#(even tho I don’t like her arc being that all her problems got solved by becoming a cop and also catholic)

[starry-carrousel]

[spicyicymeloncat]

Headcanon/theory: Kai had no friends pre-pilots and suggestion: all his arcs are focused around his dynamics in the team and honestly should have got more focus.

So Kai’s arc in the pilots show him having to learn to work in a group dynamic. He takes up a lancer/loner type role who has to learn to put aside his own first impulses and work with the team to tackle the problem. His true potential in s1, is also about him putting aside his own ambition to be the green ninja to fulfil his role in the team as one of the teachers and protectors of the green ninja.

What would’ve been a great arc for Kai in s4 would’ve been him having more of a role in getting the team back together. I mean s4 was framed like a Kai season, it was about the team getting back together, the start of the season highlighted Kai’s reoccurring character flaw of feeling like he’s on his own or he’s the one (when he says it should’ve been him to be sacrificed to the overlord and Lloyd tells him that he’s only thinking about himself - I’m reading that scene as not Kai being selfish per say but Kai only being able to consider himself in the picture, he doesn’t think about relying on his friends or being there later for the rest of his friends, and that he thinks he can solve things on his own, idk if this makes sense lol), we even get a revisit of Kai’s green ninja gripes, and ofc Chen perfectly foils Kai’s togetherness arc by being the guy who drives people apart.

And then we have s5 where Kai promises to protect Lloyd (in place of Garmadon) which kinda shows how far Kai’s come in terms of his relationship specifically with Lloyd. I will say in general also but I know someone’s going to say that Kai already does this with Nya so it’s not like this is new or proof of character growth. I think this is character growth tho, and I don’t think he was as idk parental of Nya in a sense that he had to take care of her and was put in a position of authority over her because idk they’re what, two years apart (also they had a babysitter who looked after them, so like Kai didn’t just parent her at age 4 yknow)? And apart from the pilots, in which she got kidnapped, Kai hasn’t really needed to be protective or really, parental with Nya. He’s very chill when he finds out she’s Samurai X, in the first few seasons she kinda acts like she’s older just because she’s a little more put together (I mean, she studied engineering in her free time). In fact I’m pretty sure Nya had more friends than Kai, since she mentions knowing people in s2, where as Kai’s character arc seems to be him getting friends and dealing with it. And when Kai promises to watch over Lloyd, he mentions how Nya watched over him, not the other way round. So to sum up that side tangent, Kai’s dynamic with Lloyd is definitely different to his dynamic with Nya, and that Kai is only starting his nurturing and guiding brotherly nature in s5. Although I think s5 is supposed to conclude Kai’s teamwork arc, since I don’t think it’s all that relevant in the rest of the show.

So yeah I think it makes sense that Kai didn’t really have friends pre pilots, as a lot of his arcs can be seen as him working on that area of his life and getting used to being with other people. His character arc was becoming friend shaped.

[roguestarsailor]

You know what since we’re still in quarantine and i have nothing else better to do, i need to obsess over ACOTAR. I don't like a court of frost and starlight. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why I didn't like it. I aggressively read the book in maybe a day and I closed it feeling frustrated and annoyed. My version had A Court of Silver Flames preview so that definitely contributed to my annoyance greatly.

It's because it felt too perfect. Everything that had happened -- after the entire war was fought and won, they just go back to their normal lives? Yes there were hiccups and yes there were still aspects that made every IC character feel like their problems aren’t solved yet...but it didnt feel right. yes i enjoyed the snowball fight between the bat boys, feyre + rhys sexy time, and those little comfort moments too, the slice of life type things and seeing feyre accomplishing her goals and how hopeful the future seems BUT its too fast. the good parts of the book did not offset the bad parts of it.

Feyre literally accomplished pretty much every single goal she made back in ACOMAF just like that?? within a span of what a few months? a year?? She really came back from an entire war -- probably the first war of many since she's immortal and just like that, after her 21st birthday: she gets a whole entire estate, wants to start poppin babies, opens her art studio and starts teaching kids and then acting like she can rule an entire court?? the timeline is sooo short esp since its been brought up over and over again how everyone is literally 500 years old and have a super “messy” history and their changes seems to come super dupe slowly. but feyre, who has only lived 0.000000002% of her fae life, is out here thriving just fine???

the war devastated thousands of illyrian soldiers where its changing the politics of the illyrains and the faes, all of whom feyre has responsibilities over too as high lady. the mortal queens are still at large who left the humans on prythian to die which is why feyre was willing to go to war in the first place! what about the rest of hybern and their land and residents?? they wanted to enslave humans for social and economical reasons! then what about integrating humans w deep hatred and fear with deeply prejudice fae??? there’s also spring and summer court who are literally in ruins. thats literally so much. so idk how feyre is just chillin???? she gonna let rhys do all the hard work???

like feyre sit down. u should not be having a baby. esp since it took u literally a 700 pages to heal from those 3 months UTM. ur telling me shes gonna whole heartedly bring in a newborn in a war devastated world, with civil unrest (illyrains, other courts), with the messiness of human and fae integration, with trauma u and rhys will have to continue to overcome esp after THIS war??? even helping ur sisters w their traumas??

this is a personal opinion on this subject (and maybe my thoughts will change on this later on; opened to other thoughts) but when i read the part about how that weaver/seamstress artist who made that dark quilt that feyre loved talked about how her mate of 300 years didn’t come back from the war and her biggest regret was that she didnt have a kid to remember him by i just thought ur kid isn’t some sort of memorabilia. don’t have a kid to keep the memory of ur mate alive; have a kid cuz u want a kid purely for the sake of having a kid. ur memories and photos and shit will keep their memory alive but its not having a kid. some primitive need to keep the genes alive maybe?? but the way it was phrased and then in turn how feyre was like oh i need  a baby pronto cuz rhys might die in the next war and regret not having a kid with him didn’t sit right with me. also the other couple were together for +300 years and have a rich life together, while shes been with rhys for literally two years THATS NOTHING IN FAE YEARS. thats still the honeymoon phase and also ur problems arent even close to being over!!!

everyone was shitty to nesta. in ACOMAF, we saw how much the IC went through and still did all they could to help feyre. what made them not think nesta deserve the same welcome? nesta is mean as a defense but did no one try to figure out what would help (amren got close but shes so under developed)??? feyre knows nesta feels too much and yet she continued to be shitty. continued to flaunt her wealth, her status, her familiarity/borderline know-it-all attitude about fae/night court, her ~estate~. forcing nest to the solstice party when nesta was literally like i dont belong, im looking at everyone through a window type of thing; the fire cracking triggering her, etc. what kind of power play was that when she made nesta come to her estate, where nesta could SEE how ~homey~ and how suscessful feyre is and fully see all the lovely paintings of everyone feyre loves that explicitly exclude her to tell her to fuck off to a war camp?? bro???? cas was a dick too and elaine was rude. i think a lot of his actions were meant to make her angry since anger keeps u fighting (as was the method of rhys for feyre in ACOMAF) but what he said was stupidly shitty and i demand that he apologize properly. elaine could have done more to help her sister but whatever. mor was definitely an ass too (and im upset for how little her character growth is). 

Lucein. that man can’t catch a break tbh. im happy that hes w the band of exiles cuz he is whole heartedly accepted there. feyre was definitely an asshole to him even tho he helped as much as he could throughout the books. he tries so hard w elaine as well and it did hit my heart a bit when she was like gloves to work in my garden?? no ?? i use my bare hands see oNly aZiReL sEeS mE fOr WhO i Am. and at the same feyre is like flaunting her mate status to lucein which is mean as shit. its like this man can’t find love in prythain. then tamlin sending him his box of his things??? thats for sure brutral. tam was literally his partner through it all; savior of sorts even. no love from IC, no love from elaine, no love from feyre, no love from tamlin, no love from autumn court rejected everywhere! also HIS TRUE FATHER?? HEllo??? 

then on tamlin. i pity the guy! was i suppose to feel that way??? it felt like he is allowed to get a redemption arc and maybe i’ll even root for a redemption arc??? i was absolutely excited for freysand in ACOMAF but after ACOFAS, im like tamlin is....not completely bad??? his relationship w feyre was bad and the controlling parts were very much a no-no. i dont truly understand the dynamics of an abusive relationship but i can understand that it can be insidious and its the little things that hurt the victim. and i felt  feyre through ACOMAF and rooted for her to escape her abuser! but then it felt like i dont think he was doing any of those things out of malice. ill say tamlin is a bad leader and doesn’t know how to run a court outside of what he sees his father do. his understanding on everything is based on the traditions of the past which i think fueled most of the things he did i.e. not telling feyre she was in danger since maybe his mom didn’t do those war planning things. ACOTAR showed how he truly cared/loved and took good care of feyre and her family. he even talked about how he didn’t believe in the enslavement of humans! i think that tam wanted to preserve what he thought was the good (aka feyre + her love of painting) and get back a sense of control that he and his entire court lost while chained to amarantha. but at the same time, i think he truly thought feyre wasn’t safe. he knows rhys can crush minds and knows feyre can’t read/write so when he got that letter telling him shes safe of course hes gonna flip shit and made a deal w the devil (although those temper outbursts were DEFINITIVELY not ok!!!). he also didn’t listen and has sense of he knows best when feyre was not the type of person. but feyre destroyed his entire court. he lost all his sentries who literally went out to die for him during amarantha’s reign. he lost lucien too; his trusted right hand man. his people were cursed for 50 years and then continued to suffer UTM and was in the process of rebuilding too!  but just seeing spring court, WHO BORDERS THE HUMANS, be in ruins where his subjects left him, his people left him and hes all alone in the manson?? that was sooo sad. so im like why does what feyre did not feel satisfactory????? im mad that it didn’t feel right??? maybe there wasn’t a point where feyre talked to tamlin -- like really talked to him esp w her new found voice and power, etc. anyways, i dont hate tamlin and was like oh shit i think feyre fucked up a bit there.

rhys is a dick to nesta. which made me think, if feyre wasn’t his mate would he extend the same love and care to her???  i loved how he tried so hard to make sure feyre was ok. made sure she wasn’t breaking! all of it! but for nesta, he had the audacity to use his high lord voice and be an ass overall. even tho he can see how cas is fucken in love??? even just how he talks to cass feels off too. 

i’ll even go as far as to say because of how terrible ACOFAS was, it created this intense divide within the fandom. i remember reading the first three books and was absolutely 1) rooting for freysand  2) curious about the sister relationship and how it will be mended 3) i definitely didn’t hate nesta nor did i hate elaine either -- but i was adament about them talking it out with feyre for those tough times 4) saw a more realistic and charming healing arc 5) was rooting for feyre to be a stronger voice and grow into herself 6) love the dynamic of the inner circle + feyre

but after ACOFAS, I have this intense need to defend nesta and was super mad at how she was treated after the war and in turn a deep dislike for elaine for both her lack of agency, lack of grit that made all the other characters interesting, and lack of care for her sisters (who showed how much they would risk for her). i dont hate rhys but i was extremely not happy with him and his attitude and behavior. feyre became more arrogant and was acting like how asshole rhysand would act. like her life is perfect now and i was not rooting for her anymore. freysand didn’t feel like they have complimenting qualities that made them interesting in the first place but rather they are merging to become the same person but in a bad way. that mind reading thing was cute in the beginning but it became insufferable since all thoughts were shared so seamlessly it made reading feel weird. 

anyways those are my thoughts on ACOFAS. it was a 1/5 stars for me and im mad those events transpired. reading the other books made me excited to know what was gonna happen and i was truly ready to accept the characters as flawed and nuanced as they are. im not mad about character not liking each other but i am mad that everything felt off. ACOFAS just felt regressive in some parts and forced in other parts. i know not everything ends in a nice tied up bow but this book single handily ruined what i thought about these characters in the worse way possible. this book wasn’t suppose to wrap up all the problems that exists in the other books but it didn’t feel hopeful like i thought it would. it didn’t feel wrapped up and didn’t feel like i should be excited about the next books. theres so many missing pieces i feel that i think need explaining and at the same time, i think it introduced too many problems at once which made it feel like its jumping around everywhere. although im still excited for ACOSF because i love nesta, and nesta deserves so much better and i want to have hope that this bad ending will either make sense later on or it was just a blimp.

[safflowerseason]

Rewatching Gilmore Girls S6 and I can't work out if the reason I don't like the Luke/Lorelai arc is because the writing is poor or because I'm just disappointed/annoyed that Luke gets cold feet once the prospect of actually committing properly to a woman for the first time becomes real. Love to know your thoughts, is this an issue of character behaviour or writing (or both)

Yay, Gilmore Girls analysis! Thanks so much for the GG ask, Anon. Although my memory of S6 is much less strong compared to the other seasons...I can never get very far in a rewatch before bowing out, because I *really* just can't bear the dissolution of Luke and Lorelai's relationship, not to mention Rory's drama with Logan.

I guess my answer to this question is that I don't think ASP ever really figured out how to write Luke and Lorelai together without them having to deal with existential and frequently contrived crises in their relationship. It does make sense to me that, when they first got together, that Chris's closer presence in S5 would make Luke insecure--that's a pretty natural thing when the woman you are dating a woman has a kid, and you know she has a long and charged relationship with the kid's father. Then they get rid of that obstacle by having conversations about honesty, get (impulsively) engaged at the end of S5, and it's like...what next? Uh, guess we'll give Luke a kid and he'll hide it from Lorelai and be super weird about her role in the kid's life! Okay, there are many other things they could have fought about as an engaged couple that would have been a more believable and less soap-opera-y than that--Luke buying the house secretly could have been a way bigger deal, other forms of kid-related drama that don't involve a surprise child, financial shenanigans with the nosy elder Gilmores, Lorelai's issues with her parents and Rory, etc., etc. So I guess in that sense, yes, I don't think that particular relationship drama is written especially well...certainly not with the usual wonderful grounded quality that's on display in the earlier seasons.

Luke isn't a character I've really *analyzed* the way I've analyzed Lorelai or Rory, but he doesn't strike me as a guy who is afraid of commitment (open to debate on this, tho). We know he's had serious relationships with women throughout his adult life, he's lived with women and been married before, even taking on his wayward nephew is an act of emotional commitment, in some sense...this is not a man who is afraid of the trappings of commitment. What I see as his (and Lorelai's) abiding problem is that they are both just abjectly horrible communicators--they simply cannot talk openly about their relationship, their boundaries, what they expect/need from their partner, their hopes for the future, until they are so emotionally pushed to the limits that they either *have* to talk or break up. Luke obviously doesn't like talking about feelings at all, and Lorelai has all that emotional damage that she hides with her fast-talking wit, but in terms of actually telling each other how they really feel about serious stuff, not a lot of open communication going on! Neither of them see talking as a way to solving problems...they automatically start trying to deal with things individually, because they are both so used to being on their own.

Consequently, I might not say Luke gets cold feet with Lorelaid...I think his life as he knows it is completely turned upside down with the introduction of Anna and he simply doesn't know what to do about it other go into hyper self-preservation mode and figure things out himself, before he has to tell Lorelai about this hugeeeee thing that, for all he knows, could affect her willingness to marry him. Which blows up in his face, and then both his and Lorelai horrible communication skills take over, meaning they don't/can't actually sit down and talk about what they both need to make things work and how they'll deal with it. As much as I don’t think the introduction of Anna is a great plot development, both Luke and Lorelai’s reactions to it feel mostly believable to me (except that the twist itself is so over the top, it starts to push their inability to communicate to over the top levels...)

So, that's my take on what's happening in S6, both in a meta-sense and in terms of the plot. But bear in mind...I never really get past Friday Night's Alright for Fighting in a rewatch, before the worst of the drama happens!

[secondhoekage]

Ignore this long rant I’m high as shit but I... can’t take the hero commission oR HONESTLY THE HEROES THEMSELVES, seriously anymore

They’re BRAINLESS they all share one (1) brain cell and it belonged to Crust. THESE GUYS had MONTHS to strategize this attack and what did they do? They fucked it up. They want me to believe this was planned and not written on a chalk board the night before? Sent out to all heroes the next morning at 8am in a CHAIN EMAIL?

Unpopular opinion(?): they sent the worst possible, ill-suited heroes to each location for this PLF raid and I’m mad at them for it and I’m mad at Hori for making me be mad at it even tho he had to do it beCauSe oF pLot but I’m mad.

The MLA’s plans to take on The League of Villains? Spotless. Chef’s kiss. The detail. The one-on-one counters they planned out. Accounting for each enemy’s quirk. Yeah there were like 6 of them to account for but?? Heroes, yall had enough info and enough time to think of ways to go about this raid and I’m supposed to believe that you did, BUT DID YOU REALLY? MONTHS TO PLAN, and saw one electric Sir Crocodile rip-off and immediately threw Kaminari on his ass. Good move. Kinda. But the rest of the PLF? Heroes just gonna make shit up as they go I guess?? 

To make myself feel better here’s a long ass useless rant on what could’ve damn happened and which heroes should’ve gone where and to make this an epic ass rumble. ugh. Even just doing some of these things would’ve made this arc (imo) feel more... convincing and delicious

under the cut tho bc damn this is too long

In this essay I will—

Edgeshot??? EDGESHOT??    EDGESHOT?? i’M GOING TO GO OFF. 

I swear to shit Edgeshot could’ve soloed the hospital but they had him at the PLF mansion for Some Reason like... like they didn’t make him run up on the League’s bar instead of the Nomu factory bc they knew he would take care of shit immediately. Make it make sense. If he was at the hospital eye just—Nomu in the way?? Doctor running off? Say less. Electric slide all the way in there Shinya. DID NO ONE SEE HOW EASILY HE HANDLED KUROGIRI? Did everyone just forget this man can pull a K.O in .3 seconds flat? Heroes didn’t think it might be a good idea to have him there, ready to give Shigaraki the paper cut of his life the second he woke up (if he even did bc my mans likely could’ve prevented the ‘doctor getting away>high-end awaken>rush to get shiggy out of the tank>shiggy wakes up’ chain of events)? Didn’t think to send him instead of this guy X Less just sitting there with That Look on his face? 

I get they needed heroes like Edgeshot at the mansion to take out a handful of enemies in one go but COME ON NOW. There were more than enough long-range AOE heroes there. And even if you don’t wanna believe he could solo then STILL, EDGESHOT DUOING WITH MIRUKO, ANYBODY? If anyone was gonna keep up with her happy ass zooming into the lab it could’ve been him. We were robbed of an Edgeshot/Miruko teamup and I’m not okay. Could’ve had a sexy ass panel of the hospital-team hyping up Miruko and Edgeshot as they dashed to Ujiko’s lab, two fast as shit bad bitches, zooming through these Nomu, absolutely obliterating them at lightning speed, watching each other’s backs too, PROBABLY SAVING MIRUKO FROM BECOMING THE PRE-DEATH ORGAN DONOR THAT SHE IS NOW. I know it was hot watching Miruko take on these high-ends but I’d have rather Edgeshot share the spotlight if it meant Miruko was in one piece rn. Hori played her

Anyways the literal dumb bitch energy that went into not sending Edgeshot to the hospital is sending me. Could’ve at least let him just be on the team and on standby while Shigaraki was waking up. With those sharp as shit reflexes of his we’ve seen? Shigaraki would’ve been out like a fucking light the second Edgeshot saw him sit up. X-Less you had a nice thicc upper lip that lip was too shaded for you to die, but F in the chat bitch. Useless plot fodder I’m sorry X-Less. There isn’t a hero there right now (besides Aizawa but like... idk, plot is nerfing him) that could’ve incapacitated Shiggy so quickly and prevented the mess they’re in now like my guy Edgeshot could’ve. Feels like a cop out

In conclusion: Edgeshot sweety I’m sorry they did this. I’m sorry you were nerfed. I’m sorry they didn’t let you deliver Kamino Pizza to this hospital. I’m sorry they ignored you and now everyone’s gonna die bc they didn’t they respect your Ninpo rights

CEMENTOSS??? y’all sent him to fuck up the mansion FOR WHAT??? If I were the hero commission and thought :

“Dang we need to completely ass blast this huge PLF resort to make room for our heroes to run in... but it would also be good if we had someone to do that at the hospital too just in case things get tricky and we need to pave a quick way to Ujiko’s secret hideout... but I’m single-celled and can’t weigh my options logically so ok. Cementoss, to the mansion.”

...................... Ok but can I in interest you in PIXIE BOB? I get the mansion is huge but going by the shit we’ve seen her do?? I’m not about to underestimate ol’ girl. I know she could’ve fucked that place up if they let her, switched her out for Cementoss, who could’ve made THE EASIEST route for the hospital team to get into the secret lab, trapped Ujiko, also trapped a couple nomu/high-ends in cement while he was at it, rearranged some tunnels for optimal tactical movement, probably could’ve done a decent-fucking-job at slowing the onslaught of Decay too if it got to that point (AND IT MIGHT NOT HAVE BC THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS RANT IS TO INSIST THAT A BETTER SELECTION OF HEROES WOULDN’T HAVE RESULTED IN SHIGGY’S CURRENT THANOS SNAP ORdEAL)

I know Pixie’s mostly on rescue operations and that’s what she’s doing at the hospital/surrounding city but WHY?? EVEN IF THEY REALLY NEEDED CEMENTOSS AT THE MANSION—WHY NOT HAVE PIXIE BOB DOING SOMETHING IN THE ACTUAL HOSPITAL BATTLE? JUST A LITTLE? The hospital is built on uh.. oh yeah... EARTH? And considering in the Forest Training arc she was using her quirk from a remote location (to make that Earth golem, or whatever) she wouldn’t even HAVE to be IN Ujiko’s lab to be useful

Can y’all PLEASE put at least ONE of your terraforming heroes at the place where y’all REALLY need them?? And not after-the-fact like y’all just did with Pixie Bob? Because clearly she didn’t do shit this last chapter trying to stop Decay. I’m sorry girl. You may be dead. Terrible.

I would have legitimately sent Snipe to get Ujiko before I sent Miruko and that’s that on that. Where is he even? He was there during the briefing but he’s gone? MIA? Idk. No way Ujiko is getting away from those bullets. Target locked: Ujiko’s hand. Fire. High-end Nomu remote goes bye bye. Then another bullet in the leg. No need to worry about him escaping and waking up high-ends/Shiggy when he doesn’t have kneecaps. Problem solved. No way it would’ve taken that long to break Shiggy’s tank either with a few well-placed pew pews zigging around some Nomu (not that we really wanna break him outta his tank bc look what happened). Snipe’s 6/5 technique stat deserves better!!!!!

Gang Orca did not go off and give a bunch of kids brain damage during the License arc to be so thoroughly ignored here. He’s clearly about to get his shit rocked by some gauged-out ex-Hot Topic employee in the next few chapters and ugh you’re TOO GOOD FOR THAT ORCA. COULD’VE BEEN OF USE AT THE HOSPITAL. PARALYZING SONIC WAVES? WE’LL TAKE IT. Who knows if any of the high-end Nomu would’ve been affected by paralysis but the small fry? Probably. Shiggy’s little twink ass? I would bet on it. Not that it would really stop him from using Decay but still

At the risk of sounding like someone I know who endorses child labor (the hero commission) here me out: CAN I GET A UHHH JUZO HONENUKI??? AGAIN YEAH good that he was at the mansion to do some long-range AOE action but if y’all are gonna force kids to join in on this war anyways, put your strongest and most useful ones at the place you need them. Shit it would’ve been real nice if Honenuki was there to trap some Nomu—uncertain if it would work against the high-ends that show some pretty flexible quirks but who knows—and even at the risk of reaching, maybe in some universe where Shiggy and Honenuki face off, it would be interesting to see Decay against Softening, since Decay’s one big weakness is that it can only work on solid objects sooOooOo? Idk. Would’ve been a cool match up but I hate that the kids are fighting anyways so we’re gonna ignore this Juzo rant. Just know it would’ve been cool

And as for the mess that’s going to be this fucking mansion soon... .. We’re just gonna ignore a whole ass Geten, big destructive power, big fucking threat, and not gonna throw Endeavor’s ass in there? Makes sense. They’re leaving it to Shoto I guess. They said time for you to fucking shine kid. Get in there. I mean really trading Endeavor for Edgeshot would’ve been top tier strategy but...

I MEAN THEY?? Made up a whole ass plan to counter ONE greasy-looking PLF guy by throwing Kaminari in there, but they couldn’t make up a plan to counter Geten? Are they just?? Pulling names out of a hat to see who gets to fight who? Did they spin a bottle to see who it landed on? Did Mt. Lady pull the short stick? I swear on shit when Geten starts going feral soon I’m not gonna feel sorry about it. Unless heroes got a plan and someone’s gonna make a sexy ass top 10 anime entrances to counter his ice then I’m disappointed. We went ape shit over Kaminari countering one of the commanders but are we not gonna get anymore ‘I’m your perfect counter and I’m here to stop you’ moments? No? I’M PISSED. 

I would have also settled for my kween Nejire being there to blast away some ice because who tf else is gonna do it? But eh. 

Dabi will also be trouble depending on what he decides to do. He only has about 3 good ideas a month and he’s used them all up by now so he’s in dumb slut territory as we speak. But you’d think that a villain as widely recognized as Dabi with such a destructive quirk would urge the heroes to have some plan to take him on but?? So far I don’t really see anyone quick to take on the role. Not that it’d be that hard bc he’s dangerous but also dangerously dumb. Where is Inasa. Maybe he can just blast the flames back in Dabi’s face. I love him but at this point he deserves to have some of his rights taken away

Don’t even get me start on Gigantomachia. I get the heroes had little choice except to attack before Shiggy was full-power but just?? NOT having a plan in case by some little chance Gigantomachia DID wake up? You stupid bastards. You absolute fools. I guess there’s not much you CAN do but FUCK y’all just gonna let him SIT THERE? No counter measures? No ‘Let’s execute this incredibly thorough and thought-out plan we’ve spent months formulating to restrain Gigantomachia in case he does end up waking up, because better safe than sorry’? When he tramples like 50 students I bet that shit gonna hurt

I hate it all. I was really happy about seeing Shiggy go off 272 bc he’s a king but after rereading from like, 258 I feel... weird. Maybe this will be resolved with more chapters but. eh. Now that I’ve thought of this, I can’t go back. I miss the brain power that was behind the MLA fight

[whitesheepwrites]

Hey hey hey! I’ve been a fan/reader for quite a while, perhaps a little over a year now? I just want to say I love your writing! I also, perhaps strangely, find myself quite entranced with some your female characters, even if they obviously aren’t the main focus of your fics lol. In particular, Astell, Morgana, Shun Ha, and Emmanuel’s mom all seem like very powerful women and that’s very 😳 absolute queens (heh), all of them.

I also saw a previous ask where you shed some light on the lore of After Midnight (which is still one of my all-time favs from you!). Is there any way you could potentially show the only scene from the scrapped chapter two you got to writing? It sounds quite interesting! Secondly, do you have any lore for the blond surfer dude that goes to town on Jaiden at the end? Of course, if you’re not willing or can’t answer one/both/either, that’s fine, I was just really curious, so don’t take this as pressure of any sort ^^

One last thing: any lore for A Multitude of Bites? Or any information/trivia that wasn’t quite apparent/didn’t make the cut in what’s currently published? Carus and Basilides are such a mess, but I adore them both lol!

Thank you so much in advance! I hope I wasn’t stepping on any toes and that you’re having a great day/week!

I love women. I can't really write about them in a more, uh *clears throat*, intimate way because of reasons but I love them. Their aesthetic and everything else :)

About the scrapped scenes, i mean, I could? it just that the more spicy scenes were recycled in other stories so they might not be anything new ahaha but if you don't mind, sure. They are pretty rough tho, just a warning.

Now, you asked about lore *taps chin* well, for one, the surfer dude's name is Dakota. They/he was stabbed in the back by his roommate at that time and died of blood loss in the living room. They were both drug dealers and the fight was about... money? Or something like that. That's as far as I went on his backstory lol sorry. I did plan on making him "nicer" than the others but still, you know, worthy of being stuck as a ghost and not moving on.

Regarding A Multitude of Bites.... hmmm you guys made such interesting theories in the comments that i feel reluctant to interject and say 'this is what i meant'. I can say the mom was meant to be an ambiguous character, definitely not a good person, but with reasons for what she did that relate to her own past and history as a werewolf. There were at some point plans for a second chapter, here is what i had in mind >> Carus and Basilides love each other but are not in love. Basilides is mated to Carus and therefore can't be with other people because werewolves mate for life and not having his mate around can be fatal (or something like that). Carus, as a human, has no such problem but chooses to stay "loyal". Then Carus starts having feelings for another character (Johannes? Astell?). Basilides finds out. Basilides wants Carus to pursue his feelings and be happy, wants him to stop destroying his chances of having a normal life just to help Basilides.

Cue a lot of angst.

The problem is that i couldn't decide on an ending. I got the sense most people, uh, wanted them to be together? But i didn't feel there was a way around their mile-long baggage where they staying as they were wouldn't be fundamentally damaging. I wanted to write Carus somehow moving on from this disastrous "relationship" and healing. I had no idea how to solve Basilides' arc. So I eventually gave up (> _ <) sorry about that

hope this answers your questions! if you have more questions or just thoughts you want to discuss, feel free to drop another ask!

wish you a wonderful Christmas and new year!

[flying-elliska]

i watched star trek discovery s3 ! thoughts !

- no matter what i always feel pushed to be overall positive about disco because of all the stupid whiny fanboys dunking on it because it’s too *diverse* and I think this season did pretty well in that regard and that it’s just very refreshing to have a cast that is just a lot more realistic re:what humans would look like in that era

- s3....i actually really enjoyed overall ? by going to the future, they’re not so stuck between all the older shows, being a prequel and bringing old characters back etc etc. they can explore new territory. And like. I don’t think they handled a lot of the plots as well as they could have. It had this HUGE potential that i don’t think they really made good on, because this series’ writing is just...i don’t know, a bit wack sometimes, like it was written by lots of different people pulling in a different direction. i see what it’s trying to do in terms of sociological and philosophical storytelling, but it’s often a bit too simplistic. but i just...i love these characters, i thought the season’s set up was so interesting, and it was just so much fun. and like...star trek has always been full of cheese and shortcuts and stories that focused more on emotions. it’s not hard scifi. it’s just not. i would like disco to come through with more philosophical/geopolitical episodes sometimes, but that doesn’t mean it’s ‘not star trek’

- Booker is definitely my favorite new character of the season. He’s just so cool ? Like a charming rogue idealist with an enormous cat named Grudge who travels around space to save endangered species ? that is just so new. i’m so tired of cynical rogues, they’re so overdone. but Booker breaks the rules because he CARES. yes. the empath thing is very sexy. the episode with his brother was so interesting. Booker’s the idealist but he left his people behind, while the brother is doing awful things to keep his people from starving to death, and so both their perspectives are understandable, and i love that they came to an understanding. also his chemistry with Michael is great, even though i wish they had taken more time to show us their developping relationship. but the episode when they met is one of my faves. that episode where he helps the slave workers rebel was !!!!! i hope they give him more to do next season apart from “Michael’s boyfriend” but yeah. he’s great.

- i just loved seeing the crew bond!!! so much! they’ve gone through so much together ! i definitely ship jola now. they’re just so cool. i hope we get to know the others in the bridge crew more but i love the bits we got, about them adapting to these crazy new circumstances, and about ‘growing through change’ ; even though i thought some elements like Detmer’s PTSD were dealt with a little bit too fast. I loved seeing Hugh trying to get everyone some mental support and therapy. I loved Tilly taking charge more and more ; and people recognize that even though she is emotional she’s also unfailingly compassionate and brave and those are qualities you want in a leader. ahhhh

- the new future is very interesting. i was afraid they would go too grimdark with the Federation gone, but...they’ve kept it relatively nuanced so that was interesting. seeing the Vulcans and Romulans reunited was quite incredible, and i loved the bit with the trial. and Michael deciding to back off so she wouldn’t risk their fragile unity. and her admiring the fact that Spock’s life work came to fruition. emotions !!!!!

- Michael’s development is...a joy to see. I love Sonequa’s portrayal of her so much. and she’s so pretty lmao. the writing for her character is still a bit all over the place, though. i don’t feel they explained her big changes of mind enough, and i don’t always understand what they are trying to do with her character, sometimes it’s a bit too much of ‘whatever the plot requires’. the series has a tendency to both make her the one who always saves the day a bit too much and to put too big of a burden on her in ways that feel iffy. But i’m still super happy to have her be captain, finally, and can’t wait to see how she grows into the role.

- I thought the Terra Firma episodes were so interesting ; it was fascinating to see how much Georgiou has changed through her time in the Prime universe. Mirror universe characters redemption arc is a Star Trek classic, after all. I am sad to see her gone from Disco but i feel like her next series could potentially be sooooo interesting. i mean, i know the evil promiscuous bisexual cliché is a bit bad, but Michelle Yeoh is just having SO MUCH FUN in the role i kind of forget about it. it’s a bit like ‘nggggh evil queer lady sexy’ thing. and the guardian of forever !!!

- Adira and Grey...now, i do think it was great to introduce a trans guy and a non-binary person and to make them a couple, totally awesome. i am not entirely convinced by their story though, i don’t feel they had a lot to do past their introduction. and the fact that Grey started the series being dead already...i mean they’re probably bring him back somehow but they have a bit too much of a tendency to kill their queer characters already, it’s an issue for me. i liked Stamets and Culber kind of adopting them that was cute but they didn’t do much this season either. i have to say tho, two gay dads telling a trans kid they will ‘help him be seen’ was like awwwwwwww

- i found the ending...a little bit underwhelming. it’s the opposite of s2, where i found the season pretty meh until the ending which i found kind of incredible. this one...the Emerald Chain was a cool villain, but I don’t feel like it materialized enough. i did think it was interesting to ‘tempt’ the Federation, to see how their principles held up ; but the fact that most of their problems with dilithium seem to be solved by the end of the season is a bit...hm, is that all ? similarly, the revelation that Su’kal was at the core of it all...i found the bits in the stimulations kind of fascinating, the theme of the importance of connection, etc. that said, i was hoping the solution to the Burn to be a bit more...Geopolitical. I just miss Deep Space Nine in that regard, they knew how to do political storylines in a way that felt so deeply grounded and complex. In Disco, problems get solved a bit too easily, and so it just feels like everything has less impact.

But overall, this is probably the season i’m most likely to rewatch for fun. the first two are so gritty, and they have made some really stupid story choices. this one is a lot more like a fun space adventure, and honestly that’s not a bad thing. even though next season I really hope they will put some effort into the worldbuilding. because sometimes it feels a little bit like modern storytelling has dumbed star trek down (i feel the movies are responsible in part, but it’s also like a general thing accross the board)

[fabelyn]

Xie Lian’s 3rd Ascension Meta

Alright, so I’ve had thoughts and headcanons over how Xie Lian achieved his 3rd ascension. I tried asking fandom first to make sure I hadn’t simply skipped over an explanation, but the consensus seems to be the novel never explained and people assume he went up on his own merit.

I agree, but for a while I was hung up over the very real possibility Xie Lian ascended through the will of Jun Wu.

After putting my thoughts in order, I’ve come to the final conclusion of: 

Xie Lian ascended on his own merit, Hua Cheng played an integral part in it, and Jun Wu was aware he would do so and prepared for it. And a lesser possibility: Xie Lian might have ascended a bit earlier and Jun Wu slowed things down

I was very hung up on Jun Wu because it’s clear at least in my mind that Jun Wu knew Xie Lian was coming up. So now I’ll explain why Jun Wu didn’t ascend him, why he might have delayed the ascension and likely how Xie Lian ascended, among some other points.

This is longish and there be spoilers, so it’s behind a Read More:

First of all, methods of ascending:

-Jun Wu speeding things up (Xie Lian’s 1st ascension was this);

-Popularity, High Cultivation and Luck.

Why I assume Jun Wu clearly knew Xie Lian was going to ascend again and around when:

Jun Wu was stalking Xie Lian for 800 years. This is canon in my mind, given he knew all about Xie Lian’s exploits and sent him on missions ready made to attack him using his obscure past. Ban Yue pass was this (certainly one can argue he sent him there to create further conflict between XL and Pei Ming, but it was too much coincidence, especially considering the rest) and the mission where Jun Wu set him up to work with the one God who would have quite the beef with XL was the nail to the head. XL never used his face or original name during his Guoshi days: Jun Wu had to have been following him.

Furthermore, the first arc was readily prepared for Xie Lian when he went up. He barely ascended and already there was this... gift wrapped middle finger mission waiting for him.

That mission was clearly made for XL alone, it had: that very specific boy ghost with the face disease, Cuocuo, a ghost that was using the power of a Ghost King that was Xie Lian’s cousin and oh yeah, the Ghost was pissy because she had given her all and been abandoned (ay what a coincidental theme eh?)

The Ghost had been doing her thing for a long time, but coincidentally only recently it reached the point where Heaven had to act. Coincidentally the ghost boy and CuoCuo also happened to walk in around the same time. Too much coincidence, so clearly this was set up and fueled by Jun Wu.

But there’s the thing: the ghost boy hand’t come in, say, the day before XL reached the mountain, he’d been there a while...longer than between XL ascending and him accepting the mission and reaching the place.

Remember also that Xie Lian was wearing the shackles. It’s not a stretch to assume Jun Wu can track him through them, especially given he was able to appear in Xie Lian’s hotel room without XL having told anyone where he was located, much less his room number.. That always bothered me: how did he find both? It’s above him to have put a tracking device on Xie Lian.

So, Jun Wu had set the first mission up before Xie Lian ascended. Moreso given whe XL ascended he was “oh so coincidentally” away and thus this mission had no one to take care of but XL. Moreover, the whole situation was a powder keg: Jun Wu couldn't randomly set it up and see if maybe, maybe XL would randomly ascend in time that he could use it to fuck with him.

So, with this, either Jun Wu was the one to ascend Xie Lian, or he knew it would be happening.

Why it wasn’t Jun Wu ascending him:

a) There was no real reason to. It’s not as if Xie Lian’s mindset had changed, and he wasn’t even reeling from a tense situation (like being buried alive, being framed for murdering people, being mufasad trampled to death). There was no reason for Jun Wu to decide “fuck it, time for abuse and mind games Round 3″ unless 800 years was too long and he got impatient.

b) Xie Lian never questions his own ascension. He isn’t shocked that Jun Wu isn’t around when he comes up; yet if XL assumed his ascension was by Jun Wu, wouldn’t he expect the guy to be around to talk? Moreover, he never talks to Jun Wu about why he ascended. If XL knew his actions had not been enough to go up by himself, then he’d certainly have asked Jun Wu why bring him up now, or even suggest he shouldn’t have and XL deserves more suffering. He did none of that, instead focusing on everything else. So, even the humble XL didn’t think JW had a hand in it.

Jun Wu might have, in fact, delayed Xie Lian’s ascension, but to get to that possibility, let’s first deal with how XL went up again.

How Xie Lian ascended a 3rd time, and why Hua Cheng was integral to it:

@indelibleme has put their own headcanon in very good words, and I don’t disagree so here are their comments:

According to HOB, you have to 3 things to ascend. Luck, High Cultivation, Popularity (Being well known basically). So the first time is obvious - he was a genius in cultivation, his luck was said to very good, and he was a crown prince so popularity is a given. The second time, I’m guessing was a combination of having fought a Calamity (Bai Wuxiang), driven off the accumulated ghostly spirits (albeit with the help of Wuming) and he did it front of a lot of Yong'an people.  He was also cultivating on the side, so that’s probably the combination that lead him to ascend. After which tho, he willingly sealed away two things - his luck and his cultivation. So really, the only other way he could ascend is popularity. Which is tricky in the beginning as he’s a unlucky crown prince who is technically “wanted” on the mortal plane. But as we know, he does attain a lot of popularity. As the Guoshi Feng Xin and the Ban Yue General Xie Hua.  Also, cultivation is not just spiritual but also physical prowess. And from what we see later, Xie Lian has enough physical prowess to battle the young Crown Prince of Yong'an and Hua Cheng as well, from when he stopped their fight. He also claimed he would win overwhelmingly against that Crown Prince. All this without any spiritual energy. Plus with his luck sealed away, it seems it took him 800 years to accumulate enough of the other two to ascend again.

Summary: You need luck, popularity or high cultivation to ascend. Xie Lian had two sealed away, so he could only have ascended through popularity and physical cultivation.

Although Xie Lian roamed the world without using his real identity, he still left his mark through aliases such as Ban Yue General and Guoshi. And he managed to get rid of two Venerables of Empty Words, which would get him well known in the ghost realm even if no one knew who he was. We also know (see: Wind God being assumed female) popularity isn’t necessarily tied to your real self. That said, that even his name wasn’t tied to this feats must have harmed him popularity even if not turned it moot for ascending purposes.

Enter Hua Cheng.

Hua Cheng built a goddamn Ten Thousand Statue Temple, very clearly and specifically for Xie Lian. And would later go on to build the Thousand Lantern Temple, because nothing is too extra for Hua Cheng.

Let’s also remember how many lanterns Hua Cheng sent off in Xie Lian’s name: XL won the lantern competition. Considering how fiercely (and again, how extra he is) Hua Cheng loves Xie Lian, should we really assume he hadn’t done this until now? Perhaps he had been doing it for a while, but because Xie Lian hadn’t been officially a god, the lanterns were never counted.

If Xie Lian’s own deeds (by way of his hidden identity) were not sufficient to ascend him, Hua Cheng’s love and devotion, and his intense demonstration of those in Xie Lian’s name, had to be enough popularity to push him back up.

And to top it off was his physical prowess.

Why Jun Wu might have, in fact, delayed his ascension:

This is my weakest conjecture, based on trying to explain one last gap.

So if we agree that Xie Lian went up by popularity... his ascension timing is still off.

Unless the Lantern temple had just been built (doubtful, Hua Cheng wouldn’t have spent even a month without someplace near he could worship Xie Lian), then there was no recent popularity increase (or even cultivation or luck increase) to explain his sudden ascension. Ban Yue pass was the most “recent” one and that was a 100 years before. The stint with the Empty words was also, according to the text “many years ago”.

So unless Xie Lian is keeping a bit feat that boosted his popularity, or Hua Cheng did something massive in his name recently... he should have ascended before he did, or waited for more popularity. 

Same with physical prowess: should we believe he only acquired peak physical cultivation after 800 years?

If it wasn’t Hua Cheng or a big deed/cultivation the plot isn’t telling us... it had to be Jun Wu.

Perhaps by Ban Yue’s tragic end Xie Lian had amassed enough sufficient popularity to ascend, but would Jun Wu want him to? With the same frame of mind and no plan on JW’s part to tear it apart?

Maybe Jun Wu wanted him to keep Xie Lian suffering, in his denial that Xie Lian would not turn up like him eventually. Or maybe he simply wanted time to prepare “fuck you, bitch” plots for Xie Lian when he came up. Or maybe Xie Lian’s right to an ascension could not be stopped forever...

As @indelibleme​ has said to me: the last ascension was " Xie Lian's "third path" to solving a problem”, instead of falling into the ways Jun Wu wanted.

So Jun Wu delayed it, prepared a mission to rattle him and bother Pei Ming, then let him come up while being conveniently away just as the mission had conveniently come up.

They said his third ascension was the most violent, as if the very foundation of Heaven was shaking. We assume it was, of course, the bones that made the foundation sensing Xie Lian had come to change things. But maybe we can add to it that the violence was also a result of his delayed dues: Xie Lian rising when he was much more popular and physically stronger than a God usually is when he ascends, because it was held off.

(And the one thing to fall on Mu Qing being a clock would have the added simbolism -beyond the whole guilt and past symbolism it already had- of representing the time that was taken away from Xie Lian by Jun Wu which Jun Wu could no longer control)

And this ends my observations. This is my explanation for his 3rd ascension, that to me fixes the issues I’ve had with the whole thing (Jun Wu’s preparedness, timing, etc). This fits the theme of HOB: of Xie Lian finding his own path -despite Jun Wu’s meddling- through his kindness and helped by Hua Cheng’s love.

Hopefully I won’t have turned out to have skipped information that invalidates this.

[ashenberry]

I gotta know your opinion on 6-5 (for obvious reasons ;))

TURNABOUT REVOLUTION and absolute BEAST of a case (it’s two in a trenchcoat)

man. Where to start. ok first of all I think ima tackle it through the characters instead of these little case summaries I’ve been doing cause. Beast of a case. anyhoo

Apollo

as whats framed as Apollo finally becoming his own as a lawyer and the resolution of a three game arc. I like the idea of it being up against Phoenix. A lot in fact I love the civil trial and Athena and Apollo get to burn evidence heheheue but. god does it lack buildup. and it takes a lot of the punch out of it. As for Apollo in the criminal trial half of revolution you go little man ❤️ I also love Apollo and dhurkes relationship holy shit. Dhurke I’ve only truly known you for 5 minutes but GOD. they’ve got such a great dynamic and god the afternoon they spend in kurahin it’s.

Most faults I have with dhurke I find to be more of a problem I have with sojs writing than anything I felt the character is if that makes sense? Like that one comment about Apollo n Trucy and an issue I’ve seen people have that dhurke sent Apollo to the states but Nahyuta more just coming out from the fact that the writers are bending backwards here. I also love datz here datz my man truly one of the characters of all time I wish you got a better name buddy. datz

Phoenix

its. 3D games Phoenix. he’s there. I think I enjoyed him more as the opposition than as a playable characters in this case opposition Phoenix was fun! he was a bit of an ass but it isn’t passive agressive and he’s fuckin losing! When we are playing as Phoenix he’s screwing Apollo over in what seems like ignorance and it’s irratating And during the second revolution trial he’s just making one liners. also sorry Maya they’re retreading your farewell arc ❤️ I actually didn’t mind it it works out pretty well ^-^

Dhurke

ok I touched on dhurke a little on the Apollo section but man. I love dhurke. the twist that he was dead the whole time because he fell into the Defense Attorney Trap (in which every defense attorney shows the big bad that they have evidence they’re the big bad. Unfortunately for dhurke this time they had a gun) Is Really interesting and he’s just one of the stronger characters in this case

Nahyuta

WOOOO NAHYUTA GOT SIDELINED IN THIS CASE HAHAHA there is a connection between how much Nahyuta is allowed to talk in a case and how enjoyable it is MAN. I skipped over his confession to the murder I don’t know if there’s like. Life changing dialogue there but man. I think there had to be a stronger Nahyuta apollo connection in this game like really. like the line that apollo has a dragon and Phoenix burning inside of him good shit good shit. I do think Nahyuta can be salvaged as a character but it did not happen in this case that was a half assed redemption.

Rafya

GOD POOR RAYFA SHE she is going through it in this case her dad is dead and her mom is a bitch rayfa 🤝 apollo solving the truth during the rest of the game shes just a middle schooler with the hubris of a monarch and it’s great and you just see it all fall apart in this case rayfa 💔

Garan, Inga, and Amara

garana a shit monarch AND a shit mom unbelievable. I don’t know how much a prosecutor that can say they win at anytime really effects the stakes it’s just a general soj problem the stakes are too high so theres like no tension in that regard and your more just curious how the murder happened. Inga is just a mob boss (got the accent to back it too) but goddamit he’s better than garan in the sense that he’s shown to have loved rayfa. man. Amara. There’s a character thread there that I don’t think at all was intentional because I don’t have that much respect for sojs writers where I don’t think Amara ever wanted to rule. There’s a lot of moments where revealing she was alive would have prevented a lot of shit (tho. evil sister not the easiest) but also the fact that rayfa is the one to take over at the end. a lot of it can be hand waved as like monarchy semantics but I think reading is cooler so

Rest of WAA + edgeworth

hhhh I think they deserved better in the rest of the game but here in revolution I think they all had good roles. Trucy gets the best joke in the case. Edgeworth is used for his private jets. it’s all good this case really is more about Apollo.

Obligatory Jove ‘Jangly’ Justice because I have a brand to keep up with

EVERYTHING SURRONDING THIS MAN IS HILARIOUS JESUS CHRIST. FIRST OF ALL. HIS DESIGN WAS DEFINITLY LAST MINUTE DONE IN A WEEK THIS MAN RECIEVED NO LOVE FROM THE DEVS. SECOND OF ALL HE SOMEHOW GOT INVITED TO THE ROYALTIES HOUSE WHILE ON BABY DUTY? AND HE INTRODUCED HIS BABY BY HIS FULL NAME CAUSE HOW ELSE WOULD DHURKE KNOW APOLLOS NAME UNLESS JOVE HAD APOLLOS BRITH CERTIFICATE ON HIM WHICH IS A FUCKING POSSIBILITY CAUSE I THINK ITS GENERALLY WAVED AT THAT APOLLO WAS SENT TO THE STATES BECAUSE IT WAS EASIER DUE TO POSSIBLE CITIZENSHIP THAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE ONLY PROOF AND THAN THIS MAN IS THE ONLY MAN TO FUCKIN DIE IN A POLITICALLY MOTIVATED ARSON WHERE EVEN THE INFANT LIVED AND GUESS WHOS THE ONLY PERSON IN THE POSITION TO SAVE BABY APOLLO. THATS RIGHT GARAN. APOLLO SIGITAR AU BABY. AND THEN NOBODY CAN ID JOVE AND THIS LEADS TO LIKE 20 YEARS OF A MASS LAWYER KILLING. JOVE JANGLY JUSTICE WAS THE START OF IT ALL. HIS NEWELY WIDOWED WIFE GOES ON TO BECOME THE BEYONCÉ OF BORGINIA.

^some of thats probably inaccurate. mostly about Apollo having proof of us citizenship but like. is there anyway for Apollo to get that information later or it’s kinda like he never existed because I doubt Newley enemy of the state dhurke got him any kurahin legal papers i don’t know I’m not a lawyer. But it’s funnier to imagine that Jove did have all of Apollos information on him that survived the fire.

anywyas all and all turnabout revolution is a very fun cass but I would trade it in a heartbeat to never have Soj ❤️

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY doesn’t follow the fairytale characters to a T: Emerald is evil when Aladdin wasn’t, and the point of Oz's inner circle is to SUBVERT their original counterparts, Oz is a wizard pretending to be a regular guy, Leo gave in to his cowardliness, Ironwood lost his heart (tho very poorly), and Qrow lost his brain (joining with Tyrian was ALLEGEDLY supposed to be dumb on his end, not that that stops the FNDM from victim blaming)

RWBY definitely doesn’t follow the inspirations to a T, however, I don’t think I agree that the big three here are subversions. Rather, up until Ironwood shot Oscar they seemed to be following the arcs of their counterparts rather closely (or at least, the arcs as laid out in the film. I admittedly can’t speak to the original novels): 

Ozpin - Yes, he’s technically a real wizard here, but he still follows the same path as the Wizard character. That is, moving from someone who is perceived as nearly all powerful, all knowing, all important to someone who is just as flawed and scared as the rest of us. Like pulling back the curtain, Volume 6 reveals Ozpin to be just another fallible man. He is a regular guy. He might have actual power - like the Wizard has actual influence - but that doesn’t make him the omnipotent being people chose to see him as. Both were normal men who stepped up to help: the Wizard a mere carnival worker who tried to give the Emerald City the symbol they wanted; Ozpin a mere fighter, with magic like many others in a Humanity 1.0 world (that power doesn’t appear to have originally been unique) who agreed to become the defender of Remnant. Both try to help their Dorothy character and fail: the Wizard with his balloon and Ozpin with his schools, leaving both girls to find another solution. Personally, I think there’s far more parallels between their stories than subversions. A subversion would have been actually making Ozpin as wise and all knowing as the Wizard initially appeared. Instead, this is revealed to be this: 

Ironwood - Same here. Ironwood is meant to appear like he’s heartless to the audience (and those of Remnant) at first glance. Here comes this man made of metal, with his stern looks and military persona, making calls that a lot of people don’t agree with. However, the story quickly reveals - to us if not the entire world - that the Tinman always had a heart. That’s the lesson of the film. You never needed someone to teach you how to care, or supply some magical means of achieving that. You’ve done it all along. Even if others - and at times you yourself - can’t see it. A subversion would have been to make Ironwood an actually heartless character, or at least someone who has to learn how to care like his counterpart assumed he had to. Instead, Ironwood is merely perceived as this, but is shown to actually be this: 

Qrow - Finally, like Ironwood Qrow is introduced as the brainless fool but, like his Scarecrow counterpart, is shown to have always had a brain. We’re introduced to him getting drunk in a bar and picking an idiotic fight with Winter. He reveals sensitive info to a group of students, destroys the courtyard, is revealed to have not kept in contact with his team, and then continues drinking. It’s easy to write him off as the brainless troublemaker of the group but, again, as we get to know him it’s revealed that Qrow is actually a genius spy. He’s thoughtful and strategic - never dumb to begin with. This is revealed to be this: 

(Sorry it’s hard to find a picture of Qrow being smart. Not because that intelligence doesn’t exist, but because it’s not easily reduced to a single image. So I just went with him being badass instead lol.) 

So I’d argue that RWBY was keeping very closely the moral messages of the Wizard of Oz, rather than subverting them: the man you see as an all powerful savior is human too and cannot fix all your problems, the man who appears cold and heartless has always cared about others, the man who appears brainless at first glance is actually quite astute. Even Emerald follows her Aladdin pattern by being the one person in Salem’s inner circle who we’re supposed to sympathize with. Emerald is the one who gets long close ups to show how uncomfortable she is with things. She’s the one questioning if this is the right course to stay on. Like Aladdin, she’s technically a villain (thief) but is primed to leave that life once better prospects are presented to her (I found a genie/I’m given a way out of Salem’s employment). From Dorothy/Little Red Riding Hood still being an innocent hero in Ruby, to the Good Witch still being a good “witch” (her semblance might as well be magic) in Glynda, to Pinocchio having always been a real person in Penny... I’d say RWBY follows the lessons attached to their allusions far more than they subvert them. Which isn’t to say there’s no subversion at all. I think having Adam really be a beast rather than someone whose “curse” is broken by Blake is one. Yang presented as the dumb, reckless blonde who is actually a brilliant and caring big sister is another (even if RWBY has messed this subversion up in more recent volumes). As is Lionheart. He is indeed a previously loyal lion who was revealed to be cowardly... but he’s also notably barely a character. We know almost nothing about him. He existed to give the heroes something to work towards - gotta get to Haven to talk to the headmaster - and then as a means by which all the other, important villains engage with the cast. Then he dies. It’s much easier to subvert (or accidentally write something that looks like subversion) when the character barely exists on screen. Lionheart has no character to complicate. Ozpin, Ironwood, and Qrow though? Their stories have all been (very basically) following the path of their inspirations. Until Volume 7. 

I don’t agree that Qrow is now subverted due to teaming up with Tyrian. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely a stupid move. Arguably the stupidest I’ve seen in RWBY to date, but the story doesn’t seem to realize that. That decision isn’t treated like the Scarecrow has now lost his brain. Rather, it’s treated like a good decision that then led to ~totally unexpected~ consequences. If the story thought Qrow had made a dumb call we could have gotten any number of details to imply that, including but not limited to him regretting the choice he just made while Clover dies, rather than blaming Ironwood for it. So we as the audience might recognize that it’s dumb, but that doesn’t mean the story does, which undermines any argument that it’s a deliberate subversion. Though this may change depending on how Qrow views his actions in Volume 8 and/or if others call him out on it.   

Which finally leaves us with Ironwood. Yeah, it could be a subversion to give the Tinman a heart and then have him lose it... but why now? If you’re going to do that work then do it from the beginning, not only so that there’s proper setup for it - as you say, very poorly done - but also so that the audience doesn’t devote nearly six years of emotional energy into a characterization only to be told that we’re reversing course now. A character’s downfall takes time. A character’s reveal that they were secretly bad/evil/whatever all along takes planning. As @leonhaxor points out, you can also introduce an influence like the lamp. How and why did these characters suddenly become their opposites? Because an outside force is influencing them, but even then you have to plan for and think through the complexities of that situation. What happens when the lamp is removed? What happens when the characters actually talk about these problems and realize they simplified things horribly (i.e. Qrow’s belief that everything he’s done is meaningless)? How are you going to maintain that new characterization if the reason for its existence is so flimsy? When you spend years developing characters, it’s no easy feat to chuck that characterization out on a whim. 

RWBY did none of these things though and thus Ironwood’s sudden shift is neither believable nor satisfying. It’s not a subversion to write a classic Tinman for six years and then suddenly, in literally a few minutes, insist that he’s evil!Tinman instead. Imagine you read about a detective for six books who appears cold and unyielding, but is actually revealed to be a vulnerable hero doing his best to solve these cases. And he does. Not perfectly, but he does solve them, helping people in the process, and you adore his flawed-but-ultimately-very-good person. Then suddenly, in the last few pages of the most recent novel, the detective attempts to murder his assistant out of the blue and you’re left gapping at where the previous six volumes of characterization went. Other readers go, “Well, he and the assistant once got into a fight so it’s totally believable that he’d shoot him" and the author goes, “You never expected the detective to be the criminal, huh? See, it’s a subversion.” Except it’s not. Is the concept of a detective who is actually the criminal a cool subversion? Absolutely. Dexter is right there showing us that. But you have to introduce that from the start, plan for it, and develop it in a believable way. Writing a good guy for almost the entirety of the story’s run (Ironwood didn’t arrive until Volume 2) only to turn around and change your mind about them - without proper setup - is just bad writing. We could have gotten a persuasive and compelling fall from grace that culminates in Ironwood shooting Oscar... but that would require really basic things like him not losing his arm/making hard calls in the name of helping others just a few minutes before. 

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Fated to Love You here reaffirming my long held conviction that no pure romance drama should be 20+ episodes.

This show is... really something. It is, in the fullest possible sense, A Lot. It starts out as an all-out screwball comedy wrapped around a troperiffic romance fluff plot. Wall to wall clichés, but not in a bad way; in a meta, self-aware, peak performance, finest Velveeta way. And if you’re not familiar with screwball comedy, think ‘light-hearted crack fic with slapstick and farce’. There is nothing believable or grounded about any aspect of it, it starts at Bonkers Level: Platinum and it only climbs higher as it goes on.

(On a side note, this results in the leading man being possibly the most memorable love interest in romcom history. His introduction scene is nothing short of batshit insane and you can't reliably predict how he will respond to anything. I have never seen a main character like this, he is all over the shop and utterly singular. Your first reaction to him is ‘wtf?’, your second and third reactions are ‘really?! this guy??’, your fourth reaction is ‘okay he do be mad hot tho’, your fifth and final reaction is ‘I cannot believe this performance exists, I have no idea what he is doing, but it is amazing.’

Appropriately(?) the actor who plays him is an uncanny Korean doppelgänger of Johnny Depp and- between the resemblance, the mannerisms, and the fearless total commitment to a bold as fuck acting choice with the very serious chops to back it up- I’m not convinced they aren’t half brothers separated at birth.

They do sabotage my happiness several times by starting to randomly style his (long, beautiful) hair very weird, fixing it right when the plot is rapidly circling the drain so he looks his hottest just as the show becomes briefly unwatchable, and then ruining him for the entire second half of the series by shearing it all off. WHY, my anguished cry goes up. Why do you do this?! Why does he have like seven hairstyles over the course of the show? Much later they even briefly give him that ubiquitous Kdrama Second Lead haircut with weirdly forward combed fringe in a solid straight line across the brow all the way back from the crown. It looks terrible on everyone and I hate it so much. This version was less bad than most but it is still bad. Anyway.)

So it’s an incredibly fun time to start but there are some problems with the tone and plot even in the first 9 episodes, including when the lovers start getting along really well right away and they’re both thoroughly decent people so there’s nothing keeping them from having a lovely time together making the best of the circumstances (forced/fake marriage). And, instead of introducing new conflict or advancing one of the dozen conflicts previously established and actually moving forward, there is a painfully contrived rehash of something they already dealt with which is then just never resolved. They make the hero leap to a conclusion his wife is nefarious after he’d already decided once that she isn’t (though it was completely reasonable for him to think she was- the fact that he decided to trust her so quickly just speaks to what kind of person he is), never try to find out more or talk to anyone about it, start pushing her away because of it, and have all this come to absolutely nothing. It only exists so he’ll stop being so incredibly nice to her and they won’t fall in love too fast.

You’d think they would have to eventually clear the air before the romance advances right? No. It wasn’t a real plot point, it was just a reset button to get them estranged and hostile again after they connect over their kindred spirits and we’ve spent a bunch of time showing how profoundly supportive and honourable our hero is. He’s being beautifully mature and selfless because he’s a really good dude (unusual for a romcom drama, right? for the main guy to be nice and considerate? to accept responsibility even if he doesn’t have to? Gun’s weird but he’s wonderful), but the writers need him to be cold and standoffish, so they just make him act like an unreasonable idiot for a while. He’s been thus far hugely proactive and direct and honest about everything, it’s one of his most prominent character traits, but suddenly he’s going to avoid confrontation in favour of being super passive aggressive?? Then the writers never solve it. Never! It just goes away. He got over it, I guess? He decided he doesn’t care if she’s a gold digger who deliberately trapped him? God forbid we have motivations that make sense and organic character drama, right? It's not like he didn't have totally valid reasons to be suspicious that could have led to legitimate conflict our heroine would struggle to vindicate herself from.

But anyway, apart from that kind of lazy bullshit, it’s a fine romance plot with extremely endearing characters who have great chemistry. They are fun and well-rounded and incredibly human despite all the silliness and OTT antics. Their relationship is hugely, hugely engaging and the dynamic is perfect, they really complement each other as characters and organically drive each other's arcs. There's the genuine depth and warmth and quiet pathos so often lacking from this kind of show. Things progress at a semi-reasonable pace. They work up to confessing their mutual feelings and get into some cute shenanigans before making out. It happens soon enough that you are not frustrated, but there's still plenty of build-up. Then- uh oh! We’re only 9 eps in and we have another 11 hours to fill with this fluffy plot!

Time for a bunch of absolute fucking nonsense. Time for our show, which has been so goofy and removed from reality it occasionally resembles a Monty Python skit, which has been so light it asks you to ignore the frankly incredibly fucked up implications of its premise for the sake of comedy (they were both drugged and proxy raped resulting in a pregnancy- the FL was a virgin prior to this and Gun had a girlfriend he wanted to propose to- and it was the FL’s family who did this to them: SUPER FUCKED UP), so farcical that it makes Some Like it Hot look like a gritty crime drama, that show to cover a bunch of serious heavy shit.

First, the rankest of melodrama. The families and the world all turn on our couple, but their love is true and will conquer all- UNTIL, he randomly collapses and gets convenient Soap Opera Amnesia. He’s forgotten their entire relationship and a series of coincidental pieces of misconstrued evidence, the machinations of his scheming ex girlfriend, the Soap Opera Doctor’s advice, and his closest confidants all going along with this conspire to make him believe (AGAIN) that his wife just wants his money.

This whole terrible episode is mercifully brief, but it just gets worse after his memory returns. This is where we get into the Noble Idiocy. The ‘pretend you don’t love them to “save them” from getting hurt by hurting them and making their important life decisions for them as if they don’t have a basic fucking right to decide that themselves’ kind. Which goes on for three FUCK years in the show. He wastes three years of their lives they could have spent together because he’s worried he might die young (in a terrible way) and doesn’t want to put her through that. And, of course, they inevitably get together later, so all he did was make it infinitely worse for her either way. To say nothing of how he thus couldn’t be there for her through the loss of their child. Possibly my most hated fucking trope of all time when done this way.

And, yep, you read that right. This show that has the single most batshit bonkers over the top slapstick I have ever seen in a kdrama, this show has a storyline where the fluffy romcom trope accidental pregnancy ends in massive trauma. Because she was standing around in the street after realising he does remember her (he continued to pretend he had amnesia after his memories came back, it’s all part of the stupid noble idiocy so I glossed over it) and gets hit by a car in the middle of their angst staring.

It is nearly Meet Joe Black levels of hilariously abrupt and incongruous.

so, blah blah, they lose their baby (there’s a very stupid whole thing about her telling everyone to save the baby instead of her- the baby is not far enough along for this to have been remotely viable. She is like 3 months pregnant. They all act like there’s a choice to be made between them and she’s mad at her husband for choosing to save her, but there was NO CHOICE. Either she lives or they both die! ffs I’m so irritated about this) and then he dumps her ~for her own good~~ because he loves her too much to make her go through losing him? So she loses him sooner?? right after their baby died???

Why do people in these stories always think being betrayed and abandoned for no reason and being incredibly angry at someone you love while also not getting to be with them is somehow less painful than making the best of your life together and then losing them against their will? ‘I will make her hate me and then she won’t be sad we broke up/I died!!!!’ is such a fucking galaxy brain take and I despise it with the heat of ten thousand suns. Fuck you, Spider-Man. You aren’t protecting anyone, the villains still know you love MJ and will still use her against you, you clod. Emotionally torturing the person you love is not going to make them not a target because the villains are not as fucking stupid as you two. Anyway.

Amnesia was right where I started fast-forwarding and skipping around (because I couldn’t bear it), but it only goes downhill from there. Maybe I would have toughed out more of the wretched middle part plot twist if they hadn’t cut all the hot guy’s hair off. If I’m going to watch total nonsense tedious melodrama, I need it to at least be pretty. I understand it was a Symbolic Haircut but damnit! Let me have this!

And it ultimately does the thing that kdramas seem obsessed with and which makes me want to claw out my own eyeballs with frustration. There’s a giant time skip, the female lead gets a personality transplant, all narrative momentum is lost, and the characters who eventually (at ENORMOUS length) get together permanently are essentially completely different characters with a completely different dynamic than the couple you were shipping for 90% of the story. It is so FUCKING unsatisfying and it is EVERYWHERE.

Not so much with this one because this one still had a lot of very romantic scenes late in the game, but most that do this, it’s also like all the romance is sucked out of the post-time skip episodes and the ending is a consolation prize instead of a triumphant culmination. Inevitably, the heroine abruptly cools off and is suddenly wary of the hero and wants this Important New Career she never mentioned until the penultimate episode but is now her one true life’s dream. What the apparently irresistible appeal is of these contrived separations and demure conclusions is I CANNOT FATHOM. I’m here for the fucking romance guys, you have not made Citizen Kane, please just indulge me with a big schmoopy finale.

And if not that, it’s frequently that there’s been so many random mood swings and so much shitty behaviour by the end that the relationship doesn’t make sense and you don’t know why they even bother to get back together.

I’m not inherently against all misunderstandings (they are the bread and butter of low stakes romance let’s be real) or attempts at noble idiocy from misguided characters, but the duration and seriousness of the drama these generate needs to be in proportion to how ridiculous they are. If your entire plot can be solved by a thirty second conversation there is NO REASON not to have and the continuation of the misunderstanding is a result of someone just NOT SPEAKING UP when any functional human being would have spoken up seven times by now IT’S BAD.

Do little cliff-hangers, whatever, but don’t draaaaagg out silly misconceptions into Shakespearean tragedy, it’s just wearying. It makes me hate the characters for acting like emotionally constipated toddlers with terminal stupidity. If there is so little trust, so little understanding, and so little basic patience between these people, they probably shouldn’t be dating, so try fucking harder, writers. And noble idiocy that is more than an impulse they fairly quickly see the error of is just insulting. You are not helping the other person, you are being domineering and selfish. I have a whole complex about wasting time and seeing endless parades of characters flushing years down the toilet for literally no reason gives me hives. Especially when the whole issue is about time!

(And, btw, so much of the plot is about how desperately the family needs an heir and everyone still wanting them to have kids the second time they get together- while the ~dilemma used to keep them apart is a GENETIC DISEASE which could STRIKE AT ANY TIME. Do you SEE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS WRITERS????? NO, I KNOW YOU DON’T. ommmmmmmmggggg that’s awful! So they’re just dooming more kids to Soap Opera Brain Disease? And maybe growing up without a father just as Gun did? And no one even considers suggesting adoption??? He never considers that he shouldn’t have biological children despite thinking he shouldn’t have a wife?)

ANYWAY. Please do watch the first nine episodes and the last three, it’s bananas. They are cute as fuck, Gun is The Best, and the tropey romance scenes are top quality. You don't get those things executed so well, it doesn't happen, so you need this in your life. The acting is of a calibre you never usually see in modern romcoms; these are people at the top of their game committing utterly and taking these characters completely seriously. In that way it is pure wish fulfilment for me as someone who loves romance and is almost always disappointed by popular romance media, and thus the show is incalculably special. But skip the middle. Just skip it. It's not worth the suffering. I find the tone whiplash honestly just this side of crass.

I’ve been thinking about it for over a week and I truly love the main characters so it did plenty right, but I just cannot with wedding the two things this show is trying to be together, especially when it goes so hard in two mutually exclusive directions. but also the Meet Joe Black sudden car accident device is not redeemable under any circumstances. Can we never do that again, please.

[fferraris]

i'm probably one of the only ones here but I'm actually so happy with what we are seeing from Eliott. the fact that he was lying and hiding stuff and being flawed

I just can't stand fanon Eliott, the too good to be true, too pure for this world, ray of sunshine who exists to love his boyfriend Lucas and help the group with what they want always. oh need a place to hang out ? here's Eliott. need a car to travel ? here's Eliott again

I'm glad that his role in the season isn't just being the guide angel to lola like people wanted to, the guy who's there to give her advice and wisdom because hmmm he completed his pokemon evolution already on season 3 so he can't show any flaws anymore ??? I guess? I would love to see him helping her sure!!!! but it's ok if he have issues as well.

also it's 100% on character for him to hide stuff. he did that a few times already and growth isn't linear.

and no, the fact that they're dating for 1 year already doesn't mean they should have all figured all now. I feel like often the biggest challenges for relationships first happens in the 1 year and a half mark (lots of break ups in this mark) it's also very common that relationships suffers from the same issues times and times again? people are saying they should have a different problem because it's not realistic to have the same again lmao that's not true you know ? it happens a lot that the problems you already had in the beginning of the relationship ends up being the cause of break up years later... it's great when two people are able to solve the issues and grow together, but it's not easy at all and a lot of times they can't.

I think that this is something we're gonna see in a way (I believe the writers said eliott and daphne will have some arc this season ). If Eliott and Lucas will be able to grow together or no. In their case its even more complex because Eliott's MI (as much as the fandom loves to romanticize) can complicate things. but the fact that they're doing this instead of just showing them being adorable makes me real happy.

I love skam españa for this reason too, they show crisana having issues in their relationship and some people got mad because they want perfection. oh, the evak from xx remake would never have this problems because they're perfect angels ? damn that sucks :/

( anyone else here also can't stand this perfection/purity obsession that tumblr has?)

(I wrote this huge post and Eliott even apologized already lol tho I don't think this is the end of their issues because of *spoilers*)

[shidoukanae]

YGO! Questionnaire

Tagged by @cipher-wise​

Favorite series:

My favorite series based on what I watched and enjoyed would have to be Arc-V!!! It's honestly the series that got me to adore YGO when previously I'd seen YGO as, and I chilidishly quote, "uncool". Everything about Arc-V is pretty much wonderful: Yuya's presence as a "everyone MUST be happy" kind of character in a plot that discusses themes of war, revenge, and despair is absolutely refreshing (especially when Yuya's ideals of happiness are stripped from him and made a mockery of by, *coughs* one of my favorite characters in the franchise *coughs*). 

I love how the four Yuu boys are a wonderful combination of "protagonists" (/anatagonists) and how they each play off of each other's weaknesses and strengths, often acting as mirrors to each other in their individual dimensions while having amazing interactions (Yugo and Yuri, anyone? Yuri and Yuya?).

I admire how the endgame plot is a perversion of Yuya's ideals: he gets what he wants, showering happiness upon all, but that "happiness" is corrupted into the notion of entertainment. While Yuya seeks to provide people with smiles and laughter, to give them hope to work together through tough times and to stay strong in the face of adversity, his "counterparts" in the endgame are really good at acting as Yuya's mirror: showing that his style of performing can also be used to appease the bloodthirst of one's own self and that happiness can be corrupted into self-deserving power.

...Hard to put that into exact words without spoiling a lot of things but, gosh, let's just say that Yuri and ____ are the perfect mirrors to Yuya in terms of what his entertainment dueling style is meant to be.

The plot over all is pretty good! I won't lie and say it stands strong all the way throughout the story but the first half is amazing and there are some pretty strong episodes in the second half (Yugo and Rin, the parasite episodes in general, Yuri Yuri YURI). I can definitely say that the humor is there, the characters are amazing (if nothing else, watch for the Yuu Boys, the Bracelet Gals, and Shun versus Sora!!) and having come into the show around episode 104, I was pleasantly surprised by the trip Arc-V brought me and how it played with its protagonist, giving him hope, kicking him down, and toying with his mind - just like the way a warzone might to any idealistic individual.

In terms of other series, I like VRAINS but only up to like episode 19 (or the end of the Data Bank arc). It had potential and I kept hoping it would get better but the plot was constantly floundering, there are plot holes abundant (sewer monsters, ugh), character development is inconsistent not to mention very shallow, VRAINS has some of the best side characters but they're kicked to the curb by a bland protagonist and a villain that could've been so much cooler but they made him a sympathetic mess.

...I have a lot of gripes with VRAINS but, if it were to ever be rewritten with clear goalposts and plot twists in mind (not to mention development on ideas like Charisma Duelists because at the end of the show I still have not a fucking clue what a Charisma Duelists is or was) I would say it has potential to become my favorite series but Arc-V clearly beats it for me in every category lmao.

Zexal’s also really good too!!! I don’t get all the hate behind it because it’s actually really interesting and engaging (also IV’s definition of fanservice is literally the only type of fanservice I will ever accept) and I think I’ve even cried a couple of times during the course of the plot which is like,,, shocking considering it’s not a show I thought I’d cry over (I cried in Arc-V too but goddamn does tiny Yuya just want to make you tear up lmao). This show is really good emotionally and it’s literally so stupid how Kaito carries a lot of the early and middle game of the show yet most of the meat of the plot doesn’t begin to unravel until the second season.

Also, if you ever want to watch a show of 100+ episodes that is so masterfully written that there is foreshadowing for stuff in like episode 130+ on EPISODE ONE, please watch this. Literally there are so many hints of what is going to happen in the future in the early episodes and you won’t really be able to tell what those hints are until you’ve finished the show but goddamn when you go back and rewatch things it does indeed feel amazing how much foreshadowing they threaded into the show without you ever knowing...(please don’t search for spoilers if you intend to watch this. I went into the show knowing some spoilers tho not all and, while I was still pleased by what I watched, I honestly can agree the show is A Lot Better without knowing ANYTHING)

Favorite Protagonist: Yuya. For sure, out of all the series, Yuya. 

He’s a refreshing protagonist, especially considering he shines in a world of war and despair. He’s also someone who you empathize with right at the start and want to hope in, especially since he is the “happiness” in a word of “madness” and “sorrow”. He’s not someone out to save the world (not really, anyways), but his actions touch on the lives of others anyways, giving people in a hope in a world that is otherwise cruel and heartless. Also, it really helps that he’s able to pull you into his world of “egaos”, making you believe in him and root for him despite how cheesy his ideals may or may not sound.

Also love how, despite being the centerpiece of “happiness”, Yuya isn’t allowed to always be happy :> Not spoiling plot related things but if you like protagonists going off the rails insane at times, Yuya’s definitely a fun protagonist for that!!!

Favorite Rival:

Kaito Tenjou!!! Literally the best rival in the series that I’ve seen. Everything about him is literally perfect ngl. From the way he’s chillingly introduced, with the spine-tingling whistles and cruel, almost merciless nature, to the way he slowly becomes sympathetic while also remaining a terrifying presence whenever he appears...I love him????

Favorite BFF:

Does Shoichi count? Because like...he’s Yusaku’s closest friend and ally in the series and I generally don’t pay attention to the other BFF’s in the other series (or at least, the ones I can recall bc I know in Zexal that Yuma has a whole group of friends lmao).

But I like Shoichi!! He cares about Yusaku a lot, is pretty damn cool as a sidekick hacker, his sideplot with his brother was actually honestly endearing and I loved the mystery about him. His early-game jokes w/ Ai to tease Yusaku were also a good laugh.

Favorite GFF: 

Not a girl friend forever for the main protagonist (although she like...lowkey confessed to him...though that plot really never went anywhere so I still don’t know what the fuck THAT was about) but,,, Ema Bessho,,

If y’all knew me back in my peak YGO days when VRAINS was airing,,, this gal was and STILL is my favorite girl of the YGO series. Even though she was pretty much done dirty imo I still love her (even despite considering she’s been made a damsel-in-distress at least three times, she’s only ever won one duel on-screen despite being supposedly good at dueling, ngl they could’ve done so much more with her but tbh she’s mostly just an asset to solve problems at whim and barely gets character development/does nothing but watch and spectate stuff late-game).

Even though she’s like...the unfortunate side character who’s probably meant to be more fanservice than interesting, in the first 19 episodes (and even the Revolver vs. her fight as well as the one time she meets Aoi IRL early-game) made her out to be a lot cooler and complex than she ended up being. I mean,,, a hacker gal who’s self-serving, cynical, and cold-hearted taking on the tasks of her (potentially ex) boyfriend while being really nice to his sister to the point she baffles even herself,,, we could’ve had a really unique and cool character to play around with here but instead we got...cool-ass character with potential to be something more reduced to a spectator with nothing better to do than idolize the main protagonist and have a plot with her brother that honestly detracted from her character more than it added to it imo.

Also Ema could’ve been a female Yuri but,,, nope,,, they decided she was better as a background piece instead TwT

Favorite Villain: Yuri.

Literally Yuri.

I could choose the leather jacket w/ fluff boi in a certain series because hot damn was that guy convincing AF that he wasn’t an evil psychopath (and even while knowing that he was, I still got fooled into thinking he was a good guy somehow omg) however,,, I’ve always held a love for Yuri and the way he’s been portrayed.

Despite ALWAYS being the bad guy, the show has always made this purple fucker into the most entertaining character on-screen. He even beats Yuya sometimes in terms of how entertaining he is - that’s literally how good he is,,

Also his facial expressions are amazing, he’s a VERY VALID threat to the main cast (and his creeper levels are not only off the charts but literally called out by the main female protagonist herself lmao), and he acts as the perfect foil to Yuya, battling not to entertain others but to entertain himself.

Also, he likes killing people.

No this is not a joke.

He literally likes killing people. And is pretty sadistic about it, too.

(^^^^ for those who don’t get the joke, “Fusion” is pronounced “Yuugo” which sounds similar to “Yugo” which is what,,, Yuri is making fun of,,, more context is needed of course but this is a Great Running Gag)

Favorite card:

I don’t know if it actually exists as an actual card but...that crystal dragon from the YGO movie with the glass pyramid. Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon...it’s really pretty...I love it...

Favorite Episode:

I’m...too lazy to search for names of these episodes but I can give brief summaries of them,,, because I can’t choose,,,

Arc-V: Shun vs. Sora (ALL episodes). Hot damn if you have never watched YGO but want to try and see for yourself why people like it: WATCH THESE EPISODES. I can’t explain how amazing these episodes are and, while I admit jumping straight into them might have you missing out on some important context (such as who Shun is or why Sora’s battle tactics lead to revelation) it’s honestly an amazing fight regardless. The battle starts off plain enough - there’s obvious tension, it seems like a typical fight of a battle royale, etc. - my god does the battle ramp up in emotional tension and promptly kick you in the gut with not only how blindsided you’ve been, but it also showcases just how cruel these “entertainment duels” can really get.

Any episode with Yuri. Literally any episode he’s in. 

I think this is like...episode 8 of VRAINS...but whenever it is that Akira hires Ema to find the reason why Aoi just...straight up got knocked into a coma. Literally this is my favorite episode when it comes to Ema. The way she makes fun of Akira even while aware of his situation,,, her cruel selfishness and desire for money bubbling to the surface, the way she confesses how she can’t be trusted willingly and still asks Akira why he’s hiring her,,, god I love this episode in terms of what Ema could’ve always been.

Episode 13 (/14?) of Zexal!!! This is the episode Kaito appears and when the show REALLY picks up. Kaito is a fun bastard of a rival and tbh I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting chills of him walking in, debris frozen in time all around him, as he approaches his victim, whistling an eerie children’s tune as he gets ready to close in for the kill,,,,

Favorite Deck to Use:

I don’t...really play the game itself but...I have used a couple of decks and I guess you can say I really love Raid Raptors??? First of all, those warbirds make really fun sounds I love ‘em in the anime but they’re also just fun to use in general (even tho I used a,,, very basic deck for them,,, I love them still).

Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, XYZ, Pendulum or Link:

XYZ bc it’s really the only summoning method I’m used to lol :P. Also XYZ loyalist I guess???? 

Years in fandom: roughly five to six years iirc? I mean, I was a fan of the early day YGO and watched it as a kid but not active enough to be in the fandom for it lmao. Also not in the fandom atm because Sevens lost my attention (it’s a good show!!! I’m just unfortunately more a fan of things with serious plots and darker themes and it’s hard for me to stomach slice-of-life shows that don’t focus on a mature and engaging plot). However, Arc-V and Zexal holds a special place in my heart (as does VRAINS, begrudgingly) and so I occasionally find myself wandering back to these shows like right now,,, 

[combat-wombatus]

uHm if you do these and if you want to do it I’d love a bnha matchup <3?

• my name is Aubri, I’m bi but prefer MHA boys tbh. I go by she/her, too.

• I’m a very Gryffindor person. (Sorry if you don’t know Harry Potter - 😖)

• I’m a June cancer, and I have ADHD and anxiety. My anxiety can be literally crippling somedays, but it’s gotten better overtime.

• I’m a bit of a class clown and usually just a clown 🤡 but that’s irrelevant. My teachers all hate me but like school-wise I do well so we have a love and mostly hate relationship 🤧

• I’m usually the ‘entertaining’ friend, in elementary the popular kids would invite me to play games with them because, “you’re funny” and it was like the biggest achievement ever 😭👍🏻 then they’d ignore me but that’s another therapy session

• I’m usually made fun of by people for being ‘weird’ and ‘insane’. Like all through elementary everyone thought I’d be a criminal when I grew up JUST BECAUSE I HAD UNDIAGNOSED ADHD - I hate it here 😐🦶🏻

• I’ve always been super into crime stories/true crime (where my anxiety comes from, I’m always worried about a pesky serial killer just killing me. It’s usually being kidnapped tho lmao) so I knew and still know like all these murder facts and sometimes I’d just randomly be like;

“Hey did you know it takes 12 hours and 2 days to dissolve a body in acid?”

or

“If you bury a dead deer over a dead body you buried deep in the ground, when police dogs sniff it and people dig they’ll just think it was the deer and won’t dig any farther.”

• So maybe people had a reason to be scared of me and think I’ll be a criminal someday, i dunno.

• I love love love reading and writing, and also debating. The things I’ve wanted to be when I grow up are basically: Dog shelter worker, actress, FBI agent, politician, and a writer. But usually I just want to do something that makes a positive impact on people. Like i wanted to be an FBI agent to solve crimes for people. I wanted to be a politican so I could actually help a lot of people. The entertainment industry also seemed like a way to make people happy. Idk, but then I decided I couldn’t be a politican at 10 because they were all corrupt and to be one I would have to be too. 😫🤌🏻 we love some good childhood angst

• the only subjects I’ve ever excelled at are ELA and Social Studies aka History, and Math I can’t do to save my life. ELA comes easy for me and I usually don’t have to work that hard and/or get too stressed over it. But I always get the meanest teachers for some reason. For example, one time I did my final essay for like 30% of my grade in 30 minutes the day it was due and I got an A+ 🦟🦗🦟🦗

• Uhhh id describe myself as a pretty loyal friend, I’m a ride or die type of girl. A story from my childhood that summarizes it pretty well is when I was in 2nd grade my friend wet her pants and she didn’t want to go to the nurse for it alone so I peed my pants so I could go with her and she wouldn’t have to be alone. Like, you know, a professional problem solver

• and I have genuinely attacked people for fucking with my friends but don’t snitch pls 🕳🏃‍♀️💨

• But also just anyone, people at my school tend to come to me with their problems for me to either help solve them by reasoning, or just to confront the other person like the bad bleep I am 😈😈

• I also have a huge daydreaming problem, it’s literally maladaptive daydreaming. So paired with my ADHD I don’t get shit done like ever.

• I have really high empathy levels I guess, like I always say hi to everyone I see on the street, especially if they look sad 😔 I’ve done it ever since I was a little kiddo.

• My fashion sense is very much a preppy/alt style. I wear those ripped tights and fishnets, I also have the MOST BIZARRE JEWELRY- like who allowed me to buy the gummy worm glittery earrings, hmmm???????? and those Mary Janes???????

• But I love crew necks and pleated skirts so I always obide by the National “hoes dont get cold” policy 🇺🇸😫🦅

• I wanna move somewhere someday, I don’t want to stay in America for very long

• I can speak Latin, French, and my native language which is English.

• My music taste varies, but my all-time favorite artists who all of their music they’ve ever put out has been my favorites are, Billie Eilish, Melanie Martinez, and Conan Gray.

• I no-joke have a sign in my front yard that says;

In ✍️ this ✍️ house we ✍️ don’t ✍️ worship Jesus ✍️ but instead ✍️ Melanie ✍️ Martinez

• My favorite shows are MHA (duh), The Promised Neverland, and Malcolm in The Middle.

• and I’m not going to tell you what I prefer in a partner, because that ruins the fun 😤

• but I will say I cannot be friends with someone who doesn’t really make me laugh. Like I’m used to doing most of the talking in convos but if you’re just boring I’m sorry it’s nothing personal but no thanks 😐✌🏻

• About my physical appearance, I have fluffy n curly brown hair, but when it’s in the sunlight it looks sort of brown but golden yk?? It’s shoulder length :) I have bleach blonde streaks in the front. I like wearing eyeliner most days, too. I’m pretty average size/ on the skinnier side. Kinda high key inscure abt my body bc I got flat shamed in elementary EVEN THOUGH I HAVE TIDDIES NOW- whatever 😤🙄. I also have crystal type blue eyes, and I do have fairly big eyes. But, like, not weirdly big. A good big. My cheekbones are ALWAYS PRESENT so sometimes I get called a Tim Burton character but it’s cool ig ☠️☠️ oh and I’m kinda short. I’m 5’3, even though my doctor said I’d be 5’7. I feel like I was either tricked by the doctor or someone just stole my destined height while I was asleep. It’s probably cause I didn’t keep an eye out for Selener 👁 😔😔

• I’m a definite night owl, like all of my energy comes at night which really sucks cuz I can’t do much since everyone else is asleep.

• My love language is touch starved so I’ve never figured it out ✌🏻😗🔫

• but I am an attention whore so idk 😏

• I’m a huge introvert with social anxiety. It isn’t as bad as it used to be cuz I used to not be able to like go to restaurants but now I’m much better.

• I’m a huge history person, mostly like sad history LMFAO. Uh but a lot of my hyperfixations have been on history. Some examples are The Roman Empire, Julius Caesar himself, Anne Frank, The Titanic, the Black Plauge, Helen Keller, Marie Curie, Slavery in the US, Joan of Arc, and just a lot more. I always love talking about these things if someone would let me ramble to them but no one ever does 😖 it also got to a point where for all these subjects I’d go to the library and try to find a book on them but usually I’d either have already read it or I’d read it and know all the information.

• I’m super into Greek Mythology, I have 7 books filled with the stories, I’m going to Greece maybe this summer to see it’s history, and named my hamster Aphrodite but we call her Aphie. I also will talk about this forever and ever if you let me.

• My favorite color is yellow, my favorite food is literally nothing I never have an appetite, my favorite planet is Saturn, favorite song is Tag Your It by Melanie Martinez atm but it changes like everyday.

• Music is a huge safe-space for me if I’m feeling down or having a panic attack. It calms me down n is overall my coping mechanism 💃🏻💃🏻

• Biggest fear is spiders, even looking at one gives me a panic attack and I cannot sleep at all for that night, adding to my insomniac ass 🧎🏻‍♂️🏌️‍♀️

• I’m mature for my age, I don’t exactly like hanging around kids my age and I get along better with older crowds.

• i don’t like conventional dates, (I PROMISE IM NOT TRYING TO SOUND ‘QUIRKY’ AHAHA) I kind of like having a best-friend type partner more so dates that aren’t as romantic as like the movies or a fancy restaurant suite me better. My dream date is playing Monopoly on my bedroom floor 🦧

• Also I hate getting gifts. End of story. If someone gets me a gift like awe that’s nice but never again, I’d prefer to get you one. Especially in a romantic partner 😐 i keep a journal of my friends’ interests and hobbies so I can get them the perfect gifts for their bdays and Christmas’s. Been doing this ever since 4th grade.

• Though I don’t have much actual experience with relationships🧍🏻‍♀️

• I’m a huge believer in ‘family isn’t blood, it’s who you make it’ because I have a pretty shitty family life and my childhood has been trash. My friends are my family to me.

• Also if my friends don’t like my romantic partner ✨ GOODBYE ✨. Sorry girlie, bros before hoes 🦨💨

I was going to put more but I’m so so sorry for how LONG AND COMPLICATED THIS IS- idk if this is a autobiography or a matchup at this point 🤦‍♀️ don’t feel pressured to do this and if matchups aren’t open IM SO SO SORRY LMAO uh yeah ilysm 🦎🎂🧃

OMG ASLDFKJHASLKDJH

🥺 i’m so sorry bby but matchups are closed ;-; my 100 follower event was over while ago (i guess i should’ve specified that in the asks i answered LKSAJHFLKJAHDS SORRY IT’S MY BAD) but you sound so cool?? i had a lot of the same hyperfixations interests (heLLO helen keller was badass AF and the roman empire was messed up but still v cool, anne frank was awesome too) i also may or may not have wanted to be a politician when i was younger alskdjfhalkdhj but now i’m just 🧍🏻‍♀️ lost and anyways you’re amazing >.< love u lots and don’t forget to drink water and eat a lil something hehe :p 

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Wait when did makoto go like "I didn't care enough" in regards to kamoshida? Last I recall the stuff before the 3rd palace was pushing pretty hard into the idea that officials like the principal strictly kept makoto into doing what they wanted rather than what she wanted

P5: It’s not Makoto’s fault! It’s the adults they stopped her! :( Also P5:

2nd pic especially right there. 

And, I know you didn’t ask for it, but mini rant under the cut explaining why this is a big sack of rotten bananas (aka the messiness of her arc) (also “what Makoto wanted” what Makoto wanted was not to investigate the PT, it was a burden to her to even look into them, hell it seemed like everything was a burden to her, with the exception of that one little blurb in Royal after Shiho’s jump it’s all an inconvenience. You talk to her in the Library? She’s like don’t bother me. Has to investigate the PT? Not worth my time, also I’ll take my frustration out on the PT. Now I have to solve a mob thing? Well I’ll just force the PT to do all the leg work, but I’ll also be very sad when they call me useless for doing nothing but making a lead run away :( Her way or the high way, can’t be bother. A bit of a user....at least towards the PT, ironically she won’t tell her student council guys what’s going on.....but I’m not sure what that says about her character since she is def fine dumping work onto us....just more contradictory info I guess. I mean I’m down for a haughty and/or manipulative person not wanting to help others and learns as the game goes on but they didn’t do that....also not saying the wrote a haughty/manipulative person....but there is some groundwork laid there)

Anyway actual rant:

Makoto point planks says she knew and didn’t do anything. And what’s worse it tries to change the events of Anne and why she feels guilty about Shiho to put her on the same level as Makoto. Anne didn’t know Shiho was being harassed by Kamo (or about his other stuff iirc), the reason is because Anne misread Shiho’s signs of distress (she thought it was about her place on the team). So Anne was worried about fixing that because she thought that was the issue, not the other thing. And she can feel guilty, she’s the victim, and if she wants to feel guilty she can.

But what isn’t ok is freaking Makoto coming up and blaming Anne (who, as the victim, had every right ask Makoto, who was stalking her, if she knew about the abuse via a rumor she was hearing, and Makoto decided to be defensive and blame a victim, probably cause she didn’t want to confront the shitty thing she did), you don’t get to do that Makoto. 1) You know Anne’s situation because Kamo confessed the whole damn thing to the whole school, 2) You had enough suspicion that you could’ve done something but didn’t, 3) Not only were you in the perfect position to do something (you aren’t really someone he can target or was on his radar due to not being associated with the team, but you also have the influence of other teachers thinking highly of you AND you have a sister who is a VERY SPECIAL LAWYER). 4) Anne didn’t know any of this BUT YOU DID (so you aren’t the same, no where near the same, and it’s bullshit the game tries to act like it is). 

Listen game, it’s not that hard to show Makoto was a good person but we had the wrong idea. But you didn’t do that. You wrote a shitty person who gets away with stuff and is rewarded. You could’ve written Makoto as knowing about the abuse AND TRYING TO FIX IT BUT BEING ROADBLOCKED (which goes in line with your bs narrative about her listening to adults, what adults Makoto? Your sister who is asking reasonable demands from you[aka do well in school, and not even like restricting her freedom or being a “tiger mom”]? Or the principal who is asking such a cartoonish thing from you that you actually just get to say no to at the end, but regardless if this game had an integrity it wouldn’t have gone with the principal narrative to begin with cause it was just stupid)

Or they could’ve just, you know, had her not known, and her and Anne could’ve bonded over being blind (tho Anne was blind cause she was too close to Shiho and misread signals Makoto could’ve been something else, maybe too busy studying or something to notice the people around her?). 

But here’s the thing, the game ALSO wants her to regain her justice she lost sight of (which we don’t know what that was, or what it is now), which means she.....probably needs to have known. Which means they need to fix what we have so it doesn’t come off as “yeah you stalked us, belittled us, got us involved in a MOB-90% of all these issues were because of your EGO to boot-and now you give a quick, disingenuous, even gaslight-y apology (seriously she’s like “I’m sorry so can we just DROP IT???” no bitch we had to put up with you now you get to put up with us), but yeah you can join our team you like...are TOTALLY LIKE US!” Which she isn’t?????

If I had to rewrite Makoto (usually I just remove her but if I HAD to keep her >.>), I’d make her believe that all authority figures are correct (I mean she grew up with a cop, not completely out there imo). She doesn’t go on some BS goose chase cause of the principal, but because she doesn’t believe Kamo could do anything wrong and wants to take down the PT because yadda yadda her own justice (maybe she thinks they caused more chaos than good?). She believes the PT made him lie, or something. Over the course of the game (I’d have her join later like Haru time instead btw), she slowly sees her viewpoint of the world crumble, and have the confront the idea of siding with the PT. To which she would have to give a genuine apology (that she starts, not have to make you know the victim of her tantrums have to sit them down for a sincere apology). It’s an arc, not wishy washy (tho all of P5 is wishy washy so eh), she takes responsibility, and it’d be handled with a lot more time and grace that it needed to have. 

But yeah as for the adult thing, I hate it. There’s like 2 adults, Sae is literally not THE WORST person out there. Not perfect but not who you should be holding up as an antagonist for Mako’s arc (esp since they plan on making her an accomplice later, which ends up downplaying a lot of Sae’s negative aspects that could’ve flourished but instead she’s just.....watered down? And not treated with the respect she should have). And then we have the principal and his whole thing is juuuuuust bullshit, like do you want to deconstruct that the Student Council President isn’t all powerful (which some people argue she’s a deconstruction of Mitsuru, I mean she is at least Mitsuru is competent and if anything gets by her it’s cause she wasn’t aware of it but always makes sure to take responsibility and resolve it)? Then don’t give her bs chores like this. And don’t make it so she can just boss Kawakami around (”I can’t believe I’m doing errands for a student....” or something to that effect). She’s either a normal prez (and at most she can gain favor from teachers to use to her advantage but nothing else within school limits), or she’s OP like Mitsuru/other anime prezs. You can’t have a middle ground, pick one logic otherwise everything falls apart. Since P5 tries to be “realistic” (aka stuff in the real world is grounded, not supernatural stuff) the principal should’ve never had that idea cause it’s not realistic. It’s also poor I can’t really name a single teacher outside the Principal (and obvie Kamo....actually maybe lil Kamo and his friend? So I guess I should say “any teacher outside a CoOp” instead) that knew of Kamoshida and didn’t help. Sadayo didn’t know, and the english teacher I think acts like a batman so she either didn’t know and wants to make sure it never happens again, or she feels guilty and is trying to save face (I’mma assume it’s the former cause I haven’t found anything contradicting that and it seems more likely). There’s also the fact Mako literally admits that she didn’t do anything cause she didn’t care, so regardless of what I said about the teachers, they weren’t blocking her cause she didn’t even approach them. 

So uhhhh yeah, mini analysis of why there’s issues tied to Mako’s arc and why it’s a mess. 8U I don’t get why Royal even doubled down on the narrative that Mako was pushed around or something, when we 1) still never really see it realistically (principal is really the only one that does it, and as stupid as the whole idea is, it’s also not good to you know....have only one real problem when like......there’s implied to be many? “All these adults held me down” Who Makoto? Humpty Dumpty??????, 2) it completely ignores her own faults as well as inconsistencies they also created. You just pull on this little thread a little and it unravels with like 1000 questions (which is basically all of P5 but still.....just cause it’s a norm of P5, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be pointed out. XP)

(btw I loooove how the entire game is always tries it’s damndest to devalue Kamo’s arc, just at any point it’ll try to contradict it. I’m being sarcastic there. I hate it. Esp since it’s the best arc, by which I mean it’s the most solidly/competently written, like it establishes itself well, no real contradictions, just solid, nothing really to fix, can still improve if they want but nothing broke. Next....I think would be the last dungeon in Royal....but I do have some issues with it hence why I rank Kamo just above it).

[koganeirou]

me before playing blue lions: haha I’m not like ~other girls~ I don’t like Dimitri and I think he’s boring and basic.

me after playing blue lions: I will die for Dimitri.

I finally finished Azure Moon!! Can’t believe it took me 4 damn months to finish this route. Just like with Crimson Flower, I decided to do a very long write up of my thoughts of this route after letting my thoughts marinate for a bit. There will be spoilers for both Azure Moon and Crimson Flower. Also disclaimer: these are just my personal opinions.

Tldr: this route was so fucking good!!!! I jumped ship from being team Edie/BE to team Dimitri/BL faster than Sylvain jumps girlfriends because I enjoyed this route more than Crimson Flower in almost every way possible. The Blue Lions are my KIDS and I will die for each and every one of them. Blue Lions may not be my first route/house, but this is where my heart rightfully lies. 

I guess the first thing I should get out of the way are the negatives. While this isn’t really a complaint about AM specifically and more so the narrative over the entire game... the conflict between Edelgard and Dimitri seems really stupid and contrived. In other games, war happens because the villain is evil. In this game, war happens because the villain is fucking stupid. Basically, I still ain’t convinced that Edelgard’s war was ever necessary LMAO. She straight up nuked the church’s authority and relevancy out of orbit the chapter before the time skip, so she technically already accomplished her goal; why she still feels the need to go on a savage conquest alludes me. 

Speaking of nuking the church’s relevancy out of orbit, that’s exactly what happened to Rhea LOL. Despite all the church goons clamoring every .5 seconds about how they gotta save Rhea, we literally never see her again at all after the time skip, even at the end of the game. It makes no sense why Edelgard would keep Rhea imprisoned and not kill her, especially when Rhea seemingly served no greater purpose to Edelgard and became completely irrelevant in the war phase.

Edie says some mumbo jumbo of “I weighed the victims of this war against the victims of the world and I deem that there will be less victims of war” like bitch, how??? How do you tangibly quantify “victims of this world”. If she means “people who had a shitty life because of shitty society”, then those people are always going to exist because every society has its flaws. Even if you change society, you aren’t decreasing that number because you’re only solving problems by creating new ones (Edelgard’s specialty). Also the mental gymnastics you have to do to be tortured by an evil organization only to team up with said evil organization to take down another organization that, unless I missed something, isn’t even directly responsible for the death of all your siblings??? In both CF and AM, Edelgard comes off as incredibly thoughtless and illogical in her actions and I can’t help but feel that if she had been just a little bit more diplomatic, then maybe, just maybe, she could have found a better solution without starting a bloody war.

This brings me to the god forsaken chat between Edelgard and Dimitri. Dimitri demanding to know why Edelgard started the war only for her to go “it was the only way” has about the same narrative weight as “Riku why did you become one with the darkness?!” “Because I’m the worst”. Instead of bitching about whose ~ideals~ are better, how about y’all sit down and actually discuss what each person wants to accomplish and maybe figure out a way to accomplish these goals without murdering each other over it? Not that I think Edelgard would accept anything BUT murder, but jesus, this is why you don’t leave diplomatic matters to actual children.

Speaking of why you don’t leave diplomatic matters to children, god that Gronder battle. I get that it’s supposed to be an epic showdown between the three houses that mirrored the mock battle pre time skip but... the Kingdom had literally NO reason to fight the Alliance!!! The reasons they provided to justify why the Kingdom and Alliance couldn’t team up at Gronder was so fucking dumb, especially when two chapters down the line, Claude is knocking at our door begging for help. I will say tho, I never knew how much I appreciated himbo in distress Claude until now lmao.

Rodrigue's death was also really poorly done imo. As much as I liked having Dimitri’s father figure be the one to snap him out of his insanity, (I love found father/son relationships...) how on earth are you guys so fucking incompetent that you let this tiny little girl kill Rodrigue??? It doesn’t help that the exact same thing happened with Jeralt and Monica. This... just ain’t it, chief. 

I think the biggest bone I have to pick at AM specifically is... so what the fuck is the truth behind the Tragedy of Duscur LMAO??? They literally blue balled me by dropping the bomb of “Dimitri’s step mom may have conspired in it” ONLY TO NOT DO ANYTHING WITH IT. I assume that the full truth behind the Duscur tragedy will probably be revealed in VW (I hope) because it involves the slithers but it’s highkey ridiculous that the BL goons... never actually find out what really happened, and why. And I get that the story is about them moving on from their trauma and the past, but they should have at least figured out the actual truth behind it so they can get the closure they deserve???

Despite the gripes I have with some of the writing, unless VW or SS is mind blowingly amazing, this route will easily stand as the best route for me, because.... it is kind of is mind blowingly amazing. I wholeheartedly love character driven stories, and this route absolutely delivers in that respect-- the character writing is amazing and is essentially the heart of this story. To think Dimitri and the Blue Lions were the lord/house I was least interested in at first. Even after hearing people talk about what the BL goons and Dimitri’s character arc was roughly about, I was still blown away by just how damn fucking good it was, and this route exceeded my expectations in every way possible. 

When playing CF, I struggled to connect with a lot of the beagles; I didn’t have that problem at all with the BL goons and the route does a phenomenal job at making me actually give a shit about these characters and their problems. Childhood friend squad (+Marianne and Ashe) are easily my favourite characters in this game by a landslide, and the dynamic between not only the childhood friend squad, but all the BL goons, was just so, so amazing. Watching these characters that are seemingly joined by a single tragedy, rise above all their suffering as they grow, heal, and overcome hardship together is just so... MY KIDS... MY HEART..... I really got the sense of not only their shared pain, but also shared intimacy, care, and friendship. Their support conversations with each other had everything; from goofy and fun, to soothing and nurturing, to painful and harrowing. 

The connections that the BL goons have to the pre time skip missions gave part 1 story so much more meaning, and it only gets better after the time skip. I really appreciate that the BL bean boys actually feel relevant to the main story, and that their input and opinions actually mattered. The cast’s struggle to come to a consensus on the best course of action during the war phase made them feel like actual people with opinions, unlike in CF, where everyone was just a mindless passenger to Edie’s not so merry joyride. This also made Dimitri’s arc way more impactful because the narrative actually holds him accountable for the consequences that his behavior/poor decisions had on others. What I also really liked about the war phase is that you could just feel how war torn the kingdom was and how much everything went to shit after the time skip. I felt really strongly to the characters’ sense of hopelessness at fighting a losing battle as they struggled to keep their home land in tact while everything just kept spiraling out of control and deteriorating further. 

So to see the BL goon beans slowly, one battle at a time, turn the tide of the war and push back against the corner they were backed in, was SO fulfilling and rewarding. The battle of Fhirdiad is probably my favourite battle in the entire game because it felt like all the suffering and toiling that the BL goons went through was finally worth it, and just watching the kingdom slowly heal after being liberated was just such a good feeling. This kind of payoff is something I think CF sorely lacked, since tbh, I struggled to celebrate Edie’s victories with her. Though I do appreciate how Edie’s a much more threatening antagonistic force than either Dimitri or Rhea were in CF too bad Edelgard’s boss battle was pathetically easy and Dimitri shredded through her armor like swiss cheese... at least Rhea put up a slightly challenging fight.

I could gush about the characters all day, but Dimitri? He makes this game, 100%. This truly felt like his story and he was the star of this route. On a superficial level, I’m a basic bitch as well as a slut for angsty boys who have trouble talking about their trauma because I want them to rail me. I fucking loved his feral personality it was just so fun to watch and interact with LMAO 10/10 would let him use me until the flesh falls from my bones. His dialogue in this state is just so demeaning, belittling and raw that it somehow comes a full circle and becomes charming I promise I’m not a sick masochist.

I’m also a degenerate and dimileth is my otp. The way the relationship between Dimitri and Byleth develops over the game truly felt like a bond forged over time. The way Dimitri admits that he couldn’t trust Byleth at first because he was put off by the way they could “kill without batting an eye”, to being so elated when he sees them smile for the first time that he’s completely mesmerized when they starts expressing emotion... oof, talk about otp material. I think what really sold me is the way he’s their anchor after Jeralt’s death; their emotional support both in a traditional sense, but also in a darker sense when he declares he will kill anyone so they desire it because their enemies are his enemies. Character A declaring they’d die for character B? Soft shit. Character A declaring they’d kill for character B? A+ romance right there, boys. 

On a non superficial level, Dimitri’s character arc of his fall from grace and subsequent redemption was absolutely phenomenal. Just seeing how far he sinks, how far he goes, only to see how far he climbs his way back up after hitting rock bottom, was such a roller coaster and I loved every minute of it. I also probably like revenge stories more than I care to admit. Dimitri has everything; blood lust, cruelty, obsession, but also empathy and compassion so extreme that it’s his very own innate kindness that drives him into insanity, which is what makes him such a compelling character in my eyes. The extremity of his psychosis was absolutely heart breaking, but despite everything, him making the conscious decision to change for the better and rise up to fulfill his role as king was just astounding to watch. 

I will say though... maybe I have a screwed up moral compass but tbh Dimitri brutally killing imperial soldires didn’t really upset me because... this is war??? That he didn’t even start?? Everyone is killing everyone??? Even if he never went feral, he’d still be killing because his bloody kingdom is being invaded?????? But I digress.

While I think just how damn avoidable everything was kind of detracts from the tragedy of his relationship with Edelgard, I still really loved how steadfast and unconditional his love for her was (after he stops going feral), and you can tell just how much she meant to him every time he spoke of her. I also love how the dagger kind of becomes a symbolic motif throughout the story, and Edie throwing the dagger at him in the final cutscene as a sign of her wholehearted rejection of him was just fucking depressing, but also very fitting of her character. 

I adore the whole overarching narrative and themes surrounding grief and death, befitting of a war game. How, as tempting as it is to constantly keep the memory of the dead alive, there comes a point where you have to move on and not let your life be ruled by those no longer around. The way that the characters react to the death of loved ones and grieve so differently was a huge highlight of the BL squad’s characterizations, which just makes them feel more alive and human. Honestly, no words can really describe just how incredible of an experience Azure Moon was.

Anyway my order from favourite to least favourite BL goon bean boys are: Dimitri > Ashe >/= Sylvain >/= Felix > Ingrid > Mercedes > Annette > Dedue. (I love Ashe/Sylvain/Felix almost equally LOL)

tldr my experience with Azure Moon:

tfw my second best girl is childhood friends with all the best boys in the entIRE GAME and she settles for a guy with a dead wife, daughter, and most likely triple her age :|.

I’ll be finally playing Golden Deer next, which I’m gonna do on NG+ Maddening so.... hope that goes well!!