the-pitifulpoet

[tinkkles]

There are some truly delusional shills in the comments of every post complaining about live action atla. Just saw somebody suggest that having zuko actively fight back and actually GAIN THE UPPER HAND during the agni kai against his father doesn't change anything about Zuko's characterization at all. What.

[stuckysimp]

I'm like 8 years too late, but oh well - I've had this Captain America Civil War rant stuck in my head for a while and I need to get it out after re-watching it. (This is gonna be long af, but bear with me).

I feel like a lot of people missed the actual point and plot of the movie (and the marketing definitely didn't help). The whole "team cap vs team iron man" stuff becomes irrelevant after like the first 20 minutes of the movie. But of course, it's still quite a big part of the movie and I'd like to take a moment to explore what I think, the different character motivations are around why they signed or didn't (or would / wouldn't).

The only reason Tony "I successfully privatised world peace" Stark signed the accords in the first place anyway is because of his massive survivors guilt complex which we see triggered by the woman who approaches him at the end of his speech to the MIT students. Like this man does not give a single shit about the government, and much like Steve Rogers, he just wants to keep people safe. Unlike Steve, however, he doesn't trust himself to do so and thinks of himself needing the be kept in check, for someone else to take the blame (though he'd probably internalise it anyway, let's be real).

Rhodey has always kind of been more on the side of the government, even if that meant going against Tony - think Iron Patriot - so it makes sense that he'd want to sign. He understands that a group as powerful and dangerous as the Avengers needs to be kept in check, but what he doesn't understand are the risks around that. In a perfect world, it would be fine, but unfortunately government systems are stupid and corrupt.

Peter was only really in the fight in the first place because he was a child blindly following this big celebrity guy he idolised. He didn't know enough about the situation to properly analyse it, just being fed and believing whatever Tony told him (and he had no reason to go against him, so why would he? This was his shot, he's been chosen by THE Tony Stark to help). "Mr Stark said you'd say that" "he said you're wrong, you think you're right, that makes you dangerous." I 100% believe that if Peter had read the accords, that he would have been on Steve's side anyway.

Vision is an embodiment of 'good' and 'peace' - essentially everything that Ultron was supposed to be, but wasn't. He has no reason to be against the accords if it will keep people safe and he makes the point during their conversation of "our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict ... breeds catastrophe. Oversight ... oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand." It's also very much the beginning kind of puppy love between him and Wanda in this movie, meaning that he will want to protect her. No matter what. Even if it means "locking her in her room."

Nat was seriously one of the only people in this movie with a brain cell lol. I firmly believe that if the accords had been properly put in place, she would have followed them until she no longer thought the government's instructions were 'right' and would have gone against them anyway. Her main goal in this movie was trying to keep the Avengers, her family, together and ultimately do the 'right' thing.

T'challa didn't give one shit about the accords lmao, he's damn king. No, he was only there in the first place to take revenge on his father's death (which at the point of the airport fight scene he still thought it was Bucky's fault. He later discovers, after following Steve and Bucky to Siberia, that it's Zemo's, and locks him up).

Steve's concerns with the accords are valid, and honestly I wouldn't have signed them either. To be told "sign, retire, or get locked up" isn't really a big winner for me lol. And the thing is, Steve's done this. He fought in WW2, he got paraded around like some big hero while men died, and he did nothing. It wasn't until he went against orders, that he actually did something helpful (saved the captured 107th division in Azzano). So, no, he's not going to be side-lined when people out there need help. That's just not who he is.

Bucky had no part in the accords, and as soon as he got introduced into the movie, that plot point became irrelevant. He was framed by Zemo, and then used to rip the avengers apart. The accords was just another log to add to the fire at that point. He followed Steve because "till the end of the line" and all that. He literally, heartbreakingly, says "I don't know if I'm worth all this," but he follows anyway.

Scott, much like Peter, is kinda just happy to be there. He's following CAPTAIN FREAKING AMERICA into battle without hesitation. But like, let's be honest, given his whole movie and character, I very much doubt Scott would be on Tony's side if he had read the accords.

Clint got dragged out of freaking retirement for this shit, and he didn't actually get involved until after Team Cap already knew about Zemo. That's why he's there. Not because of the accords, but to help Steve get to the Quinjet to get to Siberia and stop Zemo before he can go through with his assumed plan to wake up the five super soldiers who'd been stashed there. (Of course, this isn't actually Zemo's plan, but we'll get back to that later).

Wanda is going through some serious self loathing during this movie, and the incident in Lagos doesn't help. Like at all. Ma girl just wants to live her life and be left alone at this point and she's getting all of these horrible things thrown into her face by Secretary Ross. She doesn't want to be controlled, she doesn't want to be a weapon, she wants to be free. "You locked me in my room." - Girl already probably hates Tony Stark due to her family being killed by one of his bombs and Ultron, so she's mad anyway.

Sam is on Steve's side from the start. With the accords, to fight Zemo, all of it. During the 'discussion' between him and Rhodey, he says "So let's say we agree to this thing. How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?" He doesn't trust Secretary Ross, and is clearly hesitant to add his signature to the accords. (not that I blame him).

The main actual villain and 'plot' of the movie after the first part with the accords, was the whole thing with Zemo wanting to tear the Avengers apart to get revenge for his family dying in Sokovia. He takes advantage of the accords, and of Bucky / The Winter Soldier to do this but it's not really discussed which annoys me. It's a MAJOR part of the film, yet all I ever really see being discussed are the accords affecting the decisions of characters throughout the film with no consideration of the wider picture.

From when the UN meeting is blown up, the Avengers are being manipulated by Zemo working in the background throughout the film. He frames Bucky for murder, and Steve - who has been looking for Bucky for the past 2 years - goes after him like ‘tf man’. Bucky gets taken in and Zemo uses the opportunity to activate the Winter Soldier programming, learn about Hydra’s super soldier program, and of course - “Mission report. December 16, 1991.”

This leads to Bucky’s escape and attack, Steve and co going on the run, and eventually the airport fight. The meaning of this scene gets lost, I feel, when people relate it back to the accords because it’s not about that anymore. Not really, not for anyone. Especially not for Steve, or even for Tony.

Tony at this point, most definitely feels like his world is being torn apart. He’s losing control, he’s spiralling, and Steve just isn’t listening. He’s blinded by his anger to the bigger picture and he just wants to get a handle on the situation to deal with it further.

Steve’s forgotten all about the accords, his priority is keeping Bucky safe and stopping Zemo. He tries to tell Tony, tries to talk to him, but Tony isn’t listening either. I mean their whole interaction just before the fight shows this:

(the dialogue below has been condensed to show the key lines - basically I got rid of other characters talking irrelevantly)

-

Steve Rogers: Hear me out, Tony. That doctor, the psychiatrist, he's behind all of this.

Tony Stark: Anyway, Ross gave me 36 hours to bring you in. That was 24 hours ago. Can you help a brother out?

Steve Rogers: You're after the wrong guy.

Tony Stark: Your judgment is askew. Your old war buddy killed innocent people yesterday.

Steve Rogers: And there are five more super soldiers just like him. I can't let the doctor find them first, Tony. I can't.

- later -

Tony Stark: And you've been a complete idiot. Dragging in Clint. 'Rescuing' Wanda from a place she doesn't even want to leave, a safe place. I'm trying to keep . . . I'm trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart.

Steve Rogers: You did that when you signed.

Tony Stark: Alright, We're done. You're gonna turn Barnes over, you're gonna come with us. NOW! Because it's us! Or a squad of J-SOC guys . . . with no compunction about being impolite. [Steve looks aside.] Come on.

-

Not to mention that Tony, after learning that Zemo impersonated and killed the actual doctor dude that was supposed to see Bucky whilst he was in confinement, he DISOBEYED the accords and Secretary Ross to go and help Steve stop what they thought at the time was the reactivation of the five super soldiers who'd been left in cryo freeze.

He follows Steve and Bucky to Siberia to help them, not to fight them. That only changes because of Zemo showing the footage of Bucky, WHILE UNDER BASICALLY MIND CONTROL, killing Tony’s parents.

In this scene, Tony 100% has every right to be angry. Unfortunately, he’s the kind of person who cannot see past his anger. He gets in his head, he spirals, and he tries to kill Bucky based on blind rage. (IT WASN’T BUCKY’S FAULT DAMMIT).

And yes, Steve was 100% in the wrong for not telling Tony. This whole scene could have been very easily avoided if Steve had just pulled Tony aside and had the difficult conversation about his parents death. Tony deserved to know, and Steve was only sparing himself pain by doing it. Dick move Steve, 0/10.

The fight between the three allows Zemo, having successfully completed his plan of eliminating the super soldiers and tearing the avengers apart, to slip away. With his work done, he tries to end his own life, but T’challa stops him and arrests him instead.

Steve and Tony’s fight was unnecessary, dramatic, and heart-breaking, and I’m very glad they managed to make up later, but ye. I think, at the end of the day, they’re all just dramatic idiots with communication issues lol.

-

Thank you for reading my long ass essay lmao, apparently I have a lot of feelings about this movie 😂

[okthatsgreat]

So how would your OCs fare in a different killing game setting than the game they're a part of, sure the killing game is the killing game no matter what, but a DR 1 style enclosed building is completely different from a DR 2 style sunny and beautiful island. I'm not exactly asking to put them in those specific killing games, just sort of putting them in different vibes.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO INTERESTING and yknow what im realising that i never really disclosed where dr:50 happens either so YIPPEEEEEE I GET TO TALK EVEN MORE !!!

for the 50th season of danganronpa they realllyyyyy wanted to hone in on the nostalgia, which means the location takes a lot of influence from the very first season!!!!!!! the group has been locked inside what THEY assume is some sort of weird boarding school/odd storage unit that has been boarded up to all hell with ZERO sunlight that isnt artificial. similar to thh areas continue to get unlocked as the killing game continues, but overall it is meant to invoke the same claustrophobic atmosphere as the first game, which REALLY influences quite a few of these people lol. not to mention that about halfway through the season (probably late chapter 3/early chapter 4, bc it definitely influences pippy to do what she does lmao) it's revealed they are WAYYYY underground in a survival bunker that has been abandoned and forgotten about (hence why everything is dusty as hell). catastrophe struck and the class is mostly presumed dead down there. also there is a single elevator but they are NOT getting to it unless they kill somebody

HOW THEY WOULD REACT TO A TOTAL SWITCH UP (FROM LEAST INFLUENCED TO MOST)

yoshito: i think regardless of location he would have the same attitude going into it!!! would it be NICE to send that man on an island vacation where he can run around at the beach with his friends? yes. but would it ultimately influence his "i can fix everybody" mentality? likely not

ryobe: similar to yoshito i think this guy gets fucked up regardless of where he's kept lmao!!!!!!!!!!!! the claustrophobia of the bunker ABSOLUTELYYY has some influence, it'll definitely get to ANYBODY after a while, but ryobe is very stubborn in his own escapism that i find it difficult to imagine he acts super differently in a sunny resort lol. he'd definitely be a lot more annoying with a water gun but he would still refuse to acknowledge reality and spiral regardless if he's sunburned or not

mika: i reckon there is a SLIGHTT difference with how she acts here!! not enough to drastically change her character arc, but i honestly think throwing her in a beach would make her a bit more friendly to start off with. when season 50 begins and they all meet each other, she is the FIRST to assume that they are at a hopes peak boarding school, meaning she has already boxed herself in as this ultimate lucky student with no talent in comparison to all of these talented people. a lot of the reason she is so standoffish originally comes from that immediate insecurity. i reckon if they met in a more relaxed setting where ultimate talents arent IMMEDIATELY relevant she'd be a little more open!!! of course there is no denying how they are all ultimates in some way or another but surely they arent here just to work on that right??? its VACATION TIME!!!!!!

erin: DEPENDSSS depends. she's going to act like pippy no matter where she is because like ryobe she is relentless. but that feeling of total claustrophobia in the bunker and complete isolation absolutely lent itself as motive for her. this is a girl whose entire life is dedicated to her work, and the bunker setting REALLY emphasizes just how completely separated from it she is!! it further tells her that HEY, EVERYBODY FORGOT ABOUT YOU IN THERE, and regardless of what her actual motive to kill ended up being that feeling absolutely contributed to the mania that led up to the murder in the first place. rp!pippy is a whole different story BUT HONESTLY it's a pretty good indicator that in a more open/less claustrophobic setting (since the rp took place at a camp, and while it WAS abandoned there was still the SUGGESTION of other people somewhere), plus with some close friends lol, erin could have reasonably survived!! throwing erin in a setting like that OR an sdr2 beach setting could help her quite a bit because it feels much less isolating if that makes sense. looking at the sky at least gives you a bit of hope that somebody else is looking up at the sky also. looking up at a bunker ceiling for weeks is going to make you irrational

rie: same with erin the idea of being completely isolated absolutely contributed to her entire facade crumbling in the later chapters. she misses her dad!!!!! and shes the primary caretaker for him so being locked away from him presumably forever hurts!!!!!!!!!! the bunker makes her feel completely alone and absolutely helpless, and is a big part as to why nobody trusts her in that final trial. trusting rie was IMPORTANTTT too, because if they had listened to her a bit more or even attempted to calm her down enough to get an alibi together they actually might have been able to get through chapter 5 lol, instead all of them had fallen into a rush of mania and exhaustion that led them to distrusting her wayyyy too easily. throw her on a beach and she'll be a litttleeee more chill i think, still VERY upset about her dad but maybe jusssttttttt calm enough to rationally talk things through. the isolation of the bunker is really good at making all of them feel very alone, which is why finding somebody to confide in was a tricky task (and then when she did find somebody to confide in they accused her of murder. lol). the beach might be a better setting at making friends!!!! maybe!!!!!!!!!

billie: the entire location billie was in was a constant and walking reminder of her father LMFAOOO, it was LITERALLY his own creation that she had been constantly testing for him. and BECAUSE she had done that so many times, she was immediately quite standoffish and awkward to the others, just because it felt very repetitive at that point. BUT ALSO i do think a big point of her character during the one and only chapter she survived was that she WANTED to help, mostly because she felt GUILTY. she felt that this simulation going haywire was partially her fault, because she recognized signs of malfunction and didnt run to stop it in time. in another location where she is less familiar of her surroundings and doesn't feel immediate responsibility, i reckon she'd be a lot less helpful LMAO. this is still billie so she is still going to be very easily influenced, but she'd be a lot less inclined to help and honestly might just hide away for a lonnggggg while. she would NOT fall for the note the way she had in the rp, which means lets give it up for wilhelmina "billie" lane for making it past chapter 1 WAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sae: GET HER OUT OF THEREEEEEEE SHE NEEDS FRESH AIR SHE NEEDS THE OCEANNNNN. NO MORE CHLORINE-FILLED POOL NO MORE WEIRD HOTEL SMELL AND BLEACH. this resort she is currently in (in the rp!!) is kind of a mix of the bunker setting and the beach setting in that it is still isolated BUT she can at least SEE the outside. she can put her hand out there. its more taunting than anything but it COULD be so much worse

naomi: honestly she might be the most immediately and gravely affected by the location LMAO. this is a girl who is used to have places to RUNNN, and this bunker is allowing her NONE of that. she CAN not run away from these people, and the most she can do is hide, even though the entire cast knows that she is in her room. it is very very easy for her to grow extremely helpless in that location, because so much of her survival instincts is rooted in packing up and leaving!!! setting her in a beach gives her farrrr more freedom, and while that DOES mean we probably wont be seeing her until chapter 2 lmfao she is going to feel a lot more comfortable. it is still a very isolated island dont get me wrong, but it is a HUGE island, and naomi would feel far more inclined to meekly join in with the others now that she knows she has a surefire means of fucking off to the other side of the island should anything go absolutely haywire. HONESTLY would stop her from doing anything too rash. she is still remarkably paranoid but it is slightlyyyy easier to find lucidity on a beautiful island with a lot of open space rather than a dusty old bunker where everybody is cranky and the only enemies that know you are alive are currently trapped underground with you

andi: specifically made for the new waters retreat, would not exist in any other location

THANK YOUUUUUUUU SM AGAIN MWAH MWAH <3

[lu-is-not-ok]

Your assessment of G-corp Gregor's lust sounds a little like sloth again; I think it makes a little more sense remembering he's the mirror equivalent to Toma. Looking at Toma's behaviour, it's clear he's emotionally satisfied by being a Good Soldier, and all praise or accolades would be irrelevant because he was acting out of love for the cause, and to be a Good Soldier is nothing worth praise; competency is the least a Good Soldier could do. The fact Gregor is violently suppressing anything BUT his love of the cause isn't necessary a contradiction. (The fact the Old G-Corp military-grade bioengineering was led by his neglectful mommy definitely related.) I feel the fact he only breaks character in reaction to failure/loss contributes to this reading. It's really really really important to him he's good at what he does!

Less relevant to the sin but fan of the fact that despite him filling Toma's role he immediately gravitated to his original situation of leading the main force and mysteriously vanishing at the end of the war anyway. Without warfare, he would have nothing to justify his existence, so he'd still be an unstable homeless veteran no matter what. An inescapable nightmare. LOL

Yeah G Corp Gregor gave me some struggle. It is possible that for him, Lust could be a little bit of both. Sins overlapping here and there isn't unheard of, but I get what you mean.

I will note however is that just because a character fills in another character's role, that doesn't mean they share everything about their issues. On one end of the spectrum we have an ID like Spicebush Yi Sang, who is incredibly similar to Dongbaek in motivations, while on the other we have Mariachi Sinclair, who is basically nothing like Aida. Most IDs based on other characters like this will fall somewhere in the middle.

For example, L Corp Faust mimics Yuri's problems that came about from L Corp falling, but whereas Yuri focuses more on the survivor's guilt part of it, L corp Faust focuses on the loss of self-confidence due to society refusing to see a fallen Wing's feathers as still useful. Same source of issues, but different kinds of issues, if that makes sense.

That's why I didn't want to focus that much on comparing G Gregor to Tomah, since he could fall anywhere on this spectrum of IDs.

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

I also love getting people into my other interests by simply bombarding them with posts about them long enough 🥰 Feel free to send more asks about gomens or Queen lol

Lol I've got both, well opinion gomens one and a question in the other but I'll send another ask for that.

I don't agree or like the Metatron - Coffee theories that make the rounds because I feel like it take the nuance away from Aziraphale's character because we had the whole season setting him up as not always going with the heaven's plan but not denouncing what he thinks is right too so I don't think the end was out of character for him and if let's be honest if everything went sailingly smooth there wouldn't be a next season, without setting up a conflict I don't see where they could have gone the next time.

Oh, I’m not afraid to say that the Coffee Theory is pure cope. The end wasn’t out of character at all; Aziraphale genuinely believed he’d be able to fix things, make a difference, and do good if he took the Metatron’s offer. Doing good has always been a central part of his character! That’s why he’s the most traditionally “angelic” of the angels we’ve seen. I also think he realized that shit was about to get real when he heard about The Second Coming, too, and that cemented his decision to go (we saw his hesitancy before that). But in general, Aziraphale making misguided decisions because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, and his being brainwashed into thinking Heaven and God are still good no matter what, have been major parts of his character throughout the show. You can argue that the Metatron is a secret villain and was being emotionally manipulative to get Aziraphale to come along, but Aziraphale still chose to go of his own free will because he thinks he can fix things (like he thinks he can fix Crowley wrongly Falling) and wants Heaven to be good.

But I swear, a lot of people in this fandom can’t handle these characters being flawed, so people came up with a theory that would render Aziraphale back into their uncomplicated fanon version of him. I really think people got attached to woobified fanfic versions of these characters after the happy ending of s1, so they’re distressed over…basic conflict at the end of s2. I’d understand if it were OOC, but it’s not. It’s just wild to me, like the Final Fifteen are so obviously written as the temporary breakup part of a traditional romance, with a clear setup for resolution in s3, and people flipped out. I saw some BNFs from s1 more or less like, “Screw this, I hate Aziraphale now!!!” I remember seeing a screenshot on twitter of someone angry at Gaiman because gomens was their escapist, comfort show, and the end of s2 was too upsetting for them.

Not only does that sum up the motivation behind Coffee Theory, but it’s also kind of baffling and concerning, like…if such basic conflict to move a plot forward stresses you out so much, please log off and gain some distance and perspective. Like you said, anon, there would be nowhere to go in s3 otherwise. I love fluffy one-shots with no plot, but that doesn’t work for TV.

[less-than-three-3]

Tears of the Kingdom - a masterpiece sandbox, but a flawed sequel

It really does pain me to say that I thought TotK was just ok, because I did really love BotW. It had its clear pain points but for essentially a first of its type of open world game, it was incredible. But what mattered was that the design choices felt very deliberate, mechanics like durability and shrines were super key and important to the gameplay loop of exploring.

On the other hand, TotK, while it has very clear and high strengths with a very different design direction, has design choices across the board that genuinely baffled me, and I honestly question why this game was even a sequel besides being able to reuse everything. It very easily could have been its own game as it is, a different timeline with inexplicably identical characters and geography, because there is very little of BotW’s identity or even continuity really even present. 

And before you get your pitchforks, I do want you to hear me out - I promise I won’t complain about like durability or the map feeling empty or compare it to non-Zelda games, I’m gonna be discussing things that I don’t really see many people talking about? There will be spoilers! More below:

I want to start off by talking about my experience with BotW, but if you wanna skip this and just see my thoughts on TotK I get it, it’s just context that I think is relevant. I actually didn’t play BotW until about 2 years ago, despite being a huge Zelda fan I bought into that “bad zelda game” discourse so I thought I wouldn’t like it, so when I did play it I was absolutely blown away. I can still kinda get the complaints - some of the elements people love Zelda for were fairly weak, but as a redefinition of the series it was masterfully done. It was a game that not just rewarded and kept the cycle of exploration going through clever map design and durability, but did so by allowing essentially complete freedom of pathing and direction. 

I will always tell the story of how my entire first playthrough I did not know Hestu existed - I climbed the twin peaks and the mountains nearby to get to Kakariko and just totally missed him the whole time. Not that he was placed in a bad location, in fact I’d be surprised if more than a relative handful of people missed him lol, I was just on a completely different wavelength, and that freedom is incredible. But there were limitations - stamina is a necessary evil when you have free climbing and gliding (but not for running - #bringbackwhistlerunning), and it forces you to really actually scope out your terrain to manage your stamina. And, begrudgingly, I will “hand it” to rain for trying to get you to not just climb like a gremlin everywhere (this did not stop me just waiting out the rain, every time. I hate rain.). It’s a beautiful balance of self-motivated free exploration, and the soft limitations you have for that exploration. Without stamina altogether, the climbing and pathing, for example, becomes a lot less interesting when you can just entirely bypass like every cliff. BotW is a brilliant game of exploration, but you already knew that.

TotK, on the other hand, is not a game about exploring. Its design overall has such a strange identity to me. It reuses the main map of Hyrule, that’s totally understandable I’d be surprised if they didn’t, but is there really much to explore again? Granted, yes if you played this before BotW then there is, but from the lens of sequel let’s assume you’ve played BotW. For me, personally, I checked out the major towns from the last game, and it was really nice to see how they’ve evolved, but besides that, like... I guess there are many little shiny shrines placed everywhere again, but, like, I’ve already done that (For me, 2 and a half times over). The carrot on a stick wasn’t really enough for me to care all that much either, because after a certain number of shrines I just kinda felt like I had enough orbs. The motivating factor of exploration should not be the carrot on a stick reward at the end of the shrine, anyways.

And that’s not to mention the opening of the game, which is just so... clunky compared to that of BotW. BotW’s tutorial is genuinely probably the best out there, it essentially lets you loose to do what you want, how you want, and when you’re done learning the basic mechanics of the game, sets you loose again to continue to do what you want, how you want. TotK’s is so oddly rigid. The sky islands honestly weren’t the worst thing, they had fun things to do, but I did feel like it really dragged on compared to the Great Plateau which was about as slim as it could get. But when you get off of the sky islands, you’d think you’d be free to do what you want right? ....no. And that’s so fucking odd to me. They expect you to follow the quest markers for like, a few steps of the quest before you even get the paraglider and towers, and one of those steps leads you into Hyrule Castle which, for a lot of people, would raise alarm bells for “uh oh I shouldn’t do this yet”. If you went to do your own thing by seeing shiny things in the distance, you could possibly just not have the glider or the ability to reveal your map for a really long time. That’s weird, right? That can’t just be me.

Ok but fine, we knew Hyrule would be Hyrule, and the opening is just a few hours, so what’s the big deal, there’s so much more to explore! Well, the issue is that the sky islands are such a fucking bitch to get to (and basically require you to have a nearby jump tower unlocked, or a lot of patience with zonai gear), and getting between islands of different regions is pretty much not possible. And they’re SO sparse. It doesn’t feel like a region to explore, it feels like a few islands you can check out after unlocking a tower and not much else. 

The Depths tho!! They’re basically another Hyrule!!! Yeah, it is like Hyrule, but like, a lot lot worse. Like I said in the context, one of BotW’s greatest strengths in exploration were the landmarks and map design. So, why the hell did they decide to make an entire Hyrule where you have almost no such visual feedback to encourage exploration? You basically just have to choose a direction and commit (or follow a REALLY LONG series of statues), or maybe you see a Lightroot in the distance (this isn’t common). Maybe someone finds this fun but I certainly don’t, and I really honestly expected better from the developers of Breath of the Wild. You do have the actually really neat revelation that Lightroots are in the same place as shrines, and that the mining sites are where towns are. But I think that even further takes away from the essence of exploration? It’s so odd that the Depths are the way that they are, it truly has me questioning whether BotW’s design was truly intentional or if it was just lightning in a bottle that they couldn’t recapture. But maybe that’s just me.

So yeah the game has a lot of content and a lot of area, but I never really felt like.. that rewarded or satisfied by it. I actively just stopped exploring at a certain point, across all the layers of the world (ok I think I did get all the sky islands but that is NOT a hard feat to achieve lol). I wish there were a term gamers use that could describe this phenomenon of having a ton of stuff to do that starts to feel pointless to do... Oh yeah, it’s bloat. 

But let’s put a pin in that one, I don’t want to be so negative about the game because I did still like it. For one, the music is absolutely turned up to 11 compared to BotW, in part because it is a game with much more gravitas and more moments and areas that deserve that music. And BotW already had a fan favorite soundtrack, so you know this shit good.

The powers were a mixed bag, but I want to shoutout the absolute coolest power first, the one that I am the most mindblown by, that breaks the game without feeling blatantly unfair, and the one I am genuinely impressed is so well implemented:

Recall. This is the power that actually makes you feel like 1000 IQ, and I am pretty sure the people who came up with it and implemented it are too. It has so many broken uses in puzzle solving but, even when it’s clearly unintentional, it feels like a loophole, it feels like you outsmarted the devs. An entire fucking game could be made around this single power. And this game has 4. ...sort of.

If you thought I was gonna mention Ultra Hand, I’m sorry but you’re wrong, and that’s a larger discussion I will have later. Because let’s talk about the weird ones first. 

Like ascend. What the fuck is this power like it’s so incredibly niche and not in a funny way either, like cryonis. It’s not used to get between the Depths and the overworld and the sky, it has such a tight distance limit. And when you’re using it to scale vertical heights (or go through Taluses) it’s so finicky. Its most consistent uses are when the devs clearly designed “an ascend path” or for getting out of the overworld caves, and those are just like, really boring. The fact that most of twitter consistently forgets ascend is a thing is not good. You don’t want a power you entirely forget about. This is what I got in exchange for guardian launching?

Fuse is also a little weird to me, it’s fun but I feel like the novelty wears off a little quickly. On arrows it’s absolutely genius and a very wonderful replacement and addition to the elemental arrows, but for weapons? I know many people see this as addressing durability and collector’s anxiety from BotW but like, it doesn’t do either of those! They nerfed durability across the board for every weapon you get from the overworld except for sturdy wood sticks (which feel lame), and otherwise you have to either get zonai weapons (ok these are fairly abundant) or go underground and look for those statues holding unrotted weapons? This was supposed to address issues? All they did was push the issue of hoarding from your weapons inventory to your items inventory, which is a step forward for sure, but that’s not a solution, that’s them trying to trick us into thinking it’s addressed. You’d previously save your strong weapons just in case you need them later, but now you save your strong monster parts and gems in case you need them later. It’s the same damn thing, you just have actual bag space for it now so it's a little better! I’m a durability defender and I’m still confused by this.

Ok but the star of the show for most people is Ultra Hand, and I totally get it. Building the penis robot, or a mecha, or fucking drones is really cool and really funny. Breaking the limits of the game by attaching together a bunch of different things to solve puzzles in ways that they really shouldn’t have is cool (but Recall does it better). If you love sandboxes to just fuck around in and make a bunch of really cool or broken contraptions and doohickeys, you will love this. I just like.. don’t. Building a tank sounds cool but when I got at the helm I just kinda felt nothing from it, it wasn’t really that fun because the only input you can really give is the direction. I don’t feel like I’m playing the game. And I feel like it really disrupts those necessary limitations I was talking about at the beginning - I don’t find it satisfying to just entirely bypass a climbing challenge by just making a hot air balloon or rocket, and I don’t find it satisfying to just mow down enemies by holding forward as opposed to actually engaging with them. The battery is a limiter but is it even really that much of a limiter when the recovery items are so common (and in the case of rockets and hot air balloons entirely irrelevant)? This is on top of the vehicles despawning when you enter shrines so exploring with them feels AWFUL (easily the MOST baffling mechanic in the game). I dunno, they did really shoot for the moon and I think if you like this I’m very happy for you, but I do also think they really lost sight of what made BotW so revolutionary.

“But you control the buttons your press, if you don’t like it don’t use it!” I agree, and I didn’t really! I’m very happy with being able to use towers as jump towers which, with the wing suit, let you pretty much cover the entire region. But like, you still need to use Ultra Hand for shrines and temples. It’s fairly good in the temples, but I want to talk about the shrines, because some of them are great and maybe better than the best in BotW, but that makes the stinkers really stand out. There are a handful of mid-game shrines (as opposed to like, shrines right around Lookout) which were just “drive the vehicle we gave you” or “build a basic vehicle with the 3 obvious parts we laid out for you” like... that’s not a puzzle. (There was one shrine with a sick track layout and I’ll give that one a pass). I didn’t do all shrines, like I said I got tired of exploration, so I can’t speak to all of them, but this mixed bag didn’t help that either. At least there aren’t really combat trials outside the beginning.

While we’re on the topic, let’s talk about those temples, because one of the biggest talking points right before launch were the “big varied dungeons” that they added to the game, compared to the Divine Beasts in BotW which, while fine, were very samey and ultimately just 4 shrines squished together. So, what about the Temples? Well uh... let’s rank them, best to worst.

1. Fire Temple. Yunobo’s power may suck the most out of the 4 sages but I’d be lying if this temple and the road leading up to it didn’t slap. Using the minecarts the traverse around with changing tracks and figuring out how to guide the very finicky Yunobo Launcher into the rocks blocking your path was fun! Not my favorite temple ever, but it was a very good translation of the format. The boss also felt super traditional Zelda in the best way possible.

2. Lightning Temple. Besides the Fire Temple all the temples kind of take a “go in any direction and do these separate shrine puzzles united by a unique gimmick” and it’s pretty much just a reskinned Divine Beast, I don’t know who they were tricking. The Lightning Temple had the most interesting gimmick at least, essentially being light puzzles that were pretty satisfying, plus a killer boss fight.

3. Wind Temple. This was the first one I did and I was a little disappointed that it was just a divine beast, but the layout was in hindsight relatively interesting, and the whole path up to the temple with the sailboats was actually really really fun (and entirely irrelevant for the temple). People are loving the boss but it’s like ok? I think it’s just because people are just so used to the blights that a huge worm with Giant Enemy Weakpoint is cool by comparison. 

4. Water Temple. Water bubbles are sorta cool and the boss is a little shit. Sidon’s power and the goop was really annoying to use. The temple design does not even try to pretend it’s a temple, it is just 4 different islands with 4 different puzzles.

5. Spirit Temple. this shit sucked I’m sorry, getting the parts back to the center was ok and had some clever puzzles but otherwise it was kind of a slog to get them all, and the reward is a mech that was so slow and a little clunky and I just ultimately walked my ass to the boss. Maybe it’s because I just don’t really like the contraptions. I dunno, this was really meh. Boss was incredibly easy because he just gets instantly staggered by the cannon he drops lol.

And speaking of presenting us the same things as BotW with a fresh coat of paint, the dragon’s tears were also kind of dubiously implemented. They are definitely a clear improvement over memories in a lot of ways, but that really isn’t that high of a bar to clear. But because of the much stronger linear narrative structure of everything, you’re pretty much missing out on a lot by not doing these in the order that you find with Impa and that’s... really limiting? It only reinforces my assessment that this is not a game about exploration because when I see a giant fucking geoglyph I wanna check it out, I don’t want to look at my pictures to check if it’s “the next one I need”. Plus this order kind of encourages you to railroad your exploration of the regions in a specific order. It’s weird. But at least the story is really good.

And speaking of the story, yeah it was great, and it was genuinely tragic to experience those last few memories and have the very sudden realization of where Zelda is. But can I just ask, what happened to like anything from BotW? Where are the Divine Beasts, can they help? Was Zelda a dragon the whole fucking time, and we just somehow never saw her once in BotW? Why does no one outside Lookout, Teba, the Rito remember us? The only things that even remotely reference the very cataclysmic events of the last game are essentially throwaway filler dialogue from side npc’s and that’s weird right? 

Why is this game a sequel? 

I think if this was a Majora’s Mask situation where they were blatantly going in a very different direction in a different timeline and completely restructuring everything, but just reusing maps and models, I would get it. But it’s not, it’s the Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But it doesn’t feel like that upon even just a little bit of scrutiny. If they full sent the sandbox and new world and lore and origins of Hyrule as a whole new timeline and separate game, maybe they wouldn’t have felt obligated to keep so many of the incredible elements of BotW that ultimately either get trampled on or feel a little half-assed, and maybe it’d be even more fun for those who enjoy that type of game. Though to be clear, it’s not a case of mixed identity, I do feel all these elements can coexist, but I think it’s a case of them losing sight of or missing what really made BotW tick.

And again, not to say this is a bad game. I fairly enjoyed it, but to me it doesn’t meet the standards and expectations set by BotW, especially not as a sequel. But that may just be me, who does not care that much about sandbox elements. If you love them, and love the game, that’s great! My issues shouldn’t get in the way of your enjoyment, but I just have to say man, I wish I liked this game more.

[kyogre-blue]

Ooh someone put to words why I felt that Liyue's archon quest really dropped the ball after Mondstadt's, thank you! My sister was appalled when I thought Kequing was the same person as Ganyu when she appeared for the first time haha, I went "oh purple-haired messenger lady" and didn't realize they were different people until I met Ganyu again for the glaze lillies and realized the dissonance in her values vs Kequing's lol

But about Mondstadt's archon quest—my perspective was colored by the fact that I read all the Mondstadt books before finishing it, but still—iirc doesn't Venti explicitly tell us that Dvalin *isn't* mad about the temples or the lack of worship, but that when he came back to Mondstadt he was met with rejection because people didn't recognize him? Just how much he sacrificed defending them from Durin must have twisted the knife even deeper... This draws parallels to the time he first descended to the world and he couldn't understand people and the people didn't understand him so they reacted with violence and anger, until he finally met Barbatos who saw him for his beauty instead (breeze amidst the forest vol. 1). And well, the time in the archon quest isn't the first time that Stormterror had attacked—he and the knights have clashed multiple times and animosity grew (breeze amidst the forest vol. 2 citation) to the point that revealing that he's the East Wind NOW would be dropping a political hot potato and put the Knights of Favonius in a lose-lose between killing one of their gods or looking like their people's safety didn't matter to them.

Plus, Venti specifically stating that Dvalin doesn't have to listen to him made perfect sense to me because, in the past, Venti DID command Dvalin - in battle against Durin, 500 years ago. The fallout of which has obviously caused Dvalin an unimaginable amount of pain and is basically why Dvalin and by extension Mond were in such dire straits in the present. Venti must have felt so guilty... that reminds me, they actually made this point a lot more explicit in the closed beta! The meaning is a lot clearer there than in the final version, imho - In the beta, as Venti is falling, still awake, Dvalin goes: "speak...summon me, command me, and thou shalt be saved—" but Venti instead smiles, relieved. "You have finally returned, Dvalin" and blacks out. When he wakes up on Dvalin's back, Venti tells Dvalin "I never summoned you because I never wanted to order you again." the AGAIN is key here, I believe.

You're right that 'freedom when commanded by an Archon is really not freedom at all' came a little out of left field though. The context probably was about how Venti commanding Dvalin to save him would mean nothing, while Dvalin Choosing to save everyone, by himself, despite everything, means a whole lot. And maybe about how Dvalin willingly tying himself back to Mond isn't what Venti wishes for him, but it's not his place to tell Dvalin what causes are worth committing himself to? Maybe? I'll have to think a bit more on that, bc Venti does seem to support people committing to service as long as it makes them happy. Hm.

Sorry if this is incoherent and hard to read rip I typed it in my phone and I can't see the whole ask at once in my tiny screen lmfao. Also I was surfing posts about the Genshin storyline and saw yours, which I was nodding along with, then I went to your tumblr and realised "Wait, that's the author of those amazing khr fics I read ages ago!!!!!" So I Kinda Got Overexcited fjkjdh

Mmmm I vaguely recall that Venti might have said that, but again, it isn't conveyed properly, which defeats the entire point.

One off-hand mention isn't enough for the motivations at the core of your storyline's central character. We needed something more like Jean sitting us down and explaining painfully how Dvalin showed up out of the blue one day, how the people panicked, how no one realized who he was until it was too, etc. This should be at least three sentences with sad music in the background, is what I'm saying. Like, an actual scene of this. This is what I mean when I say Mond feels like it's missing half of its scenes, to help transition between what we did get.

Similarly, I don't count the books toward the actual storyline. Very few people read those. I only read them on the wiki, not even in the game. The game doesn't even think you're reading them, since Liyue Act 4 literally told us nothing that wasn't already in the books, because they knew most players don't know this stuff and had to be caught up on all that. Beta content is obviously even less countable, since it's just straight up not canon anymore, since they chose to cut it.

(The beta stuff is interesting though! Wonder why they'd cut something so meaningful.)

In general, Mond and especially Liyue suffer from a ton of the setting and situation being just... vague.

We're not explicitly told what the actual conflict between the Qixing and the adepti is. We're not told what the adepti actually plan to do. We're not told what the Qixing are even doing behind the scenes. It's all discussed in total generalities, when the specifics would have massive implications for all the characters involved. In Mond, it's somewhat less noticeable because, at the end of the day, Dvalin is not being rational or acting as he normally would, so the situational details aren't too important. But in Liyue, the situation IS the plot, so.... yeah.

As much as I hate it, I will say that the new writers are better at convey this stuff, for whatever reason. I just finished Inazuma act 1 again, and it's noticeable how much they walk you through the situation in Inazuma, compared to Liyue's vagueness.

(Not to say that it's all good or even enjoyable, the Ritou errands were just annoying and the NPCs are a cancer, plus the emotional and character writing is a mess, especially in the other acts. Hilariously, it even comes back to bite them later because they try to sweep under the rug the situation they set up so painstakingly.)

I feel like those KHR fics are my real legacy, and I'm happy with that. Those were good days, hehe.

[demonsfate]

BRAINSTORMING AAAAAAA. spoilers 'cos i keep thinking about new game !!!

brainstorming more of THEIR relationship and how i want it to go now and maybe some changes!!! everything is SUBJECT to change 'cos oooooh fresh lore fresh game!!!!

ANYWAY. remember how i was talkin' about dj's feelings regarding jin during his reign of the zaibatsu??? altho i am indeed CONFIRMING now that dj genuinely cares about jin, and thus - that's why he was missing him (despite killing him himself but who says you can't feel remorse????) BUT dj himself still isn't sure if he actually likes jin or if he just feels uncomfortable by Change. this is both from dj's head being a Bit of a Mess (hard to tell who you are or what you actually feel when your emotions and motives have been influenced by others) and the fact dj doesn't wanna admit he could love anything.

even when things were calmer for them in between the fourth and fifth tournament, jin still saw dj as something unwanted. although he had thoughts of trying to "make peace" with dj - he mostly just thought of ideas to get rid of dj should he get out of hand (which i mean, look what happened and how dj treated him - you can't really blame jin LOL)

during jin's confrontation with dj, jin realized that dj is always gonna be someone apart of him - he's learned after all their struggles, they can't get rid of each other. therefore, jin takes the more merciful approach - this time trying to make a truce with dj than their continuous fights. it is through jin's acceptance, and the purity of his Kazamaness that it clears dj's head a bit, and it "purifies" him, as well as he finally comes in terms with that yes, he does care about jin. he always wanted jin by his side, was mad at him for refusing to be by his side, and decided this time - they both can be together.

thinking that jin doesn't really fully forgive dj, but gives him the chance to Move On and perhaps keep making amends with him, and won't just try... to Kill Him or Rid Him.

GIVEN THAT... jin uh, LOST the devil power and is supposedly just a Normal Guy now. i'm still debating what i think that means for dj. mostly i wanna say that he's still there, except more like a person in jin's head and cannot take control of the body. mostly because i would like to write the "purified" dj. as 1) it follows the story of Redemption and having a chance to come back no matter what you did. 2) i rly wanna get into depth into his character development and how he feels now, and 3) i just think it would be really funny to write with muses he's been absolutely nasty to just for him to say "hi i'm good now! let's be pals :]" oh. and him still being Very Unhinged, just not... as homicidal or as horrible. because realistically, i feel that dj should be gone. but like. this is also rp land and things are a lil different for the sake of rps.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

[the-lone-witch-and-secret-room]

The Owl House and pacing, a perspective from a fanfic writer that works with a large cast

I’ve seen a bunch of complains about the way The Owl House is paced lately. People claiming that it’s bad writing, and rushed, and whatnot. But from how I see it, you’re complaining for all the wrong reasons, and to the wrong people.

TL;DR: this is an overlaying issue with Disney and the industry that doesn’t allow long shows anymore, essentially forcing writers to pick between good pacing and complex stories being told with large casts.

For context: the fandom I wrote for before I got into The Owl House had a pretty small main cast. There were a few reoccurring characters, but most of them only showed up like five total times over the course of four seasons or had little personality, so my main cast I was writing about always consisted of my main five characters, with occasional cameos here and there. All characters were living together and experienced the adventure from the same perspective. There was one overarching storyline and not multiple. The interpersonal relationships still varied, though, for obvious reasons.

Now think about how large The Owl House cast is, and why that’d send them running into issues. Or don’t, because I have a whole-ass in depth analysis under the cut because this got unreasonably long.

(Also I’d appreciate a reblog, I spent… an unreasonable amount of time on this, lol)

The Owl House is different. There’s the main characters: Luz, Eda, King, maybe Hooty, technically (someone recently pointed out that he’s technically the titular character of the show and I’m still processing that, lol).

But they also have a HUGE additional cast to work with. There’s Lilith, Eda’s sister, and the main antagonist of season one, who has a lot to her character and gets a ton of screen time. There’s Amity, and there’s Willow and Gus, Luz’s friends. They’re all very fleshed out characters, and got a bunch of screen time and development, despite “only” being reoccurring characters and not the main characters.

Then there’s characters that have played a fairly minor role so far. There’s Belos, the big bad villain, who we will likely learn a lot more about this season. There’s the Golden Guard, the new main antagonist our cast deals with personally, who we’re just starting to learn more about. There’s Camila, Luz’s mom, who, despite only showing up a couple of times in the show so far, is very relevant to Luz and how the plot will ultimately turn out. There’s Edric and Emira, Amity’s siblings, who despite only showing up a few times as well seem to have a very worked out personality and background and also have a story that is (at least to some extent) going to be told according to the AMA.

There is at least one more seemingly important character whose role in the bigger story is hard to tell at this point, Raine, but according to the description of the episode, they’re probably going to influence the story a bunch.

There’s Alador and Odalia, who are responsible for a lot of their children’s toxic behaviors, and seem to have bigger plans that will probably be relevant later on.

The characters that are only focused on for an episode or two (like Matt and the troublemaker kids) all have very worked out personalities and even short arcs.

And heck, even characters like Boscha, who is extremely minor and seems like a very one-dimensional bully for the most part, get their moments that hint at there being more to them. We know Boscha has a clingy mom, that apparently has a rivalry with Odalia and works with Amity’s parents. The scene at the beginning of Wing It Like Witches tells us a lot about her general mindset and how she’s embraced that winning at whatever cost is the only thing that matters.

This leaves us with: 3-4 main characters

3 friends with fleshed out stories

Lilith, who is probably the most relevant aside from the main cast

Belos, the main antagonist, and the Golden Guard, currently starting to become a lot more relevant

A whole handful of minor reoccurring characters that have the potential to become bigger characters at any point in time

A handful of minor reoccurring characters that mainly seem to be there to further the story, but still get to have distinctive personalities and motivations (looking p.e. at the troublemaker kids)

That is AT LEAST 9 pretty major, relevant characters whose stories have to be tackled in the same show, in addition to the people that joined in season two and a huge supporting cast of well-developed characters that clearly also have stories of their own, even if not all of them will get told.

On top of that, the Owl House lives from exploring different relationships and different storylines. There’s the overarching story of how flawed the system is that will likely end with them overthrowing Belos, but there’s so much more.

Eda and the curse. Eda becoming a better mentor for Luz. Eda coming to terms with the loss of her magic.

Luz learning to cast magic with glyphs. Making friends for the first time. Slowly falling in love with Amity. Fighting to be able to learn whatever kind of magic she wants to. Learning that she’s not a burden to people. Struggling with her relationship with her mom, and trying to restore the portal so she can get back to her. Figuring out her future and what she really wants.

Lilith trying to cure Eda, and now in season two coming to terms with the loss of her magic and fixing her relationship with her sister. Lilith learning to ask for help.

Willow switching tracks. Willow growing more confident.

Amity becoming a better person, fixing her relationship with Willow, standing up to her parents, falling in love with Luz. Starting to fix her relationship with her siblings.

King finding out where he came from.

Hints at Gus struggling with decision making and stressing himself out less. Gus learning to be more selfless. Struggling with his magic track and being the youngest in his grade.

The newly introduced plot point with the Golden Guard. The plot point about the rebellion that will get introduced next episode.

The mystery with the letters.

And I’m like 90% sure I’ve forgotten something.

That is… a lot of different plots and relationships that are in some way important to the story.

In comparison, as stated, the last show I wrote for focused mostly on the same five characters and their relationships with each other, and one overarching plotline aside from some minor interpersonal relationships with two people’s family members that weren’t even introduced for several seasons. The first season fully focused on establishing the bond within this found family with exactly 1 important reoccurring character, an antagonist that had little personality and got a total of one line of backstory before he died.

If you have 90% of a season to develop 5 characters who live together, that’s a lot easier to do than developing twice the amount of important characters + introducing reoccurring characters season one of The Owl House has—the majority of which have separate lives and do not live together and thus can’t be focused on at the same time.

I’ve seen a bunch of people complain recently that the pacing of The Owl House is off, that the writing is bad, that the show is rushed, etc. etc.

And I get those complains. Believe me, as a viewer and also as an author that takes a lot of time to develop each character and their issues individually, I 100% get it.

But as an author that’s currently learning how hard it is to tackle a cast of the size that The Owl House has, I’ve also come to a whole different understanding from the perspective of the writers on the show.

For context, Locked Out focuses on a couple of serious themes, in the same way that the show does. It has 4 main plotlines: Amity Camila and Luz, Edric and Emira, Eda and Lilith, Willow and the Grudgby Squad (as well as a Gus arc that ties into the last one while also being its own thing, we’re getting to that part). So far, it prominently features: Luz, Amity, Camila, Eda, Emira, Edric, Willow and Gus, and to a lesser extent King, Lilith and Boscha, Skara and Amelia in relation to the separate plots.

That’s eight main characters across five different households. And then there’s the reoccurring characters that will have a larger role later on that I’ve not even had the opportunity to bring into the story yet/feature in a more prominent way. The cast is still growing.

And heck, I have all the time in the world to write this thing, because I don’t have an episode limit, or a deadline, or a limited amount of money to produce it.

For Locked Out, it took me 120k to get through a single week of plot at a very high level of character development, with about as many important characters as TOH has in season 1, and with an equally high number of reoccurring characters, some minor, some major. I think you can compare it to the show pretty well. I’d say, if I were to split Locked Out into episodes, I’d set one episode at about 10k. That would be 12 episodes. 12 episodes to get through a single week. Heck, even if I said 20k words were to be one episode, which I’m pretty sure is too much realistically, that would still be 6 episodes for one week.

And TOH covers more than three months.

That would be at least 72 total episodes to get through the three months of summer camp. And we’re currently progressing past that point.

72 episodes.

Let that sit for a while o.o

Everything that’s happened in season one (which as we know now was about 2 months) would have happened in 48 episodes rather than 19. Pacing-wise, everything would happen at less than 0.5x the speed. The first four episodes of season two would’ve been 24 episodes, assuming we hadn’t skipped a week and a half and had instead shown the immediate aftermath of the petrification ceremony, too.

And I’d love if we could have that, and if we could actually develop the characters and their relationships that thoroughly.

But the sad fact is that shows like The Owl House do not get the amount of episodes that would be required to develop every single aspect of the show to its fullest potential. Disney rarely greenlits shows of 150 episodes anymore. They used to, once, (Phineas&Ferb for example had 130+ episodes—you could tell one hell of a story in that many episodes), but that’s not a thing anymore. And the writers know that going into a show. They know the chances their story will be told in that way are very low.

And thus, the writers, especially ones working with large casts, have to make a choice: cut characters they love, and plots that are important to them, because they know they won’t get the amount of episodes required to do everything perfectly, OR include most of what they want to do, but at the cost of the pacing being off and everything seemingly happening too fast.

The Owl House crew went with the second option. The biggest issue the show has isn’t bad writing. The show’s biggest issue is that its cast and the story the crew members want to tell are too big for the amount of episodes they’ve been given (especially now that Disney decided to cut season 3 down into just three 44 minute specials).

And that’s on Disney, and Disney alone.

The crew is making the most of the amount of episodes they have, and unfortunately the lack of time forces them to rush things, and to sometimes sideline characters to focus on others.

Lilith got a bunch of screen time in the first four episodes. I’m sad to see her go, but she’s basically guaranteed to be back by season 2B. And there’s other people that have gotten way less focus than her so far. We‘ve seen basically nothing of Willow and Gus for the first few episodes, and I’m super happy Gus finally got some focus! We haven’t been inside Hexside all season except to see Luz expelled! And episode seven is even going to introduce a new character. Sometimes there’s parts of the story that certain characters don’t have a place in. And it sucks if they’re characters you like. But Lilith has to go for a bit so other characters can get the same amount of spotlight she did. At the end of the day, Lilith is not part of the main cast. She’s a very important reoccurring character, yes, but so are Amity, Willow and Gus. The main characters are Eda, Luz and King, and they’re the only ones that will always be around. And heck, even Eda got sidelined for a bit in the last two episodes, because we needed to focus on other characters. If not even the main characters are always around because we need some spotlight time for other characters, you can’t expect any more minor reoccurring cast member to be.

God, I wish they’d be given more time and more episodes to bring every part of the plot to its full potential, but they don’t have those, so they sometimes have to take shortcuts that unfortunately cheapen the story here and there. It’s the only way they can hope to tell their story to the end at all. And that makes me hella sad because it’s so obvious that they have an incredible story to tell, and that there’s so much more to so many of the characters we just don’t have the time to focus on.

The thing is: I liked the episode with Gwendolyn. It sends an important message that will hopefully get some parents who watch with their children thinking, and I’ve seen a couple of people talk about how close to home it hit for them. I have also seen a couple of people complain about that being too fast—and also just in general about things in the show getting sorted out too fast. And I get it. At least with this particular episode, I 100% get it.

(I’ve also seen some people complain that “Amity stood up to her parents too fast in Escaping Expulsion”, but I vehemently disagree with that. We’ve been building towards that moment since season one, with her doing more and more things that were technically defying her parents. I don’t see how this was rushed.)

Just… please don’t blame the writers. Dana even said that Keeping Up A-Fearances is one of the episodes that hit very close to home for her in the recent stream iirc? So I highly doubt this was rushed on purpose, or because the whole thing is “bad writing” when the entire writing quality of the show says otherwise.

A lot of shows in general have the issue that they have to be written season by season rather than as a full story these days, because there’s always a chance that they won’t get a next season. How large scale the story they want to tell actually is doesn’t matter if there’s a solid chance they won’t get to do any of it.

From a viewer perspective, I get being frustrated at the pacing being off. But from a writer perspective, the chances are very high that this is a choice they had to make, rather than one they wanted to make. And I don’t think you can truly see this if you’ve never worked with a fleshed out cast that large—Locked Out was really eye-opening for me in that regard.

This isn’t simply a case of bad writing/bad pacing by choice. It’s forced. They’re forced to rush through their plots because otherwise they won’t get the chance to tell certain parts of the story at all. And the saddest thing about this is really that those 72+ episodes to flesh out these plot points further wouldn’t have been an impossible thing to get, at a time.

Go for Disney’s head. Yell at the industry for being what it is today, for constantly axing shows before even giving them a real chance. But this isn’t on the crew.

[gashinabts]

hands-on learner| (m)

Word: 3.5k

Pairing: hentai voice actor!Seokjin x hentai voice actor!Reader

Genre: mature, smut, fluff

Summary: seokjin teaches you in unethical way on how to give your best hentai voice.

Warnings: hentai, public sex, DEGRADING, humiliation, dirty talk, rough sex, slut is used multiple times, fingering, overstimulation, choking, spitting, unprotected sex, ass & pussy slapping

a/n: just a quick one-shot for my babes. hope you enjoy this fic :) remember that your comments and support are what motivates me to write!

When you were little you always wanted to help people. The teacher would ask you what you want to be when you grow up, and you would reply to a doctor or a nurse somewhere in the lines of helping people. But when you came to the age of realizing that you live in a world where being the person you want to be came with a price such as starving yourself in order to pay for college classes you changed what you wanted to be. 

You are still helping people but not in a way that people would give a noble peace award for. As in right now you are reading a lewd script and fake orgasming. “ Y/N, reshoot. The words are off,” the director tells you. You look at the screen and watch as the hentai girl is getting pumped by an overload of semen, and you do a voiceover of a few high pitch moans and cries. “ Okay! Good,” the director gives you a thumbs up. 

You smile and gulp the water soothing your throat, you get out of the sound booth immediately bumping into Seokjin's chest. “ Watch and learn how a real pro does his work,” he tells you in a cocky tone. Seokjin is just wearing a hoodie and jeans yet he looks like a high class model, his light brown hair is pushed back and he looks hot but too bad he is an asshole.

Rolling your eyes you push his chest away, “ No thanks. All you have is a couple of weird cringey dialogue and a few grunts,” you hear him laugh as he enters the vocal booth. You sit down next to Yoongi who is part of the sound engineer making sure everything goes well. “ I hate him. He thinks he is all that, look at him,” you scoff.

“ Yeah, it also looks like you want to fuck him,” Yoongi lets out a chuckle. Okay, he is not wrong. You want to fuck Seokjin at least once to get all the sexual tension out of the way but somewhere in the back of the mind you think Seokjin likes to fuck in front of mirrors so he can watch himself the whole time. 

The director taps you on your shoulder and brings you outside in the hallway, “ The team and I were going through the comments from the previous work we have done…” Mr. Kim pulls out his ipad. Your eyes zoom in at some of the comments that make you see red.

@lolligirls- She sounds so fake

↳ @Y/N’sbitch- dumbass all of this is fake. no one is actually having sex in these hentai videos

@hentitties- Clearly this voice actor never had sex...lol

@hrny4animethighs- I couldn’t get past the five minutes, I had to go to a different video

@hentaiaddict- Seokjin is such a good voice actor, I nearly creamed my pants from him just saying hello

“ Thank you Y/N’sbitch, clearly this person knows how things work,” you roll your eyes. You give the ipad back not wanting to see it anymore, what do these people know about voice acting, you're the one getting paid and making them ejaculate in tissue in their gamer room. 

Mr. Kim clears his throat before speaking, “ There are more praises and positive comments for Seokjin’s voice so I asked him to give you some pointers. You guys will have to send me a voice memo of the script I’m going to send you tonight,” you make a sound a protest but he gives you a look, “ Or else you will just have a supporting role in the newest project.” He walks off to the other direction. The minute he’s out of earshot you kick the trash can which makes the trash fall out causing you to get more frustrated. You pick up the trash and toss it in the bin, muttering curse words to yourself. Now you have to see Seokjin’s cocky face all night giving you stupid tips that you don’t even need. 

You walk back inside the studio, Seokjin is out of the vocal booth and flirting with a woman, while Yoongi is going over the vocal track. “ I heard what happened, in all honesty you are my second favorite voice actor,” Yoongi tells you as you sit next to him.

You sigh, “ Who’s your first?” The chair makes a squeak as you adjust the seat height. Glancing over at Seokjin, he makes eye contact while giving you a smug smile then turning back to his conversation with the lady. Scoffing, you turn your attention to Yoongi as he fiddles with track volume.

Yoongi looks at you, his eyebags are dark “ Jimin,” he nonchalantly says. You aren’t even surprise, since they are fucking around. They are somewhere in the lines of friends to lovers but they are both too stubborn to admit they have deep feelings for eachother.

“ I would have never guessed...at least you are going to be here tonight,” you take a sip of the water down the ice coffee you bought earlier this morning. If Yoongi is here, you have nothing to worry about.

“ Actually it’s just going to be you and Seokjin. Told Mr. Kim I have an important date,” Yoongi’s ears turn red. At least someone is getting dick you think to yourself. “ Try not to kill each other,” he tells you. 

****

Everyone has left the studio and it’s just you and Seokjin. You are going through your lines, a corny script of a girl spending the night with her boyfriend’s best friend and they end up fucking, nothing out of the ordinary. “ Okay, I’m ready. I don’t want to be here all night,” you look at him casually scrolling on his phone. 

“ Aww, don’t be so mean. I know you are dying to be here with me,” Seokjin puts his phone away, coming closer to you after he presses the start button. He tosses his arm over your shoulder, “ Okay let’s get the show on the road princess,” Seokjin guides you to the vocal booth. Immediately you groan, pushing his arm away but your ears turn red at the pet name.

The script is placed right in front of you and you start to read it, going through the introduction of the characters. 

Seokjin looks at you more carefully when it gets to the saucy part, his finger on his chin as if he is really inspecting you. “ Mmm, it feels really good,” you whine at the end, making sure you sound as lewd as possible. 

Seokjin makes a sharp clap, making you halt from any other sound. “ It doesn’t sound like it feels good. You need to make it sound more real.” Seokjin shakes his head, there’s a small smirk. Your eye twitches wondering if he just wants to purposely get you irritated. “ Do it again, but this time make it sound like someone is actually fucking you,” he nods his head for you to continue. 

The last time you got fuck was a year ago, and it was a bad experience. You didn’t even orgasm and the guy came in less than five minutes. This time you repeat the line but with a whiny and sultry tone. Seokjin sighs, shaking his head in disappointment and you get frustrated. “ Well okay then teach me, because I think I sound fucking great,” you pull at the strand of your hair. 

“ No need to get mad, I can help you,” Seokjin laughs at your frustration. He comes closer to you and you can smell his faint masculine cologne, his body is close to you. “ I want you to imagine it as if I was fucking you,” he whispers darkly. 

You bite your cheek from cursing him off, but you should at least try it out. So you envision him fucking you from behind. The image of his manly hand wrapped around your head while the other is around your neck. He’s probably the type to fuck you like you don’t matter and you can’t help it that actually turns you on. “ Mmm, it feels really good,” you moan as if he is actually ramming his cock into you. You look at his approval and he nods, a small sense of victory comes over you. Until you feel his hand pushing your hair to the other side you leaving one side of your neck bare. He is closer to you, right behind you, his chest barely touching your body.

“ Is this okay?” He whispers into your ear. You whisper a yes and his plump lips kiss your neck leaving a trail of wet kisses that leaves your skin tingling. “ I’m barely touching you and you are so reactive,” he takes notice of your heavy breathing. He licks a small part of your neck, then blows on it watching you squirm at the sudden coldness. 

“ Someone can walk in,” you look at the door. You don’t remember locking it, and what if the janitor comes in. Maybe that makes it more tempting for you, being caught in Seokjin’s lust. “ Seokjin,” you whine as he bites on your earlobe. 

“ You would like that...to have someone see you getting fucked hard by me. Drooling because of my cock is hitting you in just the right spot,” his hand goes under your shirt just resting on bare waist. Then his fingers tracing up and down your stomach meeting the underside of your bra but then going back down. 

“ I-no,” you shake your head in defiance. He laughs and grabs your jaw forcing your neck to twist and look at him. His eyes are darker, and he gives you a pointed look making you change your answer. “ Yes, I’d like that,” you whimper, as his rough hand pats your cheek heavily as a reward.

“ See silly girl, lying won’t get you anywhere,” he taunts you. His body then pushes you forward so you now against the glass window, you place your hands on the cold glass. Seokjin takes his time taking off your clothes. You are the only one naked on the and the cold air from the ac makes your nipples hard and from the lustful stare Seokjin has. “ I should just leave you like this and call everyone here to look at you,” Seokjin has a sinister smile when you shake your head in fear. “ Why? You look like a perfect slut. I bet you are already wet from just me kissing your neck,” he pushes your chest so your back is now against the cold window. 

The degrading names are something new to you, and your thighs squeezed together try to relieve some pain. “ Then leave me here. I bet someone else can fuck me better than you,” you shrug your shoulders, hoping he’ll get mad. 

His jaw clenches, “ Spread your legs,” he forcefully helps you by slapping the inside of your thighs. “ Look at you so fucking wet,” he comments looking down at your drolling lips. His hand then comes to slap your cunt, you flinch but then feel the pain subside to pleasure. Your body coming forward falling into his chest but his hand pushes you back to the glass, “ Take it like a good slut,” he tsk at you shaking his head. The slaps come in intervals as he chuckles at your betweens of moaning and whimpering. A few slaps hitting your clit and you cry out his name to slap you more. By the time he is done your cunt feels numb and your legs shake, your hands fisting at his shirt. “ We just started and you are already giving up on me,” he massages your cunt soothingly, spreading your arousal and barely entering the tip of his finger in your entrance.

Shaking your head, you look up at him, “ Seokjin, please fuck me. I want to be your good slut,” you deliriously say in ecstasy. His lips lift up and his two fingers thrust quickly into you, with no warning. Your head falls forward onto his hard chest staring at his fingers thrusting deep and hard, the juices becoming more apparent on his hand. You have never been this wet in your whole life, is this what you have been missing? 

One of his hands pulls your hair back to you looking at him, “ Open wide,” you do as you are told and he spits in your mouth. The spit slides easy as you swallow it, opening your mouth for more as if it was fiji water. He spits again and purposely misses your mouth landing on your cheek, “ Oops,” he smirks then wiping his spit across your whole cheek. And you don’t care, just consumed in the pleasure of his fingers still fucking you open. Your eyes roll back when his fingers curl, your stomach feeling warm. “ Come on my fingers you dirty slut, make them smell like you,” he watches you unravel.

 One last thrust and you come all over his fingers, thighs shaking when he continues to thrust at fast pace not stopping when you try to pull away. He pushes you even more to the glass so you have no escape but to come again on his fingers, your body is confused to having back to back orgasms. Screaming his name in ecstasy, your cunt pulsates at the euphoric sensation. Body releasing everything you got, your chest is heavy and you finally feel him pull his fingers out, his fingers then shoving in your mouth. “ My fingers are dirty because of you,” he chastises you. Your eyes widen at the sudden intrusion of you tasting your own come for the first time, his intense gaze watches you suck the juices off his fingers. Moaning around his finger just like it was your favorite flavor lollipop. Sucking one last time, your lips smack as he pulls them out, “ Fuck me like you hate me,” your hand travel to his hard bulge lightly squeezing it. 

You close your eyes and pucker your lips when he leans down, only for him to whisper into your ear, “ I don’t wanna see your face if I fuck you,” he twist your body so your breast are flat against the window, side of your face pressed down on it too. You take a deep breath partially because you're nervous yet excited about what is about to come. The sound of his buckle is being undone and his pants, there’s no preparation as he thrust his cock into. Yelping at the sudden force, one of his hands holds against your throat and the other tight on your waist. His thrust are fast and rough, fucking you to his own pleasure and you don’t mind. “ I’m surprise you're tight,” he thrust harder and you cry out in pleasure, “you’re not fucking anyone, right?” Your mind is blank, only focusing on the thickness of his cock stretching you out painfully good. His hand occasionally squeezes your throat, letting your life be at his hands. He slaps your ass hard, you cry at the stinging sensation. “ Answer me slut,” he spanks your ass again harder.

Shaking your head the best you could you answer. “ No. There’s nobody,” your body jolts at his thrusts. You try your best staying still, your hands holding against the window, not providing much stability. “ Fuck Seokjin, it’s too much,” you whine. Not sure what is too much. The feeling is overwhelming, you think. Never had been fucked this good. 

His hand leaving your throat slides down to your clit, “ Shut up, you can handle it,” he chuckles, slapping your clit, shooting more sparking sensation in your core. “ I can’t stand your fucking mouth. Always talking shit about me, stupid slut. I can hear what you say about me to Yoongi. The voice booth is two way,” he pinches your clit.

Your eyes widen and you mentally want to slap yourself, but who cares the amazing sex is the consequent of your big mouth. Seokjin jackhammers into you, constantly hitting the spot that makes your eyes go cross eyed. The stars are evident when he rubs your clit hard, clawing at the window trying to grab onto anything you moan his name so lewdly as you orgasm harder than the previous two, it sounds like it came for a high-budget porno. 

Your thighs tremble at the aftermath of your orgasm yet you want him to use you more. “ Are you gonna take my come like a good slut?” Seokjin asks. His hand moving from your clit to the back of your hair pulling your head back. 

“ Mmm, yes I want you to fill me up,” you moan at the thought of his come covering your walls. Three more hard thrust he unravels, grunting your name and coming deep into you, holding your body tight to his. 

There’s the feeling of his shirt sticking to your sweaty back but you ignore the uncomfortable feeling. Your body falling limply into his arms as he carries your weight. Breathing is loud from both parties, he kisses your head and rubs your arms in a soothing manner. “ I’m going to get tissues real quick, okay?” You nod, your throat feeling sore from all the screaming. He presses a quick kiss to your cheek before running outside the vocal booth to get a tissue and water. You slide your body on the floor muscles strained from the rough sex, he comes back with a concerned look.

He sits down beside you, but then puts you on his lap laying the back of your head against his chest. He gently spreads your legs, and wets the tissue then uses it to clean the mess he made. Your eyes close, not used to feeling this kind of emotion, like you want to be comforted and swaddled. “ Open your mouth for me, baby,” Seokjin presses the water lightly on your lips. Parting your lips the nice cold liquid travels down your throat, relieving a small part of pain. “ Good girl,” he whispers, one hand caressing your cheek. “ My beautiful baby did a good job today,” he kisses the side of your forehead. You hum in delight at the compliment loving the feeling. He continues praising you, hands caressing every inch of skin and kissing your cheeks.

When you finally have the energy to get dressed, the room is silent because for once you guys aren’t bantering. You look at him and he is scrolling on his phone like he didn’t just fuck you to oblivion. And it kind of hurts that he’s not looking at you despite him giving all that aftercare. Maybe it’s your after sex hormones making you emotional. “ Imma just go,” your voice is hoarse. He looks up quickly showing you his sparkly eyes, “ I can’t really work like this,” you point to your throat, there’s a slight burn as you speak. 

“ Wait, I ordered us food,” Seokjin stands up showing you the receipt order of kimchi jjigae on his phone. “ But if you want to leave, that's fine,” he rubs his neck. “ Let me at least order you a taxi,” he goes on his phone.

“ No!” You embarrassingly say loudly. His eyes widened at the sudden outburst. You blush like an idiot, “ I mean, no I would like to stay and eat kimchi jjigae with you.” Seokjin smiles and you smile back.

You and Seokjin waste no time eating the food, taking less than fifteen minutes to finish the food. “ I’m too tired to do the voice memo. I’ll just take the supporting role,” you lay your head back in defeat. 

Seokjin is cleaning the mess and he shakes his head, “ I’ll tell him that you did a good job and that we forgot to record it,” he throws the food cartons in the trash can. 

“ Yeah but those stupid comments,” you groan loudly. “ What if I do suck?” You ask yourself, thinking about @hrny4animethighs’ comment. 

“ Impossible. You are a talented voice actress, those comments are just trolls.” Seokjin sits down next to you. 

You face him, smiling at his nice comment. “ Really?” You get fuck by Seokjin once and now your head over heels for him. 

“ Yes.” Seokjin cutely rubs your head. “ But if you need any help, just imagine me fucking you,” he laughs as you groan pushing his hand away. “ You want to know I’m so good at hentai voice acting?” You nod at his question. “ Because I imagine you,” he likes the way your cheeks flush. 

He stares at your lips, “ Are you finally going to kiss me?” He doesn’t answer but kissing you softly something that you didn’t expect after the filthy sex you guys had earlier. His lips feel like soft pillows and you could feel yourself getting lost, your hands finally get to feel what his hair feels like. Soft and silky.

“ Go out with me,” he pulls a centimeter away. His breath hitting your lips.

The Kim Seokjin wants to go out with you? “ It’s only fair because you gave me some pointers,” you shrug. Seokjin chuckles and attacks you with kisses, wondering how he is falling quickly for you.

-------------------------------------

Do not repost, translate, or alternate my work in any way, onto any platform. I do not take plagiarism lightly.

[starryoak]

Gonna step my toes in the stupidest discourse waters possible, but personal musings (that I’ve told literally any person who will listen to me);

You’re all going to hear a rant I have about a shallow crossover comparison that’s way too popular. With the caveat that I’m not actually, like, upset with anyone for enjoying it, I just think it’s not as logical as some people make it out to be, and I think it warrants thinking about why it’s so popular despite the incongruity, if you’re into thinking about media and the things it can accidentally imply.

When people do Heathers crossovers with Danganronpa, it’s very logical to do so, as both are stories about the cruelty and murder of teenagers and how society affects them, but the single most common choice for JD is literally a character who is the total opposite of JD, Nagito Komaeda.

I especially see it done with the song Meant To Be Yours (bomb ass song btw) and that they’re made out to be similar because of that, the only thing they actually share is bombs and mental illness, and it makes me kinda wary that that’s what they’re boiled down to, honestly, like no one thinks past that.  

Down to the core of their characters, they’re polar opposites in their very moral foundations. Think about what they believe and what they’re like; JD hates the social system that birthed him and wants to blow it all up to show how fucked up it is. … and Komaeda obsessively loves the social system that birthed him and adores everything about it and would literally kill himself to uphold it despite how fucked up it is.

Let me boil it down to the most very basic; JD thinks ‘system bad, destroy the system’ and Komaeda thinks ‘love the system, I’d do anything to uphold the system.’

They’re literal polar opposites in terms of philosophy.

I don’t understand how someone could listen to JD’s ranting about the bomb plot in ‘Meant To Be Yours’ and not grasp that he hates society, and then think ‘yeah, that fits Komaeda, whose main defining trait is his obsessive adherence to the social structure of Hope’s Peak’.

I get it, bombs are cool, and it’s a thing now to do Komaeda as JD, like, a lot, but I have to admit, it still irks me to see how hard people missed the point of both their characters to reach their conclusions. It’s like they look at both characters and ignore everything about them besides ‘oh, wow, they’re crazy and want to blow things up, they’re exactly the same!’

sorry, the morals part does get me, like… the actual song Meant To Be Yours is literally all about how JD hates society, how can you ignore that and say ‘yeah, this fits Komaeda’

The entire point of Komaeda’s character is that he’s obsessed with upholding the system. You have to willfully ignore everything about both of them besides that they’ve blown stuff up and aren’t in their right minds, up to and including the actual text of the song itself, to connect them together through it, and honestly it genuinely does frustrate me that people boil down their characters into ‘crazy guy that loves bombs’.

It feels weird and almost… not maliciously ableist or anything, but ableist adjacent? I’m not sure how to word it, and I entirely realize I’m reading too much into a stupid crossover trend done for fun, but I do think if you’re into thinking critically, it’s interesting to muse on.

And again, to be clear, I’m aware that 99% of the people making things like this are just doing it cause it’s fun to draw stuff like that and have Nagito making crazy expressions (absolutely fun) and they aren’t wrong to do so, I just think it’s interesting to discuss stuff like this even if the answer is just ‘lol, cause it’s fun’.

I know I’m an anal wad whose obsessed with the text of fiction, but it really just sometimes hits me that other people take such different things away from the game than I did, lol. I guess it comes down to ultimately that, to me, a characters motivations for why they do what they do matter more than their specific actions, especially when it’s for crossovers and connecting characters, and for some people, the opposite is true.

[ootahime]

analyzing every gojohime moment in the manga p2

part 1 is here :3

this post includes more excruciatingly long paragraphs so grab urself something and enjoy LOL

chapter 40 

i know they’re not interacting in this panel but i still want to bring it up.  i’m gonna give some context to this scene in case someone needs to jog their memory.  so basically, mei’s ability to command crows is what allows the staff to observe the students from afar.  however, gojo notices that there’s lack of footage where yuuji is and asks mei why that’s so.  she tells him that they’re animals at the end of the day so she can’t control what they look at.  he doesn’t believe her so he asks her whose side she’s on (for yuuji’s execution vs against yuuji’s execution) to which she responds with, “whose side?  i’m on the side with money, of course.  there’s no value in something that can’t be bought since you can’t exchange that for money.”  in other words, she’ll always choose the side that offers her more money because she doesn’t care about how morally “correct” or “incorrect” something is.  it’s not worth fighting for a cause that doesn’t benefit her in the long run which is why she views things that are unable to be bought (friendships, relationships, favors) as useless - they can’t be exchanged for money.  it’s clear that gojo knows she’s not on his side because he replies with, “spoken from experience!” or “i wonder how much!” (translation varies).  he says it out loud to perhaps let gakuganji know that he’s onto him.  i find it interesting how utahime is in the panel as well with a “?” to express her confusion at his words.  let’s overthink dissect that.  why is she there in the first place? if the message was to let gakuganji know that gojo is aware of his ulterior motives then a panel with gakuganji and gojo would have sufficed.  why add utahime with a question mark? 

here’s a personal headcanon of mine that makes no absolute sense, but who cares? it makes me happy LOL.  so let’s examine the panel.  gojo’s face is more simplified and cartoonish with a grey background on top and some sort of white bubble surrounding the three characters.  gakuganji is staring at utahime and gojo.  in the official viz translation, he replies to mei with, “i wonder how much!”  

normal and logical explanation: shading the principal by asking out loud how much mei was paid by him to avoid monitoring yuuji.

gojohime brainrot explanation: 

mei: “there’s no value in something that can’t be bought since you can’t exchange that for money”

gojo: (in response) i wonder how much utahime’s love would cost if it did have a price.

utahime: ?

you’re probably thinking i’m delulu (true) BUT HEAR ME OUT.  IT WOULD SOMEWHAT MAKE SENSE IN THIS CONTEXT...

mei’s saying seems to be what she lives by.  relationships, love, friendships, etc. do not matter to her as this is evident when she ultimately abandons everyone in shibuya to escape to malaysia, selling all her stocks before japan’s economy goes down.  she doesn’t care about anyone else.  she even takes advantage of ui ui’s adoration for her.  she contrasts utahime.  utahime is loved by her students.  children, especially teenagers, are picky when it comes to choosing the adults they admire and respect.  while everyone trusts gojo, they do not respect him because of his childishness and overall absurdity.  it’s refreshing to see how they always call him an idiot or have a -_- face when he’s around.  when akutami says everyone absolutely adores utahime-sensei, it says a lot.  we haven’t seen her interact with her students all that much, but she’s obviously close to them because she’s frequently arguing with momo.  even a closed off person like mechamaru wanted to keep her away from danger.  she most certainly expresses a lot of concern and care for her students, and gojo and her students can pick up on this. 

i’ve talked about this in every post LOLOL but there’s a reason why he went to utahime first to help him investigate.  utahime is a loyal person through and through.  she would never do something that harms the students even if she was offered everything in the world.  she values relationships above everything else.  besides her concern for the students, how else was i able to come to this conclusion about her character?  well, she got shoko to stop smoking because she was worried about how it might damage her friend’s health.  from these two details, it’s obvious that she’s the complete opposite of mei.  

maybe that’s why he calls her weak.  she’s too selfless and compassionate in a world where every sorcerer is for themselves.  the world is cruel as a sorcerer.  no matter how hard you try to fight, in the end, you’ll always die alone.  remember his talk with megumi after the baseball game?  after witnessing megumi pull a sacrificial bunt to help his teammates advance, gojo has a talk with megumi about his attitude and potential.  he says that being selfless and caring about others is not a bad thing, but in a world like this, where people always die alone, he is wasting his potential by being concerned with others.  it’s okay to be selfish.  this is why we see fierce independence in a lot of the sorcerers like mei, nanami, and gojo.  they each have their own reasons as to why they work alone, but it’s still a common characteristic.  i feel like utahime doesn’t have a selfish bone in her body.  i speculate that her selflessness is the exact reason why she is being held back.  during her mission to exorcise a grade 1 spirit by herself, the final task before being promoted to grade 1, she likely got distracted trying to help civilians out of danger and failed her mission.  he’s right when he says she doesn’t have the guts to be the traitor, utahime doesn’t have it in her to do something so boldly solely for her own benefit.  

after this long tangent, how does this relate to your headcanon, ootahime?  

as you know, love is not transactional.  you can’t pay someone to love you.  what if gojo is asking himself how much it would cost to buy her love.  hence, her confusion because she is oblivious to what he really means.  it could be probable because gakuganji is observing not only gojo, but utahime as well.  so what gojo says must involve her too, right?  

or she could just be confused because his words seem out of place because she is unaware of what gakuganji is doing behind everyone’s back.  that explanation makes sense for viz’s official translation but it doesn’t make sense when he says, “spoken from experience!” because his words make sense in that context.  he’s basically saying that mei’s beliefs must be based on her past experiences so he understands why she feels this way.  that’s an appropriate response to mei’s statement so i don’t see why utahime would be confused by this.  unless i’m interpreting this whole scene completely wrong.  in that case, whoopsies!  

let me know if you’re confused because i’m willing to clarify.  idk why but i found this really difficult to explain.  maybe because i’m reaching so hard haha

chapter 40

he finds any way he can to tease her.  they seem like a married couple watching a movie or something.  does he take pride in being the only person she doesn’t get along with?  i mean, she says it herself so he is aware she thinks he’s annoying, but he keeps picking on her anyway.  he doesn’t even pick on his enemies this much LMAOOO i think the only other person he likes to make fun of is gakuganji but he does so because he doesn’t agree with his views.  with utahime it’s different.  he trusts her a lot and even looks out for her.  

chapter 44

why are there two separate instances of gakuganji observing utahime and gojo’s interactions from afar?  nah i’m just playing.  he’s just looking because he’s concerned she’ll run into the semi-grade 1 curse he had for yuuji.  OKAY BUT I NOTICED SOMETHING KINDA CUTE?  whenever utahime says something suddenly, he always has those 3 little triangles near his head.  it’s like he’s thinking, “oh!  utahime is speaking, i must listen <3″  look at his face too.  he’s looking at her like :O

this is also an example of her showcasing her concern for the students in front of gojo.  i feel like he questions why she’s so caring because if it were him, he would have left the student to figure it out themselves.  i really wonder how she would react if he answered her truthfully when she asked what he’d do if she were the traitor.  

chapter 45

there’s not much to say here...they’re just cute.  i know it’ll never happen but i’d like to see them fight side by side one day.  i’m aware that gojo works best alone but i just want to see how they’d work together, okay? 😔

chapter 45

see the little triangles on his head again?  UGH SO CUTE.  

chapter 45

IS THIS NOT INTENTIONAL???  they share the same thoughts.  he even finished her thought.  mannnnnnnnnnnnn what is akutami doing?  giving us false hope and stripping it away just for fun?  making them work so well together for what??

chapter 52

cute how he looks out for her.  i have nothing more to say LOL

chapter 53

notice how they’re sitting across from each other?  HEHE

chapter 53

yet another instance of her caring for her students in front of gojo.  in the anime she has the cutest expression when she says she’s glad the students are safe.  i bet gojo saw that too.  i also bet that she looks prettier from his point of view.

extra

from the manga and light novels, gojo and utahime are the ones that talk about sports the most.  he most definitely chose baseball to cheer her up.  it’s not a coincidence people!  

--

i feel like i had a lot more to say but i completely lost my train of thought while writing this, especially with chapter 40. i’m once again writing this at 4 in the morning LOL........  please please please add on or share your thoughts!  thank you for reading and sorry for any mistakes.  

[itsclydebitches]

People wanted the early volumes to be re animated. They got their wish it seems. At least the first volume it seems.

My sense at the moment is that we've deliberately been shown only a small, small chunk of the series. Basically, everything taking place in the first 1-2 episodes that deliberately mirror (no mirror-verse puns intended) the original show before we get into AU territory. So it might not but an early volume(s) reanimation so much as a early episode(s) reanimation with subtle nods towards the different timeline — did Yang ever confront Weiss like that? I can't remember — before things really take a turn.

Okay, now pardon me, anon, but I'm going to use your ask to throw out random observations because I'm too lazy to make another post lol.

I like the animation style well enough so far, with the exception of everyone’s eyes. Ngl they kind of freak me out but, you know, presumed dark AU so maybe that’s a good thing for the tone of the story? At least on my end.

The combat also looks good. Ruby’s scythe skills generated a “Nice, nice” but Weiss, like, THROWING the boarbatusk? There’s a hard-hitting intensity in the visuals here that, despite Monty's stellar choreography, the original animation lacks just due to constraints.

BEAR GRIMM

I like that Ruby is speaking to Summer a lot in the trailer. It helps establish a strong tie between them and keeps her motivation—becoming a huntress to follow in her mother’s footsteps—at the forefront, rather than just mentioning it in passing. If this AU takes the time to add onto what we got in the original timelime, something I'd most like to see is Summer development.

It’s so funny having all the girls’ original, basic personalities distilled into a trailer because it’s like: Ruby [very serious]—'I won’t disappoint you, Mom.’ Weiss [very serious]—‘I have a responsibility as heir to the Schnee corporation.’ Blake [very serious]—‘The world is not a fairy tale.’ Yang [vibrating at the speed of light]—‘Oh my fucking god I LOVE MY SISTER’

Whether anything comes of it or not, I like Weiss’ “You’ve done nothing to earn your position” superimposed over her fight against the knight, implying that she doesn’t just think she deserves the leadership role by virtue of being a Schnee, but because she underwent a difficult trial set by her father to get here. It’s a slightly different spin that adds depth to Weiss beyond just being an arrogant know-it-all. Why does Ruby get to be leader when she worked so hard to be here, etc.? The idea of Ruby getting by more on raw talent than work effort—crazy impressive scythe skills she seems to have easily picked up, let into Beacon early, made leader, doesn’t like paying attention in class, etc.—was never explored, but could be a cool angle here.

Weiss also appears a lot more hurt by Ruby calling her “bossy” than she was in the initial show. Of course, that could be largely due to the different animation style, but still. Regardless, it (again) gives us a slightly different reading of Weiss’ character and her relationship with Ruby. Whiterose shippers getting fed tonight.

As is the freezerburn crowd.

“This is about novice girls” oh god slap that on Volume 8 as the tagline.

Funny that the subtitles give Ozpin’s well known “I would not consider your appointment to leader to be one of them” without explaining what “them” is. That is, one of his many mistakes.

More importantly: HE’S BACK. It’s okay, Oz, you can keep your creepy eyes. I’m just glad to see you.

Also...

possibly I’m being very stupid by asking this but what… is this? Salem is talking about dust when it’s shown so I assume it’s dust-related, but it looks kinda fantasy banana-ish? Did a piece of Jaune’s hair fall out? I feel like this is just a matter of me being too tired to think straight but idk I was #confused.

Cool that the music cuts out and the glass of the screen shatters during the credits, like the normality/reality of the original RWBY universe (even as a webseries — now it's an anime) really has been breached. Weiss sees her counterpart, though notably not in the alternate outfit shown on the website. From the back they appear to be identical.

So yeah, we still don’t really know what’s going on. As said, first few episodes (mostly) retelling RT's RWBY before a sudden divergence? That seems the most likely at this point. I do wish we'd gotten some sense of what the AU aspects will be — it's not really a "RWBY: Ice Queendom" trailer is it? It's a "RWBY: Reboot" trailer with the fandom simply knowing better — but given that the early volumes are my favorite, even if this wasn't the case of an AU I'd still be interested in the content.

[chatblancismyfursona]

Chloe's Development

Can I just say I felt really bad for Chloe in this episode? I know she really, REALLY isn't the nicest person on earth but thinking about what Zoe told her at the end... Maybe that was the very first time in her life that someone told her they would love her unconditionally.

Like, no matter what she did and how she behaved she would be accepted and loved. Remember, she became like that in the first place to gain her Mother's affection and because of maternal negligence, of course! She never even dared to step out of this mean girl persona, since she knew that's not what her mother would see as "acceptable". That's the case even today. Her father isn't completely innocent either naturally, since he probably never had time for her during childhood as he was running for mayor, I don't believe he played a big role in this, though.

Chloe adapted this horrid behavior after being neglected throughout the years and that's also why being Queen Bee and getting recognized for it meant so much to her, even if the act of heroism itself wasn't her motivation. Considering all these factors, she never really had a good role model and the one person she looked up to, Ladybug, neglected and left her in the end too. This poor girl was basically destined to turn out this way. But what makes Queen Banana even more soul crushing is the fact that in this episode she has really lost everyone and everything at one point (maybe except Sabrina lol). She lost her childhood friend, the trust in her father, her powers/identity as Queen Bee and the people who had already left her were emphasized on again like Ladybug and her Mother. And of course some of these losses were justified, since Chloe pushed them away herself, but not only are we trying to see things from her perspective, nobody ever taught her different.

This may just be a valuable learning experience for Chloe, especially now that she has the confirmation from her half-sister that she can be vulnerable and can be her true self (which we saw in Malediktator already) without being judged and that her emotions are valid. Actually, now that I'm typing this, maybe Zoe's character arc somehow also translates to Chloe's. Maybe that will be the point in all of this: Zoe helping Chloe to turn the tides, because she understands how it is to pretend to be someone you are not, even if one of them did it consciously and one of them does it subconsciously.

There is good in Chloe. We have seen it, Marinette has seen it, all of Paris has seen it. And before you come here saying that "Adrien didn't turn out this way and he has a neglectful father" - Gabriel became like this only one year ago, when Emilie died. EMILIE "DIED" ONE YEAR AGO CHLOE'S MOTHER HAS NEVER ONCE EXISTED IN HER LIFE SINCE THE DAY SHE WAS BORN.

Not only that, but there is still hope for her. I think I need to remind some of you of the fact that one of the best redemption arcs in the history of animated television didn't have a smooth ride at all. Zuko from ATLA basically murdered all his development from the second season in the finale of Book Two. Or at least it seemed that way at first... Just like Chloe threw all her work from more than one season away in "Miracle Queen". (Or at least it seemed that way at first?) But here comes the whole "role model" thing again: Zuko had Iroh, whose guidance stuck with him even until after his betrayal and which ultimately led him to the right path. Chloe never had an Iroh. However, who knows, Zoe could just possibly be her Uncle Iroh.

And, by the way, as long as we are talking about ATLA... Chloe could have turned out a lot worse. I believe many of us know another, only 14 year old girl, who believed that her mother didn't love her. Actually, who believed NOBODY in the world loved her. And we know how she turned out to be in the end.

Yeah.

All I'm saying is, please don't be too harsh on Chloe. Yes, the hurt she has caused is definitely inexcusable, but at least there is an explanation and there is hope. Maybe like Mr. Bustier, we should try to see the good in her and all people.

[this was also probably her first hug and show of affection from any sort of motherly figure]

[redwinterroses]

I’m doing my very best not to format this as a literary analysis paper but that’s basically what this is so forgive me if I slip back into those old habits at all. And I'm going to tag @betweenlands and @fluffy-papaya in this because guys look what your fic made me brainrot. XD

(This is a long one, y'all. We're talking 2k words. Sorry.)

That said:

Hey, let’s talk about the bead curtain in Dog at the Door.

That dang bead curtain, and why I’m currently fixating on it, and how I think it has symbolism that may or may not be intentional.

(At this point, I’m assuming it’s intentional. Everything about this fic is intentional. Including the pain. Heh. “The only difference between a running gag and a recurring theme is how seriously you take it,” says Solar. Cool. I’m taking it seriously.)

The curtain first shows up in chapter one. It’s one of the first things we see in the van, and the first thing we know about it is that Doc finds it obnoxious. Ugly. Revolting. Renbob loves it, obviously, but Renbob has odd tastes. Doc, on the other hand, literally uses his hatred of the curtain to motivate him to get out of bed in the morning.

The Red King, when he shows up, also has similar dislike of the thing, but his reaction is a little more measured, a little less extreme. More distaste, less disgust. He finds it “distasteful” and compares it to wearing a labcoat without a shirt (lol). But he doesn’t loath it like Doc does, and when Doc suggests (in chapter 13) that they take it down and use it for friendship bracelets, he’s as displeased with that idea as Renbob is. He has an ambivalent opinion, overall.

And then Ren. Ren actually reacts the least to the curtain—but ends up with the most dramatic interaction with it, which we’ll come back to in a second. He simply says (chapter 24) that normally he’d find the beads hideous, but that the light of Doc’s eye reflecting off it into the shadows makes it oddly peaceful.

There’s exactly one other use of the word “curtain” in this fic, and it’s this line right here:

“I haven’t done anything but possess him and lead his soul back to the controls.” RK throws his hands up in the air. “He’s put himself behind the curtain because he thinks I’m out to get him. My only crime is the original contract I made with him, doctor.”

In this instance, RK is talking about their “imperfect metaphor” of Ren being behind the curtain that separates the “driver’s seat” from the rest of the van that is Ren’s mind/soul. He’s saying that Ren has deliberately put himself in a position of defeat and surrender because he (Ren) doesn’t think there are any other options.

M’kay. Right about now, any sane person is going, “Red. Why are you so fixated on this bead curtain. It’s a running joke at best.”

And... I mean, sure. Kinda. But also definitely not.

This is the part where I really step out on a potentially-shaky limb with all the confidence in the world, because here’s what I'm seeing: the dividing line between life and death is often portrayed in literature as a curtain.

(And it’s interesting to note that the curtain is a barrier, a separation, but it’s only a curtain, and this one is made of beads at that. It’s a flimsy and fluid barrier, easy to pass through. Back and forth. Surrender and control, life and death.)

In fact, even in this fic it’s used that way: RK may be referring to the metaphorical bead curtain in their van of an explanation for how his and Ren’s relationship works, but in the story at that point Ren is convinced that he’s dead. Or is supposed to be dead. And by putting himself “behind the curtain,” he’s surrendering to that. Almost insisting on it, because that’s the truth of how he sees the world right then and he can’t process any other possibilities. He’s basically saying “I’m supposed to be dead, and this side of the curtain is death, so that’s where I’ll stay.”

So if the curtain in the metaphor represents the two sides of that, it’s really interesting to look at the various characters’ reactions to the literal bead curtain and see how it reflects their attitudes toward death—and specifically Ren’s death.

Renbob is... chill. He has an entirely comfortable relationship with the bead curtain, with life and death, with his own emotions—even with dealing with the emotions of the others he’s chauffeuring across the universe. While he isn’t immune to the grief of losing (or thinking he’s lost) Ren, he deals with it in a relatively healthy way—at least as much as we see. I think there was a possibly-canon ask at some point that said he was journaling and meditating so... yeah. Renbob’s got this. And 50 other bead curtains in storage. He’s the only character in the fic who passes in and out of the curtain regularly and without it being a big deal.

To put it simply: Renbob is on good terms with whatever happens in life, up to and including the end of it. (Renbob is arguably the equal and opposite of Grimdog. Two sides of the same coin in more ways than one.)

Contrast that now with Doc. Doc is... not a fan of the bead curtain. It represents a loss of control to him, (“freakin’ hippies”) and a separation from what he loves. In the past, he and Ren were on opposite sides of that conflict, and the beads still somewhat represent that tension (though in a mostly nostalgic, and not actively-antagonistic way.) But the language Doc’s narration uses to describe the beads is strong. “Obnoxious.” “Accursed.” “Horrendously evil.”

Nearly as scary as his best friend trying to kill him.

It’s played for laughs, obviously, and it is funny. But if we project the symbolism of “the curtain represents death” onto Doc’s reactions, it gets a bit less amusing. And it really fits with Doc’s attitude toward Ren’s death in the whole fic. It’s the worst thing he’s ever faced—to the extent that until RK’s seemingly-permanent presence forces him to, Doc doesn’t even try to process it. He goes right to work on the prosthetics, growls at anyone who tries to make him do anything he doesn't want to do, accepts RK as “New Ren,” and pretends that he’s going on with life.

He refuses to look at how weird the whole situation is, because if he does that he has to deal with Ren being gone forever. He ignores the thing that’s right under his nose and pretends it’s not there until a moment of quiet or actually having to interact with it brings it back to his attention, and then his reaction is vitriolic.

Doc hates that curtain, and he hates the concept of death, the concept of losing control. Even in his nightmares, he holds tight to what little control he can take, even if it’s just taking the initiative to sit in the snow and let it kill him faster. Hold onto that thought, because I’ve got more to it, but we have to talk about RK and Ren first.

RK holds both distaste and acceptance of the curtain. He doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t want it destroyed either. The distaste, notably, is when he’s with Doc, and the acceptance comes from being around Renbob. The Red King, as a blood god, is not exactly unfamiliar with death. It’s literally in his job description, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. A necessary evil, if you will.

It doesn’t hurt either that, at least up until Ren, RK has always been the one on the other side of the curtain, completely in control of the situation. He goes back and forth on his attitudes, but in the past he has been the one in control and the bringer of death. His reaction is negative, but not emphatic—the way someone who has plenty of indoor plans might react to a rainstorm.

Ren... now, Ren. Ren has, like I said, the least recorded reaction to the actual, physical bead curtain. But. But. While he normally would call it hideous, “there’s something oddly peaceful about watching light fractals spin off the walls, cutting off into the shadows.” The shadows, it’s worth noticing, are specifically implied to be RK/hiding RK in this moment. Doc’s light and RK’s shadows interacting with the curtain bring peace to Ren. He passes through it easily to find Renbob.

Ren has already accepted his death—he accepted it long before the fic even started—to an extent that he’s actively insisting on it for a large portion of the story. It’s only when he realizes that Doc is in potential danger that he starts fighting RK for control of the situation again. (“Stay away from Doc, you bastard. He wasn’t part of our bargain. Leave him alone.”)

He dislikes the bead curtain, but he doesn’t hate it, and when seen in the (literal) light of Doc’s protective, watching eye—even if he is asleep at the moment, bless—even the shadows of RK’s presence are suddenly beautiful and peaceful to him in a way that, without the “reflecting fractals” of the beads, wouldn’t be possible. Again: this is the chapter where Renbob’s influence is felt, and his peace with life and death directly affects Ren and his reactions. (“It’ll all sort itself out, eventually, and I’ll be here for you while it does.”)

And then...

And then Ren rips down the curtain altogether.

The separation is gone. For better or for worse, that divide between control and surrender, between RK and Ren, between life and death... it’s gone. It’s scattered across the floor of the van, glittering in Ren’s hair, and in the carpet. Ren has broken through that barrier, and now we just have to wait to see what the consequences of that are for him.

But... we can already see at least one consequence for Doc. Because now there is no more illusion of control and surrender for him to maintain. That division is no longer there, and we see Doc’s first real surrender in the whole story. Even in his nightmares, he was still in control: he knew it was a nightmare, and he fought against it until he “gave up”—in a way that still put him in control. He chooses to sit in the snow so it’ll kill dream-him faster.

He acts like he doesn’t care, but it’s still not that: he takes control in the only way he knows, aware that everything is only a dream and no matter what how it treats him, he’ll still wake up in the end. He looks at the nightmare and says basically “Do your worst, I dare you, but you won’t get what you want from me.”

But now—now he surrenders to Ren. He gives up. His core truth (“I’ll do anything to protect those I love,” which I talked about in this post) looks like it’s not going to be enough to save them. He can’t save Ren—from RK or from Ren himself—and that means he’s lost in the worst way possible. In this moment, it looks like Ren doesn’t even trust that Doc’s core truth—that he will do anything to save his friends—is true.

This is Doc’s lowest point: that Ren seems to think Doc’s loyalty and love have failed. And to Doc... that’s a fate worse than death.

So he gives up. He tells Ren to kill him, and he fully expects him to do so. Doc doesn’t want to die, but at this point he has completely let go of any control of his own fate. Even when facing down Ren with the Skizz blade, he held tightly to his control of the situation. He literally takes the sword in his own hand and removes it as a threat. But now—now the curtain is gone. The illusion of control is gone.

Ren is the one in control of the situation—for possibly the first time in the fic—and he chooses to remember that Doc is his friend, that he’s missed him. But Doc leaves it all to him. Even when Ren backs off, Doc stays in that surrendered state (“I can’t do anything right, unlike [Martyn.]”). He realizes that he's been in the passenger seat the whole time, and he’s now where Ren was before: no longer even trying to take back the driver’s seat.

The curtain is gone. Now we just have to wait and see who ends up on which side of it at the end.