#(I can't actually compare; but I had looked at that review & can see what they mean but also felt like there was nuance in this version

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

The Dragon of Ynys

quiet fairytale adventure novella

a knight in a small village who spends most of his time returning various items a local friendly dragon steals, ends up on a quest with the dragon and a baker to find her wife who went missing after an argument

aroace MC, sapphic and trans major characters

[amaiaqt]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤミㅤlike what you seeㅤ⋆ ｡˚ㅤ♡ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤflustering them by staring for too long ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤwanderer, heizou, xiao, ayato, childe ! ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ( p.s. amai never proofreads)

"anonymous order; ...can i have the prompt 'screw you and your cute face' with wanderer, heizou, xiao, ayato, and childe ? — message cut."

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤi just love the idea of flustering these guys ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤthank you and hope u enjoy, xoxo ♡

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ｡ﾟ ⊹ㅤwanderer !ㅤ

if you think the easiest way to fluster this man is by staring at him with that lovesick look in your eyes, then you're absolutely correct.

he could be minding his business and you'd take your place beside or in front of him, and after a few minutes he can just feel the way you stare at him. your eyes burn into his skin, but not in the way he'd grow uncomfortable under your gaze, instead, in the way he could feel his face heat up.

he would huff before looking up at you, about to nag you for staring, but he always finds his words locked in his throat when he locks eyes with you. archons, the way you look at him is always so hypnotizing, it makes him feel vulnerable in a way that he'll never admit he likes.

he tsks, "can't you go, i don't know even just a minute, without staring at me ?" he snaps his fingers in front of your face, causing you to hum and look away from him. no, no don't stop staring. i didn't tell you to stop. his eyebrows furrow.

you chuckled, "sorry sorry," you turn back to him, chin resting on your palm, "i can't help it when you're so handsome." and you just had to back that up with a grin. archons you were doing this on purpose !

as much as he tries to fight back the warmth in his chest and the shudder your voice sent through his body, the shaky breathe he let out betrayed him as he opted to look back to the textbook he was reviewing.

he stuttered, "w - whatever ! just stop staring so much." before burying his nose back into the textbook as you laughed at him. "i can try ~"

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ｡ﾟ ⊹ㅤshikanoin heizou !ㅤ

in your relationship, it's usually heizou doing the flustering. and he does a whole lot of that staring too, especially when you're busy and he happens to be bored out of his mind, but ironically enough it's his weakness too. especially like this . .

the two of you had a free afternoon ahead of you, and what better way to spend it than to wind down in a hot spring ? you stepped into the water first, beckoning heizou to join you.

he turned his back to you, rather shy to take off his shirt, and you happened to make him even shyer by whistling once he slipped his shirt off. he turned to you over his shoulder, a smirk on his shocked red face, only for you to return a cheeky grin as you leaned against the rocks of the spring.

he shook his head, choosing to retaliate by teasing further. "so, you like what you see ?" he turned to you, hands on his hips with confidence that you'll be the one turning red, only to watch your eyes look him up and down. "yeah, yeah i do." you hummed, closing your eyes, missing the way heizou's face burned up again.

he cleared his throat, now stepping into the spring and taking a seat beside you, trying his best to brush off your gaze on him. since when did you know how to look at him like that ? he leans back, relaxing in the warmth of the spring and closing his eyes.

"if i get to see this sight everytime i take you here, i might just buy this entire place for ourselves." you spoke, piquing heizou's attention as he opened his eyes to turn to you, and not even the heat of the spring could compare to the heat he felt on his face as he met your gaze.

he chuckled, embarrassed, "well, aren't you bold today ?" he tried to tease, scratching the back of his neck. "why, don't you like it ?" you joked, cupping his chin to make him look at you, earning a shy smile from him. "i do, i do like it actually."

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ｡ﾟ ⊹ㅤalatus xiao !

being new to the concept of expressions and reactions to certain antics, xiao is easily flustered, though he is yet to realize it.

"is it a natural habit for you mortals to. . stare ?" he quizzed without looking at you, his eyes still closed as he savored the rich flavor of the almond tofu you had brought him. he opened one eye slowly and gazed at you you from the corner of it, perking up to the sound of you chuckling softly to yourself. "i suppose you can say that," you waved a hand in front of you.

"more like, it's natural for us to stare at something, or someone, we find interesting, puzzling, or alluring." xiao now fully turned to face you in curiosity, the bowl of half-eaten almond tofu set on the fencing of the balcony.

there was an emphasis on alluring, he mentally noted. was that intentional ?

"i see, so, which do i fall under ?" he asked, his gaze now fixated on you with an emotion you couldn't quite decipher. you tilted your head at him, "what ?" "do you. . stare at me because i'm interesting, puzzling, or —" "alluring." you smiled at the way amber eyes seemed to widen for just a split second before they were replaced with the back view of messy sacramento green locks as the male turned away from you.

"i stare at you because you're alluring, xiao. very alluring, even." you hummed, leaning your elbow against the fence of the balcony and resting your chin on your palm ever so casually, watching and noting the way his shoulders tensed then relaxed.

he might consider being thankful that your view was locked on his back, hence you couldn't see the humiliating red he could feel his face burst into. he tried to clear his throat, his hand grabbing the bowl of almond tofu and spooning the rest into his mouth to distract himself.

"every part of you is alluring, even how red your ears are." and at your words, one of his hands reflexively came up to cover his ear, causing you to laugh out loud as the adeptus turned to glare at you lightly.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ｡ﾟ ⊹ㅤkamisato ayato !ㅤ

if this man thinks he's not easy to win over, he is funnily mistaken.

sure he's the smoother one with words, he knows all the right words and habits to adapt to make you swoon. but other than that, he's more vulnerable to your simple antics as he lets off.

"ayato," the way you'd say his name and drag on the last syllable, as if cooing at him, how he loves it. "ayato," the way your touch would linger on him even at the lightest taps, something so simple could tug his lips upward into a grin. "ayato !" a soft hit to the back of his head caused him to turn to you, finally.

"ah - good afternoon, darling." "i called your name three times ?" "ye. . yes, pardon me. i thought i was lost in my imagination again." he admitted as he took your hand in his and kissed your knuckles gently.

you hummed, "and what was so engrossing about your imaginations this time ?" you questioned, taking a seat next to him while his hand rested on your waist, now leaning his head against yours. "you, i was just thinking about you." he hums, "you smell sweet."

and a few minutes of comfortable silence followed after, enveloping the two of you in a rare calming atmosphere, ayato's head was now laid in your lap as you stroked his hair softly. ayato then started to feel your gaze on him, by how familiar it was. he smiled, looking up at you.

"staring much ?" he teased, sharing laughter with you as you playfully messed with his bangs. "i can't help it, you're very pretty like this."

"only like this ?" ... "stop staring at me, darling, answer my question." ... "please ?"

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ｡ﾟ ⊹ㅤchilde !

"childe."

now, you wholeheartedly think your boyfriend's eyes are pretty, regardless of how lifeless they are whenever he's not gazing at you like this.

"tartaglia."

but, at this moment, you can't help but find them a little bit irking. just a little bit. just a tad.

"ajax."

it's the third call of his name, yet he's still sitting there, chin on his palm and everything, with that smug smile on his face ! while you're here, trying to cook a full course meal, he's sitting there staring at you like you're the food.

but in his defense, is there a law against admiring your lover ? there better not be ! he's done nothing but sit there innocently, just drinking in your pretty face, because if he can't do it no one else can !

it's when you softly pinch his side—not enough to hurt, but enough to make him snap out of his daze—that he finally raises his hands up in surrender. "what, i can't ogle at my own darling lover anymore ?" he makes a show of jutting his bottom lip out in a pout, but you just huffed at his antics. "you can, if you would actually help me cook." "help as in ?" "cut some carrots maybe." "but i can't stare at you intently if i'm cutting something." "maybe that's the point."

ah, how you wound him.. kidding, a day without your attitude is a day incomplete for him. he fakes a sigh before standing up from his chair. he grabs a chopping board, a knife, and a few carrots, then gets to work.

it's a few minutes later that he feels your eyes on him, so from over his shoulder he turns to see you, in your seat with your cheek propped up against your fist, smiling at him. he grins, "now you're staring at me." "what, i can't ogle at my own boyfriend anymore ?"

he raises an eyebrow at the way you turned his words back onto him, but he laughs nonetheless before shaking his head and going back to work, assuming you would too.

you did not go back to work. he could still feel your eyes burning into his back. and he would never, ever—he would, out of the blue just to fluster you one day—admit that it was starting to shake his focus. his cuts were starting to get uneven as a result.

"are you going to keep staring at me ?" "is there a law against me admiring my handsome boyfriend ?"

alright, you win. just this once.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ© amaiaqt, 2023 ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤdo not plagiarize !

[returquoise]

ATLALA, aka Avatar the Last Airbender Live Action

Sooooo, I finished the first season and had thoughts (just like everyone else lol). First context, non-spoilery thoughts, and then spoilers under the cut, yadda-yadda.

Why context? Because for a lot of people OG ATLA was their childhood, and they have super strong feelings about it and about any adaptation that exists. I'm not one of those people.

The first time I watched OG ATLA I was over 20 years old, which means I was an adult and had adult viewpoints about the story – worldbuilding, character writing, etc. It was never the hallowed most perfect show ever for me. It was and still is a fucking good show with some amazing writing and worldbuilding but I did have some gripes.

So when ATLALA was announced I remained neutral – I've seen the movie that shall not be named and din't really like it but shitty adaptations have always existed. When we started getting photos and trailers and news pieces, I was feeling pretty positive about the visuals, but neither news pieces or trailers actually tell you shit about what the writing or worldbuilding is like. However, I was about 70% optimistic.

Because what indications I did get about visuals, writing etc, were very reminiscent of another adaptation that had come out recently, about a series that was actually a bit more important to me on an emotional than ATLA. I'm talking about One Piece, and OPLA which came out last August. I've been a fan of that for 10 years longer than ATLA, and while they did a lot of changes, the spirit of the story was there.

So I copied my optimism and good feelings from that, going into ATLALA.

Now, the thoughts.

Visuals are pretty good. There are moments when I can tell they left some visuals out due to trickiness/budget (the "is Zuko's ship real?" review after the premiere). Some things look fake or plasticy, some stuff is too clean. Bending looks a lot better than in the movie that shall not be named.

Writing has issues. Some of it is very expositiony which makes it wooden and the shots uninteresting (there were so many badly framed shots with characters just awkwardly standing and talking). There are some lovely bits of dialogue that gave me feelings, but those moments were in the minority. And some writing choices were also quite childish, even for an adaptation of a kids' cartoon, so I'm a bit confused about the intended age demographic – except there are some really violent bits in there, which leave me even more confused.

Pacing was either frantic or okay-ish. The writers clearly had trouble paring down the OG series, and then ended up cramming stuff together. I could keep up with it (knowing what certain characters roughly meant for the plot, even if they were at a different place and time), but I'm not quite sure if someone uninitiated in the OG series could. The last 2 episodes had probably the best pacing and even then there were some things that made me go "hmmm."

Some actors have issues emoting – main and extras. I agree that the Gaang has lost some of their flaws compared to the OG series. Maybe some of them will make more of an appearance in season two when everyone's more experienced at acting? Especially considering that they'll likely have stuff more spaced out there – there are some episodes I'm pretty sure they'll outright skip, just based on the choices in this season. But we'll see. There were some fun and interesting bonding moments between different characters.

Sokka, Zuko, and Suki were the standouts from the younger cast. Suki is considerably different from the OG but it was acted and written well, and is an interesting choice. Sokka's quips, while not as numerous as in the OG, were fun. Physical comedy is obviously more toned down because real bodies can't do the same shit as cartoons. More about his arc choices later. Zuko was a bit toned down from the OG but IMO also the closest to it. And as someone who's almost finished with a Zuko AU fanfic, I was positively cackling due to the fact that some of the choices made for the character are similar to something I've done in my fic.

As for the rest of the main kids, there'll be more in the spoiler bits, BUT, they're different, and feel less experienced in acting. They're not bad but some choices were definitely different than in the show and they offer interesting opportunities. We'll see how they pan out, but be prepared for some speculation from me.

Fight scenes sometimes had IMO slow moments in the choreo, and they could have been better. Some were excellent, some a bit ehhh.

On the whole, I think this is about 7 out of 10. Some moments were 8 out of 10. It's a passable adaptation

Spoilery thoughts waaaay down.

Whoo boy. Where to start here?

Let's start with the cramming. As far as I can tell from my notes, the episodes are roughly divided like so:

EP1: 3,5 and bits (Boy in the Iceberg, Avatar Returns, Southern Air Temple, half of the Storm, bits of Avatar and the Fire Lord)

EP2: 1 and bits (Warriors of Kyoshi, part of Waterbending Scroll)

EP3: 3 halves (King of Omashu, Jet, Northern Air Temple)

EP4: 1, 4 halves and bits (King of Omashu, Jet, Northern Air Temple, Cave of Two Lovers, half of Winter Solstice P1, bits of the Avatar Day,)

EP5: 2 halves and pieces of 3 (half of Winter Solstice P1, half of Bato of the Water Tribe, part of Southern Raiders, part of the Library, part of Siege of the North) AND timeskip mention of the Great Divide and the pirates from Waterbending Scroll

EP6: 2, two halves and bits (Winter Solstice P2, Blue Spirit, half of Bato of the Water Tribe half of the Storm, part of Siege of the North)

EP7: 2 (Waterbending Master, Siege of the North)

EP8: 2 and pieces (Siege of the North, Return to Omashu, bits of Northern Air Temple, part of the Library)

Waterbending Scroll is a bit of throughline because you see moments of training in pretty much all of the episodes.

Episode 1 was very full, and felt rushed at times. There were a few places where they could have shortened some parts (like the earthbender spy scene at the start) to give more time for other stuff. Biggest gripes are the convenience of timing – Aang going off to clear his head only for everyone to die that very night. HOWEVER, me and my friends talked about it being likely Spirit shenanigans going "fuck, Air Nomads are gonna die now, we need to deepfreeze the Avatar for storage." We also concluded that the sudden current of Sokka and Katara finding Aang was either physics we don't understand, or Spirit shenanigans. Also the thing about all the Air Nomads coming over for the Great Comet festival? And then having so few of them on screen? Sorry, but I ain't buying it. Having such a sparse population in one temple I could have bought (with caveats) but adding in the gathering, nah.

Episode 2, Sokka-Suki was beautiful. I think it works even with the removed downplaying of girls capabilities (this change also brought some other stuff to Sokka I absolutely adored in later episodes but I'll talk about that when I start ranting about the characters). This was pretty close to the OG episode in many ways and I really don't have other problems with it, besides the somewhat childish end discussion about hope and shit with Aang and Suki's mom (Suki having a badass mom is fun). Manifesting Avatars and being able to talk to them only at their shrines will be an interesting take on stuff. Because that will affect some stuff on later seasons and I'm not sure how.

(And considering how scared Aang is of the Avatar State this early on, we might end up skipping the Avatar State in the next season. At least partially. Because we did get a lot of info now.)

That's a very full itinerary and it was hardest to follow at eps 3-4 because there were so many things going on. Jet's and the Mechanist's conflicting storylines made for an interesting drama (though, again, hard to follow) and gave Sokka and Katara something to do – which they didn't really have in the OG Omashu episode, which was what Aang was mostly dealing with here. In my opinion these two episodes didn't get a proper handling, because they're one of the few instances were we get people from the Earth Kingdom doing questionable shit, but we don't really discuss it. And while everyone know marketing is a mistake (it makes no one happy), considering that this series was trying to sell itself as a more mature take, that feeling is left kinda lacking in regards to Jet and the Mechanist. I do appreciate Bumi being fucking bitter, like Yass, you go king, as well as the bit with the Earth Kingdom soldiers speaking of grief and mistreating Iroh. That complexity is what was left lacking with Jet and the Mechanist, and how Katara and Sokka dealt with that emotionally. Also loved Zuko getting hit by a broom and Iroh taking the fall for him. The Zuko-Zhao alliance was an interesting angle to take (after messing it up pfft) and establishing early that Azula is a master infiltrator? I liked that move, also the fact that there are Fire Nation rebels. Although I fucking loved the quick fake marriage.

5 and 6, despite being about as full if not fuller, were weaven together really well in my opinion. My biggest gripe with that two episode storyline was how the Fire Sage Shyu-Aang team-up was done – not that it was any better in the OG to be fair but it is more jarring in live action. I just about died at the 41st twist because holy shit that's an amazing angst take and I appreciate it so much. And while we do get Aang planting an acorn, it feels like a really small moment and I think the Hei Bai issue should have got a bit more attention as the episode was resolved. Koh was fucking terrifying and the appearance of Wan Shi Tong – and in the last two episodes the appearance of the celestial objects calendar machine, as well as the fact that Zhao got his dirt on Tui and La from a Fire Sage – leads me to believe we won't be getting the Library episode next season.

(The only way I can see Return to Omashu happening is if it's remixed with Imprisoned which was totally left out of this season, or we get the important info aka neutral Jing info all from the Swamp, or from a letter Bumi sent. I personally think Return to Omashu-Imprisoned remix is more likely, just so we can prep Teo and the Mechanist for the Day of the Black Sun which we saw flashing by on the celestial objects machine just before we finally got the confirmation that Sozin's Comet is still a thing. Although The Avatar State could also be remixed into this in a sort of "yes, Earth Kingdom needs to free Bumi etc but I can't do it in Avatar State, we need to be smart.")

Episodes 7 and 8 were pretty chill in pacing issues. I thought Yue was a bit too quick in warming up to Sokka but considering how it was explained I can accept it. Also, the fact that Tui and La are intelligent enough to not be fish 24/7/365 is a change that makes sense although the whole Ice Moon (is it the local Halloween?) thing was very out of left field. Women joining the fight was a wild update and definitely more of a modern take than an early 2000s take. Do I have other thoughts? Sure, but I don't want to write bajillion essays and I just want a general overview in one post.

Zuko is, like I said, a standout. Absolutely love his conspiracy board, and as someone who writes a fic with a more scholarly inclined Zuko, I loved him being able to draw, being the foremost Avatar expert in the world (you can't tell me there can be more than one or two people out there who know more than Zuko at this point, look at his research), and having opinions about calligraphy brushes. Ugh, my heart. There's some absolutely wonderful acting happening and he does action really well. Is he a bit less explosive than in the OG? Sure, but one must remember, that adaptations are just licensed fanfics. His abuse background is in the performance, and my biggest question is the Agni Kai. There was a certain desperation in his face, so he must have wanted to make an impression on Ozai, and maybe felt a bit more like he had the right to it – as this show made it clear he had been invited in the War Council and did not needle his way in. Also the 41st twist oh holy smokes I just about screamed. His flaw is still anger and trouble thinking plans through.

Azula (her bangs in the flashback crack me up, was that her emo phase?) is more obviously affected by Ozai's games in this. I know OG Azula has loads of fans and there are loads of deep dives into her character and abuse and etc, but this is actually the first time her writing has made it obvious to me. She's still cold and calculating, but she's affected by more things and that makes her into a more approachable character for me. I know many fans got this from the OG portrayal so I know this is a me thing.

Sokka is another standout. I saw an interview where the actor was like "I tried to interject and ad lib humour where I could" and I appreciate it, because a lot of them made me cackle. There was some really good humour there. As for his arc and conflict; I think it's really interesting that he tries to live up to his dad's image of a warrior, and doing it very much out of duty. It isn't so much that he wants to be a warrior, but he wants to be good enough and I think that came through wonderfully. He can be a warrior, but it ain't his passion. It also offers very interesting bonding possibilities and parallels with Zuko. My heart broke at that ice-dodging scene in episode 5, as well as his heart-to-heart with Katara in episode 4 (fucking SIBLING LOVE TRIUMPHS). Also absolutely loved the fact that he supported Katara being a warrior in the North. His flaws in the OG are self-esteem issues (nailed here), and a certain level of arrogance, that affected his attitude towards girls at times. The latter has been removed but considering it only lasted until episode 4 in the OG series anyway, I don't see it as a terribly big deal. We can still get his "it'll totally work out this way" arrogant moment at pretty much any point in the story in the future.

Katara has trouble emoting. I don't know how much experience her actor has with acting, but I hope she gets better with practice. There are some very nice bonding moments she has with Sokka and Aang that bring emotion out, but she's very stone faced a lot of the time. One could read it as a symptom of seeing her mother being literally burned alive but that depends on how her arc is written in future seasons, and how it's acted. I really like the parallel with Sokka, of him trying to be a warrior out of duty, while Katara wants to be that and has trouble getting the opportunity to do so. This came out really well in episode 4. The fact that she was made a fucking commander of sorts at North was amazing moment of proving to her that she can be, that she is, a warrior. I'm kinda sad her temper has been left out of the writing, because with her being a self-taught water bender (which I'm okay with because we see her practising every fucking episode) there's a threat of her sliding into so-called Mary Sue territory. Hopefully Toph's inclusion brings her temper out next season. She's also missing some of her naiveté, although having a crush on the first good looking outsider (with fucking mirrored shots) just like her brother is hilarious.

Aang is... to mature. He gets a lot of really good and morally and ethically right speeches, and while he expresses that he's scared and doesn't know what he's doing, it still feels too mature. He also doesn't have that many dumbass child moments (what was that episode he just went "oops" in, that was funny and felt childlike, and then there was the water fight he had with Katara). It could be because we're going through stuff so fast but it'll be hard to fix later. I kinda like how his connection with Katara is being the last of their kind and loss – and then the small really good acting in ep7 when Katara says stewed sea prunes taste like home, and you can just see him go "oh, there's still someplace she can belong to, unlike me." I loved his calligraphy brush discussion with Zuko, because there was the beginnings of a bond there. As a friend said, it's nice they removed the Disney princess like love at first sight thing from the OG. If this turns into a romance (I have thoughts on that... later) I feel like it has a better chance to grow organically. No, I never shipped Kataang, please refer to the context part of this post.

Suki had a fun isolated, but curious, and socially awkward vibe to her. She's obviously different from the OG, but it's a fun and interesting difference, as the most characterisation we ever got for her was badass. Yue was interesting, more assertive and playful, which I liked. I also liked the fact that she had obvious duties and was expected to be the next chief. Even if the Northern Water Tribe sexism was kept, this felt like it added some dimension to it. June flirting with Iroh was hilarious, enough said. Mai and Ty Lee are blanks of wood. Their writing, and the direction they were given was horrible, and they're a prime example of that awkward standing and bad framing issue I mentioned way earlier. Ty Lee could have at least been bending herself into a pretzel, and Mai could have been using a knife to dig stuff from under her nails or something. I hope they get better writing and direction in the future.

Iroh was honestly pretty enjoyable. There were some moments of skilled evasive answering, but I was left missing him saying that Zuko was like a son to him. They do have really good chemistry though and you can see the care between the characters. I hated the long monologue at the end of episode 6, that felt very much beneath whatever target audience they were aiming for, and failed show not tell. Not perfect but can improve. Also, that one part where they played Leaves on the Vine, I almost died.

Ozai being a manipulative, abusive game addict is different but offers him some agency and motivation besides megalomania, which I appreciate. He had a peculiar expression when he burned Zuko, and that smells like hidden lore to me.

That's probably every character I feel like addressing at this point. However, I did mention romance in Aang's section, and I have to agree with the other whispers on the net. The fucking scarf scene. At this point, it's more likely for this show to be Zutara than Kataang IMO. BUT before people go and blow up about it, some points; cartoons offer more leeway in visual age differences, I feel like they would need to extend ATLALA plot line to last several years (instead of like, 9 months it's in the OG) to make it visually make sense. The Fortuneteller (as well as Katara's obsession with love?), and Aang's love at first sight have all been written out. Cave of Two Lovers was used for sibling love on the first season, and we ain't visiting that location again, not with how efficiently we did pretty much all of the Omashu stuff this season. Most of the Kataang iconic moments have been left out deliberately. Does this mean we'll get Zutara? Of course not, but due to the scarf scene, as well as that rivals thing they have going (we literally have two fights between Zuko and Katara this season, and the water sprout she used to thwart his fireball in episode one, and if that isn't a traditional beginning of a rivalry, nothing is), it's certainly more likely at this point than Kataang.

But we'll see, just like with everything else. It's an okay start, it's far from perfect, but it does offer new viewpoints that I find fascinating.

What's in the future.

I already explained my Return to Omashu-Imprisoned-Avatar State mash-up idea above, and that we'll likely miss the Library. I also think Avatar Day will be left out. I do however think, that we'll get the Deserter next season. We also need a way for Aang to learn about the Comet coming again and if Library is out (and probably also the Desert), best chances are IMO the Swamp or the Fortuneteller (remixing those two together is also possible). Or maybe Yeong Yeong has spies and they tell him about the Comet and he tells the Gaang. I also think they'll be foreshadowing/setting up White Lotus a bit more than we got in the OG.

I don't quite have my thought together enough to make any other guesses, but we will get Toph, Ba Sing Se, and Azula's Mean Girls Squad, but no clue yet how they'll be remixed. Season 2 has a much clearer timeline structure, whereas season 1 had a lot of episodic stuff that doesn't timeline wise offer too many roadblocks for remixes, as we saw with what they did with Omashu.

I think that's about everything I can think off. If you have comments, please be nice. This was mostly rambling, and tin foil hat baiting.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Adoration

You know, between Sabrina and Zoe, it's hard to tell who gets screwed over more in this episode.

Let's get into the seventeenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Adoration

We start off with Zoe talking with Andre about a movie he made when he was younger. Apparently, he made it to declare his love for Audrey. The fact that he thought making a movie to please someone as abusive as her either means Andre is a real idiot, or Audrey is an absolute goddess in bed.

We then cut to school the next day, where Marinette and Zoe are put in charge of organizing it. The two met up at Marinette's room, where Zoe comments on how beautiful it looks... even though she was already there at the end of “Gabriel Agreste”.

Okay, in all seriousness, this is a minor error compared to the other retcons this show has made, and I can see the writers forgetting that scene since Zoe didn't say anything in it anyway, but this does have a purpose. While thinking about where to hold the dance, Marinette settles on the Eiffel Tower, and asks Zoe if she can talk to Andre about it.

The two go to Zoe's place, and surprise, surprise, Chloe throws a hissy fit about Marinette stepping on one of “her” stairs. Okay, writers, just admit you're running out of ideas for Chloe to antagonize Marinette. Zoe stands up to Chloe, who then goes to Audrey, but she's so apathetic, she doesn't even intervene, so Zoe calls it a win.

Marinette: What happened to the scared Zoe who moved here from New York a few months ago?

Zoe: It's all thanks to you, Marinette. You're the one who helped me change!

Uh... how? Outside of “Sole Crusher” and “Queen Banana”, the two have never really had any meaningful interactions. It's almost like Zoe has had absolutely no development since her introduction last season, and the writers are trying to convince us that they actually gave her character development.

Andre decides to approve holding the school dance under the Eiffel Tower, he tells Marinette and Zoe not to tell Chloe. Chloe overhears this, and gets angry for... some reason. Seriously, what did they even do? All Marinette and Zoe did was ask to hold a dance, Chloe overheard it, and the very next scene, she's talking with Lila and Sabrina about how to get revenge. She doesn't even make it about the dance, she just gets angry Zoe is talking with her father. Again, after five seasons, it really seems like the writers are running out of ways for Chloe to incite conflict, because this is just lazy.

At the Agreste Mansion, Adrien talks to Gabriel about asking Marinette to the dance, but Gabriel forbids him from doing so. Nathalie convinces him to concede, but then he calls Lila. The next scene has Chloe talking with Sabrina about a plan she has.

Chloe: Do you want to be demoted from underling to punching bag? You want to join the baker girl and the half-of-a-sister?

Sabrina: (gasps) No! I'm your friend!

Chloe: (shakes her head) My underling. You are my underling. If you're not willing to do anything for me, then get lost!

This can't seriously be the script the writers stuck with, right? Now Chloe's just saying things you'd hear from a dark lord from an RPG. Granted, it's hard to tell how honest Chloe is since her chewing out Sabrina is revealed to be a plan by Lila, but given how Chloe has been this episode, it's hard to really believe she was exaggerating anything. Either way, Sabrina is upset enough for Monarch to send an Akuma her way, akumatizing her into Vanisher again through a whistle.

Vanisher's design is pretty lazy, even back when it first appeared in Season 1. It's just Sabrina with a purple filter when she isn't using her powers to turn invisible. I guess it kind of makes sense given she's not meant to be flashy, but this just screams “cutting corners”. The Miraculous power shown this time is the Dog Miraculous' Fetch, allowing Vanisher to steal as many things as she wants.

Vanisher comes back into the room, and we actually get a funny joke where Chloe asks Lila if she's a witch, even if a funny joke in this kind of show only gets a reaction along the lines of...

Anyway, Marinette and Zoe plan out the dance some more, where Marinette talks about how hard it is to tell Adrien she loves him, to which Zoe agrees, revealing she has her own crush on someone. As the two talk, Vanisher sneaks in and we get a montage of her tagging things with her whistle. During the montage, Marinette assumes that Zoe has a crush on Adrien, which will be more important towards the end.

Once things with the dance are set up, Vanisher uses Fetch to teleport all the things she touched into Marinette's bag. Chloe accuses Marinette of being a thief, and even though Lila isn't in the rest of the episode, everyone's about as gullible as they normally are in a Lila episode, so they decide to believe Chloe. Mr. Damocles prepares to expel Marinette, but Zoe takes the blame for it, allowing Marinette transform into Ladybug.

Ladybug figures out that Vanisher is behind this because Chloe threw some paper flowers that accidentally fell onto her, so she summons her Lucky Charm, a pinata. While Ladybug fights Vanisher, Adrien gets to a safe place to transform into Cat Noir. Ladybug hands Cat Noir a bottle of some kind of spray-on glue and just as Ladybug breaks the pinata above Vanisher, Cat Noir sprays her with it, covering her in confetti. Ladybug ties up Vanisher while Cat Noir Cataclysms the whistle, freeing the Akuma.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage, Chloe yells at Sabrina for failing, and even though this blows her cover, somehow isn't punished for it, Sabrina gets a useless Magical Charm from Ladybug and because I've already seen the rest of the season, I already know that Sabrina is still going to work with Chloe for some reason.

Anyway, Marinette and Zoe talk about the latter supposedly having feelings for Adrien.

Marinette: I know... you're in love with Adrien. Don't sacrifice your feelings for him because of me. He has the right to hear your declaration.

Zoe: Adrien? But you're the one he loves.

Marinette: Even if he loves me, he'd be flattered to know that you love him too. Let him know how you feel about him. Zoe, you're an amazing person. One can only feel honored to be loved by you.

Zoe: Are you sure?

Marinette: Of course! You can't keep it to yourself! Zoe: But... Adrien’s not the one I’m in love with.

Marinette: Oh? Who is it, then? (Zoe simply looks at Marinette and smiles) Oh... Oh! Oh. I am truly, very honored. I mean it, Zoe.

Zoe: Thanks, Marinette.

Oh my God... I can't believe Zoe has feelings for Alya.

Okay, in all seriousness, let's discuss this scene. While I'm glad that we have confirmation that Zoe has feelings for Marinette, which is a big deal after the show danced around the idea with Juleka and Rose, and the reveal itself is done very well with Zoe and Marinette's facial expressions doing all the work, my problems with this scene stem from a different issue, and it ties back to my earlier point about Zoe.

Zoe as a character has always been criminally underdeveloped. Other than the fact that she's nice and is different from Chloe, very little is done to establish who she is as a person. With every focus episode she gets, the writers just slap on some kind of trait or idea to try and get viewers invested in her. In “Sole Crusher”, she had her vague backstory about being bullied, in “Queen Banana”, she became Vesperia, in “The Kwamis' Choice”, she temporarily replaced Cat Noir as Kitty Noire, and in this episode, we have her feelings for Marinette. None of these are really bad things, but the show just expects us to connect with Zoe for all of these things that happen to her with little buildup or character development. Like I said earlier, the show tries to act like there's been character development with Zoe, but it doesn't work because she's barely gotten to do anything that isn't the writers trying to shove her into the main cast.

As for the reveal that Zoe has feelings for Marinette, it sort of falls flat because again, the two have barely spent any time together since “Sole Crusher” and “Queen Banana”. Yeah, Zoe was present in other episodes like “Gabriel Agreste” and “Crocoduel”, but she was only part of the group and didn't really interact with Marinette on her own. It's hard to really see this reveal as impactful because not only did we not get a lot of hints that Zoe was into girls, but we didn't even get a lot of hints that Zoe had developed feelings for Marinette in the first place. That's not to say this couldn't work. In The Owl House, there weren't any hints that either Luz or Amity were into girls, but the difference there was that their growing feelings for each other became an ongoing story. Here, there's nothing that really comes of Zoe having feelings for Marinette other than so the show can say they have an LGBT character. If there was an episode about Zoe struggling to deal with her unrequited feelings for Marinette, or an episode where she tries to ask another girl out, this could have worked, but nothing really comes from this.

And finally, there's the reason behind this reveal. The episode goes out of its way to establish that Zoe has feelings for Marinette not to really expand on Zoe's character, but rather, to expand on Marinette's. Zoe's coming out story is less of a big reveal about her sexual identity, and more of a cautionary tale about not being able to confess your feelings to someone you care about until it's too late. The reveal that Zoe has feelings for Marinette isn't about Zoe taking a risk that could jeopardize her friendship with Marinette, it's about giving Marinette the confidence she needs to tell Adrien she loves him, and even then, that moment is undercut because the very next scene, Gabriel uses his influence to order Adrien to go home when he's about to kiss Marinette. The episode basically ends with Marinette trying to reassure herself that progress was actually made when we know Gabriel screwed that up.

So basically, THIS EPISODE WAS A GIANT WASTE OF TIME! Oh my God, this was bad, and it's hard to really explain. I'm not really as angry as I was towards episodes like “Kuro Neko”, “Penalteam”, or “Illusion”, but this episode just had so many little things that got to me that all piled up by the end. The attempt to give Zoe character development didn't really work, Gabriel and Chloe had no reason to incite the conflict other than because they felt like it, Lila had no real purpose being here (yet she gets to be in the end card instead of Chloe), the Akuma was underwhelming, Sabrina still hasn't gotten any major character development herself, and the ending just felt like a cheap excuse to keep the story going. This is still one of the worst episodes of the season, but I still think “Derision” and “Illusion” are worse.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... ANDRE (THE OTHER ONE)

While Gabriel came close to getting his third Biggest Idiot Award in a row, I ultimately gave it to Andre because the episode tried to make him out to be a good father even though he's scared of his own child. He made an entire movie to show how much he loved someone as terrible as Audrey, wanted to keep organizing a school dance a secret from Chloe, kept enabling her even when she framed a classmate, and didn't even punish her afterwards when it was obvious she framed Marinette with the help of an Akuma.

[hezuart]

Btw have you seen Disney’s wish and if so what’s your review on it? And how would you Rewrite the story? To me it had interesting contact about your Wishes being a part of yourselves and without it you feel hollow but too bad it was written poorly. The “Villain” Magnifico kind of had the point of not all of the wishes are supposed to be granted Example “My Wish is to get a Rocket Launcher to aim that Talking Goat and the rest of This Freaking Kingdom!” With that said next is Asha! There is no reason for her to be “Adorkable” or “Quirky” we already have Princesses and Characters like that! let them have their own Personality Already!! One problem with Asha is she should have been Magnifico’s Apprentice for a long time in the start but instead of selecting her to Be His “Apprentice” throughout the Movie 🤦🏻‍♀️ and have you seen the Concept Arts?👀 Spoilers! King and Queen are supposed to be Evil Together! and The “Star” is supposed to be like a person or it? That comes from the stars? it would’ve been cool to named it “Stardust” instead of “star” the concept art looks so Amazing than the one we have now and Also No Comedy in this movie it’s to Boring and so as the Songs 😴 we’ve been ROBBED! (The Animation is Nice but I wouldn’t compare it to Spiderverse or TMNT or Puss in boots or The Bad Guys🤔) Anyways what do you think? I want to know your opinion, see you!🙋🏻‍♀️

I might write a review if I have time, but omygod Disney's Wish is SOOOOooooo bad. SO bad. The characters are flat, its nothing but forced in references to other Disney movies, the plot is boring, the songs have all this bravado and make them not catchy- the setting is supposed to be in the Mediterranean but all the animals are from the USA implying they are all invasive species brought over from the settlers of other countries- the comic relief characters aren't funny- the goat himself should be deleted he is so annoying- The star is like, ultimate magic. He made animals sentient, he can make things fly- he can change the size of things like a giant chicken- but he can't open a fcking roof? He can't grant people's wishes? He sort of implies he left that power to Asha, but she sucks at magic. She's the worst person to be handling it. The entire marketing campaign for this movie was about how the villain is "classic Disney". He's NOT???? He's just a narcissistic traumatized(?) control freak King. But then he touches a dark book of magic and now suddenly he's 100% evil and there's no going back for him. Even his wife implies that the book changed him, that the dark magic corrupted her husband beyond repair. The dark magic influenced his personality to make him darker, but he wasn't a legitimate true villain. Classic Disney villains have always been full of themselves. They always manipulated and abused people. They aren't afraid to hurt and kill people. They relish other people's suffering. This King is not like them. They were trying to make him sympathetic from the beginning with actual real reasons to control the kingdom as he does. They do a 180 on his personality. Dude fled from his previous homeland ravaged by war, and has been serving his kingdom for years, he's basically customer service and people can be demanding and needy. Asha herself takes the opportunity to try and weasel in her grandfather's wish through her apprenticeship application and the King is like "Yep. Here we go again."

But the way they show those reasons make his entire operation look stupid. They're like "Look how evil he is for not granting wishes because his judgment is slightly skewed. Look at how evil he is for not returning the wishes because he's------- idk, a control freak? Due to his trauma?" The concept art is definitely better than the final product. I feel like it would have been a decent movie with the original concept. But what annoys me the most is that Disney thinks this is a celebration of 100 years of Disney. It's not! They're only really celebrating the last decade of quirky flat characters, mostly 3D animation, and poor storytelling. The thing that makes me the most angry out of the whole movie? The wishes. The entire concept is nonsense. The bad guy claims that Asha's grandfather's wish is too dangerous to grant. The wish? He's singing to people. fcking WHAT. "I want to be an exclusive tailor." "I want to be a sailor!" "I want to sing to kids and inspire them-" THE PEOPLE OF ROSAS ARE SO STUPID.??????? THEY CAN ACHIEVE THOSE CAREERS ON THEIR OWN. THE KING OF ROSAS. IS A SORCERER.

We have TWO wishes that are actually physically impossible and magical. "I want to talk to birds!" "I want to fly!" ARE YOU TELLING ME. THAT NO ONE WANTS TO BECOME A FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON AT WILL? HAVE TELEKINESIS? BE A STRONG BODYBUILDER WHO CAN LIFT BUILDINGS? READ MINDS? SEE THE FUTURE? OWN A GIANT CHICKEN THAT GIVES GOLDEN EGGS? WISH TO BE A FAIRY TO CHANGE THEIR SIZE AT WILL?

THOSE. ARE ACTUAL DANGEROUS, UNACHIEVABLE WISHES WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU HAVE A WISH OF WANTING A CAREER AS A FARMER WHEN YOU COULD WISH TO HAVE TOTAL CONTROL OVER PLANT LIFE AT WILL? THE PEOPLE OF ROSAS ARE SO DUMB I CANT WITH THIS IM SORRY IM SO MAD AT THIS MOVIE And the wishes themselves like- people don't have the same wish forever. Someone in the crowd even asked, "Can we change our wish?" It's implied maybe they can even have more than one. They also straight up forget their wish when they give it up to the King? This whole thing feels like a weird metaphor for real life in a magical setting. It doesn't make sense to me.

One of my friends said they heard a theory that this entire movie is secretly a jab at Corporate Monopoly Disney, how they won't let anyone else be magical (monopoly), how they only choose 12 wishes a year to grant (Internships), and how the wishes they choose to grant are useless to the kingdom because anything else more creative or inspiring is a threat (regurgitated sequels, uninspired stories, boring formula) and how the ending is about defeating the "villain" (Disney) and moving on to try and achieve your dreams yourself (Form a Union, start your own businesses, take back animated media) and viewing the movie through THAT lens is actually incredibly metaphorically genius and made the movie less terrible for me, intentional or not But yeah anyway, Wish is bad. I keep telling people. Disney is so dumb. THIS is what people want for a Disney celebration: CROSSOVER. DISNEY CINEMATIC UNIVERSE. Disney will probably do it badly but I'm telling you, people have been wanting this for YEARS.

They did it with House of Mouse, they can do it again.

[starillusion13]

FRIENDS!? Chapter 11

🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳🔳

Series ML

Pairing: poly!ateez × f!reader (An ATEEZ Office AU)

Genre: Mature, Angst, Yandere

Warning: mention of memories and gaining back memories (nothing much just go with the flow), mention of knife, hostage and crying, fear.

W.C: 3.4k Network: @k-vanity

[Reblogs and Reviews are always appreciated. Thank you for reading and have a nice day ahead. Please always take care of yourself everyone.]

Hello, Can we be friends please?

>.<

You were looking around the room and playing with your fingers while humming a song you were listening to on repeat these past days. You glanced at the photo frame across from you --- a large portrait of yours hanging in the middle of the wall. They decorated the room according to your favorite color and everything you liked which they had known when Wooyoung took you to a place to know about your thoughts on the interior planning for your room someday.

Who knew it was going to be real for you?

The pastel shades and warm touches of the light color with the comforting mattress on which you were lying comfortably --- what else could one ever want more? A stable job, caring and loving friends who treat you like a family and a comforting place to stay --- maybe a home. The previous room was actually pretty nice and you loved it so much but the recent one can't be compared to it. The old one seems a casual one to this. This one is like heaven and as if you are really a princess.

What if it's a cage?

If someday you get locked inside and then the comfort would turn into your suffocating boredom. Why are you being paranoid again, y/n?

Or could it be because you're in danger?

It's natural. If you can't remember the missing parts then this is going to be a hard way to accept the good and happiness.

But one thing.

They are helping, caring for you. Being friends with you to stay close with you and living together. Could it mean something else? As if they do all these, maybe they're just trying to keep you close to them for something like losing you will make them lose something important to their work --- or like a plan.

You laid at the bed before closing your eyes to clear your mind off.

You are thinking too much. All negativities. Can't you appreciate them for being such gentlemen? You are their bestfriend --- even more than that. You love Yunho... What is he doing right now?

Your eyes slowly opened and you kept staring at the ceiling. It's good or bad, you can't do anything. You don't have memories of your past like others, you have mysteries which are yet to be discovered.

"I think, I should sleep and then it'll be alright." You mumbled and brought your legs closer and hugged them to stare at the wall sideways. Turning off the light, you sighed and closed your eyes.

You are at a safe place --- a comforting one. You have everything and certainly, you don't want to run away from all these....again. right?

You can't fall asleep. Ugh!

A thud sound of the door jolted your eyes shot open, a large figure of a man entered but you couldn't see the face when he still didn't turn on the lights. The room was dark and you gulped in fear as to who entered the room like a creep. It should be one of the boys. For anyone else, it can't be possible to be here.

"Who are you?" you scooted back towards the cushioned headboard. You quickly moved to the other side when he sat at the bed and reached out to turn on the night lamp.

"How are you?" the soft voice made you sigh in relief. It's him and you are just scared for no reason. You shifted your butt to sit near to him and he patted your head affectionately. A sweet smile appears on his face and reflects on yours too.

"Why are you here? Can't sleep?" you held his hand when he placed his palm on your thigh and nodded."I can't sleep...but I want to." You whispered and played with his fingers.

"Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?" he suddenly asked. You quickly looked at him, eyes shining with hope but yet a flick of nervousness was there. You licked your lips before slowly nodding at him. "lie down for me."

You quickly followed his soft order. Your head again hit the pillow and now you were eagerly watching how he looked around the room before getting closer to you and laid down, resting his elbow to balance his body side facing you. He did notice the little hesitance in you and he pulled you a bit closer to him to rest his palm over your eyes.

"why can't you sleep, pearl?"

Pearl...you love this name.

You didn't answer but getting lost with the feeling of his warm hands on your cold face inside the room. The air conditioner was a bit at a low temperature. You heard a clicking sound. And he placed something on the nightstand.

"Why are you keeping the temperature so low? You are cold and this might make you fall sick." He lightly scolded you and again patted your head but this time you were not closing your eyes, you stared back at him with lots of questions inside your mind.

"Why are you doing this, Yunho?"

His actions halted. Your words seem to affect him in a way but you don't know how.

"Try to sleep, y/n."

You grabbed his wrist when he tried to make your eyes shut and you shook your head. He noticed that you wanted him to reply and until then you were not going to sleep. "what?"

"Just answer me...and then I will sleep."

He bit his lip, brushing your hairs away from the face, caressing your cheek. He managed to look good in his jet black hair. Recently, they all have dyed their hair black than before when they had different shades of color. Even though it was weird to you, they looked good.

Just when you were about to say something again, he spoke up, "I want to do this....for you. For us." His fingers tracing down to your jaw, your lips and he was staring at them. You licked your lips, thinking about the possibility but his words bloomed lightly again. "there's something I want to compensate for."

"what?" you asked quickly. You didn't want to cut the flow. You want to hear from him. you want every detail of your past from him. even if you remember some things --- to say a lot. Then why can't you still remember certain parts?

He sighed, the way he was staring at you as if it's sensitive for him. He looked away and then back to you, " y/n, please don't push me away...please."

"I can't, Yunho." You gave him a little smile. "But you have to tell me everything, okay?"

He nodded, "I will. I will someday but you have to listen to me till the end." He leaned closer to you, his breath fanning over your face when he placed a kiss on your temple, his lips mumbled, "I know you won't forgive me."

You cupped his cheek when he pulled apart a bit to look at you. His face was near to you, so near that he could remember those days spent with you, those nights with you when you were innocent yet promising the love forever and the next moment the anger and fear visible on your innocent face.

He did wrong...a lot.

"Let's rewind the time."

He shook his head, "no. Let's start again."

With that he kissed your lips, hovering on top of you, caging you in his arms and pressing himself on you. Lips moving smoothly with yours and his hands roaming along your body. His every tingling touch and the swift movements of the lips were like a need at the moment. Both of your minds could imagine the past moments between you two but he could see the extension to those but your imagines ended with a void. Something must have happened after that.

His face fell into your crook of the neck and nuzzled his face, leaving kisses all the way, repeating the same actions to the other side. Your breath hitched when he bit your sensitive skin. grabbing his hair tight in your fist, you whimpered, "Yunho...please."

He pulled apart, placing a soft kiss on your lips, "go to sleep, y/n. not now."

"but I still have a lot on my mind."

He nodded, "I know." He laid down beside you, flicking the switch by his side. The curtains moving aside the wide glass window, slowly revealing the night view up from the 16th floor. It was as if everything was shining under the dark blanket of night. It was still in chaos when you were at peace inside the room.

It was beautiful just like your life --- chaotic yet peaceful.

His sudden pull to your hand made you fall on his chest. He chuckled at your shocked expression, guiding you slowly and softly to lay on his chest. His white t-shirt was comfortable to snuggle into, you rested your head to his chest and stared at the city view with him.

You were captivated by the view and he was captivated by you. His hands softly rubbing your back and patting slowly, lulling you to sleep. You smiled and hugged his body.

"y/n.."

You hummed in response while closing your eyes.

"y/n, promise me...if you feel scared or want to run away. Then you will come to me."

You nodded, "I will. I promise you."

"you are not going to leave me again..."

"I won't."

"sleep well."

You were quiet, your even breaths and soft sound leaving your mouth was enough for him to know.

You were asleep.

Just like that day, when you first slept in his embrace after crying for hours...because of them...because of him. He kept stroking your hairs before falling asleep with you in his arms.

"I'm sorry, y/n."

The time with him felt like a sudden pause from the chaos inside your mind. As if you could feel a different world with him. how does he wish it to be real? To be with you somewhere else where the past can't haunt you again.

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

"please...don't do this. What have I done to you?"

You sobbed uncontrollably. There was no emotion visible in the front boy. His eyes were cold and actions were harsh. He pushed you inside the room, locking the door behind him. you caressed your wrists, the ropes tied tight earlier made your skin irritated and there was no one to comfort you.

"please..."

"Shut up!"

You flinched at his voice. It was heavy. You have heard this voice several times. You know him. you have talked with him, laughed with him and cried to him, begged him to stop what he was doing. The same situation like the past days is repeating again.

"Please let me go. I want to go home."

The boy chuckled and crouched down in front of you, his face hidden in the darkness of the room. You scooted back, afraid to get a touch from him. His touches are not comforting, they are torturing. He didn't like your actions and harshly pulled you by your ankles, earning a loud cry from you. He took out a knife from his pocket and held it in front of your eyes.

"please...No...it hurts."

He smiled, "it would have not if you have listened to us." Tracing your knees and sliding down the tip of the object and stopping at your tied ankle. You let out a shaky breath, "please stop." The tip was dangerously sharp and could cut your skin in a single move but it didn't. it was at a halt.

"You should not have tried to run away."

You shook your head, tears staining your face, "I don't want to stay here."

"Where do you want to go? Your home? But there's no one. Where is your home? Orphanage or that place from where you are sold to us? Tell me." you stayed quiet and he chuckled. "you can't because neither of those is your home. This place is your home and we are here to keep you safe."

"I am not safe here." He raised a brow at your bold reply.

Titling his head to the side, he looked at you directly, "and why? We are not going to kill you."

"it's better to be dead than staying with you."

He grabbed your jaw harshly and pushed you back against the wall, you winced at the sudden effect, "what have I said before? don't talk back unless you really want to die. I am just keeping you alive because of him." he chuckled, shaking his head, "oh wait...my pretty one has more than him. for them, I am keeping you alive for them or I would have killed you long back."

"Then kill me...please."

"they won't like this and......me too." His gaze flickered to your quivering lips and then back to your eyes. "don't make it hard for me."

In a swift move, he cut the ropes of your ankle and left you alone in the corner. Your scared eyes followed him till his steps stopped at the doorstep, his voice echoed and his back was facing you, "go freshen up. I will tell them to send you food."

"I don't need it." You whispered.

He craned his neck slowly, staring at your scared form in the end of the room, "y/n...get up."

San...

Was it him?

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

"wake up." A raspy voice called, causing you to slowly flutter your eyes open. The man in front of you made your eyes go wide. Why is he here? What was that dream? That nightmare? Is it real? His eyes were dark and his voice was stern. Same like that boy in the dream. "you are sleeping for so long. It's already afternoon."

You were about to answer when he suddenly turned around and went towards the table to flick the switch to remove the curtains, the lights slipping inside your room slowly. A warmth of afternoon light surrounded you. A hand extended in front of you. You closed your eyes and gulped.

What was he trying to do in the dream?

Is it just a nightmare?

"why are you closing your eyes?" your eyes opened slowly, getting up quietly and leaning back against the headboard and bringing the comforter close to your body. He again extended his hand and now you noticed a tiny box. "You are having a fever. Take this and then come to the eighth floor."

You said nothing, taking the box from him and nodding slowly.

He walked towards the door and before exiting he spoke up, "and make it quick."

Can he please get out?

The door shut and you sighed in relief. This is not good. The voice, the eyes and his smile. All are exactly the same. It can't be possible. This is your first time getting a nightmare and seeing someone so clearly --- not enough but at least you could distinguish the voice and the physique.

Are you not safe with your friends?

After taking a bath, you got changed into formal attire for the office. You smiled at the mirror and fixed yourself in the mirror. You are provided with everything then why are you feeling as if there should be something wrong.

You stepped out of the room only to be greeted by Yeosang standing there and rubbing his eyes. He caught your lingering gaze on him and quickly smiled, stepping towards you and holding your hand.

"You were waiting for me?"

He nodded, guiding you to the elevator, "I was free so when I found that you were awake I thought to escort you to our cabin."

"Oh I slept too long. I'm sorry."

He shook his head before pressing the button, "it's okay. Seonghwa went to your room last night because you forgot your phone at his cabin after the late-night paperwork and then he found out that you were talking and crying in your sleep. He waited until you fell back to sleep."

"oh...okay."

He was in your room last night then he must have heard you crying because of your nightmares.

Getting inside the elevator, he patted your head, "have you taken the medicine San brought to you?"

You nodded.

You could feel his stares on you, you turned your head to his side, "do you want to say something?"

"Did you have nightmares yesterday?"

You remained quiet.

"Seonghwa said when he checked your fever, you were scared in your sleep. Do you have those nightmares often? What do you see?" His voice was soft but curious.

You turned your head and looked straight towards the door. He shouldn't know about anything. Nobody should know about the nightmares. It's only for you to remember the past. You whispered audible to him, "it's nothing."

He spoke nothing more than that. He didn't know what to ask you more.

The more he would say, the more complicated the situation was going to be.

.

.

.

"you better be serious right now, Joong. She is remembering the past. More specifically she is remembering us. The old us. And you are okay with everything?"

Hongjoong abruptly stood from his chair and glared at the man across from the table, "I know what I'm doing, Hwa. Everything is fine. You are worrying for no reason."

The said man scoffed, brushing back his hair in disbelief, "fine? Nothing is fine. Why are we letting her remember all those? And now you are allowing her to go on a trip alone with Star? What if something goes wrong?"

Hongjoong hissed in annoyance and glared back, "please shut up. I have plans for everything. Nothing is going to be wrong. She will be with us till the end. I can't let anyone destroy anything which I have worked for years."

Seonghwa stared at him and licked his lips, "what plans are you talking about?"

"Have you seen her bonding with Jongho and Mingi? Wooyoung?" Hongjoong chuckled, remembering the past incidents and continued, "Yunho?...the things are repeating again like Deja-vu. We can't stop things from happening. Even if we want to change it, it's gonna happen how it should be."

"What do you mean?"

Hongjoong leaned against the desk, "we are going on this trip with her but without letting her know about it. We are going to follow her."

"I don't think it's good. It's better not to allow her."

"Hwa, even if we claim ourselves that we are good and we have changed. Remember we haven't and we can't. the past is repeating again and we should do something real soon."

San stepped towards them, a box in his hand, "who is going to give her this?"

"Of course, you. Yeosang is going to talk with Mr. Kim down the hall so after that it's only possible and she needs to wake up by now. It's already late enough."

San scoffed at Hongjoong, "you think it's good? She will freak out seeing me the first person after she wakes up."

"Then do it nicely."

.

.

.

The elevator stopped at 10th floor, when Wooyoung got inside, he greeted you with a warm hug, "sleepyhead is awake." He noticed your silence, "are you okay?"

You nodded and smiled, "it's just I had some weird dreams and fever so I am still recovering. Don't worry."

He hugged you, exchanging a quick look with Yeosang on your other side. Relaxing in his arms, you broke the silence between you three, "are you all free right now?"

"why? Do you want to do anything or go somewhere?"

You shrugged and quickly remembered something.

"What about we go on a trip someday? We can relive our childhood once again. Going back to the old school and roaming the neighborhood. How cool it will be!"

Wooyoung's grip around you tightened and a hesitant smile appeared on his face. Yeosang coughed and excused himself when you looked between them expectantly.

The younger one combed your hairs with his fingers before smiling, "we need to talk about it with Hongjoong and Seonghwa."

"Why them?" a frown appeared on your face, "if they don't want to go. We can leave them and we six can go all together."

Yeosang's curiosity piqued, "six? Who are they?"

"three of us, and then Yunho, Jongho and Mingi."

Yeosang glanced at Wooyoung and back to you, "and rest?"

The desired floor arrived. Three of you exit the elevator, with Wooyoung leading the way and Yeosang continuing the conversation from earlier.

"I don't know about them. They don't like me."

He shook his head, "No. y/n, it's not like that. They have responsibilities for everything happening around them so they just behave a bit off key sometimes otherwise it's okay." pulling your hand before entering the cabin where others were waiting for them.

"I don't know."

You don't know a lot of things and you need to know more about them.

Are they really hiding something"

But, what? And, moreover, why?

NEXT

Taglist :

@mymoodwriting @justhere4kpop @vvshere @anyamaris @yeoobin @wooyoungmybelovedhusband @brrrkdslek-personal @icchyi @jwnghyuns @piratequeen-queenofgames @luhwaine @ilove-taeyong @dinonuguaegi @endeav0rsb1tch @loveforred @hwanring @sanwifesstuff @kiwiisnthereoops @kiwiraccoon @sousydive @aliona124754 @tunaasan @iykyunho

(open! dm me/ send ask/reply here)

[cuttyclowngirl]

Daima EP.4 (Spoiler) review/theories

• My bad Glorio, I wasn't familiar with your game. He actually can fly & is a league stronger than I thought. I was wrong. Good. He's even more fascinating than before. How does a demon from the 3rd world obtain such strength? Why would he need it if he was a simple bounty hunter/assassin as viewers suspect? All that & he can't sense ki?

• Glorio & Shin's (Supreme Kai's) "U can't fool me" dynamic continues to grow ever more tense. Who's going to crack first?

• Glorio sorta gave up on on finding his plane almost immediately in favor of finding a new vehicle. Was the plane even his to begin with? He also doesn't seem to care that about being late to see King Kandan. The nearest Tamagami is miles in the opposite direction they've been heading so far & Glorio still insisted they just gather the balls instead of prioritizing the meeting with Kadan, which tells me he never actually intended to see the 3rd world King & probably wasn't sent by King Kadan.

• Glorio suddenly switching up & almost insisting they gather the balls, coupled with that "All according to plan" smirk/hmph is further feeding into my theory about him working for Dr Arinsu. (There were two shots in the conversation where Glorio's eyes are suspiciously off screen) She was probably watching on a Magic Monitor & sent Glorio a telepathic message/order.

• The shopkeeper couple are absolutely lovely "one & done" type silly characters. Love their designs, their bits, their voices & interactions. I hope they'll be featured in future video games. (Glorio is such an experienced haggler, he even saw through a not so obvious deafness trick. Tells me Glorio socializes a lot.)

• "Medi Bugs". Toriyama never missed an opportunity to remind everyone that JRPGs were one of his special interests, huh? Revive Bug restores stamina. (Compared to Senzu, but wasn't stated to have healing properties. Let's remember that.) Achichi Bug heals burns, Zutsu Bug cures headaches, Beaut Bugs make your skin silky. JOIN BUG: "Feed halves to 2 people & they can fuse for a while". Introducing a Demon Realm exclusive type fusion. Can't wait to see what it looks like.

• Aside from the multiple unnamed Medi Bugs Goku made Glorio ("Goliro" lmao) buy, which we saw in his bag, the shopkeeper lady said they had "most of the different types of Medi Bugs", meaning even more might be introduced later. She also called the Medi Bugs "souvenirs" so they're clearly not rare/hard to find.

• The heavy air yields yet another obstacle in the form of even lower mobility in any attempt at flying at high speeds. "It expends a lot of energy & will tire you out quickly".

• Poor Shin has to keep Goku on task like a kid on a leash, reminding him that the main mission is rescuing baby Dende.

• As I had hoped, the Tamagamis are strong, even by Glorio's standards to the point he's never heard of anyone gathering all 3 balls. So Goku & crew will be the first in ages to do so.

• Demons apparently believe their set of D balls are the originals. Fandom discourse fuel right there.

• "Sky seeds". Shin said he's never heard of one, meaning the "Great Fiend Flower" & their Sky seeds are 3rd world exclusive. The whimsical orchestral cover of Jaka Jann coupled with Goku's attitude throughout the Sky seed riding sequence was pure dragon ball charm. (I got a lil emotional.)

• The Supreme King's military police are called "Gendarmerie" a word derived from the medieval French phrase "gens d'armes" meaning "Men-at-arms".

• Finding out that the red Magic Collars we've seen several demons already wearing are actually oppression devices really hurt me when I remembered that those lovely shopkeepers were wearing them too... I think the scarf Panzy wears is either hiding her collar or concealing an awful scar caused by her manually removing her's that she'd rather no one see.

• What could the life force sucked out of poor demons by that awful machine possibly be for? Keeping the Supreme King young and strong? Like in "Go Go Ackman" where the souls of dead humans kept the demon king young & strong?

•Goku & crew are fugitives now. The obstacles just keep staking. (Bulma's def gonna yell at someone.)

• Panzy seems to be your classic plucky eccentric rebel who's inventions only work half the time, which already sorta sets her apart from Bulma the giga genius & GT's Pan. I look forward to her future antics & discovering her motivation for traveling with Goku & crew. (She should either learn how to fly or make herself a pair of roller skates for quick getaways.) There seemed to be some focus on her eyes. Could her eye color be an additional plot point? I don't remember any other demon having purple eyes like her's specifically, but I'm probably reading into it too much.

[bearpillowmonster]

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed

I'm an Epic Mickey stan, I would've bought this whether I played it or not, just to support it because I've always wanted more. (mainly, for Oswald!) But so much was planned for this franchise, including a movie and an Epic Donald spinoff.

CHANGES

Looking at this is night and day especially for a dark setting. The graphics weren't bad on the Wii, they were just, well, on the Wii. (which ran at max 720p) And while that's still feasible, it's so nice to see everything smoothed out and relit. They didn't have to go as far as messing with the actual fidelity of it or the custscenes but they make it known what a movie it would've been and we lost boys.

The addition of sprinting, dashing and butt stomping is really what this game needed because the first Epic Mickey was a Wii exclusive and I loved playing it when I first got into it but I found it had faded since then. I came back maybe a year or two ago to try and play it again and I just couldn't bring myself to. I like platforming and the platforming in this game sucked, it wouldn't control right, I felt like I was jumping in a straight line, like barely any momentum. It wasn't quite there for something you do a lot of. And if you fall in the thinner, there's very seldom a platform to catch you so dying sets you back and then you had to walk back so sprinting is just a complete clutch.

You also had aiming to deal with as far as the Wii remote- This review is for the Switch version, yeah, I knew that it would run a little worse than the other consoles but now I have the experience to talk about specifics and I wanted to play it on the go. The darkness I mentioned can be adjusted, not just in brightness but in color and style for color deficiency. You cannot shake the joycon to spin.

There is a choice to use motion controls when you're spraying but that's the only time it comes up, you already have to have the button pressed down and even then you can just use the analog stick, it's really good either way, no complaints. You can also set it if you're standing still and press the down arrow. The framerate…could dip and there was a time or two where it'd get stuck, the load times can be long (but you don't see a loading screen often) it's just weird to me that the game is a remaster of a game from 2010 and actually has the biggest file size on my Switch and even with all that size, has longer loading screens than comparable titles like Super Mario Odyssey.

And this is especially important for this game because you sometimes have to traverse back and forth between Ostown and Mean Street and whatever to get the side quests done (and sometimes main) and every time you have to speedrun the same pathway level (projector) to get there and each time you jump in or out is a loading screen. Seeing as this is labelled as a remake and not just a remaster, they very well could've made a fast travel. There were some instances like that where the sequel had the feature that I wanted and was hoping that it'd be updated in here like so many remaksters are doing now, Last of Us and Horizon for example.

The one thing that did carry over is that you've probably seen the different skins that you get with either preorder or purchase, there are a few unlockable ones as well. They fit well with the 2.5D levels (Brave Little Tailor for 30s cartoons, Steamboat for 20s). There is a photo mode, it's not as customized in the 2D levels but I definitely had fun with it if you can't tell.

It's the same game but it's not one-to-one, for example, the locations of the power boxes are different in Os-Town, scenes like this look different.

Which is a downgrade in my eyes but some of them are very neutral, like the health bar

…that's a choice, I guess, there was no real need to change it. It definitely makes things more textured and seem a little less rough, look at this platform where you find Pete Pan.

Sometimes more detailed and lush, but sometimes it takes from the scene. Little stuff like goo dripping from the ceiling removed, sometimes it's the overall colors and vibes of a level to either lighten or darken. I can't say whether I like one or the other totally more.

THE GAME

Let's talk about the meat because it's 60$ so I'm going to treat it like it as if it was a brand new game, plus I never reviewed the original and I don't talk about it enough so here we go. I'll cover thinner mode in some other post, this is more or less hero mode.

It's a reasonable amount of hours and honestly time as been gracious to it, whether it be the growing cult status or the fact that it's on other consoles other than the Wii because while the combat still leaves a little to be desired, the gameplay overall is a lot more refined in my eyes.

There are times where your paint can't reach an item, it's not a bad limitation but still in sight, it tells you what's reachable by turning green. But this is especially precise and annoying for the ending with the bloticles. I don't get what it is with games and popping bubbles.

Oswald is in this a lot less than I remember, I always thought of him as making mischief for a level but he kind of shows up just to show you your end goal. Towards the second half he appears a lot more though. It's kind of cool how it's all a Alice Through The Looking Glass type thing and Oswald is the White Rabbit. And all things forgotten, Atlantis, Tron…no Black Cauldron (which fits perfectly) and no Treasure Planet though everything that is popular is all mechanical, an artificial imitation and the way Smee is colored makes it look like the concept art, all inverted from the way we know and it's just-

I really like the idea of having different endings correlating to how you played. When I first played this, I tried to hundred percent it first round and paint absolutely every nook and collect every item and to be honest, I found myself doing a lot of the same stuff I did when I started, it's funny, I have the same thought processes but I've come to the conclusion that if I waste my time on just one collectible, it won't be as fun and I won't want to play it anymore and it's been this long so let me finish it. But there are obvious rewards for either path, one of the first I could tell was having a gremlin in a catapult and a chest on the switch. Remove the chest and it launches the gremlin, remove the gremlin and it locks the chest. There are times you can just thinner brush most things and it'll show a negative outlook on the world itself. You can either clean up your mess with paint or take out the trash and destroy it like it never happened.

There are a lot of things to collect and I had fun just looking in every corner though I found that they seem kind of half-and-half, some going by the wayside like the pins and some being cool like the concept art.

[riddles-n-games]

Why do you think avery and Jameson’s characters/Jameson’s story felt off? It feels off for me, too, but I can't put my finger on it.

Hoo boy, where to start? This feels like peeling wet paper from wet paper. Also, sorry this took so long to make. I was constantly putting it off because I felt like I kept not knowing how to continue this review at times so I really hope this doesn't disappoint.

Spoiler Warning: The Brothers Hawthorne Discussion

Plot-wise, first off, it felt like we spent a lot of time with the set up to get to the Game and usually JLB spends a very minimal amount on that before we jump into the riddles, puzzle-solving, clue finding portion of the story as shown in the last three books. Then when we get to the actual portion of the plot which is dedicated to the Game itself, the running around Vantage feels like it was all so quick and you don't even get to take it in because we're already at another part with a new clue that by the time you feel settled in, the Game is done and Jameson is the winner. So, I think the concern with the story on that front is the fact that she wanted us to have an element from the old books that we're comfortable with so we can continue experiencing that thrill we're used to, just from Jameson's perspective because this suits him to a T. And she's right. This is the Hawthorne brother we've come to associate with all these high risks, high stakes, riddles, puzzles, complex games, etc., etc. It's just her approach didn't feel right; she spent more time on one thing than the other, the set up vs the climax as a result of said set up were disproportionate and this would probably be as a result of the dual pov. We never had a dual pov before in the series so where one story feels completed, the other didn't. Had Jamie's story been one whole book on its own, she likely could have made everything in the plot more evened out, especially the part we're anticipating most: the Game.

Also, from what I can see, Grayson's plotline does serve as the typical storyline we see in TIG, THL, and TFG in terms of set up and execution of actions after the build up. But it also must have been thought out better because there was pressure from the fans to redeem Grayson after the events of the last book. To be fair, JLB may have also planned it out that way in the first place. It's just disappointing to read through a book with the one brother I wanted to see in his best element because he fit this script the most having his storyline cut off seemingly abruptly. I know it's easier for her to come up with stuff for Grayson because he's still underdeveloped but she should have taken more care of Jameson since he is already developed. It causes inconsistency and on her part, looks like lazy writing and that she didn't even want to write his story. Most complex story she's written, my ass. If she wanted to just write Grayson's story then she could have done that, it would be believable enough that she just wanted to leave Jameson untouched because of the work she put into him rather than taking back all the good stuff we've seen come out of him by the end of TFG.

Now, with Jameson's character development, I think that the problem was the dilemma he was facing with his mind being "ordinary" compared to that of his brothers. I don't think I minded that part that much but when I review how he acted in the original trilogy versus how he was in this one, this problem kind of abruptly seems to show up, even with the flashbacks where this was demonstrated to be a topic of interest. Maybe JLB should have created some kind of set up for his character having this problem in the first books like she did with his lack of father figures issue which clearly makes him sensitive and his desperate need to win. These were things that had an origin and were portrayed appropriately in the book with a somewhat satisfying conclusion. This one just felt like it was there and the issue was quite quickly resolved so it kind of just makes itself appear as something that could have been easily ignored. He also falls short on sounding like a human being because she has made his mentality and personality so one dimensional and basic that a robot has more complexity than him. We get it, he's hungry for more almost all the time! But that's not all there is to him. And as a Jameson girlie, I feel like she made it so much harder for us fans of him as a character and the chosen love interest for Avery to give reasons as to why we liked him. I mean, back in 2022 and throughout 2023, I don't know how many little analyses and rants I came across that projected the goodness of his character. Now what am I supposed to justify? I was hoping we'd get that deserved deep dive to see what else drove him besides the obvious and what did we get? Just an endless loop of what we already know and have seen.

On the topic of Avery and Jameson as a couple in this book, uh, I think that JLB could have done a better representation of it from Jamie's perspective than the way she did in TBH. They had some pretty great moments like their problem-solving sequences, the getting ready scene before the opera, the little stuff like their hand symbols to signal to each other, Avery comforting Jameson, and Jameson confiding in her the secret of what happened in Prague. However, I found the way that JLB described Jameson's thoughts towards Avery a little too out of character. I get it, there's nothing wrong with him being physically attracted to his own girlfriend, that's definitely part of it but it felt too lusty and not the way he seemed to view her from what we saw in the last three books. I mean, even Avery wasn't quite so lusty towards him. The flirtatious components weren't what I was hoping to see especially after his many swoon-worthy moments from THL and TFG. Honestly, regarding my opinion on this, there's a recent post by @elif-in-wonderland that summarizes my thoughts for me perfectly.

There, that concludes my current thoughts on the book regarding Jameson's side. If I do end up having more opinions to share, I will be sure to make a continuation to this in a follow up post. Thanks for the ask!

[shizukateal]

Puella Historia Reviews Part 2

Part 1 here

Gunhild

Turns out her hair is just as if not stupider than her sister's, you just can't see it well from here, but I think I still almost like her more because her skirt is comparatively better cinched. To be honest I almost respect her stupid bikini. Obviously she shouldn't be wearing it, but if she was some form acrobat instead of a valkyrie it would be kinda cool. Same with the goldchains on her gauntlet, imo it would be better if the chains where connected by rings to the fingers, but it's at least a neat detail to have. Still not into how bare her other arm is, though. As for her wolf pelt... well, let's just say Laios Dungeonmeshi raised my standards (don't look that up, it's spoilers). But no, seriously, it makes no sense how it attaches to her body, did she cut the tail to stick it under her skirt deliberately???? What is going on there. I will say however that I like her horns and the angelic vs demonic dichotomy that she and her sister have, I just think it would be even better if she was wearing a classic horned helmet instead. Apparently they are not historically accurate, but they would pair well with Olga's Valkyrie fashion.

Heruka

I'm gonna be honest with y'all, I don't feel qualified to assess her. I will say that she looks waaaayyy too detailed and charged for my personal taste, but none of it feels superfluous, she's balanced and excessive detail aside her outfit is well-constructed. But the truth is I know nothing about Nepal nor its cultures, so I can't tell where does this fall on the scale between something accurate but repackaged into a magical girl shape, or a complete bastardization that's flattening a lot of diversity into a commodified package.

Toyo

By contrast, I have a better (if not particularly deep) understanding of Toyo's culture, so even if she's also too charged for my taste I can tell her adornments are reasonably historically appropriate, so I feel comfortable giving her a pass. There truly is no need for everything to be miku sleeves, though.

Amaryllis

Ooooooooh my fffffffffuuuucking goooooood you people I PROMISE that you can make variations on french maid costumes WITHOUT adding pointless crap and impractical sleeves everywhere. Seriously, there's at least three, three! magical girls in this game with this aesthetic and she almost looks exactly the same as Mikoto!!! Which she shouldn't because amongst many other reasons SHE IS A SERVANT IN ANCIENT FUCKING ROME. ANCIENT ROME HAD ITS OWN COUTURE YOU PRICK, I KNOW YOU KNOW THAT BECAUSE I SAW HER OTHER SPRITES IN THE WIKI AND YOU DREW HER IN SOMETHING THAT AT LEAST RESEMBLES HISTORICAL ACCURACY. YOU WANT TO MAKE A FRENCH MAID FOR THE HISTORICAL LINE THEN MAKE HER AN ACTUAL FRENCH MAID IN THE 19TH CENTURY, ASSHOLE, WHAT'S THIS FUCKING PAST REINCARNATION/DOUBLE LIFE PLOT THAT SEEMS TAKEN STRAIGHT OUT OF THE SHITTY MANWHAS I READ????

Ok, rage aside, I will grant her that she's at least mildly better constructed than Mikoto, at least in what it pertains to her skirt and torso. She's overly-layered, but at least there something resembling logic behind those, her hairstyle and laces sandals are ok, and her gold embroidery at least tries to recall the time period she's supposed to represent. But her sleeves are still awful, she has laces and a bow in between other laces and a bow and I hat how her veil just... sticks out on her lower left side like that, it drives me nuts how it unbalances the silhouette.

And with that... this is the last review I made before the game closes. I know I get mad at it often, but I am thankful for the community it has allowed me to be part of. Rest in Peace, Magia Record 🫡🫡🫡

[the-final-sif]

Thank you for answering, do you think this will be a similar thing to covid? Now I don't have facts or sources other than one disabled advocate on social media but I heard something about one of covids less popularized effects being something about brain degeneration? Or something loosely connected to that. And because of how poorly covid was handled in the US it ended up affecting a lot of people including the children. Or maybe it was something about how the pandemic never truly ended over there and people stopped wearing their masks too soon. I can't remember, but if you know more of it or have any idea what I'm talking about, how comparable do you consider the two situations? Thanks in advance

So I haven't really seen anything about brain degradation, but there is current research into acute covid-19 infections disrupting the blood brain barrier.

It does appear to happen in severe cases, but it's specifically severe cases as far as all of the research I've seen. It's also not really unique to covid-19. To my knowledge, there's a lot of viruses that can trigger a similar response, like Influenza or West Nile. This is generally what causes the most severe forms of these diseases, the BBB gets disturbed, and this triggers inflammation in the brain which fucks with a lot of shit.

This topic is really complicated, and again, research is still ongoing. Part of the current issue with active neurological studies for COVID-19 is kinda similar to CTE research, you can only really tell how bad the neurological damage was after someone's died and you can yoink their brain out to have an in depth look. This means a almost all of the more indepth studies on COVID-19 in brain tissue are from people who are dead. Usually from COVID. So there's a strong bias towards the most severe cases.

That being said, I actually don't think this is particularly comparable to the severity of lead poisoning on people through the 1950s-1980s. Part of which is that children, while they did catch COVID-19, didn't usually get severely sick. They also didn't tend to catch COVID-19 as often in the first place. That's not to say neither happened ever, just that it's comparatively quite rare.

Meanwhile, effectively 100% of children had lead blood poisoning at a level of clinical significance for most of the 1950s-1980s.

Literally, I am not even kidding, this research is from 2015 but it's still extremely informative,

Like, their graphing of blood levels displays this really well,

I apologize, you may have to click on it to see, but this is graphing out our entire population in the US and led blood levels in early childhood (note, while people who are old enough to not have been born or been children in the 1950s would not have had CHILDHOOD lead poisoning, they still would've been at high risk for exposure to adult lead poisoning which can still fuck you up). S

For quick reference on blood lead poisoning btw, the CDC level used to be 10 μg/dL (light blue and above), but as since been lowed to 5 and then 3.5 μg/dL as a reference level. This is part of no amount of lead being safe, but above 10 μg/dL is bad. Above 20 μg/dL for children is "hey so we need to do a full medical exam of this child, do an environmental hazard investigation of your home and get a hazard team response specifically to help you get lead of your house". Meanwhile above 45 is "we may need to hospitalize this child".

That's the scale I'm talking about when I say everyone in the 1950s-1980s had childhood lead poisoning. It was everyone. COVID-19, while bad, isn't everyone. It isn't even close. BBB disruption, according to the research I could find, only occurs in some acute illness of infections that happen. This is still bad, but nowhere near the scale of lead poisoning.

[nimblermortal]

Why are there wraiths in my gardening game?

A Wildmender review

The point of Wildmender is that you are given a big ol' desert, and some plants and gardening tools. The plot is superfluous.

So why do the wraiths keep attacking me?

I beat the game! I murdered their leader! Why are they still staging attacks at regular intervals!

Okay, that said, the difficulty settings are super easily configurable in many different ways, so you can turn wraith damage off, etc, to make the game fit your needs and desires. I haven't actually messed with this because I'm cool with smiting a wraith every so often. Also, on standard difficulty you can just surround your home base with tower defense sigils and they will literally take care of everything up to and including the final boss for you. With the teleportation system, all you have to do is go home when a wraith attack occurs, and then lead the attackers to their doom. So the wraiths don't have to be a problem.

I really like climbing around a 3D world building my garden. I think there's a lot of end game potential - I really want to see if, if I upgrade all the springs fully, I can fill the channels of the salt flats with water, for example. (In which case I will need some sort of swim mechanic to get more pearls to upgrade the rest of the springs in the game.)

I liked how you can just garden your way past the game's obstacles. You're supposed to have a special bracelet for the salt flats to keep them from draining your water, but if you just fill your inventory with acorns and revive every spring you come across, the water drainage is manageable without that.

I think there should be more plants. There are a lot at the beginning of the game, and then toward the end it starts to feel kind of repetitive, you've got some half dozen base plants that come in different skins and all the loot is the same. You could get some really cool DLC in there by adding end-game quests to revive old strains of plants, explore seed bunkers, etc.

It's also a very lonely game. You are literally the only living creature in the world when you start. Oh, there are the gods, and your tutorial leader, but once they run out of tutorials it's just... you and the plants. Which is great! It's exactly what I'm looking for! but the loneliness creeps on you. Maybe I'm not hugging my frogs enough.

(Pro tip: Collect pearls from the salt flats and feed them to your frogs not for the upgrade capability but so that they glow purple and you can find them more easily.)

I had a lot of fun, but it would be more fun in co-op. I really want to play with Tea, but Tea cannot handle combat at all - I was hoping for a combat-free game, and then I was working on my save to beat the final boss so that the wraiths would go away so I could get Tea to come garden with me. So that's really why I'm upset about the continued wraiths. (Mind, Tea doesn't have a Windows operating system to work with, so the day is far anyway.)

Blooper Reel

It's about impossible to play the game without a mouse. You can't strafe without one, and even climbing the spiral staircases was extremely difficult. (The difficulty level dropped dramatically when I plugged in a mouse. Wraiths were a minor concern compared to getting the timing right to WASD myself around a spiral staircase with no rails.)

The game does not prevent you from going off the edge of the map, it just puts a really big cliff there. So if you want to push your boundaries, empty your inventory of important material first. I do not recommend jumping off the cliff with all the easily-obtained instances of the most difficult resource in the game. Usually you can reclaim your body, but not if it's rolled off the bottom of the cliff into doesn't-exist land.

The game tells you that you can cycle through tools using the keyboard shortcut T. It does not tell you that if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can also use that scroll wheel. For a long time I thought it was the worst glitch in the game (there are others) and also that the game was poorly designed in terms of giving you about a dozen tools that you have to keep jabbing T to get round the circuit of. I still think a hotkey system with numbered tools would work better.

It took me a really long time to find out the cape of winds was useful. I got it to tick off the quest box, and then kept on climbing and using the vine bridge mechanism. Once I figured out the cape holy crap were the salt flats less miserable. up down up down up down infinite umbrella mushrooms...

[enter-the-darkside]

Why I hope Fizz and Blitz become friends again - a happy ramble

First off, let's go over our duo:

Blitz - He grew up with self-worth issues, no doubt because his father and the two being compared in the spotlight. Blitz wasn't as talented and was only good to the people around him when he was useful.

Blitz has trouble expressing his feelings because of his self-loathing, which got worse after the fire and hurt every single relationship he had back then.

He currently tries to stick himself into the M&M's love life, clings to Loona when she's shown interest in another Hellhound, and either dismisses or avoids the problems with other people who show up in his life like Verosika or Barb.

With Fizz, however, Blitz made a genuine effort to share his side of what happened about the fire, owned up to the damage he did, and show his growth by rescuing Fizz after causing another fire.

.

Fizz - He was the Favourite of the two because of his talent and performer abilities. He saw Blitz as his best friend, but seemed suspicious that he was jealous when they got older. When it looked like Blitz caused the explosion and then abandoned him, Fizz felt like his suspicions were right.

He had to go through likely several years of rehabilitation and recovery. Then when he got his mechanical limbs, he needed more time to learn how to use those. During this time, he no doubt had his agency taken away from him and was likely cooped up or otherwise lived a very limited and dependent lifestyle. By this episode, he might've only got back on his feet within the last 2 or 3 years.

He's currently living with the love of his life, but has to keep it a secret, along with juggling his dealings with other high ranking demons like Mammon and being his spokesperson. He sees himself as ultimately successful, but can't cook to save his life and feels like he has to prove his independence to the point of being reckless.

With Blitz, Fizz shared his side and tried to listen to his old friend's side. He spent half of the episode just to think about the process of forgiving him, only showing hints towards that by the end with the hug.

.

I hope these two can become friends because they could be what each other needs. Fizz needs a connection that's not smothered by the all-judgmental spotlight and allows him to have more agency. Blitz needs a decent connection where he can be more open about his thoughts and feelings, but familiar enough to take criticism.

I think the two forgiving and reigniting their friendship will be a process, but I hope we'll get to see that in future episodes. I've seen a review about this episode kicking off Blitz's personal redemption arc and I completely agree! It would actually be awesome if I.M.P becomes Fizz's go-to escorts when he needs to go out. Blitz's father isn't around to put a strain between them either, which I think was another factor.

And even if that doesn't happen, I think the two can put that part of their past to peace now that Blitz knows not everyone back then thinks horribly about him and Fizz knows that his friendship was genuine.

I also just liked how this episode showed all the main cast's strengths:

Blitz's resourcefulness and courage

Fizz's caring and performance talents

Stolas's kindess and caution (srsly, dude could've used the situation to make a deal with Ozzie to give him a crystal, but chose to just help him with the contract, instead)

Ozzie's love and devotion (he made it VERY CLEAR to his staff at the end of the episode that he should at least be able to love anyone in his own house, hahaha!)

[calliethetrekkie]

Triumvirate Prompts: Day 21

#21. Favorite McCoy moment?

The sacrifice in The Empath... but I already used that one. So here's five other fantastic McCoy moments. In no particular order.

1. The Final Frontier Flashback

Look, I like my angst, okay?! Honestly, to see McCoy this emotional and distressed... I think the only time we ever really saw it in the show was in The City on the Edge of Forever. And he was drugged at the time, so that wasn't exactly of his own volition. I don't think that anyone expected ending his own father's life to end his suffering to be a part of his history, but God the whole scene and especially DeForest Kelley's performance (especially after he REALLY got cheated out of strong material in the other films)... it's so good but so painful. Then the big reveal that had he just made him wait, the cure would have been found and this never would have had to happen. You see this, and it explains a LOOOT about his character in-show and puts episodes like Operaton: Annahilate in a whole new light. But seriously, it's such a painful moment but a very good one.

2. "Would you like to see how fast I can put you in a hospital?"

I joked that this was the scene that made McCoy my favorite character. That's not entirely true, but it's not really a lit either. McCoy under the spores effects was actually kind of cute, just because we NEVER get to see him that at ease and carefree most of the time. I mean, look at him with his mint julep~! But the thing that snaps him back to normal? Not Kirk and/or Spock provoking it. No, it's the colony leader telling him that he can't be a doctor anymore. That was all it took to piss McCoy off and punch the guy to the ground. I like the idea that McCoy sucks at combat most of the time, especially compared to everyone else. But he CAN throw his fists and HO BOY does this scene prove it. Never tell McCoy that he can't be a doctor. Ever.

3. Staring Down Khan

So what happens when Khan, a super strong war criminal, grabs McCoy by the neck and holds a scalpel at his throat? McCoy not giving a shit. Seriously, he doesn't so much as flinch. He remains insanely calm and composed, staring right back at Khan and even tells him the most effective way to kill him. It earns him Khan's respect and he pulls back. There are two things to say about this. One, McCoy is a stone-cold badass. Two, for a guy that us in the fandom often characterize as temperamental and volatile, this shows us that he knows how to handle intense situations with calmness that could rival Spock. Remember, he's a doctor, but he's also an expert in psychology and has probably had plenty of experience handling dangerous patients that could easily kill him and those around him. You want an example as to why he's the CMO? Look no further than to this scene.

And speaking of McCoy giving the middle finger to powerful beings that could easily kill him...

4. "I will not peddle flesh"

Return to Tomorrow is an episode that doesn't get talked about much. Which is a shame because the McCoy material in this is freakin' excellent. Whenever I get back to reviewing, this is one of the episodes that I'm most excited to get to go over. But here? We have the female God-being wanting to keep the Girl of the Week's body, asking McCoy to only keep quiet. If he does, she'll save Kirk's life, who at this point as far as anyone can tell, he's dead. I cannot stress how much Kirk means to McCoy. Even earlier in the episode when Kirk first got possessed, McCoy was ready to shoot and kill if Sargon didn't get out of him right then and there and Hell, the only two times that McCoy has killed were to protect Kirk. But his response to this offer?

MCCOY: Neither Jim nor I can trade a body we don't own. It happens to belong to a young woman. MULHALL: Who you hardly know. Almost a stranger to you. MCCOY: I will not peddle flesh. I'm a physician.

As much as he cares about Jim, as much as he doesn't want to lose him, he won't risk another's life to save him. Not when said person can't consent. He knows that Jim would never allow that. He would never allow it. It goes against his oath as a doctor. It doesn't matter that he barely knows her, he won't peddle flesh. He doesn't have to think about it and even if Mulhall didn't change her mind and kept trying to kill him, he still wouldn't have changed his stance. Seriously, it's such a good McCoy moment and is just another reason why I love him.

5. Testing The Vaccine on Himself in Miri

I thinkt hat this was the first McCoy scene that made me go '...holy shit'. McCoy and the others are infected with an illness that will soon drive them to insanity. As the eldest of the landing party, he's likely going to be first. He and Spock have developed a vaccine, but unable to get it tested. Spock refuses to let it be tested until they're able to reach the Enterprise... but McCoy knows that time is running out. So as soon as Spock walks out, he injects himself. If it works, he's cured, and they're all saved. If not and it kills him, then at least he won't be able to hurt anyone else. The only one who can get hurt with this act is himself, and he won't test a dangerous, untested substance on anyone else either. This is the only option he's got, and this is the only chance he's got to do it.

Is it extreme? Sure, very. McCoy's lucky that it paid off. But it is 100% something that McCoy would do. I think sometimes people forget because he looks rational compared to Kirk and Spock, but McCoy wouldn't be where he is if he wasn't willing to take dangerous risks. It's just that he won't do it when it comes to others, and it's his job to ensure others well-being. But there are plenty of examples where McCoy can and will do something dangerous, even insane, in the name of his profession (The Immunity Syndrome is a good example). He's a doctor. Just as Kirk lives and breathes the life and risks of being a Starfleet Captian, McCoy lives and breathes being a doctor. He saves lives, no matter the risk to himself, and this scene displays that perfectly.

[indignantlemur]

I was wondering if you had any advice for beginners writing a long fanfic?

Thank you.

Hello! I actually do have some advice, though of course I must stress that what works for me is not necessarily what will work for others.

I'll break this down into two categories - general and specific.

🖊️GENERAL WRITING ADVICE:

🌟FIRST: Find a process that works for you to stay on track.

Some people find making a diagram or a mind-map of ideas and plotlines helps them stay on track. Some people make a bullet-point list of what they need to accomplish in each chapter. Some don't even bother making a list at all, and write on the fly.

Personally, I've found that making an outline helps me immensely. I can flesh out the outlined points as I need to, throwing in possible bits of dialogue or descriptions that come to me when I think about a scene I've planned, and I can move each plot point around as needed. Not only does this keep me organized, but if I need to take a break from writing, I'm not left floundering when I come back to it. I can pick up the threads right away, because I know exactly how and where I left them and what they're meant to tie into. I keep all of my plot notes on a separate document that I can switch over to (or keep open on a second screen, or even just open on my phone, really) and I reference it constantly.

I do this for shorter stories as well as longer ones, and the key to make this approach work is understanding that the plot points and tidbits I have prepared are guidelines. Only the bare bones are set in stone, and even then I give myself as much flexibility as possible. Sometimes, the scene develops in such a way that I can't include the dialogue or descriptions I'd hoped to because now it doesn't make sense - and that's fine. I save the defunct bits, cut and paste it to a junk drawer document where I put all my missing and cut scenes, and see if I can reuse them in the future. No writing is a wasted effort.

🌟SECOND: Get a second pair of eyes on your work.

Find a beta-reader, or a very good friend who isn't afraid to tell you when something needs work. Ideally, both. Beta-readers are worth their weight in gold twice over (I love you @emilie786!) and will help you with the grammar and the flow of the scene, often catching mistakes you miss. Some beta-readers only want to proof-read, and some want to be more involved in your writing process - clear communication about goals and expectations is key!

Likewise, a writer-friend who's willing to look at your work while it's still rough and give you feedback on it (becoming your alpha audience, as it were) is an amazingly helpful person. They can help you by suggesting different takes on a scene, or alternate phrasing when your writing feels a bit awkward in places, or even workaround for plot problems and any difficulties you run into. I frequently chat with @the-lady-general about our different writing projects, and it's been immensely helpful for both of us.

🌟THIRD: Be prepared to kill your darlings.

So, you've written a thing. You worked hard on it, poured your heart and soul into it, and you love it to pieces. Of course you do! Only... your beta-reader had torn a scene or a character to shreds, however kindly, and now you have to cope with rewriting it.

A kneejerk response a lot of new writers have to this is to get defensive and upset - I've been guilty of this myself, in the distant past when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. I'll tell you now what someone should have told me then: sometimes, a person has to be cruel to be kind. A beta-reader or a friend telling you a scene needs work is a gift compared to your story being panned by negative reviews after the fact, especially if you are the sort to put a lot of emotional value on your reviews (as many of us do).

When this happens, because it inevitably will, listen.

Step back, take a day or two to reset your brain if you need to, and then review what your beta-reader told you. Look at it objectively, without emotion. If you cannot, bring in a friend or mentor who can help you do so. Go over what's been said, the chief complaints and concerns, and open up a new document. Copy the scene. Paste it over. Rewrite the scene in the new document, taking all of the advice given to you into account. Once you're done, take a break. Make a cup of tea. Grab a snack. Go for a walk, even. When you're done, come back and read both the original and rewritten scenes.

You may very well find that your writing has benefited from the exercise, if nothing else, but I suspect you will find you like the rewrite a little better.

🌟FOURTH: Writing tutorials and guides are goldmines.

If you're struggling with writing a scene, or even if you just think it doesn't flow the way you want, look at what other writers who can write these scenes suggest. I struggle with action scenes, personally, and I've been referencing a lot of guides for Hoarfrost (which is still in the works but getting closer to completion!) to shore up those weak points in my writing.

Heck, I spent a literal week reading nothing but smut guides and writing tutorials, learning everything from phrasing to atmosphere-building, before I felt brave enough to try writing TSKW, never mind actually posting chapter 44 of Emigre. My ads haven't been the same since. The VPN did nothing.

Of course, a thesaurus is a valuable tool as a writer, but learning how to stitch your words together to create a scene is more than just knowing twelve different synonyms for the word "said." To that end, I would say that there is absolutely nothing shameful about taking inspiration from other writers and published authors, or from guides and tutorials. So long as you're not copying another's work or borrowing their ideas without permission, of course.

And, finally,

🌟FIFTH: Don't be afraid of writing badly.

I started writing when I was 8 - silly, nonsensical things with no particular plot or plan. Charming, but terrible. I got into fanfiction at 12, and the stuff I wrote was beyond cringe-inducing. Mary Sues, flat descriptions with no life to them, using too much emotion or too little, unrealistic reactions and irrational decisions from every character unfortunate enough to be involved - you name it, I wrote it.

All of this is a perfectly normal part of writing, even if I'd rather walk into the sea with a canon ball lovingly bundled in my arms rather than let any of it see the light of day ever again.

Through these horrible, absolutely godawful first steps into the world of writing, I grew. I got negative reviews, and supportive ones. I took breaks and tried again later. I wrote and rewrote. I erased entire documents and started from scratch more times than I can count (which I kind of regret, hence my advice to make a junk drawer document). I spent weeks, months, even years using my maladaptive daydreaming to hone scenes, refine characterizations, and tweak plot ideas. I have stories and worlds in my head that have been percolating for a literal decade or more, and they still don't feel ready to put onto paper yet - but if I don't start despite that, they never will be.

So don't be afraid of writing badly, and certainly don't let that fear stop you from writing at all. After all, churning out a rough, unrefined first draft is the first and most important step to learning how to write well.

✒️SPECIFIC WRITING ADVICE

The first, best piece of specific advice I ever got when starting out was this:

🌟Describe the scene as if you were describing it to a blind person.

(I always took this advice to mean someone who had recently lost their sight, rather than someone who would have no shared frame of reference for visual descriptions, but you're quite welcome to interpret it differently.)

The colours and shapes we readily think of when it comes to describing a scene are important, but what about texture? Scent? Taste? Scent in particular is hugely important to people because it's directly linked to our memories, but sound and touch are also very important for setting a scene. By excluding those details, you are robbing the audience of layers of immersion.

Think about the sights and scents and sounds around you as you go about your day. How would you describe them? The smell of coffee from across the room - is it earthy, bitter, burnt? Is Karen from accounting eating fish tacos again, despite multiple complaints, and now the cloying, oily aroma of microwaved fish has saturated the entire office? What about the warmth of sunlight streaming through a nearby window against your arm, the way the light catches on the hard edges of the furniture and the highlights in a woman's hair. What about the sound of your shoes against the floor as you walk, the click of heels and the shuffle and squeak of sneakers? Think about how you would describe what you're wearing, beyond bare facts. The softness of the fabric, the sturdiness of the construction, the weight of the material - how would you put them into words?

Spend time actively paying attention to the world around you, to conversations and scenery and people, and ask yourself: how would I write this?

The second piece of advice may seem contradictory, given the first, but it's worth hearing anyway:

🌟Sometimes less is more.

Descriptions and explanations are an important part of story-telling, enhancing the scene and building the world around it, but there's a time and a place. We don't need to know every single descriptive detail about the main character in the first paragraph, or even the first chapter. We don't need to know the entire history of the new alien species the moment we meet them, or even for years after the first encounter. We don't need to wade through ten pages describing how strange and bizarre the alien trees are, nor do we need three different descriptions of the shape of each leaf on every branch.

Learn to space out your expositions and descriptions. Treat them like sprinkles - they look better when they're spread out over the whole cake, rather than clumped in one spot.

My third bit of general advice is this:

🌟Don't rush it.

It's really, really tempting to rush towards that one amazing scene you have planned out in your head - the one with the big emotional impact, the plot twist, the big scene - but don't! Hold off! We, the readers, don't know about all the details that lead up to that scene. We don't know about the layers of meaning and all the build up that leads to that great pay-off. Without that, we simply won't get it. We won't understand what you're trying to convey, or why it's such a big deal.

Take the time to build up the story, to show us how your characters learn and adapt and grow with each challenge. That journey is important. It might feel tedious, like a slog you have to get through to get from Point A to Point B, but we need it! We need those scenes, those moments, in order to stand where you want us to stand when the big scene begins, to know what we need to know and feel what you want us to feel as we watch it happen.

And finally, my fourth and final bit of specific advice:

🌟Wish fulfillment is fun, but realism is what draws us in.

We have all made Mary Sues, Gary Stus, and every possible permutation of them, even if we never quite put pen to paper with them. Many folks who get into writing start by imagining a character who serves as a kind of wish fulfillment or power fantasy put into writing. It's perfectly normal - but the thing to remember is that those characters are a bit... bland. They don't struggle. They don't fail. They don't lose. Or if they do, it's not in a meaningful way. That kind of character is so divorced from reality that it breaks the readers' suspension of disbelief.

Everyone alive has a combination of talents and failings, weaknesses and strengths, insecurities and weird quirks. That's part of the Human experience. A perfect, flawless character defies that experience, and thus we cannot relate to them. The character becomes flat and uninspiring to the audience, and once that happens all that remains is apathy. When there are no stakes, there is no investment. Why should we care about a character who will never fail against even the most overwhelming odds? We already know the ending, because the character cannot lose.

So I urge you to really look at your characters. Some folks recommend taking "Mary Sue Litmus Tests" and such to get a rough idea of how your characters might be received, and those are certainly useful tools - but they are not the only tools at your disposal. Read constantly. Watch films and documentaries alike. Try out new show and book genres, even the ones you don't think you'll like. Really look at the people around you, at how they act versus what they do, and how their unique combination of personality traits and flaws coalesce into a perfectly ordinary person. Inspiration is literally everywhere around you, if you look for it.

Now, everyone creates characters differently. Some folks start with an idea, or a core concept, and build the character around that. Others make characters more procedurally (wherein those "20+ questions about your OC" posts are actually quite useful), and some even use generators to slap a bunch of traits together to see what sticks. Some characters seem to spring fully formed from the ground one day, and others can take years of tinkering to really come into being.

Look for inspiration everywhere, and you'll eventually find a way that works best for your writing.

...I know, I know. You asked for advice and I wrote you a book. If you've made it this far, kudos. Writing can be a lot of work, but never let it be anything other than a labor of love.

[lopposting]

Korea Game awards Game Director interview transcription <Lies of P>

Source (KR)

Hey so, I went through some Korea Game Awards stuff. It looks like there was a lot of content recorded for the event, but it doesn't really seem available online. I did find this interview with the director uploaded by a ruliweb user. It ended up being more of talk related to the industry and not all that related to LoP, but I figured I might as well share it since and I had gone through it anyway [and who knows, this could all be lost media one day!].

On LOP winning GOTY - South Korea

The Metacritic score was honestly higher than he expected

Talk about expanding the console games industry in Korea. Again, in South Korea - a leading world of PC Bangs and E-Sports, MMORPGs reign supreme! [Reading around the k-net supposedly LoP is notably one of the first major south korean developed single-player console title? I want to write about this more]

Influenced by other console, single player titles like Naughty Dog's Uncharted Series. [me: I love you, NG's The Last of Us.]

I'm pretty sure that based on his answers he will continue to spearhead the Lies of P IP

Send me an Inbox if you have a correction or see possible error/clarification needed!

[The "footage" doesn't seem available so it's a little hard for me because we can't hear the phrasing, so it's my best guess]

[VERY ROUGH TRANS]

ENG

Hello, nice to meet you, I am Choi Ji-won, general director of Lies of P [Jiwon Choi]

What games have you participated in developing so far? Asker Online, and just recently I was in charge of Lost Ark. [note: MMORPG and he did combat direction]

What do you think are the virtues of a good developer?

Above all, I think it's being clear and unwavering in direction

To what extent have I achieved compared to my goal? I think I've achieved about 80% of it.

I think the remaining 20% area

I want to at least overcome that level of fun I had, and the remaining area is one where the goal is to explore new fun

To do that, you have to put in a lot of effort, enjoy the game a lot, and talk a lot with your fellow development colleagues to achieve the fun you want

I want to get into that zone This is really honest

What advice can you give to juniors who want to become developers? Above all, you must become a gamer 'Does that fun really move you?' And do you want to give this feeling to yourself by becoming a developer?' I would like to take this opportunity to tell you once again that it is more important than anything to make an effort just to have fun

Why did you become a game developer? I've been a console game fanatic since I was young So, while enjoying famous masterpieces in console games, I also want to create a game that can provide this kind of fun I think it would be The Uncharted Series at that time I think I was able to analyze why this was fun while playing So I decided to become that kind of developer

What do you think about the Metascore rating results? [note: I'm assuming they're talking about the metacritic score, which is a critic aggregate (Lies of P currently sits at an 80)]

I'll be really honest about this too I thought it was a better score than the score I received. [Note: This is what he says, but I think what he means is "It was a better score than the one what I was expecting"] When I saw the evaluations of the metascore I realized I was only thinking about a small aspect and thought, 'I was [too] focused on the completion of just this area' But now, 'I need to think about a broader field and focus on it again.' It was that kind of experience

What is your ultimate goal as a developer?

Rather than being a developer who receives positive reviews from users, I actually want to remain as a developer who has a positive influence on other fellow developers in the field I hope to become someone who can serve as an opportunity to further improve and develop the development culture and development capabilities of our country's game industry

How do you feel when you receive positive and negative feedback?

(If you think positively) Thank you But I think we should never be satisfied with that (When receiving negative feedback) More and more, there were instances of reflection from a gamer's perspective like ‘Okay. I should have been more in his shoes.’

Any last words you would like to say? I don't think this award is ever meant for me I think this is an award given to everyone on the team I will take this as a sign to work even harder in the future We will continue to do our best to become a developer that can provide only fun and emotion

KOR

안녕하세요 반갑습니다 <> 총괄 디렉터 최지원 입니다

Q: 그동안 개발에 참여하신 게임은 ?

<애스커 온라인>, 직전엔 <로스트아크> 프로젝트를 담당했습니다

Q: 좋은 개발자의 덕목은 무엇이라고 생각하시나요?

무엇보다 뚜렷하고, 흔들리지 않는

방향성을 제시하는 것이라고 생각합니다

Q: 내 목표정에 비해 어는 정도까지 달성했나요?

약 80% 정도는 달성했다고 생각을 해요

남은 20% 영역

본인이 느꼈던 그 재미 이상을 넘어서

새로운 재미를 추구할 수 있는 영역이라고 생각을 합니다

그러려면 정말 노력도 많이 해야 되고

게임도 많이 즐겨야 되고

같은 개발 동료분들과도

원하는 재미를 정말 많이 한 방향이 되도록

대화도 많이 해야 되거든요

저는 그 영역에 도달하고 싶습니다

이게 정말 솔직한 겁니다

Q: 개발자가 되고 싶은 후배들에게 해줄 수 있는 조언은?

무엇보다 게이머가 되어야 됩니다

그 재미를 통해서 본인에게 정말 감동이 되는가?'

그리고 이 감동을 본인도 개발자가 돼서 선사하고 싶은가?'

진짜 재미만을 위해서 노력하는 게

무엇보다 중요하다는 것,

다시 한번 이 자리를 빌려서 말씀드리고 싶습니다

Q: 게임 개발자가된 계기?

저는 어렸을 적부터 콘솔 게임 덕후였습니다

그래서 콘솔 게임에서 유명한 명작들을 즐기면서

나도 꼭 이런 재미를 줄 수 있는 게임을 만들고 싶다

그때는 <언차티드 시리즈>일 것 같아요

플레이하면서 이게 왜 재밌는지를 분석을 할 수 있었던 것 같아요

그래서 그러한 개발자가 되기로 결심을 하게 됐습니다

Q: 메세타스코어 평점결과 에 대해서 어떻게 생각하시나요?

이것도 정말 솔직하게 얘기할게요

받은 점수보다는 더 나은 점수라고 생각을 했었어요

그 메타스코어에 대한 평가 내용들을 봤을 때는

납득이 가더라고요

작은 영역에서만 생각을 했었고

'그 부분에 대한 완성도만 봤었구나...'

근데 이제는 '더욱더 넓은 분야까지도 생각을 하고,

또 정진해야겠다.' 그러한 계기가 됐었습니다

Q: 궁극적인 개발자로서의 목표가 있다면?

유저들에게 좋은 호평을 받는 개발자이기보다는

현업에 있는 다른 동료 개발자들에게

긍정적인 영향을 미치는 개발자로 사실 남고 싶어요

우리나라 게임업계에 대한 개발 문화나

개발력이 더욱더 개선되고 발전하는

그러한 계기가 될 수 있는 사람이 되었으면 좋겠습니다

Q: 긍정적 & 부정적 피드백을 받을때의 기분은?

(긍정적으로 생각해주시면) 감사하죠

하지만 그것으로 만족해서는 절대 안 된다고

생각을 하고 있습니다

(부정적 피드백을 받으면) 더욱더 게이머 입장에서

'아차, 제가 더욱... 더 그분의 입장이 되어야 했었��나'라고

반성을 하는 경우도 많았었습니다

Q: 마지막으로 하고싶으신 말은?

이 상은 결코 저에게 주는 상이 아니라고 생각을 해요

팀 모든 분들에게 주어지는 상이라고 생각을 하고

앞으로도 더욱더 열심히 하라는 뜻으로 받아들이겠습니다

오직 재미와 감동만을 선사할 수 있는

그런 개발자가 되도록

계속 최선을 다하도록 노력하겠습니다