#AND I SUCK AT PLAYING ENTER THE MATRIX

[sadko101]

can't believe what started my matrix special interest was in year eight religion class when we were doing knowledge and i watched the first film... if only i knew then what i know now.

[magicveiled]

nah because you know that one song from the death note musical about cooperations blowing up on tik tok michael as a bard would be throwing a giant flash mob outside of gortash's place singing that song whole gortash just looks out his window like: wtf is this seriously the twink that's got the absolute MY absolute on the backfoot?? Jfc the hero of baldurs gate is a tHEATRE KID

[tobiasdrake]

A Comparative Look at First Cases

Okay, before moving on to 3-2, I want to take a moment to go over the First Cases. I feel like I should break this down into categories to make it simpler.

Okay, let's start with the motives. Motives are a lot of fun. They can be captivating and mysterious, with overarching effects that may not be clear at first glance but ultimately compel the murder.

I need to clarify that we're talking about capital-M Motives provided by Monokuma and not necessarily the specific, individual rationale for murder that the killer interpreted from it. That will come up when we talk about killers.

Best Motive: 2-1 - The Missing Past Sometimes simpler can be better than overcomplex, and that makes 1-1's Motive fairly strong. "Your loved ones are in danger; That sucks." Straight to the point. Who will be driven to murder by this?

But 2-1's Motive manages to take that simple Motive and mold it into someting that's intriguingly esoteric. Taking the grand reveal from 1-6 and frontloading it into 2-1's Motive disguises its true menace. It keeps the sequel plot moving without having to retread too much, while still delivering a rationale for murder that nonetheless ends up being every bit as hard-cutting and personal as 1-1's.

Worst Motive: 3-1 - The First Blood Perk I already went on a tirade over this but suffice it to say, the First Blood Perk is one of the most interest-terminating Motives in Danganronpa. A good Motive should make you wonder which character's particular psychology is going to interact with the Motive in a way that moves them to murder. This Motive just makes you wonder how they're going to cop out of it.

Ah, but what's a Motive without the rest of the events leading up to the case? Hanging out, being sociable, and trying to defeat the Mastermind. Let's talk about best build-up.

Best Build-Up: 3-1 - A Plan to Thwart the Mastermind All three build-ups center around two major things: Learning about the Killing Game and our fellow players, and getting to know the character who's about to betray us in a big way: Sayaka, Nagito, and Kaede.

Of the three journeys these sets of characters undergo together, Kaede and Shuichi's plan to undermine (and, secretly, assassinate) the Mastermind is immediately investment-grabbing. And while you can spot signs of Kaede's impending plot if you're observant enough, it's not quite as obvious as Sayaka's meltdown and plot to frame Makoto.

Worst Build-Up: 2-1 - Entering the Neo World Program To be honest, this was a toss-up between 1-1 and 2-1. The time we spend getting to know Nagito hits a lot harder given how much more important of a character he's going to be than Sayaka.

But the clincher for me was actually the opening minutes of the game. One of DR2's biggest reveals is that we're in a simulation, but they front-load the game with a lot of Matrix effects that give away the trick immediately as you begin playing it. The opening minutes are the disappointing 11037 clue of DR2, but made worse for being too obvious about a major endgame reveal.

Best Blackened: 3-1 - Kaede Akamatsu Okay, I know I've spent multiple posts complaining about this and it still does piss me off from the perspective of overarching game design choice. But given how intricate and fascinating her murder is and the way it plays so hard on established character traits and relationships, I'd be remiss not to acknowledge her here.

The best murders are the ones that are rooted in characters. That stem entirely from the way the character's identity, personality, and relationship to other characters interacts with the provided Motive. You should always come away from the killer's identity reveal feeling like it not only was this person, but that it could never have been anyone else. It was always going to be them.

Kaede's well-conceived but poorly-aimed plan to kill the Mastermind is a perfect example of a masterfully executed interplay of personality, motive, means, and opportunity coming together in a way that feels true to character and heartbreaking to discover.

Worst Blackened: 1-1 - Leon Kuwata

It's hard to choose between Teruteru and Leon here, because they're in a similar boat. Teruteru has an interesting motive for his involvement, but one that doesn't get examined until the very end in a bid for last-second sympathy. Saving the killer's interesting character traits for FTEs and a last-second revelation is a recurring problem in Danganronpa.

Conversely, Leon doesn't have much motive at all. He's a strong candidate for least developed character in Danganronpa. He was selected more or less arbitrarily by Sayaka to be her intended victim and then killer. He is so utterly divorced from the events of the crime that she had to scrawl his name on the wall for the sake of creating any reason in the world to suspect him. The only reason he's even here is because he thought she was hot. Which also doesn't get examined much outside his FTEs.

But between the two, I feel like Teruteru has more going for him. His fear for his mom makes for a stronger motive, even if we don't find out about it until the very end. He's only slightly better developed than Leon, but his integral role as team chef also plays into the mystery a bit more strongly than Leon "can chuck things through the grate" Kuwata's did.

Leon is Danganronpa's first attempt at writing a killer. And while his switcheroo with Sayaka is interesting, it nonetheless shows.

Best Victim: 1-1 - Sayaka Maizono This is another one that's very hard to call. Sayaka and Imposter Byakuya are both strong contenders for best victim.

As characters, all three first victims coast on external expectations that you carry into the game with you. Expectations of a Maya Fey type character, expectations of Byakuya Togami, expectations of an Ultimate ??? mystery.

What puts Sayaka above Imposter for me is that ultimately, Imposter never feels like more than an archetype. He's the leader, he's brave, he's valiant, he's selfless... He's, honestly, unlike his namesake in the way he takes charge and cares for others. But he lacks any sort of personal connections to the other characters. When he dies, his cause of death is simply "being too heroic".

Sayaka is more interesting because her character writing is deeply personal. We spend a lot of time not only developing who she is but her relationship to protagonist Makoto. She compares more to Kaede than to Imposter or Rantaro, because we get to watch her make an emotional journey over the course of the setup.

When Byakuya turns up dead, he dies fulfilling both his archetypal identity as the heroic leader and his horror role as the Horror Ace who must be killed in order for the story to begin. But when Sayaka turns up dead, it's a genuine twist... Whether you "knew" she was going to commit a murder or not, it's still shocking to see her show up as a victim.

For the short time we had these characters, Sayaka feels like she managed to do more to concoct an interesting character journey than Imposter or Rantaro did, and that's why I have to give this point to her.

Worst Victim: 3-1 - Rantaro Amami Rantaro's the other major candidate for least developed character in Danganronpa. There are things there to enjoy if you're willing to put in the work to find them but, for the most part, he's just. Sort of. There.

He's a nice guy surrounded by a lot of question marks, some of which will be explained far later in the game and others that won't be explained until post-game bonus modes. Wreathed in similar secrecy to Imposter, but lacking Imposter's captivating exterior intrigue. Rantaro has the energy of a random person who accidentally wandered onto the set and now everyone else has to roll with it.

He has a cool character design and he's nice, but he isn't here to stay and he's written like it. The others have complex and fascinating over-the-top characteristics and Rantaro is nearby, smiling politely. He likes bread.

In a similar fashion to how Nagito was a dark reflection of Makoto, Rantaro is. Like. Hajime, if he wasn't written to be an important character of any kind. You can become invested in him if you put in the work to do so but there are tons of other characters who are right there.

Meanwhile, his involvement in his own death is "Wrong place at the wrong time. Whoopsy-doodle."

Best Use of Other Characters: 3-1 - Miu, Gonta, and Shuichi (plus Kaito's mob) This is an easy win for 3-1. A Danganronpa game features a lot of characters, and the more involved they get to be in the crime both before and after the body is found, the better. 1-1 and 3-1 both offer Makoto and Shuichi a key role of adjacency, making them unsuspecting accomplices while the crime is being concocted and carried out. But between them, Shuichi has a more proactive and complex relationship to the crime taking place, while Makoto's simply a patsy.

On top of that, we have Gonta for a false lead suspect, plus the whole complicating factor of Kaito's mob forming right next door to the crime - one member of whom would become the victim.

And we have Miu, who is intricately woven into the case. Miu created the cameras and knows key information about them that becomes important to the case. She also builds a sky-camera drone which becomes supremely important to unraveling the mystery. None of this could have happened without her; Either the setup of the crime or the resolution of the mystery. V3 uses its large cast to great effect here.

Worst Use of Other Characters: 2-1 - Nagito, Peko, and Ibuki. Plus Mahiru and Mikan's investigative skills.

Nagito is an extremely back-and-forth character. Sometimes he's fascinating and other times he's a cackling ball of plot contrivance, doing ridiculous things for ridiculous reasons and getting away with it because plot contrivance is literally his Talent.

2-1 may be Nagito at his weakest. Though the drawing of straws is a fun bit, Nagito contriving 85% of the mystery and pulling it off through sheer Luck Powers for the sake of setting up Teruteru for the remaining 15% feels forced. Nagito's involvement feels like the personification of "Writer's hand moving pieces into place."

Like, the trick with the blackout seems like it'd be difficult to pull off without any testing but Nagito has luck powers so it doesn't matter. The timing of everything going down seems unlikely but Nagito has luck powers so it doesn't matter. Every over-complex detail was perfectly planned 100% by Nagito and it all went exactly according to plan, because it could only go exactly according to plan, because Nagito has luck powers preventing any unexpected complications from ever arising.

This is a toxic influence on a mystery (though it makes 2-5 fascinating). Mysteries are actually more interesting when they don't go exactly according to one brilliant mastermind's flawless foresight.

Aside from Nagito, we have... Peko being in the bathroom. An entire subplot is dedicated to the mystery of Peko's extended bathroom visit. This is a character who will be revealed to be a deadly assassin next chapter, and her sole contribution to the story prior to that point is a joke about diarrhea embarrassment.

That leaves us with Ibuki, Mikan, and Mahiru who play key roles in the investigation. Ibuki has exact photographic memory of every person who spoke during the blackout (which also feels a bit like plot contrivance), Mahiru's photographs provide critical evidence (that's fine, no notes), and Mikan... Mikan's autopsy is useful (that's good) and also the running joke about her tripping into compromising positions is critical evidence (okay, game).

2-1 suffers from a bad case of 4-D Chess Mastermind syndrome and is more interested in poking fun and ogling its cast than it is in having them do interesting things rooted in their characters and personalities that contribute to the story in interesting ways.

Best Mystery: 2-1 - The Table Stabbing 2-1 and 3-1 have a lot of moving parts. The mechanism of Kaede's trap is complicated, but not so complicated that you can't see how it worked - or, at least, was intended to work. The same is true of Shuichi's own plot to capture the Mastermind, which runs adjacent to and interweaves through Kaede's.

Like Nagito, Teruteru, and Imposter, there are multiple conflicting agendas running through Shuichi, Kaede, and Rantaro's collision - though with the intriguing and emotionally gripping complication that they all wanted the same thing. Meanwhile, 3-1 does not run afoul of All According to Keikaku the way 2-1 does.

If you don't know, on sight, who killed Rantaro? Then 3-1 can be a shocking mystery to try and solve, as no possible candidate seems to fit the bill. But if you do know? Then. Well. It's a lot like 1-1, spinning your wheels and waiting for the game to catch up. Worse, if you happen to be too observant and catch things that they don't want you thinking about until 3-6, 3-1 can be pull-your-hair-out frustrating as the game gaslights you about details that are plain in front of your eyes.

2-1's mystery isn't quite as captivating as 3-1's, but it doesn't suffer from these drawbacks either. It's less likely to have been spoiled for you by hanging out with the key figures while they were setting it all up. There's still a bit of bullshit in how it's carried out, but ultimately it simply presents a clever mystery and asks you to investigate and solve it.

Worst Mystery: 1-1 - Murder in Makoto's Shower 1-1 was the first case in the series, and you can tell. While getting to watch Sayaka undergo her emotional journey and developing her crime alongside Makoto is interesting, it does give away many of the details that are going to be Huge Reveals later down the line.

By the time her body is found, you're already 95% of the way to solving the mystery. And she wrote the remaining 5% on the wall for you to find.

Kaede and Shuichi took a lot of notes from Sayaka and Makoto on how to do something like this without flat-out explaining the plan to the audience as they go along. Though I do think that sometimes simpler cases are better than complex ones, 1-1 suffers tremendously from being too obvious about key details, leaving little to discover during investigation.

So, where does that leave the Case 1s? Tallying up their scores, we have:

DRV3: 13 points DR2: 12 points DR1: 11 points

Neck and neck in quality but V3 takes a slim lead. Featuring the strongest build-up portion, best Blackened, and best use of Side Characters, V3 edges out the competition with careful, creative, and entertaining use of its cast as a whole.

DR2 thrives on its plot details, with a great Motive and the most well-constructed mystery to spin out of the events, but suffers from poor use of its characters as well as a middling killer and victim.

While DR1 coasts by on the strength of the Sayaka twist, having a harder time establishing itself than the sequels that followed in its footsteps and learned from its mistakes.

[galaxyseclipse]

OKAY

so I went through the Side Order trailer a gazillion times, so it's disorganized thoughts/theories/opinions time!

we're just gonna put a cut here in case folks don't want to read a quite long post lol

----------

okay, so I think the whole thing of this campaign is that it's not real. nothing that happens is actually happening to Eight, Pearl, and Dedf1sh. I mean obviously it's happening to them, but it has no affect on the real Inkopolis Square

so, I think it's either (1) a simulation/virtual "what-if?" scenario(probably created by Marina) that got corrupted or (2) that "world of order beyond comprehension" Marina mentioned that probably also got corrupted

either way it's gonna be weird, and is probably connected to computers somehow

my main reasoning for that is that every time we(as in the player) enter an area it literally loads us into the area(bringing in essentially an LoD model, then becoming the player/weapons), which most likely wouldn't happen if we weren't in some sort of virtual world

as well as this trippy glowy matrix-lookin' room thing

also the fact that Pearl is literally a drone clearly designed to look like her, and it doesn't appear as if we see her normally at all in the campaign. so my guess is that the drone is Pearl's "avatar" in this virtual world. this is further proven by her description on the Japanese website

this is a janky translation, but still, interesting wording

but why a drone? and why does it look like her? my only guess is that Marina made that avatar to look like Pearl, so she could be safe in this weird environment? I have no idea otherwise

why do Eight and Ded look normal then? why is Ded here in the first place? I have no idea, other than Ded saying they and Marina "go way back" and Eight maybe choosing to have an avatar that looks like themselves?

obviously a lot of that part of the theory relies on this world being something that Marina created and/or has/had some level of control over. I saw a theory somewhere(unfortunately I don't remember exactly) that was "maybe Marina's being controlled by whatever is all that black stuff and what's controlling the robot fish." which like, that'd be pretty dope ngl, and it'd tie into the "Marina made/discovered this place and it got out of her control" theory. and we've seen Marina precisely one (1) time, and it was in concept art that kinda made her look all glitchy and stuff

so like, I dunno guys, I think 'rina might be in danger...

sidenote: I don't really like the "Marina's the antagonist/villain" theory. it just doesn't feel in character for her to do something like that on her own will. I'm down for puppet Marina, but I just don't think she'd cause this herself

----------

something that I've seen bounced around a lot is "you can play as either an Inkling or an Octoling!" using this as proof

my honest opinion? this is a reused text string for the Run Speed Up ability. I don't think we're playing as anyone other than Eight, who is canonically an Octoling

which sucks because I'd be down to play as Agent 4, but whatever, guess they don't get adventures anymore >:(

----------

we're gonna go back to Dedf1sh(or, Acht, I guess) for a second:

this line is weird

sucked into what? the simulation? how? why? did Eight and Pearl get "sucked in" too? or is she referring to the metro?

and how does she know so much about the tower? like the color chips and whatnot? have they been here a while?

SO MANY QUESTIONS AND SO FEW ANSWERS!!

----------

also, the color chip they hold out in that cutscene appears to say "AGNT" on it

it could also say "ACHT", but I don't see why

what does this mean? does it mean anything? who knows!?

wait I got another picture of it in Eight's hand:

it kinda looks like it says "AGNT 7" on it? I dunno maybe I'm just reading things I wanna see lol

it does more strongly resemble the Latin alphabet than the other scripts in this series though, so it's definitely worth pointing out imo

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gameplay opinions: looks fun!

folks are saying it looks like a rougelike, and even after looking it up multiple times I still have no idea what the fuck that means

skill tree thingy with the chips and stuff looks cool, hopefully it's implemented well, or at least not in a way that makes it more inconvenient to use it than go without

a bit of a bummer that it doesn't look like you can attack while flying around with Pearl though lmao. but I do like how she looks like she can use bombs(folks have pointed out a hyperbomb in one shot too :3c), and even (maybe, the shot's kinda weird) a singular killer wail speaker

also the design of the drone is fuckin' adorable

like lookit this thing

----------

aesthetic-wise, not bad, I like the muted, pale tone of everything

...except for Acht for some reason?

like, I love Dedf1sh, and am very excited for their inclusion, but also:

octo kinda sticks out like a sore thumb

maybe that's the point, maybe that's why she's helping us, to restore the colors to this simulation or whatever it is, hence the color chips and the soundboard looking thing....

hey wait a second am I onto something?

whatever, anyway, I like how it looks, and the small portions of soundtrack we've gotten so far sound great

----------

also, something pointed out in the comments on the trailer and I thought was morbidly interesting:

those appear to be meat grinders.....

uh, yeah

not sure what kind of substance is coming out of them, but uh, yeah those strongly resemble meat grinders

Eight's gonna die because they were unable to use any small kitchen appliance and starved lmfao

----------

alright, that's all I've got for now I think lol

I wouldn't be surprised if we got one more trailer in like January or something with the release date maybe a Splatoon direct? probably not

[vendily-blog]

Splatoon 3: Side Order Trailer

With a new trailer for the Side Order expansion, that means a new trailer shredding post from me.

Of course, everything goes under the cut, as per usual.

So first things first, the setting. AKA, we entering the matrix, baby!

The Dualies are shown appearing as wireframes for about a second before materializing, and these walls of characters are prominent inside the Spire of Order.

I suspect that this tower is not a physical location, as this elevator shaft disappears into the blocky yellow lights, and we also see Agent 8 and the Pearl Drone walk into these yellow walls as the walls shift around them.

The characters on these walls seem to be the standard inkling language seen elsewhere in the series for the curious.

Mind that only the Spire of Order has these yellow digital artifacts hanging around it. The other buildings in Inkopolis Square do not have them.

It also appears that Agent 8 and the Pearl Drone are not here by choice, as Acht comments that they were "Just another bystander who got sucked in." This suggests that the entire area was forcibly converted into this state.

Minor tangent, looking up Acht on Wiktionary has one of the origins in German, with it being the number 8 turned into a noun. But I find the definitions of it interesting so I have replicated them below

Acht f (genitive Acht, plural Achten)

the natural number eight

the numeral sign 8

a playing card with the value eight

a figure eight shape; a bicycle wheel bent out of shape

Splatoon has previously played with the number 8 with respect to Agent 8's campaigns, with their ID in Octo Expansion being 10008, and 1000 is also 8 in binary. So I don't believe this is just a name chosen at random.

The Figure 8 shape in the definitions is significant as well, as the logo on the Palette is a Figure 8 too.

Acht also states that they and Marina go way back. I have suspicions that they are hiding their true nature, as Acht is clearly Dedf1sh, and Sanitized Octarians were previously established to have no life energies or free will, and explicitly stated to not even have signs of life anymore.

It's not quite clear if Marina knows the fate of Acht, but if it is way back, we know from the Octo Expansion chats that Marina went AWOL when she was 16, at the time of the first Splatoon game. Posts from the Squid Research Lab suggest that time in the real world passes at the same rate as in Splatoon's world, so with Splatoon 1 releasing in 2015, about 9 years would have passed by the time Side Order releases (but we can call it 7 years if Side Order takes place at the same time as Splatoon 3's Story mode, much like how Octo Expansion takes place at the same time as Splatoon 2's Story Mode).

Did both Acht and Marina leave the Octarian Army at the same time? But Acht definitely got caught up by Kamabo Co. I have some suspicions now with this new information of them knowing each other, it explains in part why Pearl and Marina were in the vicinity of Mount Nantai, where Captain Cuttlefish and Agent 3 were when they were captured and taken to the Deep Sea Metro. Was Marina investigating Kamabo Co to track down what happened to her lost companion? Pearl didn't quite seem to know what's going on to the same degree as Marina who instantly offered her help to scan the surroundings and provide support.

Speculation period over, let's talk mechanics. The biggest one is of course, the new Palette system, which holds Color chips, which seem to act similar to ability chunks on gear.

Each chip seems to have a category they belong under, though only the categories have icons. There are very slight colour differences between chips with the same category but different effects. The side bar appears to only show effects that have associated chips in the palette. As far as I can tell, there seems to be, beyond the 6 visible chip types, at least 3 more unidentified chips, with Teal/Aqua chips sharing the same design and likely falling under the same category.

I am able to specifically identify 1 of them, the Teals in the top left of the palette, which are Drone Splat Bomb chips, reducing the cost of the Drone's splat bomb. Interestingly, it seems the Drone is charged up by painting turf, similar to using specials. It doesn't seem to replace normal specials, as in the palette menu, we can see Agent 8's loadout too, and it includes the Reefslider special. I can confirm that the Drone's Weapon can be changed, as it is shown to use a Burst Bomb instead of Splat Bomb. What appears to be an Inkstrike is also shown, but I am not sure if the Drone or Agent 8 used it.

Something that I don't quite understand yet is what this Common Tones means. I did note that the palette has more chips than cleared floors, with 20 chips when only 15 floors were cleared so far (becoming 21 when entering floor 16). Perhaps these Common Tones are similar to brands on gear being more likely to roll certain sub abilities? Though it is also possible the extra 5 chips are a pre entry set up, as Side Order has its own currency, and these could be purchased instead. Alternatively, as it's shown on the floor selection what appears to be a button to return to the previous floor, it may be possible to repeat floors, and that's where the extra chips came from.

Shifting to floors themselves, each floor seems to have specific themes, each with different pre-entry chips and completion rewards. You can also see the button labeled 15F, the floor before the one Agent 8 is about to enter.

Each of these floor names seems to suggest what the floor's layout will be, with the icon being the floor challenge.

The Easy floor features an icon of the fish robot spawners, which are shown to be destructible, in an explosive manner similar to the rainmaker shield. Perhaps the objective is to clear out all the spawners?

The Normal floor Icon is clearly that of Splat Zones. Perhaps you are forced to defend the area against an excessive amount of fish robots until a timer finishes, similar to ranked?

The Hard floor Icon has me at a bit of a loss, as I don't quite recognize the structure. It vaguely reminds me of Salmon Run's basket, but also a sprinkler. I'm not quite sure what it is supposed to be.

To cap things off, here are some unsorted observations.

These meat grinders pouring out ink bring to mind the blender. In the background, we can see that the ink seems to be collected in storage tanks. I'm not sure if the ink here is used for similar purposes as it was in Octo Expansion, to sanitize subjects. The only enemies we see seem to be more robot that creature, so I am not sure of the purpose of this room. Are they used by the machinery in the background creating boxes of odd objects?

There are a number of objects in these crates. Of the ones I can reasonably identify, there appears to be a memcake of a tentacle, an octopus shaped doll or plush, and Marina's Turntable. The memcake has never appeared before, so I don't have a poem for it. And I suppose that makes sense as well, as the memcakes in Octo Expansion belonged to Agent 8, these memcakes would belong to Marina, or perhaps to Acht?

The breakable crates in levels still show the Squidbeak Splatoon logo on them, rather than the figure 8 of the Spire of Order. Octo Expansion had these crates feature Kamabo Co.'s logo on them, so I find it interesting that is not the case here.

These odd additional lights on the dualies and eyepiece with an antenna seem to be what the combined level 2 armor set looks like with the level 1 set being just the weapon lights, as I only found instances of the weapon lights alone.

One of the Pearl Drone upgrades seems to give it properties of a sprinkler, though this does not replace the weapon it has equipped as a different shot has both the Burst Bomb and the Sprinkler effect at once (seen earlier in this post).

And that's basically everything I want to comment on at the moment.

[lesbianmarth]

it’s been a while since i posted about aa but i just finished soj in its entirety tonight. here’s my new list so far

i still have to give thoughts on cases 4 5 and dlc so that’ll be under a cut. spoilers!

6-4: this was such a filler case, almost shamefully so. i don’t know why they thought they could manage to do this in the 4th case when every game with 5 cases has been pretty consistent about making the 4th case plot relevant, sometimes literally just a preamble to case 5. so yeah i think this one was kinda ass

the two things it had going for it: one, athena. in 6-2 i actually got confused about why i ever liked her, because in that case she felt like she was just acting the part of the Peppy Teen Girl With a Rowdy Streak that makes up almost every assistant character. But then as SOON as she started bantering with Simon in 6-4 i was like “oh, THAT’S why i liked her!” was nice to take control of her again.

two, uendo toneido. while i don’t think you can say the DID was portrayed with quite the necessary respect or kindness, it was handled better than i’ve seen other media handle it-- at least it’s not completely demonized. other people have written more on that in better detail so i’m not really the judge, but the basic point is that this witness was mad fun to read, and even the dumb jokes like the changing number of floor cushions were entertaining. thus why this case is in the “hard carried by one side character” tier.

especially since there was like nothing else going on. no connection to the main plot, only two other characters besides uendo, and for some reason the clown tits girl was here instead of the magic show case (and to be honest, she wasn’t enjoyable for me even BEFORE she did the standard aa female villain thing and changed her speech pattern as soon as she fell under suspicion). just a weird, nothing case stuck right around the point aa games usually enter endgame. And especially weird because...

6-5 part 1: inexplicably there are two separate cases in the final chapter and each gets one day of investigation and trial. such a weird setup, and it really shouldn’t work... but i think it kinda barely does. barely. it would still have been better to split it into case 4 and case 5 though.

i have a hard time articulating much on the first case bc it sort of blends together for me. the main thing is that the concept of it being a civil case where apollo and phoenix face off is really good. it was a good change of pace, even though you knew it was gonna be a murder somehow anyway. sarge was reasonably nice, i guess, paul atishon had some good animations and quirks (my favorite being when he tries to just walk away from the stand to avoid answering a question), and the logic of the actual murder was good enough.

but i especially got those strong “oh this is a FINAL case!” vibes during the segment in the cave, and that added so much to it even if not much of it was relevant in the first half of the case. the adventure feel reminded me of some of the (out of context bc i still havent played it) scenes i know from 3-5, which is a good association to invoke imo. and it did a lot to give apollo and dhurke time to bond.

speaking of which, dhurke, holy shit. what a KING. i don’t think i’ve ever liked a dad character in ace attorney this much. he’s so genuine and like down to earth that it’s impossible not to start liking him and believe how much he cares for his sons. the bit where he rescued apollo from the cave flood... i felt it in my heart

6-5 part 2: let me just get this out of the way: ga’ran sucks. her design after she goes full evil is so bad, she’s so malicious that it’s immediately obvious she’s going to be the culprit, her breakdown is ridiculous and just embarrassing to watch, and inga had already established way more charisma as a villain when he did the “those were orders of execution actually” bit in 6-3. with that said,

i actually liked it for the most part. the spirit channeling stuff was excellent imo-- they probably use it to similar or greater effect in 3-5 but as someone who again has not played that, i was surprised and almost impressed by how well it was applied. maya was relevant for something! it feels like it’s been ages!

rayfa was a little underutilized, i think-- her moment of determination where she stops letting ga’ran have control over her was alright but it fell flat bc it didn’t have any weight during the moment. i kept hoping she would like, wordlessly take of her shawl and do the little verbal preamble to the divination seance while ga’ran kept yelling at her to stop, but no, the script can’t be good like that, i guess. and since she didn’t get to be the investigation assistant for long, none of her charm in that role carried through.

but DHURKE!! oh my god! in a game almost devoid of emotional impact, his involvement in this case really hit. the way they painstakingly animated his death, the scene where he makes a promise with maya, and then the weight of knowing in hindsight that everything he did in the first part of the case was after he’d already died and just wanted to see his son again before passing on for real....... it hurt. i felt something during that section. this case would also be hard carried by him if not for the fact that i really liked the murder bits.

amara was good too--liked how they made her suspiciously serene and accentuated it with the lightning strikes to make her look like a hidden murderer character about to reveal herself, only to walk it back and confirm she was being forced to act that way. i thought it worked. nahyuta was boring though, i’m sorry-- i get the motivation with having to be a bastard bc his sister and mom were basically held hostage, but the only time i found him compelling in that mess was the bit where he removed his one fingerless glove and revealed he still has the dragon tattoo. that was it. athena was also completely unused the whole case (not even a single mood matrix? really?) and trucy one again went without any role of importance.

the ending also... yknow, a friend said they had to end it this way bc they never figured out what they were going to do with apollo (since following up on what they started in aa4 clearly wasn’t an option???) and just threw him on a bus to get rid of him. i agree with that-- he really feels thrown to the side, and with that i think trucy’s officially stranded with no hope of any character advancement. and the way they ended the game with phoenix and lamiroir deciding “yeah, maybe NOW we should finally tell those two they’re related” honestly felt insulting lol

but maybe the dlc case will let things go out on a high note...?!

6-6: it was okay.

it would’ve worked pretty well as a filler case in an older aa-- honestly i think it’d be one of the better filler cases, certainly worth replacing the shitty ones like 2-3 or 3-3 or, hey, 6-4. but whether i’d say it was worth paying for... eh.

the time travel conceit was done well enough, i think. the way they tied it back to sorin and pierce’s backstories was nice, and the twist about having two receptions was good, although they needed to treat that as a real twist with much more gravity. when the truth comes out it just feels like “oh of course that’s what happened” rather than a big surprise worthy of the Confessing the Truth theme. it’s sort of important because the case becomes a lot less interesting when you take out the time travel element.

far as characters are concerned, i think they needed more side characters to sell the whole thing-- another sprocket family member or another servant of the household. it felt a little limited-- sorin and pierce are pretty good witnesses and i like their quirks and their secrets, but the only alive woman (ellen) has very few traits and no connection to the deeper story of the case, so she falls really flat. the old aa characters didn’t add much- maya and edgeworth were just there for fanservice, ema didn’t get to do much other than acknowledge for the first time in years that she’s a big edgeworth fan, and larry is annoying as hell like he always is.

and oh my god i actually forgot while i was writing that, how they put in athena and trucy but only used them for brief slapstick where trucy would try to set athena on fire and shit. again-- no mood matrix? couldn’t even try once to fit those two characters into something?

i did like pierce’s transformation into his surgeon form though-- that was really cool. loved him doing surgery on a robot, taking xrays of the lawyers, and his breakdown was fantastic-- he would make a really good culprit if they didn’t whiff the last bit of pathos at the end. i don’t think he should’ve been aiming for revenge on sorin; it would have hurt much more if he was still loyal to the guy and never intended for him to be in danger, but the final “why’d you do it?” talk in the trial just felt flat and one-note, much like the one in 6-4.

... so that’s spirit of justice! not a super positive experience but i’m happy to say it’s done. as much as i want to go and replay dgs, i think when i do go back to ace attorney i’ll be replaying the trilogy for the first time since high school

[melias-cimitiere]

Let’s assume that I am a demon

There, I said it. Let the game begin. My statement can be taken in the following ways:

1)   As a jest, aiming purely for the sake of fun and merriment.

2)   As a fact, provided other agencies perceive it as such.

3)   As psychopathology, in which case you may stop reading now.

4)   As a joke leading to something else.

I have no doubt that many of you will remember Morpheus’ phrase in the Matrix: there’s a difference in knowing the path, and walking the path. No matter the theory and the mental investment, one needs to live something in full in order to know it better. Same applies to most of the people interested in the occult, whatever path this might be. No matter how many books they read, no matter the seminars they attend or what significant authors, lecturers and experts say to them, it’s in the doing that true knowledge exists.

A large number of authors and self-styled “experts” exist, claiming various truths about the astral world, spiritual beings, the phantoms of the restless dead (wraiths of the deceased), angels and demons; in actuality very few of them have even witnessed something from the things they describe as a real, tangible experience. I agree, not many of such experiences are tangible in the physical sense, but here I mean it in the way that it can be perceived or felt through some developed sense like spirit vision or tactile aura/etheric attestation etc. It is perhaps irresponsible to other seekers to pretend to know a subject and preach about it without having true knowledge of it. As I have said before, “if something is confirmed through extensive personal experience, it can be safely assumed that the person may use it successfully as an axiomatic paradigm to live with. To continue to keep an open mind with regards to something that you've already proven numerous times is counter-productive. It also robs you of the certainty you need on which you can set foundations in order to challenge other ideas. Of course, the key word is confirmation; consistent proof is vital, with any bias carefully monitored and screened out.”

Many of you may love, respect and admire the ancient beings that once roamed the dimensions (like Dragons, Elves, etc). You might be glad to know that a number of them is still with us. No, not in the spirit. Within you…

Some of these beings (hundreds of thousands, category specific numbers vary) have hitched a long –term ride, entering the cycles of lives and deaths, just like ordinary humans. Of course, we are all human – on the outside.  But these essences prevail, and sometimes make life difficult for the one who differs from the flock, especially in these cases. These essences share some characteristics for each sub-group. In any case, compared to the approximately 7 billion humans on Earth, the few hundred thousand of them that harbor the Ancients in their being’s core.  Some have even awakened and have to come to power, or have access to their own abilities during their lifetime. Let’s assume that out of these ontological cores (OCs), about two hundred thousand have angelic ancestry and about 11-13,000 are demonic.

Now let’s go back to the beginning. I am a demon.

I know many struggle to attain gnosis, occult knowledge, temporal power and some actually achieve it. Assuming that they actually walk the walk and they know what they are talking about, they can truly have insights into the fabric of the cosmos, including potential daemonhood at the end of a long and exhausting road; despite its own rewards, the end result often brings suffering as well as knowledge, and power to ascend. Many useful things might be gleaned and become known through such a course. These people’s opinions on occult matters would have certain gravity as they got to experience firsthand what it is about.

Alright, let’s consider one such “heretical view”, after all, the demons are certainly more "practical" when it comes to matters on this earth than the angels (although there are always exceptions). Neither side is "to be banished"; both have a role to play, much like when you go to watch the games, and there are two teams, thrashing each other. If we hate one team so badly that we go shooting them, there won't be another match next season, or ever again. But let's suppose that both sides are needed in the grand scheme of things, in order for it to move into phase B. So you got the angelic forces on the 8th and on the Sephirothic Heavens, and you get the demonic forces in Daath and the Qlippothic Shell Domains. Both are needed for the system to move properly; it's like a car where opposing forces are necessary in order to guide it - turning the wheel on the left all the time isn't going to do much in the long run, same as turning on the right would equally suck if done all the time. In other words, a mastermind (like Thoth, who played both sides supporting Set and also Horus in their struggle opposing each other) maintains a delicate balance through opposing forces. That the name of the game: conflict! But not brutal, idiotic conflict; but something to generate enough change and synthesis. Angels play it by the book, citing rules and opting for Order; demons are down-breakers of change, forces of opposition and teaching through adversity. But the system is cleverly designed on all sides to cause:

a) Strife and opposition as way of improving oneself by overcoming obstacles.

b) Change, dynamic mostly so as to prevent stagnation.

c) Amorality, because both sides have their merits and flaws.

d) Purposeful gaps, "errors in construction", to allow for lesser species to mature enough so as to fix them by themselves, hence reaching to new insights and evolutionary paths.

Perhaps an assembly of forces is in need, so as to manifest a powerful new Truth upon the world.

[fioress]

chicago’s very own fiore gattuso has been spotted on madison avenue driving a 2020 bentley continental gt v8 in red , welcome ! your resemblance to lorenzo zurzolo is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty first birthday bash  . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re impatient , but being cunning might help you . i think being a libra explains that .  3 things that would paint  a  better picture of you would be bloodshot baby blue eyes, long drives without a specific destination, getting high by the beach. ( i have been conning money out of older women and men ever since my parents disowned me  ) & ( cismale + he/him  )

tw : abuse, homophobia

full  name : fiore emiliano luca gattuso ( first name pronounced fee-oh-reh, also see here! )

nicknames : fifi, emmy ( by people who know his middle name ), some people might say... flower boy ( fiore literally means flower in italian ) 😳

gender : cismale

height :  5 ′ 8

age : 21

birthday : october 14 , 1998

zodiac : libra  ( leo moon, aquarius ascendant )

right  handed  or  left  handed : left  handed

eye  color : baby blue

hair  color : basically dark blonde / light brown

piercing  &  tattoos : the libra symbol on his left wrist, a cartilage piercing on his right ear

languages  spoken : italian  ( native  tongue ), english, spanish, sicilian ( after many summers spent in his parents’ summer house in sicily )

sexuality : bisexual

place  of  birth : napoli, italia ( naples, italy in english )

last  3  songs  listened  to : dimmi che mi ami by dj matrix ( a full on fucking italian boy tbh ), talk is cheap by chet faker, west coast by lana del rey

character  inspo : maxxie oliver from skins u.k , adam groff from sex education ( think season 2 adam ), alyssa foley from the end of the fucking world, david rose from schitt’s creek, michael kelso from that 70′s show, a mix of nick miller & winston bishop from new girl, maeby funke from arrested development 

♡ so fiore was born to an american mother named lindsey harrison & a fully italian father named gian gattuso. his mother is a very well known politician & his father is heir of a very popular gas company, literally named gattuso gas ( yikes lol ). besides that, he is also a preacher. without saying much, his parents are very well off

♡ fiore grew up with anything he’s ever wanted ( materialistically, of course ). besides that, his parents genuinely weren’t the best of people. his mother stole millions from the so called campaigns she ran & was a generally very corrupt politician, his father treated his employees like shit & was a pretty hateful person altogether

♡ they were people who expected a lot out of their only son, which made fiore feel an insane amount of pressure from the very start. at a very young age, he showed characteristics lots of boys his age didn’t show. he did things like peeing while sitting down instead of standing up, preferred to play with dolls instead of ‘boy toys’, favored the color pink, got along better with girls, preferred to watch shows that were considered ‘girly’, etc etc. 

♡ they were very harmless things honestly, things that most parents would laugh about & turn a blind eye. however, fiore really wasn’t that lucky when it came to his parents. any time he would do anything his parents claimed a ‘normal boy wouldn’t do’, he would get a huge lecture & a beating to go with it. needless to say, he learned to hide a lot of who he really was from a very young age

♡ he did a lot of things to seek the approval of his parents. he wasn’t smart academically ( dumb boi 101 tbh ), but he tried to make them happy in other ways. fiore was never fond of sports at all, but he started playing tennis at seven years old, because it made his parents happy. truth be told, he hated tennis with every fiber of his being, but again, he did this, simply because it satisfied his parents 

♡ fiore grew up trying to be the perfect son, considering the fact his parents were very much in the public eye of everyone. it was all smiles for the pictures, but behind closed doors, he really wasn’t the happiest boy ever

♡ simply put, he has always known that he likes boys. he likes girls too, don’t get him wrong, but he knew, literally since he could remember, that he also had a thing for guys too. of course, he knew this wouldn’t settle well at all with his extremely strict & religious parents, so he buried his feelings incredibly deep 

♡ he has a lot of charm & wit & found himself getting into relationships quicker than most of his friends. he briefly dated a girl when he was fourteen, but it was when he was sixteen that things really began getting, dare i say, spicy?

♡ there was an american boy new to his very #elite school & if you guessed it, they began to date! yup, his first boyfriend at sixteen years old. fiore was basically living two lives at this point. at school, he was himself, loud & proud, but when he got home, the facade began. the way he would switch up as soon as he entered the front door to his house was honestly shockingly scary 

♡ he really felt himself falling in love with this boy even though they were both fairly young. they snuck around forever. when no one was home, he would sneak him into his room to have sex, sneak out of his house when his parents were asleep, all that fun stuff. their relationship was forbidden ( at least to fiore’s parents ). this is where it gets juicy af tho, hear me out 

♡ so one day, fiore & him get really really drunk & honestly? video record themselves having sex! 😊 they didn’t do this to post it anywhere or show anyone or anything, they really just did it for themselves. they made a few copies & kept it for themselves ( stupid boys, i know! ), but they really felt like they would get married & all that gooey lovey dovey shit so they did it because yolo i guess? this is where it gets peak #juicy

♡ so fiore & him are walking back from practice. this is a time where fiore knows no one is home & no one is coming home for a while, so when they get to his house & see his father’s car parked outside, he lowkey panics a little. of course he makes the guy leave & goes inside to see what’s going on

♡ his father asks him to come upstairs & surprisingly, leads him into his room. he says something along the lines of ‘i just want to show you this so i can hear your explanation on what the fuck this is’ & this is when fiore’s entire life practically takes a 360. his father turns on his tv & legit starts playing his sex tape with his boyfriend. just picture this though; your extremely religious & hateful father & you sitting on your bed, watching your gay sex tape with your boyfriend

♡ obviously, this news isn’t well taken by his father. to make a long story short, he gets his ass beat. like, literally almost dies type shit. when this happened, he was seventeen, almost eighteen. he knew if that was ever discovered by his parents, it wouldn’t go well, but he really didn’t think them discovering his sexuality would be that brutal

♡ his parents basically disown him at that moment. they bought him a ticket to chicago & told him they never wanna see him again. it’s sad, but he packed his things & left in two days to go live with his cousin in chicago. citizenship wasn’t a problem because he had dual citizenship due to his mother being american

♡ it doesn’t really take an expert to figure out that fiore did not take this move well at all. for months, he was really depressed. he wouldn’t go out & would just lay in bed for the longest time. he was really hurt by everything that happened & it took him a while to recover. he has also lived in italy his whole life & wasn’t really used to life in america at all, but after like the fourth month of just feeling sorry for himself, it was his cousin who snapped him back to reality

♡ slowly but surely, he began putting himself out there. his english honestly #sucked when he first got to america, but it’s gotten a lot better since then ( he still has a pretty deep italian accent though ). at first, he began working at a pizza place, but fiore slowly began to realize how much he despised working. his entire life, he received everything on a silver plater with pure golden spoons, so this? he was for sure not used to it at all. again, his life completely did a 360. he went from living in a three story mansion in the most prestigious part of rome to living in a very shitty part of chicago, broke almost always, & working a job he hated with everything he had, splitting rent with his cousin

♡ fiore did not want this at all for himself. it wasn’t until he went out clubbing ( fake id & all ), that one his friends showed him the wonders of conning people. they walked into the bar with twenty bucks and left with four thousand dollars 

♡ quickly, fiore began to learn his friends’ ways. his looks, personality & his thick italian accent helped him tremendously; it was like people literally couldn’t get enough of him. soon enough, he was conning & finessing the fuck out of older men & women for their money. he once walked into a casino with five dollars and walked out with over twelve thousand, & it was only because he stayed for like an hour only

♡ finessing people became a huge hobby of his. it was with all this money that he bought himself a luxury car & jump started his model & influencer career. it was also with this money that him & his cousin ditched chicago & moved into a much better apartment in new york. with his looks & persona, he gained followers like crazy & posted videos on youtube as well, getting sponsorships & recognition easier than he expected. he was literally living off his looks & his personality & honestly? he was here for it! 

♡ there is still a part of fiore that has a lot of issues & trauma. honestly mommy & daddy issues af, but he doesn’t talk about this at all. no one really knows how he came up or where his family is & he keeps it this way, dodging questions about his personal life as much as he can

♡ in a way, he is kind of relieved with everything that happened with his parents because now, he’s completely free to be himself & do whatever the fuck he wants, knowing very well they can’t really touch him now. of course, it still left a mark that he’s never going to be able to erase or forget ( both in his heart & on his body too ), but he feels free for once in his life & he’s honestly kind of happier now 

♡ relationship wise, he really doesn’t commit to anyone. after practically being forced to leave his now ex boyfriend at almost 18, he kind of feels like he doesn’t deserve love? it’s really fucked up but he’s genuinely convinced that no one is ever going to genuinely love him or want to be with him so he just avoids any romantic relationship of any kind, usually just hooking up with people & then leaving as soon as it’s over. the truth is that he really does want to be loved, accepted & cared for by someone he loves, accepts & cares for as well, but will it ever happen if he continues pushing people away? probably not tbh 

♡ he is a fucking drinker & hella pot smoker!! legit give him some alcohol & weed he’s happy. he always has either one on him, or both tbh 

♡ this is all that’s coming to mind rn but underneath is his bio!!

       fiore was born to lindsey and gian gattuso in naples, italy. from a very young age, he showed characteristics most boys his age didn’t show. he would pee sitting down, every time he would visit his cousins, he would rather play dolls with them instead of ‘boy toys’, favored the color pink, watched things that were considered ‘girly’, etc. of course, this never settled well with his extremely religious parents, and every time he would do something even remotely different than a ‘regular’ boy would do, he would get a huge lecture, and a beating to go with it. that being said, fiore was quick to learn to hide a lot of who he really was. he absolutely despised tennis, but he played it anyways, and he did it, simply because it made his parents happy. the gattuso’s had a ton of money, so he played tennis in nearly all of europe. he has always known that he likes boys, maybe even a little bit more than he likes girls. literally since he’s had a sense of judgement, he’s just known. of course, he kept this a secret, practically living a double life, being himself at school and someone completely different at home. it didn’t take long for him to get a boyfriend, and soon, he found himself slowly falling in love. secretly sneaking him into the house when his parents weren’t home to have quickies, holding hands with him down the school hallways, and even lying to his parents and telling them he was going going to tennis practice just to hang out with him. however, one mistake costed him, well, everything.

        they were drunk and goofing around, and decided to record themselves having sex. it was innocent and pure, both of them just making love to each other in the rawest, loveliest form. the two boys made copies of it, and fiore kept one for himself. one day, when he was trying to sneak his boyfriend into the house, he saw his dad’s car parked outside, which was odd because he was never home around that time. his boyfriend left, and he went to go investigate. his father was beyond calm, and bought him up to his room. his room. fiore was confused as his father told him to sit down on the bed, and soon, his worst nightmare became a reality. his father began playing his damn sex tape on his dvd player, and to say he was mortified was an understatement. he was humiliated, and most of all, afraid. it came without much warning, but soon, his father was throwing punches to his face, his stomach, everywhere, dragging him down the stairs just for it to continue. all he saw was blood. for the first time in forever, fiore truly felt like he had hit rock bottom. they took away his cellphone, any type of technology he had to communicate with was gone, and before he knew it, he was being shipped off to america, completely cut off by his parents.

        fiore definitely didn’t take the move so well. he was a depressed mess. he wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, and over all, just felt out of place. it took him a pretty long time, but eventually, he began adjusting. of course he was still super hurt over everything that had happened, his parents cutting him off, him being away from his now ex boyfriend, his first true love, but time luckily healed most of his pain, and soon, he found himself bettering his english, making friends, and fitting right in. at least he didn’t have to play tennis here. living with his cousin wasn’t so bad either. they constantly smoked, drank like there was no tomorrow, and he even managed to land him a job at a pizza delivery place. fiore hated this job though, but after a night our with friends, he found himself learning the art of conning and finessing older men and women. he does this like there’s no tomorrow, the money he made from all these schemes helping him jumpstart his career as an influencer and model, which bought him back to his typical luxurious lifestyle. fiore is just trying to get by, one day at a time.

extra spice:

[21stcenturyyfoxx]

Best Friends Father: Chapter Four

Warnings: S M U T, Daddy! Keanu, divorce talk, degradation.

———————————————————

“Then don’t...” you breathed out.

The electricity was stifling, you didn’t know where those words had seemingly pulled themselves out; depths of your desire.

Keanu slipped a firm hand around your waist, grabbing at you possessively.

Luck did not favor.

A knock at the office door abruptly ended whatever force had a hold of you two.

Keanu pulled away, his grip vanishing from your side.

He busied himself with paperwork as he stood there, a faint blush pecked his cheeks. You stood there, dazed.

“Dad, why did mom leave so soon? Is Nana still sick?” Ava said as she entered the office, her voice sounding as if she had been crying; your heart felt heavy.

“Ava, I...” he sighed rubbing his beard with his fingers.

“Hey, Ava, why don’t we go down to Bernard’s and play some pool?” You said suddenly, Keanu looked at you; relief in his eyes. You could sense he wasn’t ready for that confession.

“Sure, dad that ok?” She asked.

“Yeah, could you give me and Y/N a few minutes to discuss this protection order, Bunny?” Keanu smiled half heartedly at his youngest.

Ava nodded before leaving the room, footsteps echoing down the hallway.

Keanu shut the door, locking it.

You felt your heart suddenly pick up speed.

He turned around to face you, his smile fading.

“Thank you, for helping out like that.”

“You’re not ready to tell them and that’s understandable.”

He nodded, twisting his wedding band around his ring finger.

He sighed.

“She has been cheating on me for about a year.” He confessed.

“With someone half her age, but, that’s not a huge issue. The issue is — she had an affair. Then lied to me about it, then I caught her in our bed one night when the kids were gone...” he cleared his throat.

“In bed with her now boyfriend. Our bed.” He chuckled bitterly.

“She couldn’t lie to me then at that point. She told me our marriage had been over for two years, from her end anyway. Then about a month ago she had papers drawn up and served to me stating she wanted a divorce and I should pay her $500,000 a month... because she’s used to living the good life." He sighed, bowing his head as he leaned against the office desk. His arms folded across his chest in defeat.

You stood there stunned but somehow knowingly. You had seen the cracks in the facade long ago. You just never imagined it was as bad as he told you.

“Ke, I’m so sorry that happened.” You said, now standing directly in front of him, your hands grabbing his forearms signaling for him to drop his arms.

Keanu looked up at you, his eyes glossed over with pain.

He suddenly enveloped you in his arms, hugging you tightly.

You inhaled his scent — cigarettes, coffee, and cologne.

You hummed out loud.

“What?” He chuckled, pulling back enough to look down at you.

“You smell nice.” You said blushing at the admission, as you too, pulled back some to look up at him.

Not realizing how close the two of you really were.

You could now notice a change in his eyes.

He looked at you as if he adore you in a way you never sensed.

Keanu swallowed his saliva hard, his body doing what his heart wanted to do but his brain scolded him for; he moved his hand to the side of your face.

You moaned out slightly at his touch, his hand feeling welcomed on your cheek.

“Keanu...” you sighed.

“Yes, my Pretty Girl?” He said lowly.

“Don’t fight it..” you said softly.

“Please?” You said in a manner that set his insides ablaze with lust.

Keanu leaned down, hesitating for a split second.

Closing your eyes, you waited.

Soon you felt a tender kiss to your lips.

You gasped as his free hand found the back of your head, pulling the kiss deeper into a frenzy.

He turned the two of you around so your back was against his desk. You were lifted up and placed atop of it.

His hands working the flesh of your hip, a moan left your lips.

“Y/N?” He sighed as he broke the heated kiss.

“Yeah?” You said looking up at him.

“Y-you need to go take Ava out... I-fuck..” he groaned in frustration. Torn between having you to himself or having you run out with Ava to tend to her.

“It’s alright, Ke. You’ll be here when we get back?”

“Yes..” He said letting you up off the desk top, his arm still wrapped around your waist.

“Good, we will... discuss things.” You said as you kissed his cheek, his hand slowly slipping off your hip as he watched you leave him there.

——

You and Ava had shot some pool at Bernard’s Bar, she had met up with a friend of hers, his name was Matthew.

You shook your head as she bid you farewell for the night, a smirk on her lips.

You smiled and laughed at how carefree she was.

Soon you found yourself back at the house, your key not working in the locks.

“Shit...” you groaned, pulling your jacket closer to your body.

You called Keanu’s phone.

“Hey, you.” He mused into the line.

“Can you come unlock the door? My key won’t work.” You whined.

You heard ruffling noises and a shaky breath from him.

“What’s the magic word, Sweetness?”

You could practically hear his smirk over the phone.

“Keanu, please?” You did your best to fake moan as if you were turned on, but truth be told, you were. His deep voice was always enough to put a spell on you.

“Fuck... if you weren’t freezing outside my house...” he said.

You saw a shadow walking in the house, coming to the door. You heard it unlock and suddenly saw a boxer clad Reeves standing there.

”If I weren’t freezing outside your house, what, Mr. Reeves?” You taunted, hanging the phone up.

He looked at you, sucking his bottom lip into his teeth.

“I would’ve continued the phone conversation...” he smirked implying a phone sex scenario.

You giggled softly, pushing past his frame into the kitchen.

“Mm, yeah?” You teased, tossing your leather jacket across the barstool at the table. A tight black dress left little to no imagination — and neither did Keanu’s boxers.

You licked your lips suggestively as you did a little twirl for him.

“You like my dress.. Daddy Reeves?” You smiled.

“I love it, actually. It looks good on you..” he leaned against the wall, watching you.

“Yeah? I don’t know, it feels uncomfortable, really. Could you?” You said turning your back to him, exposing the zipper to him. His fingers quickly sliding the small metal down.

His fingers skimmed the tattoo on your back. Traveling his index finger down the length of your spine, you shivered.

“When did you get this, little one?" He asked as he pushed the dress to the floor.

“About three months ago. You like it? I got it in honor of The Matrix.” You smiled sweetly. It was the green codes of The Matrix that ran along your spine, the color pigment bouncing off your skin.

Keanu leaned down pressing kisses to your vertebrae; going down until he was practically on his knees. He grabbed your hips, tugging you downward to his face.

He bit your ass cheek harshly, making you let a loud whimper fall from your lips.

“You’re so fucking sexy... fuck.” He hissed.

“Please, I cant take it, please fuck me.”

You whined.

Keanu quickly spun you around backing you against the wall with a loud thud, his eyes dark and burning with passion.

“Please, what?” He growled.

”Daddy, please fuck my tight little pussy.” You moaned out.

He groaned as he all but ripped the panties you were wearing from your body; his fingers slipping between your slit.

“You’re wet, Little Girl.” He said amused.

“Who made you this wet, baby?”

“You did, Daddy.” You sighed heavily with a shiver as he slid his index finger inside you. Teasing your core.

“Ugh, fuck.” You cried.

Keanu chuckled as he slipped two more fingers inside your heat. His fingers working you expertly.

“You want more?” He hissed.

“Y-Yes!” You whined.

“Then fucking beg for it, you filthy little bitch.” He cursed as he grabbed you by the hair slinging you to the floor, you felt yourself throb at his control over you; but this time you knew the control was only in the sex.

[magicveiled]

me, during my durge playthrough: i don't think i'm being evil enough...

morgan: 🥺

[schraubd]

The Good Place: Final Thoughts

*MAJOR SPOILERS*

At the conclusion of season three, I registered my prediction of how The Good Place would end:

The abolition of the afterlife in its entirety (no more good or bad places); a re-emphasis on doing as best you can when it matters (i.e., during one's actual life); the core quartet is sent back to Earth to live out the rest of their natural lives as friends.

I would say that, like most religions, I got about 5% right. The afterlife, as we knew it, is abolished. And the series does end with all of the human characters passing on. But in between, The Good Place takes a much more audacious swing: a genuine attempt to reform the afterlife. And -- and I think this is perhaps even more profound -- an essential acknowledgment that this attempt fell short. A perfect paradise was not created, and in fact the final conclusion of The Good Place seems to be that such a paradise is impossible even in concept. After all, cut away the underbrush and the heroes' solution to the problem afflicting The Good Place was to offer the choice of suicide. And while the penultimate episode suggests that perhaps just having the option will suffice to stave off the ennui of eternal bliss, the finale refuses to accept that out. Every human character, eventually, kills themselves. Their happy ending is that they are content to die. The best possible paradise is one where people can and do eventually choose to erase themselves from existence. Skip over the beatific forest setting and the stipulation of emotional contentment, and that's a rather melancholic, if not outright grim, conclusion. It's easy to draw a parallel between the last episode and the need for fans to accept the voluntarily-chosen end of a great show like The Good Place (it's even easier to draw it to the need to accept our own mortality). But another recurrent theme in The Good Place is the failure of systems. Over and over again, the systems the characters find themselves in are revealed to be either malfunctioning or outright designed to immiserate them. From the very beginning, Eleanor and Chidi confront the brutal harshness of the points system, which results in nearly all people being horrifically tortured for eternity (incidentally, that Chidi isn't immediately repelled by -- and suspicious of -- this set-up is a rare miscue in terms of characterization, if not plotting). They resolve to try and improve Eleanor, only to find out that they're actually in a perpetual torture chamber which will literally reset every time they come close to escaping it. At this point, the series becomes a repeated effort to find ever-higher levers in the celestial bureaucracy that can be appealed to. They find a judge, who is at best indifferent to their predicament and not particularly interested in helping them. Upon returning to earth, they discover first that they can't ever improve enough to enter The Good Place (because -- knowing the stakes -- their motivations are corrupt) and then that nobody can successfully enter The Good Place because existence has become too interwoven and morally interdependent for anyone to satisfy the standard of admission. They meet the actual Good Place committee, who are worse than useless and content to let everyone suffer forever because taking any concrete action risks violating some procedural norm. And when they finally enter The Good Place, they discover it's as dysfunctional as everywhere else -- gradually sucking the life out of its residents who, given eternity, eventually tire of everything. All the systems fail. All of them are doomed to fail. They can't not. Hence, the suicide gate (and sidenote: If The Good Place ever has a spin-off series -- and lord knows it shouldn't -- it should definitely involve exploring the first murder in the Good Place when someone gets involuntarily shoved through that archway). By the time it reaches its conclusion, The Good Place is one of the few depictions of the afterlife to take the concept of eternity seriously. Some other venues glance in this direction. Agent Smith in The Matrix tells Neo that humans reject a simulation of paradise -- the implication is because we're diseased, but perhaps also indicating that perfect, eternal happiness ... isn't. Maya Rudolph's other afterlife vehicle, Forever, certainly touches on this theme. The Order of the Stick has an afterlife where people can eat all the food and have all the sex and otherwise satisfy all the "messed-up urges you people have leftover after having your soul stuck in a glorified sausage all your life". But this is only the "first tier" of heaven: once you're bored, you can "climb the mountain" to search for a higher level of spiritual satisfaction. And while what this entails is left vague, it is not death -- those who ascend can, if they wish, descend back down to the lowlier pleasures (OOTS also introduces the very neat concept of "Postmortum Time Disassociation Disorder"). But the story which provides perhaps the most powerful foil to The Good Place's view of eternity and immortality is (and of the approximately 143,000 Good Place retrospectives being written right now, I bet I'm the only one to make this comparison) Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. The ultimate adversary in HPMOR is not Snape, or Malfoy, or Voldemort. It is death, and Harry is committed to the "absolute rejection of death as the natural order." The message on the Potters' gravestone is, after all, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (and it's a sign of my cloistered Jewish upbringing that I thought this was a Rowling original -- it is in fact a quote from I Corinthians). Harry Potter wants people to live forever. And the story anticipates the objection, placed in the mouth of Dumbledore, "What would you do with eternity, Harry?"

Harry took a deep breath. "Meet all the interesting people in the world, read all the good books and then write something even better, celebrate my first grandchild's tenth birthday party on the Moon, celebrate my first great-great-great grandchild's hundredth birthday party around the Rings of Saturn, learn the deepest and final rules of Nature, understand the nature of consciousness, find out why anything exists in the first place, visit other stars, discover aliens, create aliens, rendezvous with everyone for a party on the other side of the Milky Way once we've explored the whole thing, meet up with everyone else who was born on Old Earth to watch the Sun finally go out, and I used to worry about finding a way to escape this universe before it ran out of negentropy but I'm a lot more hopeful now that I've discovered the so-called laws of physics are just optional guidelines."

The last few episodes of The Good Place are, in a sense, a calling of this bluff. Even if you play out the string all the way to extinguishment of the sun or the heat death of the universe -- well, forever is a long time. It can wait. Harry argues that the only reason we accept death is because we're used to it, and if you took someone who lived in a world where there was no death and asked them if they'd prefer to live in a universe where eventually people ceased to exist, they'd look at you like you're crazy. The Good Place provocatively argues the precise opposite -- that if death didn't exist, people would have to invent it. Or they would go crazy, with infinite time on their hands. And so we are, perhaps, back to where we started. The paradise the heroes create is certainly better than that which they replaced. But it still is deeply, tragically flawed -- and The Good Place seems to believe that these flaws are fundamentally inescapable. The suicide option is the clearest manifestation of how cracked paradise must be, but there is another issue that the show alludes to: paradise depends on other people, and on their choices. Way back in the first season, "Real Eleanor" raises this precise point: if her soulmate doesn't love her, "this will never truly be my Good Place." Sure it's actually a contrivance to torture Chidi, but it's easy to imagine it as real. What if your paradise is to live blissfully with a certain special someone and ... that person doesn't love you back? Both Simone and Tahani seem okay with Chidi and Jason respectively choosing someone other than them (Eleanor and Janet). But that's in harmony with the audience's happy ending. It's not hard to imagine a different world where they were less sanguine about it. Or take a far more direct problem: If paradise comes with a suicide option, what happens if your loved one takes it? Harry's excited declaration of all the things he'd do with infinite time is not fundamentally, the reason why he desires immortality. When push comes to shove, he's motivated by a far more basic yearning: to make it so "people won't have to say goodbye any more." Eleanor's utter panic at the thought of losing Chidi forever was, for me at least, the most visceral emotional gut-punch of the entire series -- even more than the finale of season three (at least there, we could be reasonably assured their separation was temporary). She eventually comes to terms with it. But sit on it a little more: imagine a "paradise" where your soulmate has left you forever. People fantasize about heaven to be reunited with their loved ones, yet we end up looping right back into eternal separation. What kind of paradise is this, where people still have to say goodbye? So we have two problems that seem to threaten even the conceptual coherency of a paradise:

First, if paradise is forever, eventually everything will become tired. That suicide is presented as a good solution to this problem shows just how serious it is (and, for what it's worth, I'm not sure the suicide "option" would necessarily bring relief. It could easily generate crippling anxiety -- a sense of trappedness between the irrevocable permanence of death and the unbearable ennui of existence). 

Second, if paradise depends on the choices other people make, how can we be sure they'll make choices compatible with your happy ending?

The Good Place presents the first problem as unavoidable and skates past the second entirely. But could they be overcome? Maybe. In the penultimate episode of The Good Place, one solution proposed to the problem of eternal ennui is to reset people's memories, so the things that bored them become fresh again. This is swiftly rejected as a repetition of how the quartet was tortured in The Bad Place. Too swiftly, in my view. Neighborhoods were also used to torture -- should those be jettisoned too? The problem with eternity is that eventually, everything gets repetitive. Go-Kart Racing against monkeys may be a blast the first time, but it loses its luster after a million reiterations. The wistfulness comes from wishing one could go back to that initial burst of discovery and experience -- before one had the memory of doing it all over again. This was my immediate solution to the ennui problem -- not that some demon should periodically reset you, but that you should be able to choose when, where, and how to reset yourself. It's not just about going back in time. It's reoccupying any memory state you've ever possessed. Go back to before you ever raced against monkeys -- then zoom forward to when you've already experienced all the monkey-races you could handle. It's like a load/save system for your mind. Hell, you can even adjust the "difficulty" level. It's true that, for many, a "paradise" where one simply automatically gets whatever one wants will feel unsatisfying. But one needn't set the parameters of paradise to guarantee success. It can be as hard or easy as one wants; people can be as pliant or obstinate as one likes (not for nothing is one of the afterlife attractions in OOTS -- a fantasy roleplaying-based setting -- "The Dungeon of Monsters That Are Just Strong Enough to Really Challenge You"). Or dream bigger. If one has infinite ability to reverse and remake memory as one wishes, then one could at any point adapt any set of memories one ever could have had. Don't just live a different life, remember a different life. Then jump forward and remember all the different lives you lived -- each of which (when you lived them) you had erased the memories of all the others. Every single possible timeline is lived -- and can be relived in all its glory, as many times as one wants. For me, at least, this dissolves the problem of others' choices as well. If anyone can make not just any possible choice, but live through any possible timeline, what does it mean to ask which one is "real"? If your paradise involves loving and being loved by a particular someone, will in your paradise, the person you need to love you, loves you, and stays with you as long as you need. In their paradise, they might love someone else. You enjoy a timeline where people choose exactly the choices that would make you most happy; they live in a timeline which is the same for them. Of course, the sorts of philosophical questions that would raise (among others: What does it mean for the "same" person to simultaneously exist across multiple timelines? Who, exactly, is "choosing" which version they occupy? And if the one that does choose doesn't choose a timeline that involves them loving you back, is the version that does love you really "them"?) are even more esoteric and less accessible to a network audience than the moral philosophy questions The Good Place did try to introduce. So I don't blame them for skipping by it.

* * *

The last enemy to be defeated may not, after all, be death. It may be time.  Time ruins all things. Eventually you run out of it. And even if you never ran out of it -- you had infinite time -- it would defeat you in a different way: via boredom, repetition, and ennui. We can, perhaps, imagine a world where we vanquish death. But can we imagine one where (forgot about possibility, and just think conceptually) we defeat time? I can. Barely, but I can. Of course, it's in many ways a moot point, since I'm profoundly skeptical that humanity ever will master time in this way -- or even if it's practically possible (that it won't happen in my lifetime is actually less material, given that if it ever did happen we'd probably be at Omega Point anyway). But at least it holds out the possibility of an actual happy ending -- where the last enemy is truly vanquished, and nobody has to say goodbye. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2GK19Yo

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 23 S3: Always Put Guns on Your Satellites

Ah, I’m finally back at my home computer after a little hiatus there. In case you are curious, I went to San Fransisco and then spent about 2 weeks trying to find a single parking spot. But, I’m back in my normal place now, where trash trucks aren’t driving around, breaking the speed barrier at 3 AM and where I don’t have to parallel park at a 45 degree incline. I got my fill of good food, chilling out, getting completely rained out by a freak storm in May, and walking about a mile vertically to go three feet horizontally, it’s time to sit back, relax, and talk about an anime that came out 20 years ago.

Y’all...what were even doing 2 weeks ago? It really does feel like three years.

If memory serves, we are currently in the midst of not one, but 3 Apocalypses. Lets just place em down in case you forgot

1.) The Millennium Item Apocalypse, where if one person gets all 7 (or was it 10?) of the items, the world freakin ends. This is briefly on hold because Bakura, our Millennium item enthusiast, hella died about 24 episodes ago and none of these people have brought it up or tried to contact any sort of governing authority even though Yugi and Tea both witnessed the murder about 7 hours ago (which, for Marik’s credit, did take place over international waters, touche). So, for now, Bakura’s spirit is kinda holed up in Pharaoh’s puzzle necklace so he’s just...chillaxing.

2.) The God Card Apocalypse, where if one person gets all 3 God Cards, the world freakin ends. Briefly on hold because everyone got stuck in a VR universe, and Marik felt like staying on the blimp instead because I dunno maybe he wanted to take a nap or something.

3.) The Matrix, where Seto’s Dad is going to launch a bunch of machines to trap the entire human race in this VR zone against their will and become a slave to the machine overlords. Somehow this is a thing that has been happening in the background this entire series but has only been revealed like...last episode.

Bro is reminding me that I forgot to mention that all these duel monsters are becoming slowly more and more real but like...eh.

There’s three concurrent Apocalypses right now. Don’t forget. There’s three of them.

Anyway, Seto Kaiba has decided it’s about time he deal with his Daddy issues/prevent the Matrix.

While Kaiba has decided to confront his Father, the rest of the people on this show have no freakin idea what to even do so they’re just arguing with eachother in Domino square and getting no where.

Also, I nearly forgot, Joey can’t even beat up Noah currently because Noah switched places with Mokuba, because this isn’t Yugioh unless we start switching brains like it’s as easy as turning your T-shirt inside out.

Of course, in this case, Mokuba didn’t exactly *switch* places with Noah--Moki’s brain is just...floating around this world somewhere. I don’t know if he got stuck in a Monkey or if he’s just...dead...but it just makes absolutely no sense to me how your soul can get sucked into a VR game and now lives tron-style in VR while someone else steers your body which isn’t any more connected to the machine itself, so I’ll just assume he’s dead. It’s just easier to say Moki died, it’s happened so many times to this kid at this point.

Basically, Mokuba is here, but in not-spirit. In every way but spirit.

And about those brain pods--does Yugi’s pod take up 2x the RAM because he’s got two people in that bean or has Noah seriously not noticed this like at all? because there's two dudes in one pod and Noah has just acted like that’s a completely normal thing that can happen.

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, the A team has sort of all turned into the B team because only Kaiba’s can really have any active involvement at this part of the arc, so Yugi decides to take a break and enter brain fort. Which, I assume he does just whenever he’s bored. It’s just kind of weird when he decides to do this, without warning, in front of a large group of other people.

Anyway, it’s Yugi, so he somehow turns what is so clearly Kaiba’s problem into this selfish need to carry the torch by himself for no reason.

Like, Yugi is the main character--I get that--he’s gotta be some sort of moral standard because this is a protagonist in a kid’s show, but it is such a stretch for him to still think that there’s any good left in Noah after all the events of this arc. It just comes off that every time Yugi tries to see good in Bakura, or Marik, or the Kaiba family even, he’s maybe doing it out of guilt.

Like Yugi isn’t naive at this point - he set a guy on fire once with Russian Whiskey in a freakin burger diner, and even if you don’t consider Season Zero canon, he also set PaniK on fire and left him to die in the woods (and that nut ABSOLUTELY died), so it just doesn’t make sense to me that he’d helplessly fall victim to a thousand evil assholes who pretended to be his friend. Instead, it’s sort of like Yugi’s trying to overcompensate for the amoral weirdo residing in about 98% of his brain right now.

Overall, TL;DR, Yugi is kind of a weird guy.

Love him, but he’s sort of a walking disaster with some very selfish motivations and I forget. Not about the walking disaster part of course, that part is like clearly very obvious, especially when we find out his grand masterplan.

Also, this happened,

Again, I would be absolutely fine if Tristan just remained like this, talking like the librarian out of Terry Pratchett, taking Serenity to prom just like this.

Anyway, these guys had absolutely nothing to do, so the show invented something on the fly.

If you could copy-paste any card, why not just copy-paste 24 Exodias? Like I get they don’t have God cards here but they have all the other ones, right?

Like I don’t understand the danger here, you can just keep playing cards infinitely because there’s no rules when you’re outside the game. Just keep slapping stuff on your duel disk like it’s that fanmade Yugioh game that they made for real life VR headsets. Youknow the one that was so bad that it became like a viral video, where everyone is a really low poly Yugioh character but they only have like 4 character models, and for some reason one of the four is Yugi but as a girl in a miniskirt? And they’re on the blimp for some reason, and none of them can stand up straight so they kind of duck walk everywhere? That one? The one with Joey saying “It does what it do!”

Like I feel like if even I saw that video show up on my twitter, everyone else has seen that video of just this really bad VR game and I don’t remember what it was called but feel free to google it, it’s a fun 10 minute ride.

Anyway, the mayhem of that viral video is kind of what this entire VR arc is turning into. More and more as we break reality and completely ignore the rules, to the point where now we’re just slapping whatever cards on our duel disk--cards we shouldn’t even freakin have because we identified at the beginning of this season that no one has a deck here.

But anyway, back to the only person who got out of the VR zone, lets see what Noah’s up to. Ah, the real world, where all we ever had to worry about was magic.

This password was so obtuse even Noah, who is literally a computer, forgot it. Wow.

So now that Noah has escaped the computer, he decides to walk down the hall to log onto yet another computer so he could use his hands instead of...however he was using computers in the digital zone.

He could have done this from within the Orb, right? Like this part didn’t really require him stealing Mokuba’s body? We know he’s already connected to Kaiba’s network so he could become ascended and open the Door of Truth, so I’m assuming it would also have the ability to just log onto this computer in his own ship?

Noah does seem to be just winging it through this entire arc, but he could have done this sequence, and THEN stolen Moki, and THEN hightailed it out of there. It would have saved him some problems later. But wtv, lets hack a satellite, that good ol Kaiba pastime.

Also, fun fact, Kaiba went through all that work to get rid of all the weapons and then forgot about his space stash?

Like was there just SO MANY weapons that he overlooked it, or is he just keeping this here, just to have? Just in case, youknow? Like why does Seto Kaiba have access to The Bomb? Why would we leave a horrible nuclear missile in the hands of a teenager who freaks every time he plays cards? This child who is so unstable, that he knows he was married to a paper card in a previous life but doesn’t feel like talking about it? That crazy kid?

Like usually we have a set of two keys for this type of thing and two different people turn the key at the same time, we don’t just leave them in the Seto Kaiba headquarters with the kid who turned all cards into guns. Are all of Seto’s handlers actually just spies from other countries trying to keep Seto from nuking the planet? Is that the real answer to who the hell Roland is? Is he just a nice spy that makes sure Seto plays enough cards to forget that he could blow up the world if he sneezed too much and pressed the wrong key loading up Duel Disk Myspace?

The implications.

Meanwhile, Kaiba is the only one on this show smart enough to just walk into Gozaburo’s office, where I assume this guy has just been hanging out the entire arc.

Yep, that’s right, they’re going to do a card duel with a chess champion because this show has to shoehorn in those cards. Just one more card fight. Just cuz. Just one more completely pointless card fight between these two people, to show...that Seto can beat his Dad? Seto’s beaten his Dad like every opportunity he’s had to beat his Dad I don’t...exactly know why this was necessary. Would’ve been a much bigger emotional beat for Seto to have just walked away, but that would have also been a much different Seto than the Seto we have.

So basically, if Seto loses, Gozaburo threatens to erase Seto’s mind entirely, which we’ve already pointed out has been so wiped at this point that it would be all of 700 KB and it would just be a single corrupted pixel picture of a dragon.

Anyways, Marik finally conquers his greatest enemy.

Oh. OK. This is a thing he can do now. Welcome back to the show, Marik.

Anyway, Marik has decided it’s high time for him to just go flippen spaz and start breaking stuff. For no reason. I don’t think he fully comprehends that he’s underwater and should not blow up the boat.

Or maybe he FULLY comprehends that? Either answer for him would feel correct.

Also, while I don’t cover cards here, Kaiba’s Dad has decided that the only way to beat his son was to pretend he’s Yugi Muto and reenact the pilot.

It was weird. It was sort of like watching someone audition for a role they don’t have.

Lets go back to Noah.

I knew this arc was going kinda long but how did they end up in freakin Guam???

Marik, who has no concept of technology because he grew up in a tomb and is currently possessed by an ancient force of evil, is still able to recognize a good countdown clock when he sees one. Before he bashes it to pieces because of course he can.

Marik almost saved everyone else’s ass, but unfortunately doesn’t understand that the monitor is not actually attached to the workings of the computer. Much like my Mother.

Bro brings up that this a very Metal Gear thing to only use helicopters to travel over the ocean and hot damn we got yet another Metal Gear reference in just before this arc closes. These weird war crime children.

Ps I like that they drew in the shadow of the bangs across Moki’s eyes as if that would somehow make Moki look sinister. lol.

But, much like the Grinch, Noah’s heart grew...well, it grew.

I wouldn’t go as far to say it grew even a full size, but youknow it...kinda made a weird little fart and bloated a little bit.

So like with Tristan turning into a monkey, it does seem a lot like Noah is just turning into Mokuba and that’s why he’s decided to save everyone. Least in my mind that’s what it looks like. Maybe if he really did take Yugi’s body, Noah would have lasted maybe 5 seconds before being doubled over with endless anxiety and guilt. Would’ve solved a lot of their problems.

I’ve been watching a cat while commuting 4 hours a day and this is actual footage of what my charger cable looked like after the cat went Marik on me and decided the cable deserved to die at 3AM after the freakin SF garbage truck went supersonic and woke up the entire neighborhood.

(the cat is fine, btw, we went and hid all the other cords, dumbass cat)

So what does Noah do? He decides...it’s time I fessed up. And he does it in the worst way, during a time when literally everyone else in the VR world is fighting multiple card enemies/their Dad.

Way to be, Noah, way to be. On the other side of town, Yugi was visibly sweating and had this facial of expression of like “Wow, maybe Noah is just a freakin psycopath?” Which, I dunno, kind of seems like the sort of thing we figured out 23 episodes ago, right at the same moment we met Noah.

Anyway, that’s all for this episode. Really seems like the only person who actually DID anything was Noah who just...decided to throw a bunch of missiles directly at himself because he can’t think things through. I guess Marik did some stuff too, but honestly, I have no idea if Marik thoroughly understood that he just guaranteed that he was absolutely going to be destroyed by rockets. That Loki.

Hey if Noah DOES manage to destroy everyone on this boat, he prevents 3 whole apocalypses and that would default him to hero status. He’ll kill off like 3 major villains and maybe even Shadi. And who doesn’t want Shadi to die (who I assume is already dead but wtv) I mean that’s not going to happen, but like...way to try and save the world Noah, you’re doing your best life.

Anyway, if you just got here, here’s a link to read these recaps from the very beginning, fair warning, there’s 2.5 seasons.

[f-r-e-s-h]

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Although director John Carpenter in the 70s and (early) 80s with films like "Halloween", "The Fog", "Christine", "Die Klapperschlange", "Dark Star" and the ingenious remake of "Das Ding" was half a dozen Delivered a dozen genre classics, he has not succeeded in a really convincing film for over a decade. A good reviewer should not repeat itself, but as with "Matrix Reloaded", a short digression on the subject of "expectations" is appropriate at the end of the trilogy. Probably because of the simple choreography and the high level of awareness. I'm sorry. The time to edit this comment has expired. Because, as in the second part of May, the attitude of the viewer when entering the cinema is now a decisive criterion for his state of mind when leaving it. Previously, the daily newspapers "Krone" and "Austria" reported that Kurz would meet Schwarzenegger during his visit to the USA and to one of ex-Google boss iphone 11 bazooka phone case Eric Schmidt attend organized meetings of IT giants in the US state of Montana. According to the Federal Chancellery, the country is still in the United States until next week. No further appointments by the chancellor of public interest were planned. YMCA - One of the Oktoberfest hits is YMCA from the Village People.

I wouldn't say so badly now, but yes, at some point the drop sucked. The app can be purchased in the Apple App Store and the Android Play Store. “Dravens Tales from the Crypt” has charmed for over 12 years with a tasteless mix of humor, serious journalism and zombies, garnished with lots of art, entertainment and punk rock. Draven has turned his hobby into a popular brand. That sounds like shit, of course.

Briefly met Schwarzenegger at digitization conference

Life means dealing with time properly. It is difficult for me to describe what I am actually doing here, over the years DravensTales has become a culture blog, music blog, shock blog, tech blog, horror blog, fun blog, a blog about network finds, internet bizarre things, trash blog, art blog, water heater, Zeitgeist blog , Scrap blog and surprise bag blog called. What is all right ... - and yet not. The focus of the blog is contemporary art, in the broadest sense of the word. There was a time when 'The New Schwarzenegger' was an event that could trigger wet palms among friends of the action film. 19 percent from abroad and 9 percent from the rest of Germany. Twelve celebrities will again be moving to the jungle camp as candidates from January. Viewers wonder how much the participants in "I'm a Star - Get Me Out of Here" earn. The AZ spoke to a celebrity manager about the stars' money, salary and fee. The celebrities have their trip to Australia royally paid for by RTL and the production company ITV. The pictures of the Bavarian dads. Unfortunately you are not allowed to use this name! Register and choose your own chiller name. Shock moment for Arnold Schwarzenegger. When visiting a sports competition in South Africa, the Hollywood star and bodybuilder is brutally attacked. This function is currently not available. Please try again later. Michael Wendler's mother, on the other hand, doesn't seem to think much of the new girl at her son's side. She is still enthusiastic about daughter-in-law Claudia Norberg, who moves to the jungle camp. The packaging should match the retail packaging, unless the item is handmade or was supplied by the manufacturer in non-retail packaging (e.g. in an unlabelled box or plastic bag). My pulse is 30 above normal, my hands are trembling slightly, I am unable to articulate a coherent sentence, my cerebral cortex slowly slips back to its original place, my visual nerves tentatively resume normal operation, and my left Half of the brain desperately tries to cope with the stream of images and impressions to be interpreted, which flows continuously from the right side of the brain. I just saw "Matrix".

[unexpectedreylo]

Mary Sue Or Not?

Having climbed aboard the Reylo ship 10-11 months ago, I’ve written quite a bit about them as a couple and about Kylo/Ben, since he is endlessly fascinating on many levels and he is the last Skywalker heir.

But it’s time to shine some light on our girl Rey, the heroine of this fairy tale/gothic romance novel collision in space.  And the first thing I want to address is whether or not it’s fair to call her a Mary Sue.

One problem we have is no one really can define what a Mary Sue is anymore; it’s become what former U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart once said about obscenity...you can’t define it but you know it when you see it.  A lot of the time in modern parlance, it’s a lazy shorthand for “a female character I don’t like.”

But “Mary Sue” did mean something once and it was very specific.  It was meant to describe an original character in fan fiction who was basically an idealized version of the author, there to suck all of the gravity of a particular universe in her direction.  Someone I knew in Star Wars prequel fandom once described a Mary Sue as a fundamental writing error.  I would add it’s the kind of error (usually) young, inexperienced writers who aren’t familiar enough with the source material tend to make.  

The OG Mary Sue from the zine Menagerie #3.

The term “Mary Sue” came from a satirical Star Trek fan fiction (“A Trekkie’s Tale”) written in the ‘70s meant to spoof these kinds of stories.  The heroine, Mary Sue, is the youngest Starfleet officer at 15.5 years old and is half-Vulcan.  Everyone falls in love with Lt. Mary Sue; of course Capt. Kirk hits on her but being a woman of virtue, she rebuffs him.  She dies a tragic death trying to save the Enterprise and is mourned by all (in the early days, Mary Sues often died tragically and heroically).   Since then Mary Sues have become more sophisticated and varied, but are often marked by their extraordinary skills, unusual but beautiful appearance, and ridiculously convoluted names (”Mary Sue” is pretty vanilla these days for a Mary Sue).  They also stubbornly refuse to die.  But the principles remain the same:  the Sue is the always the center of attention, the Sue is always a usurper, and the rules of the canonical universe/characterizations always bend or break to justify a character who really doesn’t fit into that universe at all.  For example in “A Trekkie’s Tale,” the normally stoical Mr. Spock blubbers like a baby at Mary Sue’s funeral.  In the infamous “My Immortal,” the denizens of Hogswarts are transformed into suicidal bisexual “goffs” to accommodate its Draco-humping vampire anti-heroine “Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way.”   (”My Immortal” just might be the 21st century internet troll’s version of “A Trekkie’s Tale.”)

I started reading Star Wars fan fiction 26 years ago and every now and then, I’d run into a Mary Sue.  More often than not, she was Force-sensitive and was usually paired with Luke.  In older zines, particularly ones pre-TESB, I’d see the kind often paired with Han Solo that I’d called “Spacer Sues.”  About 20 years ago I wrote a fic spoofing Star Wars-style Mary Sues called “Hello Jedi Sue.”  In the story the main character Sue was sucked up into a tornado and sent into the GFFA.  She had a higher midichlorian count than even Anakin and immediately upon meeting Luke, he realizes she is destined for him.  Over the course of the story, she leads Rogue Squadron to victory against a stray Sith Lord who turns up out of nowhere (she’d never flown an X-wing before), she pilots the Falcon through an asteroid field after Han suffers a heart attack, and of course she trains to be a Jedi.  Leia is kind of chilly to her at first but comes around and gives her a ring that once belonged to Queen Amidala, the only memento she has left of her birth mother.  Some apprentice gets jealous of her and pushes her off the top of the temple to her death.  Leia declares it a worse tragedy than Alderaan.  Everyone’s crying and stuff but Sue uses her Force superpowers to resurrect herself.  She and Luke marry and she immediately gets pregnant.  Obi-Wan’s ghost appears to tell the happy couple she is his granddaughter and Qui-Gon’s great-granddaughter (don’t ask).  

So you might say TFA raised my eyebrows because some of it reminded me of “Hello Jedi Sue.”  Before everyone hits the unfollow button, I DO NOT think that Rey is a Mary Sue.

I’ll break it down like this.  In order for a character to be a Mary Sue, the character must do most if not all of the following:

Be an idealized version of the author.

Be the center of attention, even in situations where it wouldn’t be practical or appropriate.

Bend or break the rules of the canon universe just to fit in.

Possesses highly unusual but beautiful looks and exhibit a large amount of extraordinary skills.

Be irresistible, especially sexually irresistible, to everyone.

Usurp the roles played by canon characters and their importance.

So, let’s go over that list with Rey in mind.

1.  Is she an idealized version of J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, Lawrence Kasdan, or George Lucas (who created Rey’s progenitor “Kira”)?

Uhh, I doubt it.  It’s not just that Rey is obviously not of the same sex, but she doesn’t seem to exhibit anything that reminds me of these men in real life.  Sure she’s packed with girl power but so what?  So are Lara Croft, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Padme Amidala, Xena, Leia Organa, Black Widow, Wonder Woman, that dragon chick from Game Of Thrones, Ahsoka, etc..  

2.  Is she the center of attention, even where it wouldn’t be practical or appropriate?

She’s the main hero(ine) of this trilogy and the avatar for the audience but she serves the same function that Luke Skywalker did in the OT or Anakin Skywalker did in the PT.  So of course the story is going to focus on her.  But if she was genuinely a Mary Sue, she would be doing everything of importance in the film to the point of making everyone else useless.  They could be sitting by the sidelines having a beer while she’s basically running the movie.  

3.  Does she bend or break the rules of the canon universe just to fit in?

This is one point where I think a lot of the contention lies.  She gets accused a lot of being “overpowered.”  Well, what does that mean?  The way I see the narrative shaping up after two films, she is obviously very powerful in the Force but TLJ makes it clear her power level is the same as Kylo’s.  I think the movies are hinting she and Kylo/Ben are something new and unique, a creation of the Cosmic Force in its post Anakin-balanced state.  I hope we get more of an explanation of this because I think it would go a long way to reassure people.  

On that note, another common complaint is that Rey takes on skills rapidly with minimal training.  I admit, I felt this was a problem the first time I saw TFA.  I couldn’t understand why for instance she was able to use the Jedi mind trick so quickly without any training.  By contrast, Luke wasn’t able to use the mind trick until ROTJ.  I couldn’t understand why she was able to defeat someone trained in the Force in a lightsaber duel, regardless of his mental state or injury.  It took until I saw TLJ and saw some comments from one of the story groupers that I understood she’d basically downloaded Kylo’s skills when he entered her mind and she’d entered his.  Now I get it.  But this is one criticism I still have of TFA; it didn’t make that clear enough to the audience.  There’s a reason why George Lucas spent time letting you know Luke was a good bush pilot on Tatooine who could shoot womp rats in his T-16 or Anakin could win a pod race...it’s so that when they fly out to blow up something at the end of the movie, you’re able to understand why they can do that.  Sometimes you do have to make movies so that the common idiot can figure it out!

Now a critic might argue that Rey Matrixing her way to Jedi skills is lazy.  Maybe the filmmakers wanted to make sure they had a protagonist able to get into the mix early on because there weren’t enough Force-sensitive characters around who could’ve taken on Kylo.  But then again, did we really see the OT or PT spend a lot of time on training?  Luke fought Darth Vader after about 25 minutes of training in TESB and we never saw Anakin train at all; 10 years had passed between TPM and AOTC and by the latter film, he was able to do all kinds of cool stuff.  And TLJ makes it clear that while Rey had the skills, she still needed direction and instruction.  She thought the Force just controlled people and made things float!

And sometimes the audience misses things, especially if they only see a movie once.  For instance, the first time I saw TFA I was baffled why Rey was able to pilot the Falcon.  It seemed like Little Miss Desert Scavenger just hopped into the cockpit and away she went, whereas if I just got on a spaceship for the first time ever, I’d crash that mo-fo pretty quickly.  Then when I saw the film again some time later, the dialogue makes it clear she IS able to pilot.  She never left Jakku not because she couldn’t leave but because she was still waiting for her loser parents to come back.

4.  Is she irresistible to everyone?

Mary Sues always get a reaction out of every canon character and that reaction is a strong one.  It’s always fierce devotion, instant BFFs forever, undying passionate and true love, boiling-over lust, or pure loathing and hatred (that of course turns into the opposite or the hater is toast).  There’s never indifference, or relationships that take time to build, or first impressions that turn out to be wrong, etc..  And it’s always instantaneous.  

Most of the good guys like Rey but is any of it different from how characters took to Luke in the OT or Anakin in the PT?  Not really.  The only thing that stands out is Leia running over to hug the girl she’s known for part of a movie over Chewbacca but even Abrams admitted he’d goofed.  And one instance does not a Mary Sue make.

The only characters who have more intense feelings for Rey are Kylo and Finn and in both cases, those feelings are complicated.  

5.  Does she have a highly unusual but beautiful appearance and exhibit a large amount of extraordinary skills?

Note the lack of rainbow hair and silver eyes.

Daisy Ridley is a beautiful young woman but as Rey, it seems like if anything they’re shooting for more of a natural, earthy beauty that befits her character.  There’s nothing unusual about how she looks or how she dresses.  She looks like she would almost fade into the crowd if you didn’t know who or what she was.  Mary Sues on the other hand ALWAYS have to be noticed for their looks.

As for Rey’s skills, this is another thing people criticize.  But in the Star Wars universe, being a Force-user isn’t alone an indication of Mary Sue-dom.  Now if Rey was more powerful than anyone else ever, even Anakin Skywalker, that would be a Mary Sue issue.  But the films make it clear that she isn’t more powerful than everyone; her power level is the same as Kylo’s.  Her only advantage comes from being the more morally correct character in the story.

Her other skills are explained in the films and are nothing unusual in the Star Wars universe.  She’s a good pilot but not such an ace everyone’s saying she’s better than Wedge Antilles, Poe Dameron, and Luke Skywalker combined.  She’s a grease monkey but that comes from years of scavenging.  Her talents aren’t just dropping out of the ether.  

A Mary Sue would be the most powerful Force user ever, the greatest pilot of all time, someone who could teach space aeronautics at MIT at the age of 20, have an IQ higher than Einstein’s, be the greatest and most ingenious hacker, a better leader than Leia, a better shot than Annie Oakley even while drunk, cook like Julia Child, have sex like a porn star, have a singing voice like an angel, and is all-around the best at everything that needs to be done at any given time, ALL OF THE TIME. That’s not quite what we’re getting with Rey.

6..  Does she usurp roles played by canon characters and their importance?

This is another area of heated contention and it depends on what you believe are the filmmakers’ intentions.  Are they setting Rey up to be the “real” Chosen One, essentially changing Lucas’s story?  Are they setting up the Skywalkers as unworthy so Rey has to basically take their place as the “gods” end their cursed line?

Believe it or not, I was really worried this was exactly what Disney was going to do.  Now, I don’t think this is the case.  If anything, Rey is there in part to save the Skywalker line and legacy, not to end it or steal it for herself.  But I suspect there are a lot of fans who still think this is where they are going in IX, so of course they’re going to resent Rey.

I came to the conclusion after seeing TLJ that while Rey is important and the lead character, she’s not the center of gravity in the story.  Kylo Ren is.  Pay attention; nearly everything that’s happening in the films is in some way because of him or related to him.  It’s harder to believe she’s some random OC who broke into the Star Wars saga to suck the attention away from the Skywalkers once you realize this.

All of these said, there’s one more reason why Rey is not a Mary Sue.

Canon characters by definition cannot be Mary Sues!

It drives me nuts that people call canon characters Mary Sues.  The whole point of a Mary Sue is someone who doesn’t really fit in with a universe so the universe is fit around her.  Bella Swan may be a lot of things but she’s not a Mary Sue.  (Now if you wrote a Twilight OC who pushes out Bella, gets Edward to fall in love with her, and gets Edward to give up his vampire ways and become a Christian, THAT’s a Mary Sue.)  Now, some fans won’t accept anything Disney produced as canon but this is what we’ve got and it’s all we’re getting.    

I don’t know who did this--I found it on Know Your Meme--but it’s a decent guide.

[itsbenedict]

Kingdoms and Koopas: Ep. 2

K&K is a Fate Accelerated campaign set in the Mario universe, which I’m running for three players:

Bee @thebeeskneesocks​, playing Kandace Koopa

Jovian @jovian12​, playing Cozmo Naut

Malky @sleepdepravity​, playing Dr. Chevy Chain

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Previously on Kingdoms and Koopas: a routine hospital visit turned into a quest for magical artifacts, which turned into a less-routine hospital visit wherein the party was summarily inhaled by a Vacuum Shroom victim. After escaping the peril of Lake Stomach, the party escaped to the lungs, “assisted” the Fuzzipede, taste-tested toxic substances, teleported said toxic substances, and acquired information from the Lord of the Guys. Now, they know that the Music Key they’re after is in the heart, so that’s where they’re headed next!

Before leaving the Liver, Chevy checks in with the bartender. She asks how long it’ll take to clean out the rest of the toxin, to which the answer is “several hours, if Kandace helps teleport it out constantly”. She also asks how different parts of the body keep in touch, to which the answer is “the nervous system”. Wall phones, mostly. She gets the bartender’s number, and away they go to the heart.

Now, the heart is a complex organ. It’s got four chambers across two sides, and searching the heart could take a while. Problem number one: there’s two ways into the heart. They could follow the bloodstream into the left side, or they could go against the current to explore the right side. The current, incidentally, being a lot of red blood cells flying by at high speed- like a highway full of flying cars.

Kandace has the bright idea of having Chevy just sort of bite down on a red blood cell and hitch a ride, which... Chevy is not immediately on board with. You want her to bite blood? She’s not a vampire, c’mon. It’d probably taste terrible! And can’t they just ride one without biting it??

Well, some cajoling later, she gives in and they hang on to her chain as she rides a blood cell up to the left ventricle of the heart. They ride up towards the atrium, but then Chevy starts trying to say something with a mouthful of blood cell. Paraphrased:

“Mrrrmm fmmd I mmph gmph?”

“Uh, dude, what?”

“Mrrrmm fmmd I mmph gmph?”

“Chevy, we can’t understand what you’re sayin’!”

“MRRRMMM FMMD I-”

“Stop trying to talk with your mouth full!”

And then Chevy lets go of the blood cell and they all fall and land on a platform in the left ventricle. 

“I said, ‘when should I let go?’”

They search the ventricle but don’t find much of interest, so they get back on Kandace’s broom and fly up to the left atrium, which... uh. It’s dark, so obviously Kandace shoots off a fireball to illuminate the room. To steal a very good joke: “I guess we’re gonna have to give this guy heartburn!”

The fireball illuminates... a ton of Boos. Boos who move to block the entrance to the aorta. Cozmo swings Chevy around like a flail to knock them out of the way, succeeding in busting through. As they enter the aorta, Kandace can sense the presence of the Music Key in the direction they’re moving... until the aorta turns and they start moving away from it. From that information, they’re able to deduce that the Music Key is in the right atrium of the heart.

Problem is... to get there, they’d have to either ride the circulatory system all the way around the body until they entered the right atrium via the pulmonary vein, or they’d have to fly against the current of blood cells all the way back. And... in addition to fast-moving blood cells, there is also a small army of even faster Boos chasing them, attempting to seize them on behalf of “the Master”.

Cozmo tries to shake off the Boos with a firework, but he rolls poorly and the firework goes off on a blood cell. As the Boos close in... Kandace has an idea. She has Cozmo try to lasso one, but he just barely fails- apparently. The maneuver got it into position for Kandace to grab it, and begin using a magic spell to channel its power of intangibility and turn the party intangible. They flee through the aorta wall, and fly through flesh towards the right atrium.

(Hey, it beat the original plan of “just tunnel directly through the walls of this guy’s heart, it’ll be fine”.)

So they emerge into... total darkness. Kandace attempts to reach for the Music Key, which she senses in front of her, but she just barely dodges as the Key moves and something in the darkness attacks her, which she can’t see.

Kandace decides to solve this problem by summoning a swarm of fireflies. I immediately have a really good and really awful idea for how this can go poorly for her- but unfortunately, Chevy thought of the same issue. Namely: they’re really small right now! Is she sure the summoning spell will adjust for size? Or is she about to fill Gourmet Guy’s heart with a swarm of bugs? (She would’ve.) Taking Chevy’s advice, she instead summons a single firefly, which is still bright enough to light... most of the room.

The room is covered in like, wall scrolls and those tied knot thingies that they have in Japanese shrines, and like... all kinds of ninja-affiliated decor. Also, there’s pockets of supernatural darkness and shadow all around. And she can see... a Boo. A Boo with a familiar face, in familiar garb- but not familiar as a Boo.

A bit of background: one of Kandace’s teachers at Kammy Koopa’s Academy for Young Witches and Wizards recently went missing- one Coach Genbu, the koopa PE teacher. PE at KKAFYWAW is still magic-oriented- learning a lot of physical magic skills, and such. Martial arts, ninjutsu, and the like. Since his disappearance- and thanks to Kammy Koopa’s lack of managerial presence- the substitute-less class has just been playing Dodgespell every period.

Now, Coach Genboo is here, having been eaten and digested by Gourmet Guy. His spirit haunts the heart, where he has decided to keep watch over the Music Key. It belongs to Kammy Koopa, after all, and he oughtn’t let any old schmucks take it.

Kandace tries to convince Genboo that she intends to return the key to Kammy, but, uh... Genboo is aware of her aspect “The Wickedest Little Witch”. She is... not trustworthy. Still, she manages to overcome this and sort of convince him to hand it over- if she can first best him in combat. Boss fight time!

So... first, Genboo disappears, leaving the animate shadows in the room to attack everyone. Cozmo immediately attacks the darkness, pulling out an explosive vial and stunning it with a flashbang effect. Genboo, meanwhile, goes straight for Kandace, who would have taken a hit had Chevy not used her stunt to defend her. Uh, accidentally. Chevy has no intention of participating- she spends her turn going over to hang with the giant firefly that occupies half the room. Kandace is annoyed, but manages to ignore her and convince her shadow, Carbonado, to locate Genboo in the shadows.

Cozmo, meanwhile, fends off the attacks of the shadows, punching them as they try to punch him, and doing all kinds of sick punches and backflip kicks and matrix-type moves. It would look super cool, if it weren’t all taking place in the shadows where it’s too dark to see anything. I’m sorry, Cozmo. I appreciate your cool moves.

After Genboo tries and fails to neutralize Cozmo, Chevy attempts to contribute by... heckling Kandace. Which I rule constitutes an attempt to create the “Demoralized” aspect on her. And she rolls high! Kandace spends her last Fate point of the session coming up with a sick comeback, which amounts to “Well, you don’t have any hands!”

Then Kandace successfully blasts Genboo with an ice beam, and he’s just about ready to surrender, when... all his subordinate Boos come charging through the wall, attacking Chevy. They fail to attack Chevy, because she whips the firefly to make it glow brighter and scare them a bit, and then Genboo calls them off.

Genboo, satisfied that Kandace has Proved! Her! Prowess!, hands over the Music Key, which of course swirls around her dramatically before she puts it in her bag. He informs her that she’s expecting her back tomorrow at 3 for PE, and to inform the rest of the class that they’ve all got demerits for cutting class just because it was being held in someone’s organs. She promises she’ll let them know, and succeeds on her roll to keep him from noticing her lie.

Mission complete!

...Except they’re still stuck inside Gourmet Guy. Hm.

Oh, and... Chevy doesn’t want to come with them as they try to escape, because she’s annoyed at Kandace. She elects to stay with the firefly and find their own way out, rather than deal with that bratty kid. And Kandace feels likewise- if this jerk chain chomp won’t apologize for putting their lives in danger (by heckling her during a test being administered by a teacher), then she can just stay down here. Cozmo is uncomfortable with all this fighting, and eventually decides to jump off Kandace’s broom and join Chevy with the firely.

...Which disappears, because the summon spell only lasted ten minutes. Kandace reluctantly rescues the both of them as they begin to fall.

Okay, so, escaping! Kandace has this spell, right? A teleportation circle, with a random target! Great! They can escape with that, and they can of course just assume that if they get out of Gourmet Guy, they’ll return to their normal sizes!

They use it, and find themselves... embedded in a bunch of Lakitu cloud, alongside all the Vacuum Shroom toxin they teleported away. Oops. I guess “random location” means “one specific random location”.

Chevy uses her weight to sink through the cloud, and Cozmo and Kandace manage to dig their way through and follow. As they emerge... several things become apparent.

First, they can’t emerge all the way- the cloud is full of Vacuum Shroom, and so it’s sucking in everything around it. This means there’s a powerful air pressure keeping them embedded in the surface of the cloud. Second- they can see where they are, which is a courtyard at Kam Ekademy, the rival school across the way from KKAFYWAW, run by Kamek. They know this because there are several Koopalings down below the Lakitu cloud, who are desperately trying to not get pulled in. Third, they hear the voice of the Lakitu in question- a student calling himself “the Storm God”, who is actually pleased as punch by this vacuum-related development. He commands the winds! AAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Bow before him, fools!

As Ludwig von Koopa loses his grip and flies hairdo-first into the cloud where our heroes sit, Kandace has an idea. The idea is, like most good ideas, to cast a spell on Chevy against her will. Specifically, this time it makes her heavier- and, whoops, as a side effect turns her into a gravitational singularity that draws in everything even harder.

Thankfully, this includes... the statue of Kammy Koopa that Kandace teleported away the first time she learned the teleportation circle spell, which has since been vandalized and modified by the Kam Ekademy students into a found that shoots water from her nose. The water washes out the toxin from the cloud, as well as everything else- and the party is finally returned to their normal size.

Their normal size, and their abnormal condition of all being magnetically attracted to Chevy’s surface like a katamari.

Kandace dispels the effect, but then, uh... well, they’re surrounded by a bunch of very upset representatives of the school that hates the guts of the school Kandace is from, and which is responsible for their recent misfortune. So that’ll be fun to deal with next time!

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[synthient]

Hi, since you went through Enter the Matrix, do you have any tips whatsoever to make it less motion-sickness-inducing? It seems cool so far, but that early 2000s camera sure is a wild and untamed beast, and after 30 minutes my brain just starts screaming.

oh sorry, I didn't actually play it--I watched a let's play bc I suck at action games lol