly because of characters. DC, Rick Riordan stuff, one certain novel series that feels fills me with rage just thinking about, you know the one, you get the point. Also, I'm writing this while watching a video overanalysing Attack On Titan story arcs :P. Okay, that's it for my explanation for why this turned into a post singing praises, the rest is what I started writing and am too lazy to edit the intro for.

I spend a lot of time on TVTropes. And significantly more time obsessing over the new work of fiction that I just discovered and fell absolutely in love with. And recently, I’ve found out a few things that make anything instantly a favorite for me. Lemme list them in no particular order.

1.Death. Obviously. You probably saw that coming from lightyears away. I really love works of fiction that do not shy away from killing off fan favorites and well established characters unceremoniously. Examples include Attack On Titan, Chainsaw Man, The Walking Dead, Avengers: Infinity War to a lesser extent because of the events of Endgame, The Suicide Squad, the Arkham Series, I mean uhhh do games count, since Batman has died at least like 20 times by my hand and other characters too because I just wanted to see them die? Anyways, the Arkham series also has a huge canon death count of huge characters.

2. Sudden Tonal Shift. I love when stories start off as goofy and comedic and suddenly shift to dark and depressing in a matter of seconds. Examples include Chainsaw Man, Attack On Titan (yeahh, it’s kind of spoiling it, but dw, you won’t see it coming), AoT to a lesser extent because it is one tone throughout, but shifts how it is approached suddenly and quite often, and Your Name.

3. Female and LGBTQ+ characters. I… don’t really know how to explain this. Basically uhhh I want every single character treated the exact same way. Idk how to really explain it, so lemme use some examples. I feel like Attack On Titan has the best female and LGBTQ characters. Okay, okay, I know I say that AoT is like the best work of fiction ever created a crap ton, but really, I’ve yet to see anything that did female characters soooo well. One of the few things that made me despise anime is their female characters. Let’s see here. Death Note, there is one female character in the main cast and her whole purpose is… fawning over the main character. There is literally nothing else that she does. And another manga that I had the displeasure of reading as a kid is Fairy Tail. It’s led by a female character, which you might think is a good thing but… she’s so sexualised like oml like wtf the solution to every problem is not “sex appeal”. I’m not even joking, the phrase “sex appeal” is probably more used than “Fairy Tail”, and My Hero Academia is good enough ig? They have pretty strong female characters but not very well written imo, and, well, this character’s outfit exists.

Also yikes I found this.

She’s a minor, for god’s sake. There are quite a few more characters with questionable outfits and questionable writing but I don’t want this post to get gigantic. To be clear, I am not singling out just a select few mangas and calling the whole industry sexist. There are a lot of stories with strong women who aren’t overly sexualised, but shounen is pretty much the most popular demographic, written by mostly men aimed for adolescent boys, so that lends itself to these issues (Also, sidenote, I have no idea where the line between shounen and seinen is. I’ve read just one seinen, Parasyte: The Maxim, and I’ve read shounen like Attack On Titan, Chainsaw Man, and Fire Punch, and that felt like they had more sexual themes and nearly as much gore and violence?).

So why do I like Attack On Titan’s female characters? The story never really concerns itself with gender. It is pretty much true equality, and it actually has female characters that contribute so much to the plot and stand on their own apart from the main character (don’t you dare say Mikasa, that’s a can of worms you do not wanna open even among the piles of worms that are all my posts.). Also, look at the art of the characters.

(Actually, I prefer their manga art. Much more androgynous. As perfect as the anime is, I hate that they made them female. I loved the fact that their gender was up to the reader's interpretation in the manga. Hajime Isayama even got mad at the translators for using female pronouns for them in the English translation.)

Okay, not exactly the best picture, but I just loved that panel so much :P.

Also they are explicitly called male in the manga and then female in the anime?

Those are just a few examples, but no one has very gendered features in the main cast. It’s a thing I noticed recently, but no one grows a beard??? And so many male characters have long hair so even that’s not a distinction you could make. Anyways, my point is, there is no distinction. Strong women fighting against male domination is all well and good but like, I want stories like these more, where women are equals. And the one (maybe two) lesbian characters are so like natural too.

Chainsaw Man also does this surprisingly well. The main character, Denji, is a certified pervert.

A few panels from the first few chapters.

So safe to say, I wasn’t expecting great female characters. And I was proven wrong. I don’t want to give away too much, but it has some very top tier female characters. Some western examples include DC, obviously, with Batgirl being my absolute favourite, and characters like Harper Row, Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown also being some of my favourites. American comics generally don’t have a great reputation when it comes to female characters, like look at some of the costumes from older comics

I started reading Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years and holy hell, did men not know how to write women at all, like what in the actual hell is this

Down to her "pretty toes"??? Seriously?

Ah yes, women put on makeup while fighting.

Ah yes, women apply makeup while fighting. But I’m glad to see how far DC has come, with how much of a badass she is now. I’m not going to get into novels, there are a crap ton of novels I could cite for having good female characters, and a lot of being written by women too.

4. What the F did I just read. I like dark humor and dark stuff in general. So I love reading stuff that make me just pause and take in what I just read. All of Tatsuki Fujimoto's works (Chainsaw Man, Fire Punch, Goodbye, Eri, Little Sister's Elder Sister) get more and more deranged than the last, and The Boys too get very insane, and James Gunn stuff also tend to be uhhh weird, to say the least.

5. Extremely careful storytelling..? idk what to call it. Basically, a combination of the extreme opposite of writing by the seat of their pants, an extreme version of Chekhov's gun, and a good mystery. See, every story has it's twists and turns, but what I love is when there's a ton of foreshadowing and one that makes you go "OMG THE CLUES WERE THERE ALL ALONG, HOW DID I NOT NOTICE ANYTHING WHAT THE HELL" on a rewatch, and stories where every single moment and small detail contributes hugely to the plot. I've experienced the story of Attack On Titan three times... kinda? I kinda simultaneously read and watched Attack on Titan the first time, like reading season 1 then watching a few episodes, reading a bit, then watching, you get the point, then I went back and watched the episodes that I read and read the episodes that I watched and I'm currently rewatching it all because the last season came out like an year ago??? MAPPA takes on too much work and then make their workers suffer, anyways, not a can of worms I wanna open now. Anyways, what I'm saying is, every single detail is thought out and have some kinda symbolism or foreshadowing. Damn, I'm trying to find a meme, but I can't, but it's basically someone getting mad with the text saying something like "When your friends don't pay attention to the flowers and the birds (it is foreshadowing)".

Also, I'm also rewatching Chainsaw Man... after finishing watching and reading it less than a month ago, and most of the words spoken take on a new meaning after finishing it.

:P I'm sorry, idk any western media that has done this so well, so these are the only two examples you get.

6. Music. I can't believe I didn't remember this till now. I don't think I need to elaborate again? I've written like three posts about this already. That said, nothing even compares to Attack On Titan.

Yeah that's all I can think of :P. I'm about 14 hours late but meh.

[twinhood-2dot0]

ramblings of an insane sleep deprived person

I wrote a very long post that took more than 2 weeks so ig i took a break :P. And I also don't know what to write. Like, I have a lot I wanna talk about, but, like, one thing I wanted to talk about is an anime I finished a few weeks ago that I became enamored with and probably the second best work of fiction I've ever read, named Chainsaw Man (yeah I know, doesn't sound like something you'd call peak fiction but it subverts all expectations.) but, like, i don't wanna ruin the experience? Idk if you'll ever be able to read/watch it, since it has like, lot of gore... i think? i think I've gone past the point of recognizing how disturbing something is. Idk, didn't feel especially gory to me, but then again, I've read attack on titan and the walking dead and watched a ton of especially gory stuff. wow, how far I've come. anyways, its an awesome story with very well written characters and well, death. if you're writing something, if you kill everyone, I'll fall in love with it. but that's not it tho, the deaths themselves are soooo well executed. I got spoiled on one death and that did not at all take away from the impact from actually reading it. Yeah, I actually spoiled something, I did not expect it to be this good, so I was more lenient. Uhhh what else... yeahh not much im really bored pls send help.