#AND I KNOW THIS ISNT EVEN MAYBE A CALLBACK TO IT I KNOW I KNOW OK MAYBE IM CRAZY BUT LET ME HAVE THIS

[rox-of-iu]

heads up i finally scrambled together enough brain power and caught up with cultivate and i am not going to be normal about it and im going to make it everyone elses problem <33

[romsabombs]

malevolent part 46 the unclean live listen notes

SPOILERS BELOW

faroe jumpscare

is she haunting him lol

i cant believe he slept

"its probably an animal" u guys keep forgetting what podcast you're in

"you were sleeping?" "NO👹" defensive for no reason

stop hiding things from eachother challenge impossible

"it was just Things" 😐

what is blud yapping about😭🙏

LILY MENTIONED‼️

yeah yeah we know john we were all there🙄

cheesy ass episode where are the horrors

TRAIN STORY CALLBACK :33333

u dont have to remind me this story is bouncing around in my brain at all times

ooohh okayyyy music

arthur is not registering any of this let the man sleep💀

john praising lily for just doing her job is so funny to me

omgg :3 faroe is hanging out

no its not malam his ass doesnt sound like that

is he not even considering that it could be faroe usually he jumps at any chance to mention her

its disney pixar movie brave

shes guiding him?? showing him the way??

do u think they're fae

oh hes being compelled

"we shouldnt just sit here" ya thatd be a boring episode

hes fighting it

they're fae i faer

maybe just go the opposite direction

"what We're seeing" ok arthur

oh ermm😕😕

ANOTHER CULT??? COME ON😐😐

omg crying obsidian literally minecraft

oh dear a child. oh nvm He

its that dead child in the river isnt it

HAHA HE ROBBED THEM

arthur what happened to your decluttering mindset

HAHA YORRICK💀💀💀 they kidnapped his ass

oh his ass gonna is snitch on us

👹fuck mother darkness👹

"as unfortunate as that is" 💀

what makes u think he didnt lie to you about being the last of his kind

"we wouldn't be walking into a trap BLINDLY" "we'd be walking in with MY EYES wide open"

yorrick if you dont rat us out we'll buy you a lego set😇😇 or a chew toy

bro just dont follow him hes obviously just using the bag to bait you

ok dont get the bag guys r u dumb

STUPID!! DONT!!!! ☠️😠 guys i cant keep defending you

they will not ignore the lights bruh🙏

god we're only 19 minutes in

they're gonna die from this bruh

goddamn it john😭

oh no💀💀💀 man come on

they're cooked🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

wait is it actually okay i cant tell anymore

oh😕😕😕 BLERGH☹️☹️

naur the hunt got to him🙏

idk wtf is going on anymore bruh

okay ya its still a trap

dont drink that fucking water bruh i bet his corpse was in there

ofcourse it looks inviting bruh💀💀

they're what

💀💀 HAHA HE LEFT dumbasses

funny as hell now what

DONT DRINK IT HAHA ARE U CRAZY

it looks inviting again huh😐😐

NOOOOO💀💀 jarthur needs a babysitter bruh

"it leads men astray" only men huh😐 god forbid women have hobbies

HEART OF THE FOREST MENTIONED‼️‼️‼️‼️

they're trying so hard to be otgw

IN THE DREAMLANDS?

YEAHHHHH

omg i knew it'd come back

no guys maybe it's the same forest remember when u gave it your finger n u actually didnt need to and u said Lets hope they'll pay us back

FAE FAE FAE THEYRE FAE💥💥

mushroom smell is a core memory for him💀💀

HAHA WTF sillyness

william mentioned

what is his ass yapping about 😭

is this still a trap wtf r these mushrooms doing to him💀

hes dancing???? naur what the hell

hes cooked the fae got to him💀🙏

music is distorting ermmm😕

blud snorted too many mushrooms

WHAT?????? not the traumadumping

madness madness madness

man what the hell

☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️

man i thought he had a relatively good relationship with his dad😕

YOU DID WHAT😨😨

WHAAAT WHAT THE FUCK MAN

did the dancing exhaust him

😕 man what the hell was that

what the hell wait what now

its the king isn't it

this eppy is crazy man ill kms

the fae got to him‼️🗣️🗣️

EVERYONE SPEAKS IN YOUR VOICE BRUH THERE IS ONE VOICE

what is going on bru

WHO?? 🗣️ horick???

was the shrine for him then

bro is bargaining💀

wuh oh😕

WHAT😨😨😨

YOUNGER????? not again arthur💀

once a child murderer always a child murderer

is arthur pulling this guy's chain bru

nah he was definitely lying right😕

fym "what are you doing" what are YOU doing

he what. he slept?? i think arthur was just pulled away from him so he was like. unconscious?? maybe

they just keep making secret deals with evil gods🙄

oh man hes so ashamed

john trying to have a moment with him and getting shot down again

so whats the plan here are you just gonna go back to killing children

"us" hmmmmmm

hes definitely not gonna tell john abt the deal

oh he did. but not about the child part

YEA THE CORPSES RIGHT

yess i was right💥💥💥💥

yeesh😕

i like how in audio dramas the throwing up sound is always just some tin foil getting squeezed

what an episode. i have to pee so bad

MMMM REALLY not liking the theme im seeing in this season (children)

[ultimateloserboy]

every once in a while i think about that one interview where the creators of dhmis said that yellow guy was the only character capable of actually exploring the world. it makes me think a lot. especially about the big boys.

sometimes i think that maybe red guy and duck got stuck in the big boys rooms because of how bitter they are. in the creators own words, yellow guy is the only one in the group that is willing to actually look into things without being overly cynical about everything. red guy and duck slowly give in to the world, they slowly lose faith in being good people and see no reason to be good at all. they lose their hope for anything better. they eventually end up with a “this is as good as it gets” attitude. this is why i think there isnt a big version of yellow guy. because yellow guy NEVER thinks like that. with or without his batteries yellow guy doesnt think like the other two. they think too negatively to even consider a positive outcome, while yellow guy, as bonkers as he usually is, has a more reasonable look at things because he isnt miserably bitter

i know that the big boys recognize yellow guy when he walks in, i think the bigger boys even asked him where he had been or something like that. “we’ve been waiting for you” or something. i dont think this implies that yellow guy has a big counterpart, i think this is a callback to what yellow guy said earlier in the episode. he had a whole conversation about how the other two “arent in charge of him” despite what they may think. red guy and duck think that yellow guy will go along with anything they do. if they get bigger they expect yellow guy to as well. it might be because they view him as stupid, or it could be because they’re always stuck together so they assume he’ll be apart of everything they do, but either way they expect him to give up on the world like they do. but he doesnt. no matter what happens, yellow guy has the childhood wonder and curiosity that red guy and duck are too grouchy and old to have. thats why he finds the book, thats why he knows what he does and asks what he asks, not because of the batteries, but because hes kind. red guy and duck destroy themselves and each other. they think theyre sooo fucking smart but theyre literally doing nothing. just sitting around in rooms. but yellow guy has hope despite everything. i dont have faith that theres anything better in the dhmis world. honestly, im pretty sure in the same article i was mentioning earlier (although it could be a different one) its mentioned that the audience want yellow guy to be happy but he “NEVER will be”. and the transport episode really drives home (haha get it) the idea that theres really nothing better outside of the house. so even me as an audience member has lost faith, just like red guy and duck, but yellow guy hasnt and thats so sad to me. theres a part of me that wishes so bad that he’s right, that there really is something better, but as the creators said, there never will be

unless theyre fucking with us of course, which wouldnt be surprising

idk this shits confusing its all metaphorical and sad and all that gay shit

[eddiegettingshot]

honestly hoping and praying seeing nobody say anything good about the vertigo shit humbles tim to a point of reason

like 911 has always had goofy moments but they were at least grounded in reality? like streetfighting is actually a real thing. hell i actually know a few people who were struck by lightning and one of them survived and fully recovered! seeing a resemblance to someone you know in a stranger isnt far fetched to me but everything beyond the initial recognition and the actual meeting is just dumb

yeah like obviously lone star is crazy this show is crazy whatever but i think it’s the fact that the goofiness led into unparalleled misery i just know they’re never going to touch that kills it for me.

because i’m still stuck on this like … imagine if they had met kim on a call, so EVERYONE was there and could be like wtf eddie she looks like shannon, eddie even goes back to talk to her once but in that meeting realizes she’s nothing like shannon (maybe he even calls her shannon like a dosed callback to bobby calling taylor brook lol and she’s like uhhhhh), but now he’s triggered and having flashbacks/nightmares about life with shannon, he dumps marisol out of the blue and maybe she says something that makes him Think/indicates him being stuck on shannon, goes insane at the bachelor party probably, he tells buck about it later and buck, thinking back to s5 and even ep 1, is like eddie when was the last time you talked to someone? and eddie’s like i thought i was fine i really did. eddie’s not sleeping and maybe isn’t in a good place and he and chris get into a big fight about because of it (about shannon perhaps!) and he’s like ok i need to take care of this. ends up in some kind of bereavement counseling group where he meets amir and they get to talking because eddie connects with the stuff amir says. this is how amir meets bobby again and we get the eddie-bobby-amir lost in the desert plot (bc amir and eddie go to volunteer together) (minus the cartel) where eddie’s hallucinating shannon etc. and bobby and amir are reckoning with the apartment fire and so on. the finale would be About bobby (who perhaps had a heart attack due to idk dehydration and such) and amir. chris still hasn’t totally forgiven eddie by the end and he’s going away for the summer but he will be back he just needs some space. bobby’s still in a coma going into s8. no athena abuse of power, no cartel, no gerrard, no cruel eddie plot, no lazy cheating, no retraumatizing amir over and over. etc. but tim can have all kinds of shit w devin kelley 🤷🏾‍♀️

[ganondoodle]

why does it seem so impossible for theory people .. or any people really to even consider that rauru isnt the firstest of the first kings of hyrule, its been remade so many times already and the 'forgotten era of myth' might as well have included hyrule being forgotten; instead its always messing with the old titles and timeline and im so TIRED

is it rly some sort of complex to HAVE to connect the new stuff to the old titles somehow?? again i get that theorizing and all that can mean anythign but i havent seen anyone even bring up the fact that maybe, this is just a new hyrule and rauru was just the first guy on this one to call himself king, maybe the name hyrule survived but it didnt connect back to a kingdom so hey jsut thought thats a neat old name lets call it that, hell, maybe it was a surname of sonia even so he literally just called the kingdom after her not knowing its been called that since the beginning of time, wouldnt that be a cool coinsidence!! and also rly sweet of him!! like him being called rauru!! like a guy loooong long before him that no one knows of bc its been so long its long been forgotten he ever existed! isnt that cool and somber connection!

id also love if someone could just kinda ... consider botw/totk(uhg) as their own thing, like, i love the old titles, but i also love them as being done, their era has ended, this is a new era, what if we could just ... view this new era as their own thing without having to chain every little bit of dialog to the old titles

i really wish rauru/sonia never said they just founded hyrule, and zelda(i think) never called him the 'first' king bc apparently some people are unable to think oh this is a new hyrule and he was the first king of this one like i did but instead go into a rampage trying to make everyone believe totks past is somehow canonically right after fucking SKYWARD SWORD; like ... some people take every line of dialog like wayyy to literally, rauru probably THOUGHT he was the one who founded this kingdom bc he literally couldnt know any better with everything of the old stuff being so loong forgotten already, hes just some dude and not literal god who knows it all, characters can be wrong even when they believe they are right!!

(yes i am annoying about this bc i hate this on a personal level)

like .. i cant be the only one who thinks botw to be of a new era so long after all the old titles its basically a new world entirely, with no direct links to anything in the past, with references and callbacks from all old legends, but still a new world, without chains to the old, reoccuring names and happenings haunting it just the same as it did all the ones before them yet not being aware this has been happening over and over .... .. and, after it was said that oh rauru was the name of the 'first' king of hyrule, immediately thought oh shit he founded this new hyrule coolio (lets ignore how much i grew to dislike totk in general, i was hopeful still at that point) (lets also ignore how many problems totk alone has with its own damn lore for this ok, its its own mess that dragged botw into its mess but that doesnt mean it ALSO has to drag literally every single other game into its mess too)

[storiesofsvu]

happy thursday!

 Fuck me I missed the first couple of minutes, got too distracted cooking.. oop

Okay… would it not be SUPER random for the new lieu to just show up in the middle of the night in a crime scene? Ok, she doesn’t know, so maybe there is something weird going on. Still gonna miss kate though.

Howd they get that far into the crime scene and not know she was a prosector?

So brady’s already way more hands on than kate was, and part of me likes that and part of me doesn’t. cause I was always praising kate for being more of what an actual CO would be, trapped in the office with paperwork and bureaucracies rather than running through the field with their detectives. I do think I like brady so far but that could definitely change.  Not sure how the cops feel about that yet either LOL.

Ok well at least they gave us a reason Dixon left… would’ve been nice if we’d gotten that resolution on screen? Like give the actress a .5 second cameo??

Husband is ALWAYS the main suspect. Even if his alibi did check out (though Id still like a little twist…)

Ugh. Still hate price though.

“your girl’s got a bad attitude” bruh. Don’t come or sam, she’ll come for you worse.

Oh calm down Nolan, let your baby ada go a little feral. They all do it over on svu. Sam deserves it

God she’s so friggin pretty….

Shaw needs a bigger bullet proof vest that shit barely protects anything…

Okay so is sam like, going off to cry and not know how to deal with the rest of the case or is she about to go feral??

Well there’s still 20 mins left so maybe a twist is coming? (or at least more with sam which is what I want out of every ep lol)

Was that supposed to be an opening argument? Why was it happening at the end of the day? Im so confused, but hey whatever.

When are we gonna get a piece of Sam’s backstory that ISNT about her sister?

Okay, they EITHER need to show us some more mentor/mentee/sibling growth/relationship between sam & Nolan OR we need to get them both a side character to lean on in difficult moments. Cause rn it just seems weird and a little awkward. Like they work together every day but they never seem that *friendly* towards each other…

Welp. That ep was okay, it had potential to be better but I’ll let it slide lol. Mothership is never my favourite.

*

SVU time!

(man it is SO great to not have to sit through fucking Toronto anymore lol. Will miss OC though..)

Benson picking up the new girl? Oookay. Interesting, interesting, her dad’s a cop, nice background. Honestly I like her already MORE than I did based off just pictures.

Fins guns named after his ex wife or was that lazy writing?? OKAY GOOD! IT WAS A CALLBACK. Thank fuck cause im sick of shit getting forgotten about.

“why do I feel like the captain’s testing me?” said every rookie of the squad ever… like, youre new to the squad, of course she’s gonna keeping you on a leash/making sure you’re actually ready for svu.

I do lowkey like that we jumped into her time on the squad though, she’s already been there for 3 weeks rather than showing us when she originally met the squad, takes off some of the awkwardness/hostility that we usually see (hopefully lol)

Uuggggghhhh “campus security” COME ON. NO. we’ve learnt this already!  (plus I thought they were off campus? Could be wrong lol. I dunno what “off campus housing” technically means lol)

Who says shelly was the one to set it up??

“college is different these days” bruh… really??? Also there’s like 1000 reasons why she wouldn’t mention it, esp to cops lol.

“it possible teddy set up the camera” yeah bud, ive been saying this. Whoever was the first to move in was likely the person who did it.

Bruno looks great this season… just sayin

Okay so shelly really is the one who set up the camera??

Jfc that got out of control fucking fast

“UNY” gotta love how they have to shift specific things to fictional that are actually real things.

He downloaded the threesome and watched it at least six times before possibly heading over to murder them? Imma need a better timeline on all this. Okay, 1 am… the other dude came home at midnight to see the threesome starting. So… when were they killed? Cause this timeline aint timelining but I’ll let it slide due to lazy writing

Okay, I do really like the Silva is one of those true blood nyc-ers, especially being paired w Velasco that balances out really well for their jobs. The bit with the hammer was very old school svu, the whole “hey, that’s okay, we’ll bring you another one, a nicer one, even better I promise” would’ve only been made better if she’d turned to Velasco and said “give him a twenty for his time”. Lool.

Is there gonna be some last minute twist here…

Carisi looks fantastic in the blue suit

I cannot help but laugh on shows that aren’t R/NC rated when they have to show people having sex/doing things that they would obviously be naked for yet because it’s PG they’re all covered with a sheet. Like.. no one has a threesome like that LOL.

Carisi yells too much on the stand…

Glad that we got some nice benson/carisi bestie soft moments tonight. I miss those

Okay…so they’re trying out a new formula with introducing new cast members and I’m curious. Like, she’s already in the title card and has her own credit pic in the opening so she’s obvi here to stay for at least a season, but she was barely in the ep. We got little tidbits about her, got to see her interacting mainly with benson and Velasco, maybe I like that better than the way they normally throw someone new at us the same “day” they’re “meeting” the rest of the squad and going through that awkward rookie phase. It’s been almost a month now, she’s settled in at least a little bit, benson seems super friendly with her, she’s comfortable around benson, she’s cool with Velasco, not afraid to step on toes, but also doesn’t come across super cocky “I know more than you” kinda vibes when new characters pull something fancy out of their asses that no one else can think of kinda thing. I didn’t know how to feel about her from just promo pics cause she lowkey looks like a lost/kicked puppy in the stills but so far she’s giving good vibes.

Episode overall was okay. Not what I would’ve expected from a season premier, but I’ll take what I can get.

Feels weird to be done in 2 hours. Esp considering it’s only 8. I miss OC, mainly Bell. Also interesting that they’ve been filming just as long as the other two but they’re not going to air until next year?? I know streaming does shit differently than network but still. I’m stoked to see who gets the first “fuck” (it better be Ayanna but I’m sure it’s gonna be Elliot. Lol. Would absolutely die if it was Bernie though.)

Alright. Welp. That’s my tidbits on tonight.

Beth/Rita on next week’s OG and that’s both suuuuper fucking exciting and also makes me nervous at the same time. Here’s hoping it ends up well and I’d LOVE to see her and sam get some screen time together.

See ya then!

[not-souleaterpost]

20th century boys - scrapped reveals and plot twists?

Don't know if anybody cares about speculating something as hard to proof and irrelevant, but I had a few ideas while reading, which even if didnt come true, seemed to be getting hinted at and with how much was made on the spot I wonder if they were originally the plan...

So not really them mentionened besides random yt comments that may or may not be an alt account of me...

Spoilers of course.

Donkey was supposed to be friend?

Remember how Donkey was first introduced? As the weird kid others ostrociced and didnt really want to include, who actually was very smart and talanted all excentricitys aside.

And he was the first "friend" to die, as a classic misdirection - while having an obvious excuse introduced to fake his death "Oh all his siblings look just like him..." (Also the evil twin angel was really emphasised with the fat bully kids at the start, hmmm....)

Donkey was the one that had the skills and near supernatural abilities while being the classic story of a good kid cracking and turning - tieing the dark subversion if shonen magazine tropes.

His whole skepticism of things could tie into too with him cynically learning that "Oh people want to fall for superstitions for illusions, really friendship is fake as well, so why not start a cult, not like its hard for me to make some tricks..."

The symbol being sent by him would be than a cheeky hint, the intentional start of a goose chase, but no geese will ever outrun a donkey...Even all the showing of Donkey in the first half would not just be as motivation for the middle aged friend group, but a setup for this dark twist, while laying the seeds of the themes, maybe even having Dunkey in his twisted logic think he did it for their sake, to make them be the heroes they didnt become.

Oh and also the whole Aldrin Moon Nasa thing seems to work the best for him - with him being the stereotype of a "I fricking love science" kid (who if I dont misremeber is said to have actually wiaited till it happened and didnt fall asleep, but maybe Im misremebering that part) and also his familys lack of money stoping him from enjoying many activities with his "friends" (even having to watch tv with Kenji...)

Oh and for any "well how would he set it up, was the one injured guy lieing about what Donkey said before he threw him of??? Or was that all part of his plan??!"

And yeah its convoluted and kinda breaks the "trying to figure out a mystery without the author just lieing and pulling bullshit" part - but Urasawa does it anyways, with all the reveals obviously not being planned before getting changed again (as he admits)

Oh and also that applys to the "real" reveal (the first one) - we literally saw the friend guy have an emotional breakdown, say he knows who the real friend must be, remove the friends mask and say he isnt that and then fall to his death

So if the Dunkey twist goes against the story, so does the real one. "Ohnono, you just had to assume that he lied and hired actors for his family and then did a double misdirection plunge to the dead and-" Yeah ok Donkey could have done that too.

but for the other theory

Kiriko/the protags sister had a "virgin birth"

So remember when there was that random detail about "Godzilla being a girl and giving a birth without a father"? And how this godzilla thing getting a callback with the mom saying she is one cause her virus killed that many people?

Well isnt it weird that the actually weird part wasnt adressed? Especially when Kanna was mysterious from the start and that at the same time talks of a "Holy Mother" started, as did all the Christian imagery with saviors dieing, resurecting and the pope (with Catholics having the biggest connection with Mary...)

But then it didnt pay of - guess she really had a secret relationship with a random half-friend of her younger brother🤷‍♂️ Not saying that that is more fantastical than all the magic and conspiracys but still a weird detail, especially with the romance and relationship not being explored at all.

It even seems to be anti thetical, with the sister being very mature and selfless, while "friend" is childish and egoistical (well maybe a certain codependent weird thing makes sense now but ehh...)

Still what would make more sense in a dramatic story with supernatural elements - the model sister suddenly just having a kid and abandoning it without ever telling anyone about the father who she only found out was evil after having a consensual relationship which she didnt really have a reason to hide at the start

Or if she DOES have a miracle birth...

Like Kiriko was literally shown to be a perfect sister, doing everything for her brother, being responsible, taking everyones shit, even sacrificing her well being for her brother and others while having a stoic expression.

Maybe she actually did magically get a baby and that scared here enough to abandon it without explaining because who could believe it.

Or maybe something cause it, something she couldnt explain.

Like Friends "magic" or "science"(magic) - hence why Friend calls himself "the father" - he kinda is, in some way, indirectly, idk

Or, as a subtheory...

Kiriko was friend. Think about it, she would be "the father" if her research developed a way to create a child without a fathers DNA (I mean there is a magic anti-proton bomb, and the virus is also not really scientific), the "father" being the part of her that is the alter ego executing the plan, the magic and the tricks.

But more importantly, it would be the perfect obvious misdirection - they were so busy searching for a boy in their class, missing the obvious girl who was just a few years older, who may even in younger photos, if she could have had short hair as that other girl love interet with the dog as a kid had, may have looked as a standard early middle school boy.

And the thematic motivation would be perfect too - she allways just saw everything from the outskirts, she had to be the older and responsible one, not having a chance to ever play like her younger brother did, being resentful of not being able to have a secret base and alll, especially when the other girl could join later.

The scientific angel is there too, as the metaphor of "being in the space capsule while the others got all the fun and glory"

Also it would be a perfect hiding in a plain sight twist thing "Oh my sister disapeared and left a baby, I wonder who this mysterious masked individual is who seems to know me and my friend so much while even knowing the name of my sisters kid... Guess we'll never know🤷‍♂️" (bonus connection - the concert being "not real rock" could be the sis either trolling him on porpuse, or doing it as a intentional thing while also not understanding why it doesnt work, showing that there is this misunderstading between siblings that could get solves in the end)

[w1f1n1ghtm4r3]

followup fun facts about together, to that promised aquarium

this is gonna be just kinda a disorganized post of random things so uh. dont mind that.

the event title is actually a double reference ^^ its both a callback to 1dt with 1c promising to find time to do things as friends despite getting busier (even if theres no ichika this time), and also a reference to harusakis first kizuna!

colopale you still havent given us that aquarium they said theyd go to. theres a reason i had to do it myself. the fact that theres not an aquarium event in general is a crime tbh i know theres some romantic connotations with a pair going to an aquarium but theres very easy solutions to avoiding that? sending a group of 3+ characters together, having them run into other characters while there, inviting someone else along (even if they cant go, it helps make it feel more like a friend thing i think). i did a bit of the latter two, as you mightve noticed! in general though its just SUCH an obviously fun event theme i cant beleive we havent had one yet

while i am a known harusaki shipper, i kept the story pretty light on the stuff that could be read as explicitly shippy, since when im trying to make fake events, i like to think about how itd work in canon, which means keeping it low on explicit ship content. plenty of stuff that could be taken as ship food (as id like it to be!) but nothing that would alienate non shippers from enjoying the story too.

i actually didnt write shizukasas presence as intended for ship content at all though, but im definitely okay with people taking it that way lol they can be on a date too if you want them to be. my plan with them was simply theyre childhood friends too but dont get to spend time together that often anymore -> their schedules line up with a free day and tsukasa heard about the aquarium from saki, decides to invite shizuku to go there with him as a part of hanging out together -> surprise encounter with harusaki!

also both of them were scoring quite high on the form when i decided to lock in the lineup (tsukasa was absolutely sweeping the 2* category, and while shizuku wasnt winning anything, she was a pretty popular choice) and theyre very easy to work into a story together and also into a story that is focused on harusaki (╯▽╰ ) the benefits of siblings and unitmates

(tsukasa 2* poll sweep at the time of me solidifying my lineup)

the event and gacha names actually both came to me one night while i was about to fall asleep. struck by inspiration so strong i had to grab my phone and write them down in my notes app. and they actually worked very well! also heres the transparents of the logos if you want them i guess

the card/skill/costume names also mostly came to me in similar ways, in the last couple nights before i finished everything. i think only saki, luka, and shizukus skills didnt come to me that way.

while the rui fish in tsukasa card might be obvious, theres actually more animals referencing other characters too! theres a group of three fish in sakis card that are the colors of the rest of leoni, the sneakiest of the bunch, and also not quite as sneaky but maybe not as obvious as the rui fish is the airi and minori sea slugs :)

i did think about giving tsukasa fish to be emu and nene too, but that many differently colored fish in a 2* seemed like too much, so i didnt do it... at least of the units involved, 2/3 of them are fully represented in some way!

and now most importantly probably, is that this is in fact my second pass at an aquarium event! the original one i started back in 2022 and......... i think you guys can figure out why i couldnt just reuse it when i decided to go for making an aquarium event again this time.

yep, youre seeing that right. 4/5 of the characters i chose are the same as what ended up being 1dt, all i got wrong was the vs. thats pretty crazy, honestly. im still not fully convinced colopale isnt just stealing my ideas after val3 happened too /j

it was also saki focus actually! i had written out a rough idea for the story back then too, and while theres some similarities to the current one, it obviously went through a lot of changes when revising the lineup and also with everything that has happened in the story over the past two years. it was definitely a bit more explicitly shippy than my new attempt, although i still tried to keep the shipping stuff toned back somewhat

i only ever made one card for that set though, just lukas 2*... but thats the original reason i made the old 2* backgrounds! its always those fake events throwing me into the graphic design trenches (fist shake) i had been trying to do a more canon-accurate style to......... mixed success. its not terrible, but i definitely could not have done the full set like this. theres a reason i did promised aquarium in my own style!

the original theme for the set was kind of like..... performers at an aquarium? along with living water sculptures of animals. it was a fun idea, but i think i was much better suited to doing the underwater scenes of promised aquarium and also we have plenty of performance themed trained sets already ^^

considering i also technically kept her from the original set (plus she was also winning the vs poll), i gave her a higher rarity card this time around for fun. and also because i knew none of shizuku tsukasa or luka would have super significant roles in the story, and i thought it would be fun to design a lim hairstyle for her!

one final random fun fact: the thing that kicked me into gear making promised aquarium was the fact that haruka wasnt on beautiful sound. i was just a little mad that they had an underwater set WITH A PENGUIN COSTUME and there was no haruka. sometimes petty beef brings out my craziest motivations and then i proceeded to spend the better part of a month planning and making it happen.

[powdermelonkeg]

Hey do you think it's possible to fix how time travel works in skyward sword so that this link can be the first hero who fought demise in the distant past? The one from the legend I think Zelda tells us (but maybe it was someone else, my memory isnt that great).

Anyways, I'm curious because I think that's what we were supposed to think. That Link became the hero in the present, them went to the past, and by defeating Demise became the hero from the past.

So, for this, you've got two options, one involving Link himself being known, and the other being Link's legend. They've got different criteria, so it depends on what you're looking for.

If you want it to be Link that's acknowledged, with the caveat that you also subscribe to the belief at the end of the rapidly-fraying timeline post, then you can say that when Fi course-corrected the timeline, that that was a side effect put into motion to make sure Link still encountered the legend that would lead him downward.

However, if you want it to be the legend, provided you also want to go along with what's intended for the timeline (because I doubt they actually put any thought into all those possible splits in the chart), then you can look to the Ballad of the Goddess.

This exists, alongside the legend of the man the goddess gave a sailcloth to. And everything up until this point-

-was pre-determined. Link was supposed to win the Wing Ceremony, Zelda was supposed to hear a call for the surface, and so on.

The Ballad of the Goddess was meant to be a hint and guidance for the hero when he first starts out. He knows what his job is, what the end result should be, even with other stakes at play. So we can reason that Hylia had at least some limited future sight ability in order to generate these prophecies.

With that in mind, the above phrase that generated my whole Mudora theory could well have been the same thing—Hylia telling her people about what's to come, but either leaving out details so they think it's already happened, or time itself distorting the tale to change it from future tense to past tense as it's retold each generation. We know from Gaepora's meeting with Fi that the stories of the past are altered and missing pieces. So if you want to stay as true-to-intention as possible, I'd say go with that.

My own thoughts on this line below the cut.

Personally, it's the past tense that gets me hung up on this bit of dialogue; that the goddess gave the sailcloth back then. It throws me into speculation mode because I'm like "no, that hasn't happened yet, so that means it's happened twice!!!" which gives me a springboard to speculate what the world before Demise might have been like. It's also a line that could have been fixed with a single word.

You know, they say that the goddess promised the Sailcloth to her chosen hero long ago.

If they'd done that, there would be no room for questioning. I do kind of want to ask @sunnylaurels what the exact wording is in Japanese so I know without a shadow of a doubt that it's a dialogue error and not a mistranslation (after BotW's journal conundrum I no longer trust localizations) but-

The fact of the matter is, regardless of what's intended, I think it's more fun to speculate about an unknown predecessor to Link. Someone who tried, who failed, who was given a second chance, who was scattered to the winds of time to fulfill a purpose. It's a whole pocket where I can basically make up what I want, and the canon is just ambiguous enough to support it, which is amazing.

However, I also know that some theories, despite how they're technically canon-compliant, feel like they betray the canon to subscribe to on the basis of the Zeldevs' intentions. I know for a fact that the dialogue was intended to reference Skyward Sword Link. In a similar vein, I know that Breath of the Wild's 10k years ago are intended to happen after everything else in Zelda canon, or that nearly everything in Twilight Princess is intended to be a callback to Ocarina of Time.

I just have a serious case of "but what if THIS tho!"

[mihai-florescu]

Mihai. Mihai my enstars professor mutual. What the heck is going on with ryuseitai

Ok so i read some liveblogs but i havent read comet show or submarine so a lot of references to those were lost on me (im waiting for them to come to engstars) and thus im not the best professor for this story.

But the tldr is that there's an agency in Okinawa (same place Submarine was held in during the ss arc), Crimson Production, that opposes ES's monopoly and that's where a bunch of ex ryuseitai kids have gone to (theyre called Antistars). Tetora goes to help these kids and the media publicizes it as him leaving Ryuseitai. Shinobu goes to find out the truth, talks to Tetora about the opposing ideologies, the next day the news state that he also left Ryuseitai. So the rest of the group go to Okinawa to see what's up. They trespass, Tetora and Chiaki have an argument and fight, but dont worry, Tetora is a spy on the inside of CrimPro and needed to make his loyalty to them believable. Chiaki opens up to Tetora about his time in the war (i realise as i type this how ridiculous this game sounds to an outsider...)

This was a distraction for Kanata and Midori to find and free Shinobu, and to find papers to destroy the company. They get caught. The 5 are reunited inside the agency and Tetora reveals he is a spy for ES but he does genuinely want to help the antistars kids who are mistreated by CrimPro for being former ES idols. So CrimPro are evil and need to be destroyed but im a bit confused at this part ngl. Something something yakuza something something they actually kill people so it's super dangerous (i think this part has a callback to Submarine that im not getting). They cant go to the local police cuz the organization has inflitrated it so the only option for Ryuseitai is to renounce ES and join CrimPro.

While making the announcement theyre actually sending ES secret messages, dangerous stuff if they get caught. Theyre gonna hold a live for CrimPro which is a distraction for ES to intervene, and while theyre preparing for that, Tetora has a self hating monologue about his own skills and merits. He's not being self sacrificial bc he's a hero but bc he doesnt mind putting his life in danger::::)

At the live they discuss about roles and who's the leader. Tetora cant become Chiaki, but he can be his own person with his own skills, and like this maybe he can even surpass Chiaki. They keep their colors but those expectations of having to fill in Chiaki's shoes are going away. So anyway, back to the live, Ryuseitai had secretly sent back to Eichi evidence to condemn CrimPro and now he's ready to bust them down (i dont know if Eichi is there personally with the police or if he's just in charge from above... i assume the latter?)

They tell themselves that they're not harming people but just destroying the environment where the evil had spread (Chiaki compares it to the war, but i think he's being idealistic...people Did get hurt in the war too. There's a cenotaph for the students who killed themselves afterall...) And uh. Then we get to the epilogue, that I haven't seen translated yet. I assume they're successful (imagine if we went through all of this only for someone to die lmao)

So. Ta daa. Thats it. Erm. I know this isnt new to enstars but i feel like things have felt more dangerous and high stakes, especially in the ss arc and 1.5 (negi just. Faked being shot by a hitman. That shit was traumatizing. This is set after that). I dont really know what other stories we could get of Ryuseitai set in our current year if im being honest. This felt like Climax yknow?

Well, im looking forward to translations of this story cuz im not entirely clear on everything just with the livetweets. And looking forward to reading comet show and submarine when they come to the english server. Hope this was helpful^_^

[tiressian]

procrastinating at work, speculating on jjk 220 and 233 with the leaks ive been shown. 233 english translation isnt out yet as of me writing this. putting it under a cut to avoid spoilers

i've never thought 220 was out of left field - i don't just say that as a shipper lol

you get plenty of characters reflecting on their past/their relationships to others when the focus shifts on them. you even get characters contemplating happy memories that never happened (choso, todo, hell even jogo, maybe?). reading 220 without acknowledging the context, ie: the sorcerers are all in a desperate situation, and desperate situations have a nice side effect of forcing you to take stock - would sound 'off'. but it makes sense that Shoko'd reflect on his whole spiel about being alone, being in love at one point/possibly still being in love? (translation nuances are fun 10/10).

i really wanna know if in the timegap they talked. there's roughly a month between when gojo gets out and the fight. god i hope they talked.

220 aside, with the 233 leaks on how Gojo v Sukuna is going, love being the lynchpin/revelation that possibly turns the battle all the way in Gojo's favour wouldn't be too farfetched. he's been standing apart from everyone else as the strongest for so long, and Shoko's one of the few people from his past who was there when he started detaching himself. his revelation after toji was that he was some kind of godlike being above it all. he felt nothing when riko died. maybe the new revelation is attachment/love and he feels the full spectrum of being human, all the emotion, the mess, the connection that Tengen feels. goodness knows gege likes his callbacks. wouldnt that be a callback to witness haha. does Gojo evolve into a Tengen like being? man just imagine

Sukuna's thinking about 'love' too. He doesn't understand it. Jogo cries in front of him before he dies, and Sukuna is just like "what the hell is that" in reference to Jogo's tears. (218) Yorozu gets into Sukuna's head with the "I have much more to teach you about love and ultimate strength and the solitude it brings". Then there's yorozu'ss last words. Whether or not her last words was Yorozu speaking to Sukuna or Tsumiki speaking to Megumi with whatever it was she gifted him. Is Tsumiki going to help bring Megumi out of where he's being submerged with the power of love? Who knows. But it would be some kind of full circle for Megumi to be saved by her - because in his head he's been trying to protect her since they came under Gojo's care.

anyway speculation: probably gojo gets his revelation that has to do with being connected to others/love, and probably sukuna also gets a revelation about love and probably there's gonna be some clash in these beliefs

but definitely gege's gonna pull the rug out from under us and leave us all reeling and me running to take refuge in my AUs

[claitea]

some thoughts about pokemon violet. spoilers ahead!

there are. quite a few graphical glitches and messes whbejrvhr. sometimes trainers and pokemons eyes get stuck closed for a while, camera clips into the floor during battle, a sunflora i was in battle with and therefore Very Close To moved at a lower frame rate like other faraway entities. hough the homeroom scene..... almost everyone in that room looked so janky.

but tbh? i've been having too much fun to care too much about that specifically. the rest of the game is pretty :)

wish i could stop the minimap from spinning. i can lock the map app to north but not the minimap????

THE FOOD ILLUSTRATIONS ARE SO GOOD I WANT TO EAT THE ICECREAM SO BAD

rip pixel pokemon and item icons though </3 i find them more charming. also the icon for persim berries is too red and its bothering me, persim berries are PINK this is BRIGHT SCARLET

idk how pokemon icons on the minimap work either i'll be running all over the place it indicates and not find the pokemon its showing. i want a charcadet :(

i chose sprigatito but was THIS close to choosing fuecoco because of the first cutscenes. quaxly having to tell fuecoco not to eat the burnt orange whjegjevdj

miraidon my beloved asshole lizard who eats all my sandwiches. i gotta rewatch any and all miraidon scenes with koraidon when i'm done with the game, the first cutscene with the houndoom was SO COOL

PEOPLE WERE RIGHT ARVEN IS THE PROFESSOR'S KID

there were a couple nods to older games! a book in the library talks about someone seeing the stow-on-side mural get broken by a copperajah, another book talks about pewter crunchies, and the meditative seat art installation in artazon are items you could buy in oras as decoration for your secret base. i know every game has callbacks to previous ones but the stow-on-side one caught me offguard because thats a spoiler isnt it?? the other one surprised me too but more becaue Why do i remember this one specific base item. i havent touched oras in years

a library book also said Hydreigon and Volcarona got alt forms like donphan did and i need to see them IMMEDIATELY

as far as i've seen in the library, the pokemon that get those forms are donphan, tyranitar, volcarona, hydreigon. and Delibird. which i find hilarious bc its all these threatening scary pokemon and then. DELIBIRD.

WHY DID MY BELOVED LECHONK EVOLVE INTO AN EMO BOY

so far out of the new pokemon. the only design i dont like is spidops. spiops. i forgot how to spell it. where did my cute little yarn ball go :( maybe its just New Pokemon Doesnt Look Like A Pokemon Yet Syndrome but there is just SOMETHING about spiops's design that doesnt sit right with me

miraidon jumping is a little janky sometimes idk??? also i got stuck in a pond once and it could NOT climb out no matter where i tried. i had to fly out

i already like tera raids a lot more :') i HATED how max pokemon could shield and move multiple times and all that. i dont have online so max raids are damn near IMPOSSIBLE for me to do because the ai sucks That bad. i feel like with the time limit thing and infinite revives i could stand a chance doing it solo. this is just me talking about the early 1-2 star raids though idk how it'll go later on

i did get one odd glitch where my first attack didnt appear to deplete the hp bar, but then a few attacks later it looked like it had hp left but it fainted? my damage just. Didnt Show for some reason while still registering as damage

i think they fixed the overlevelling problem bc i was even getting my ass kicked by wild pokemon sometimes HKWBDJBF. i was cruising through fast like i'd gotten used to in xy to swsh, so i was actually underlevelled a lot. mela almost curbstomped me

THE CAR IS A POKEMON THEY WERE RIGHT ITS AN ACTUAL POKEMON

mela walks like manga emmet lmao

clodsire. thats it thats the bullet point <3

in conclusion i am having a BLAST. i absolutely adore this game so far!! i'm honestly able to overlook anything that bothers me just because i enjoy it a Lot. like of Course i still wish the subpar graphics werent subpar but Who Care look at my clodsire his name is Mousse and i love him

[selamat-linting]

i've been postponing my homestuck read for days now, focusing on other work and stuff. it was only yesterday that i stop doing my little break. here's my thoughts :

-post scratch world are fascinating. everyone is 15 and the parents are now the kids and vice versa. it seems like a mix between alternia and earth! Lusus exists but concentrated on jake's island, i've seen a lot of callbacks to earlier dialogues and certain troll only things like the quadrants being mentioned, and im pretty sure the rival baking empire was headed by the troll empress who found her planet destroyed.

-anyway, the parents?!!?!?! theyre now the kids? how does that work? dirk and roxy did mention their parents are dead so maybe the sburb alpha version of dave and rose just isnt in the picture but man i wanna see i wanna i wanna see. and now everything i know about the alpha kids makes me want to go back and look back on the beta kids interaction with their parents to go Hmmmmmmmmmmm

-that being said it would be extra screwy is the alpha guardians (grown up beta kids) are actually still alive theyre just absent cunts so the alpha kids resent them and believe the real ones are dead. Oh roxy, just wait until you see your child / mother.

-my thoughts on jane crocker : heartbreaking. the AU version of your favorite beta kid is a billionare 😭. to be fair all of them becomes rich kids in this alpha timeline lol. Okay jokes aside, im very concerned for her and use of crocker tech. Im with dirk and roxy on this. She's a pretty pleasant fellow though. Most normal person out of the crew. There is something very sad about them. Like, they dont get to have a semblance of a normal life or even participate in society for reasons related to the game before the game even arrived. Theyre prepped for this one grand adventure only and its more traumatizing than actually fun. if they won, the world still ends.

-roxy is so. she reminds me of my neighbors' kid who bragged about drinking CT (a local very strong alcoholic drink) but a girl genius. im just fascinated in general. a rogue of void? sleepwalking? owns many cats? she would have been a popular wizardposter on tumblr. i can tell her favorite banned wizard council spell is greater baja blast.

-but mostly im interested in the areas she sleepwalked in. im pretty sure i saw dead dreamself terezi or nepeta and karkat with a knight of blood godtier outfit but no eyes, indicating he's dead. and ofc gamzee and equius but he's still alive. wait he's wearing glasses so i have no idea. I thought this is one of those dream bubbles thing but im even more weirded out with dead godtier karkat. is the void is more of a place for abandoned possibilities? or did i just mistook things over here? rose was there but somehow thats to be expected. she's trying to awaken roxy right? what will roxy do with her access to the void? what will she stole from the depths of the abyss?

-and dirk. wonder what he finally saw at the skies of derse. he's the prince of heart right? the only heart player i know is nepeta and we never really see her powers in action. i cant wait to see whats in store for him. also, he's actually gay? AND A BRONY???? A BRONY??? i mean yea he fucking love puppets but we knew that since act 1. i have no idea how he became friends with everybody like he cares but he's also abrasive as hell to everyone, esp when he likes the guy a LOT. im so sorry for jake.

-jake is a lot more naive than john. which is saying something. and an accomplishment because he's like constantly hunted by literal monsters and death robots. everyday he's fighting demons barehanded but stay silly. i wonder how jade and jake could even get to know each other like, theyre not even in the same timeline.

-and UU. who the fuck are they? is it lord english minions trapping the kids? or what here? They look nice and cheerful but im very skeptical here. couldnt wait to see more of them

[seiwas]

i love this ari!! 🥺

characterisation is always something i look forward to when reading your works ari 🥺 i feel like you get it every time!!! i love little blurb explorations like this bc it feels like putting them under a lil microscope and that you did!!!

i agree that he's a bit detached 🥺 i see him that way too—a bit out of reach, y'know? neither here nor there. and i also agree that there's a softness to him when he's alone 🥺 you also have his mannerisms down to a t!!

and he was insistent, persuasive. awfully whiny. assuring you that he’d be quick, that you wouldn’t miss the next one. <- this is so like him omfg

i so love how you set up their dynamic; reader thinks gojo isn't very fond of them bc he's always a little less than how he normally is but... that's literally it!! it's because he's with reader that he's able to kind of let loose that way 🥺 that being said, i also like how reader isn't necessarily close to gojo but wants to be (i don't read a lot of works with this dynamic!!)—it's refreshing to me!!

deep within your chest, like a stunted seaweed, sprouts a tiny pang of disappointment. <- i love that you continued the theme of the sea!!! UGH so satisfying!!

”you’ll warm me up, no?” the words fall from your lips before you can think to reel them in... but instead come out sounding a little too much like an honest request. <- i screAMED at that you'll warm me line sdbj but also at the bit of reeling in words (bc again, it's so thematic!! so satifsying!!) and then there's the fact that it slips past reader's lips honestly instead of jokingly 😭😭

and it’s back. that grin. toothy, boyish. his cheeks are rosy, from the chill of the air, or so you assume. then he’s taking a couple strides forward, broaching the distance between you. <- rosy cheeks from the air or so you assume!!! (ofc u assume!! bc it isnt from the air!! no it's from you!!) UGHHHH i love this ari... and the bits describing how he's warm and cozy too 🥺 i always hc that gojo runs a bit cold, lanky and lean and everything but i still adore the idea that he is everything we don't expect him to be 🥺

(gojo glances at your lips. he wonders if they’d taste as salty as the air.) <- the repetition!! the callback!! i love that so much!! and to end it like this too 🥺 with the hope that they're both thinking abt each other the same way 🥺 ugh mY HEART!!!

their dialogue is so cute!! and there's also so much in the unspoken and you know how much i love that 🥺 and how reader views gojo is sos o so precious my heart is crying sdbgas:

gojo honest to god giggles, at that, and you fear your knees might give out beneath your weight. fuck, has he always had dimples? why are you only noticing them now? <- this line HAD me lMAO it's soOOO vulnerable and raw and real. crying just thinking abt how cute he is rn

gojo’s eyes widen. ever so slightly, barely enough to even notice, until they bloom — with a kind of bubbly excitement. unconcealed giddiness. there’s something awfully precious about it, like a child buying cotton candy at their first fair. it makes you want to tuck him into your pocket. keep him safe. <- i feel so much of your affection for him here and 🥺 aaaah this makes me so emotional ari udek 🥺 just want him to stay like this forever!!

as always, your descriptions are always so vivid in your writing!! you have such beautiful prose 🥺 i have so many favourite parts!!!

satoru gojo is an anomaly, a blurry cluster of stars. or maybe more like a planet, big and blue, spinning around its own orbit, out of reach for every single star in the sky. <- i am such a sucker for space related descriptions too 😭

something that almost seems fragile, under the light of the moon, when the dark sky casts a shadow to obscure the contours of his face and no one’s around to notice if his smile isn't as big as it should be. <- idk if u intended it for this, but the visual this gave me was kind of like the waning (or waxing? i always mix the two) of the moon!!! how the shadows move around his face that way 🥺

summer’s ending, burning into little cinders, sputtering out before your very eyes + the rusting of leaves, contaminated by a muddy hue, turned orange and brown and red beneath your heavy feet; littering the murky, empty streets of the rainy towns you cross. <- your descriptions for the seasons were so vivid!!!! i love that so much!!

everything smells of saltwater. a little like rotten fish. every breath you exhale turns into a flurry of vapour, mingling with the breezy seasalt of the open air; scattering away into the thin layer of mist all around you, until you can’t tell which is which. <- i also adore this so much. i feel like i haven't really read a lot of sea/beach descriptions that are like this, and i love it bc it's so real 😭 this rlly is what the sea smells like, and it isn't all that pleasant 😭

 in tandem, the two of you, stuck within that shade of blue.  <- such a pretty line!! but i also love it because, despite all he is, he still has it in him to be amazed, y'know? a little mesmerised at the sea 🥺

then the end bit:

you like him, unfortunately. inevitably. you think you may even like him a lot, a little more than you should. a little more than he could reciprocate. <- this line hurts as much as it heals, because, 'a little more than he could reciprocate' & it all ties back in to the first point, that he's a bit detached, out of reach—unavailable really. and it's sweet that reader likes him, but it's also so so sad that that there's a limit to it, like an upper ceiling that matches the capacity gojo can handle.

this was such a lovely read ari 🥺 so refreshing and of course, so well-written!! i am going through your works little by little and enjoying every bit of it 🥺

gojo always seems to be off in a world of his own.

a little detached, you think. awkwardly long limbs constantly on the move, eyes stuck in a direction no one else can follow, a trajectory you don’t think even he knows. one blink and he's gone, just like that. too far ahead, too far above, even on the occasions he slows down and lets you catch up.

flimsy, maybe. like he’ll get carried away by the breeze when spring rolls around. like he’d turn into seafoam if you reached out and touched him.

satoru gojo is an anomaly, a blurry cluster of stars. or maybe more like a planet, big and blue, spinning around its own orbit, out of reach for every single star in the sky. 

high and mighty, cocky and cool. silly and bright. but there's a softness to him when he's alone, you’ve come to learn. something that almost seems fragile, under the light of the moon, when the dark sky casts a shadow to obscure the contours of his face, and no one’s around to notice if his smile isn't as big as it should be.

no one except for you, anyhow.

(you wonder if your presence is really that inconsequential to him.)

the beach is entirely empty, save for you and gojo. and summer’s ending, before your very eyes, sputtering out. burning into little cinders.

tokyo is just beginning to dip its toes into autumn, the frost and chill, the hiss of the biting wind. the rusting of the leaves, contaminated by a muddy hue, turned orange and brown and red beneath your heavy feet; littering the murky, empty streets of the rainy towns you cross. smelling of rotten apples and cinnamon, old books and burning wood.

it’s dark out. painted a thick gray, the sky is blanketed by heavy clouds, the entire world hidden behind that coating of wool. not a single sliver of starlight slips through, but there's a comfort to it, that feeling of being cocooned — safe and warm. a feeling cruelly stripped away by the nipping of the wind at your bare skin, but you digress.

everything smells of saltwater. a little like rotten fish. every breath you exhale turns into a flurry of vapour, mingling with the breezy seasalt of the open air. scattering away into the thin layer of mist all around you, until you can’t tell which is which. 

a sense of foreboding sinks into your veins.

(you look out at the jagged rocks piercing the surface of the sea, and dully wonder how they’d feel piercing your skin.)

something shivers, to your right. a flicker of movement, a barely audible chatter of teeth. and then, a white puff of vapour.

”man, it’s cold.”

gojo looks displeased. 

only vaguely, a little crease between his eyebrows as he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his puffy baseball jacket. moving his feet a little, to warm up, snowy tufts of white hair tousled by the ocean breeze. his shoes are muddied by the wet sand, but he doesn't seem to mind.  

a soft scoff leaves your lips, mostly harmless. maybe just a little smug. ”told you,” you click your tongue. 

gojo whines. his sunglasses are starting to fog up, you notice. ”it’s still summer!” he pouts. ”i thought the sea would be nice and breezy!”

an unimpressed look smooths over your face. gracing him with a raise of your brow, you don’t fully manage to bite back the soft smile that follows. don’t even really attempt to.

it’s been a long day. evidently not long enough for gojo, seeing as he dragged you down here — even though he knew it meant missing the train you were supposed to board after successfully finishing your mission. he just had to get a closer look at the sea. just for a moment or two. 

and he was insistent, persuasive. awfully whiny. assuring you that he’d be quick, that you wouldn’t miss the next one. 

(what made you agree was simply the thought of spending some more time with him. not like you could ever tell him that, though.)

so there you stand. two juveniles, shivering and shifting from foot to foot, on the brink of nightfall, the edge of summertime. watching the sea stretch out into infinity, across the gap between this world and the next. a murky blue. easy on the eyes.

the noise of the sea fills your ears; waves crashing into the sand, the whistling of the wind, seagulls crying out in the distance. and faraway, the chatter of a rattling train. a cacophony of sounds, buzzing and crackling, melting together. 

scattered across the beach are countless tiny white seashells, and the occasional green glimmer of a glass shard. mermaids’ tears, shed for lost sailors — or so you’ve heard. you wonder if the mermaids ever shed tears for lost sorcerers. probably not.

a shiver runs through your body, down to your cold hands, the tips of your fingers. reddish and itching for warmth. you tuck them into your pockets with a breathless exhale, still shaking a little. 

you and gojo aren’t very close. you’d like to call him a friend, but it's hard — when he's so enamored with suguru, so animated around shoko. with you, he always seems kind of —

stiff? 

or maybe more like bored.

he doesn't laugh as loudly, doesn’t act as cocky. doesn't flaunt his knowledge on sorcery, and isn't as clingy as he is with the other two.

(you've never liked people touching you. it's not hard for other people to discern, with how you flinch away when they get close.

still, you can't help but feel a little jealous when you see him tugging suguru and shoko around.)

sprouting deep within your chest, a tiny pang of disappointment. it’d be nice if you could grow closer, you think. just a little would be fine. 

”i like the sea.”

you turn your head.

gojo looks a little lost in thought. gaze trained on that expanding ocean before you, those splotches of blue and gray, the waves that bruise the edge of the sand. forlorn, maybe.

a hum buzzes in your dry throat. ”do you?”

”mm.” little white breaths slip from his lips. you wonder if they’d taste as salty as the air. ”’ts nice.”

a silence stretches out before you. delicate, like a sheet of glass. gojo picks at a piece of lint on his sleeve, and you shift from foot to foot. then he closes his eyes — a flutter of his dewy eyelashes.

”kinda makes you feel like everything’s about to end, huh?”

you look at him, but don’t see anything. a single glimpse of his closed eyes is all you gain from the glance you send his way, but it’s not enough. not enough blue to fall into, no expression to savour. he looks the same as always.

but you’ve never heard his voice sound like this before.

”… end?”

and with that, they flicker open. there it is, you think. that vibrant blue. only to be obscured once more, when he turns to you fully, a smile playing at his glossy lips. ”don’t think so?”

a second passes. you look forward.

what you see is as follows: waves upon waves upon waves. the same blue and gray, as far as the eye can see. a sea big enough to drown each and every one of your worries. 

something comes over you. a sensation of loneliness, something close to longing. a feeling of being rather lost. searching for something. your eyes trail over those jagged rocks, again. the mermaids’ tears, that all-consuming sea. right in front of you.

you think of the lost sailors.

(one jump and it’s all over.)

”… i guess i get it,” you breathe. salty on your tongue. a soft murmur, mingling with the mist. 

silence.

out of the corner of your eye, you see gojo shift. one moment he’s looking at you, the next he’s staring at the sea. in tandem, the two of you, stuck within that shade of blue. and you think he looks a little mesmerized, like he’s seeing something not even he can fully comprehend.

(maybe he just hasn’t had many chances to go to the beach before. something to do with being a clan kid, maybe?)

but then he clears his throat, hands moving to brush some sand off his puffy jacket and jeans. turning on his heel, hair ruffled by the breeze. he tries to sound chipper, but there’s something else there. you don’t know what it is, but…

”anyway,” he chirps. ”let’s go. we can still make it to the next train if we hurry.”

you look at him. his retreating figure, a head of white hair, surrounded by mist. a little like an apparition. then you turn towards the sea.

”… nah, that’s fine.”

a pause.

gojo stills, just about to take the first step forward. but you stay rooted in place; unmoving, staring at the blue before you, a deep longing reflected in your eyes. 

”let’s stay a little longer,” you hum, unsure of where the words came from. but you know you aren’t ready for the moment to end, just yet. that you aren’t quite ready for summer to pass.

…

all he does is stare, for a second or two. attempting to find some humour in your voice, you assume, any signs that you might just be joking. but he doesn’t find it. uncharacterstically silent, gojo stays frozen in place. 

then he puffs out a breath — amused. 

”you wanna freeze to death?” he grins, and you can hear it in his voice. you turn to face him, almost smiling. a little cheeky.

”you’ll warm me up, no?”

the words fall from your lips before you can think to reel them in. meant to sound a little snarky, you think, something akin to a chuckle — but instead come out sounding a little too much like an honest request. 

the tips of your ears feel a little warm, suddenly.

a sense of surprise smooths over the contours of gojo’s face, and his grin falters. you can’t see his eyes, can’t tell if they widen or not, but his lips part, and you note that they look soft. 

and it’s back. that grin. toothy, boyish. his cheeks are rosy from the chill of the air, or so you assume. then he’s taking a couple strides forward, broaching the distance between you.

he throws an arm over your shoulder. a heavy weight against you, grounding, causing you to stumble. friendly, tugging you close. into his orbit.

(no infinity, you note. you can feel his body heat seeping through the fabric.)

it's nice. he's tall, and he's warm. cozy, protecting you from the bitter cold, like your own personal furnace. no wonder suguru never catches any colds, with someone like this draped over him all the time.

gojo speaks. there’s a sweetness to his voice, a mellow kind of contentment; bubbling up like seafoam, spilling from his glossy lips. you can feel his warm breath on your skin.

”well, duh.”

when your gaze falls on him, he's already looking at you. leaning closer, sunglasses slipping a little further down the bridge of his nose — enough to expose the blue of his eyes, the tiny splotches of white scattered across his aquamarine iris. like a cracked marble. or a summer sea.

he’s speaking again, and you almost don't hear it. distracted by those cracked marbles, the strawberry red of his cheeks, the warmth shared between you. the pitter patter of your heartbeat, like waves crashing against the sand. mesmerized. not daring to look away.

almost like you’d cease to exist, were he to close his eyes. like your existence hinges entirely on the blue of those irises.

(and maybe it does.)

he nods towards the sea, and grins. a mischievous glint in his eyes. ”wanna take a dip?” he asks, and you can’t tell if he’s joking or not. it makes you laugh, either way.

”do you want to freeze to death?” you raise a brow, exhaling amusedly. subtly angling your body closer to his, hoping he won’t notice.

gojo honest to god giggles, at that, and you fear your knees might give out beneath your weight. fuck, has he always had dimples? why are you only noticing them now? 

”hehe. i just think it'd be fun!” he chirps, still draped over you like an overgrown cat, and you almost find yourself saying yes. just to keep the summer from ending, keep him from being swept away by the breeze.

but summer is ending. slipping away, second by second, like two juveniles drowned by an ocean wave. never to be found.

and in comes autumn, the smell of rotting apples, the crunch of sand beneath your feet. an arm over your shoulder, an intake of breath; the taste of nice, crispy air on your tongue. 

a chuckle flows from your lips. all you see before you is blue, a murky shade, a vibrant hue. you think you could drown in it. you’re not sure you’d mind.

”maybe next time,” you whisper.

gojo’s eyes widen. ever so slightly, barely enough to even notice. then they bloom, with a kind of bubbly excitement, unconcealed giddiness. there’s something awfully precious about it, like a child buying cotton candy at their first fair. it makes you want to tuck him into your pocket. keep him safe.

you like him, unfortunately. inevitably. you think you may even like him a lot, a little more than you should. a little more than he could reciprocate. 

satoru gojo. high and mighty, cocky and cool. silly and bright. a seaborne boy with his very own orbit, born to carry the weight of the world, spinning so close that you can almost delude yourself into thinking he feels the same. 

almost.

(gojo glances at your lips. he wonders if they’d taste as salty as the air.)

[thequeenoffishburrito]

(This is just going to be some autistic rambling over here. I tried to word this properly and make it sound coherent but really it's a mess and kind of apparent i dont fully know wtf I'm trying to talk about so feel free to ignore. I just had to get these thoughts out of my brain cuz on one hand I feel like I'm going crazy like I cant be the only one who sees it but maybe I'm just dumb who knows.)

If I have one grievance with Elphelt in strive it's that her throwback skin (skin 2) is a bit of a let down.

Like this is her regular outfit/skin

White hair with pink jacket and accessories. Beautiful, they go together, immaculate.

Like the majority of the strive cast, her strive outfit is a MAJOR change from her previous design and the outfit looks more like normal everyday clothes you can find in a store rather than a costume with extra elements sewn ontop of it. (Doesnt mean I dislike her xrd deisgn tho, the opposite actually, I absolutely LOVE IT and is one of the reasons I got into guilty gear to begin with) .

Now when she was announced of course I had hoped shed get a callback to her old design and of course they did!!! However I have some issues with it...

Now it seems fine for the most part, white with pink accents/elements, which normally yes, should work, but the white jacket on white dress, (not to mention she has white wrist bracelets even though her chocker is pink) doesn't look that all great. It's all too white.

Like I get it, they want to keep the colour scheme like her xrd deisgn, but her xrd design is supposed to be reminiscent of wedding dress. The white long sleeves she has are supposed to be the fighting game equivalent of wearing a shrug/bolero to go with the dress.

In strive she's a death metal singer, thus sporting a leather jacket, choker/wrist bands fingerless gloves, and shes covered in spikes (though the petticoat puffing up her skirt also adds a bit of a "cutesy idol" look).

My point I'm trying to make is unlike a her xrd design where the white shrug goes well with the white dress, blending together in a sense, here it's like more apparent they're 2 pieces and because there isnt enough pink on it, it just doesnt look that great. I understand the sentiment of not wanting to put a full pink jacket but I feel like they could've still added some pink accents to it. (Apologises for the shitty edit below)

If they just added pink accents under the jacket and maybe even made her bracelets/thigh highs pink it would've looked SOOO much better imo because M A N. I love her xrd design so much, and while I love strive deisgn I missed her pink hair and seeing the throwback skin made me a little sad.

Tldr, idk who at arc system works did the throwback skin for elphelt in strive but they shouldve added pink accents to the jacket and such cuz the white on white hurts my eyes.

[ganondoodle]

feeling much better now having gotten some sleep (the dont trust how you feel about yourself past 9pm is good advice no joke)

of course all my criticism of totk still applies but im feeling less depressed about it, tho i will say its honestly kinda baffling how many times the game actually got me interested and excited about stuff and then just kinda drops it in a dead end, of course they were those kind of things in botw as well but it seems much less .. balanced in totk

(not even just the big things like making me want to actively do something to help zelda turn back when it just gets solved on its own in the end, but also some lil things like the fact that so many NPCs tell you about that newly discovered animal species and when you find the dongos they are just gem vending maschines)

in the end i can say, no, i dont like totk, tho i still love the graphics and the way the world is made ( botw showed me jsut how immersive and alive a world can feel i love it to death), i liked the gameplay and that it kept the freedom botw had established, the bossfights are mostly fun (tho i wish you could refight more of them), i LOVE the yiga and im glad they got more of a spotlight, the music is FANTASTIC i keep catching myself humming along, alot of the sidequests are much bigger and feel like you are actually doing something, i like how the sages are a bit more integrated into the story, the majority of the new designs are great, both the japanese and german voice acting is great, and the end fight has some of the best build up i have ever experienced, my heart starts to race when that music build up starts even tho i have beaten it 3 times already-

however, the story is both simple and incredible flat with lots of stuff that doesnt make sense especially when it was said to be a sequel, the zonau should have stayed a mystery imo, they failed to make me care about them even a little bit and often felt forcefully crammed into the world and its history, i think you could have told an incredible story taking place in the present and leave the past be the past, you easily could have connected botw and totk in a much better way than they did, i dont like how it changes aspects about botw all the while nigh ignoring it ever happened, it still feels like it was trying to be a replacement and not a sequel and all the referencing and callbacks to the old titles may have been done in good faith but that and including time travel yet again ultimately lead to people ripping each other to shreds over trying to prove its placed in the old timeline despite it making no sense at all and confusing people even more; often when the game made me care or be excited about something it was dropped in a dead end, there was a ton of missed opportunities and lost potential to tell a much more nuanced and interesting story/lore, and thinking about it only makes me sad for the things that could have been

overall i think my disappointment is outweighing my fun and the only way i can keep playing it while having fun is ignoring everything that isnt, which works quite well most of the time since im pretty much done with all story stuff but i keep slipping into my little rants nonetheless; i will say its making me a little worried about the future of the franchise, but i know im in the minority and maybe i will just have to accept that the new stuff wont be for me anymore and i should not hope for anything that interests me xD

except for some meme material or specific characters i love i dont think i will make much use of anything totk tried to establish, and i hope thats fine with the lot of you (<3) hopefully that also means my ranting days are over xD

anyway, back to making niche art i go! (sorry for making you endure these long ass rambling posts :,) )