#I feel like we have to see the flashback versions at least one last time to see what exactly went down

[booasaur]

Harlan Coben's Shelter - 1x03

[balanceoflightanddark]

Azula is, without a doubt, the most controversial character in Avatar: the Last Airbender. There's no tapdancing around it. Most discussions involving her usually devolve into "why are you justifying a despot," or "was she born evil," or "does she deserve redemption?". Whenever she's brought up, it's like battle lines are being drawn and we're all waiting for somebody to take the first shot.

My question is, what about her is generating so much controversy to begin with? I mean, ATLA is no stranger to controversial characters. Katara's gotten it. Aang's gotten it. Jet and Hama have gotten it. So Azula isn't quite out of the norm regarding hot-button topics.

The first thing I can think of is that she's the enemy of Zuko, the fandom's golden child. Again, no way around it. He's insanely popular, and anybody who's opposed to him is going to be seen in a negative light. This includes Azula since she's his primary nemesis. Ozai may have caused his scar and Zhao may have more genuinely hated his guts, but Azula's the one that got under his skin.

Here's where I think the problem sets in. With Zuko being so popular, people are more willing to take his side in things. This includes Azula, which he sees as a rival and whatever sympathy he might have is stifled by his desire to "put her in her place". She's the primary enemy in his flashback in "Zuko Alone" despite Ozai being the one who actually set things off for his crappy upbringing. Now, there's no denying she's a villain and had to be stopped. But I think the fandom is a bit too willing to unconditionally take Zuko's word on it. This is despite the fact that the famous "born lucky, lucky to be born" quote was when he himself was a villain and he was griping to Aang about his problems.

Basically, by taking Zuko's opinion, we're assuming he's completely right and his version of Azula is reality. Even though this is the same kid who was willing to believe in the best in his dad until the eleventh hour. So his judgment can be askewed.

The same thing goes with Iroh. Again, there's that famous "she's crazy and she needs to go down" line people love to use to justify Azula being born evil or always being crazy. Expect, again, Iroh's not immune to biasism either. He paints Azula as the enemy, bt has nothing but regret for how things with Ozai fell out. He didn't even warn Zuko about who Ozai truly was.

Now, this isn't me clowning on either Zuko or Iroh. Zuko's a dumb kid who has a very messed up sense of morality for most of his life and Iroh's likely struggling with his own issues with Ozai. I wouldn't even put it past them to paint Azula in a negative light since they're going to run into her again, so it might be best to put aside sympathies so she doesn't kill them. At least for the time being. I don't agree with them, but I'm not going to say they're the worst people ever for it.

No, what I think the problem is that we very rarely see Azula's side of the story. We only see it in "The Beach" and the mirror scene. Here we see a character that's not a force of nature, but a conflicted girl about her own morality and whether or not she's a monster. She puts on a sarcastic face about it, but we can see it still eats her from the inside. And we see she does care about Ty Lee, Mai, and Zuko, even if she does a piss poor job of doing it.

This is where I think the controversy comes in: how sympathetic are we supposed to see Azula? We are meant to feel SOME sympathy, but not to the point that we can excuse her actions. Yet some take it the wrong way and say she's completely irredeemable and a monster just as bad as Ozai. Sure she's a villain that needed to be stopped, but putting her on the same level is a tad bit extreme (we are talking about a 14 year old girl compared to a grown ass man after all).

I think the disconnect comes from the fact that, again, we only see Azula through Iroh and Zuko's lenses. She's the villain in their eyes, an unstoppable force, and so we see the same thing. There's nothing really challenging that in the narrative outside of a few scenes. Azula never really gets the chance to express her side of the story, not even during the Last Agni Kai. And the few times she does like in the campfire scene? Nobody says word, validating her belief that she's saying the truth and that she's a monster.

Nobody challenges Zuko and Iroh on Azula, while nobody challenges Azula on her belief that she's a monster. Which is funny since Zuko and Iroh DO (at least initially) provide some possible sympathetic angles on Ozai (at least before he really became a monster). Zuko talks about how he wanted to get along with him. Iroh doesn't talk all that much ill about him at first. We even see his baby picture for crying out loud. So while we're meant to see Ozai as a tyrant and too far gone for any realistic chance of redemption, we're asked to wonder where he came from and raises the possibility that he wasn't always evil.

We don't get such challenges with Azula. She's only very rarely given sympathy. We're meant to feel sorry for her, but we're not given the whole story. We're given one side, and we're left scrambling to try and find out who she really is.

[strongheartneteyam]

I wet you like water but she stained you like blood.

Pairing: widowed!dilf!jake sully x younger!female!human!reader

CW: slight sexual language, can be triggering to some, heartbreak, age gap kink, hurt/no comfort, age gap relationship problems, angst, reader reminiscing (pls tell me if I missed anything) 

So, yeah... I never know when I'm gonna come back with another writing. My hiatus n working periods are all a bit unpredictable lol sorry. Anyways... I literally spent the whole night awake n I was struck by a sudden lightning of creativity early in the morning and I edited this chapter n wrote a bit more, but I still haven't slept at all, so, I apologize if some parts of this make no sense at all. I'll fix it when I can. Hope you guys like it <3 ily guys a whole lot :)) obs: this chapter is a shorter one.

Slightly proofread.

Chapter 4 𓆩♡𓆪

They say all's well that ends well

But I'm in a new hell every time you double-cross my mind

You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would've been fine

And that made me want to die

The idea you had of me, who was she?

A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you

All Too Well - 10 minutes Version (Taylor Swift)

𓆩♡𓆪

It had been 1 year since the last time you saw Jacob Sully. Or Jakey, like you used to call him. The wound never healed. It still throbbed and bled every time you remembered the words he told you that dreadful day. "I think we should stop seeing each other." It felt like you would never get over him. How can one get over such an overpowering, raw feeling? He marked you forever, like a bruise that seemed to never disappear from your skin.

The flashback came like thunder in a storm, haunting your thoughts with a loud pain that echoed through your mind. What you told Jake that night.

“The truth is I love you. The truth is I can't take this anymore. I'm giving you my everything but you don't seem to be doing the same. You're still guarded.” There was a tense period of silence “Jake… I love you. But I don't think you feel the same.”

Maybe you shouldn't have said anything. Maybe if you had kept your mouth shut, he would still be with you.

Ugh!! Stop that, now, (y/n)! Some self love, please? You're better than this. You deserve better.

You tried to convince yourself of that, at least.

The pain was unbearable at times and almost easy to conceal at other times. It depended on how distracted with work or your studies you were. These days you ran to any distraction that could ease the perpetual angst that squeezed your heart inside its hands all the fucking time. It had been like that ever since Jake left you. What were you expecting anyway? You should have known you were never truly loved by Jake. The love of his life was Neytiri and it would always be, alive and walking through Pandora or dead and with Eywa.

It felt beyond weird to have to hear people talking about Jake and have to pretend he was a stranger to you, someone you barely knew, when he had actually left a mark so strong on you, a memory ingrained in your brain, a feeling, a pain buried inside your heart that made you want to scream and hit your head against a wall. That's how much it hurt.

You would never have his body against yours again, warming you up when it was cold, after you spent the whole day in that damn lab, studying Pandoran plants but all you could really concentrate on was how much you missed his reassuring, protective presence. He made you feel safe for the first time in your life. But now he is gone. Just like every single good thing you ever had in your life. But you know what? Maybe your mother was right, maybe love wasn't really something that could ever last forever.

Did Jake ever really make a real effort to be with you? Thinking back, it was extremely easy for him to just come to you and fuck you anytime he felt sad and lonely. What if you had just been a naive, dumb girl all this time? Were you mourning a love that never actually existed? It was always so hard to talk to him about his feelings for you, he never actually let you in, to be honest. All the time you two spent together, you were never able to know if he ever saw you as a partner or just a fuck buddy. 

Oh, but the high… it was worth all the lows. The butterflies in your stomach every time you guys were almost caught fucking in the back of your work room by Norm. Eventually you guys had to tell him about your situationship because, oh well… he already knew what was going on, really. Norm is not a fool or a child. He could add 2 plus 2.

The adrenaline was worth all the tears. And, fuck… you would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

𓆩♡𓆪

Taglist:

@aonungsoneandonly

@coldbabyheroin

@fairyyrosee

@myh3artttt

@explosiongamora

@ufiy

@yeosxxx

@happyyappysworld

@avatar4eva

@henhouse-horrors

@jakesullyfatjuicypeen

@fujimoribaby

@layla2-49

@zoetrope1997

@yeosxxx

@luvv4j4ybe11

@bakugouswaif

@slytherdor01

[redxx95]

Is Kurosawa really not Adachi's "type"?

Surprise, this essay is Adachi-focused for once 😂

In my last essay (which you can find here) I mentioned how Kurosawa thinks Adachi has a type (as in, certain traits he finds attractive) which he believes he does not fall under. In this essay I'm not only going to prove him wrong but also really examine what Adachi's "type" even really is, because I think Kurosawa is somewhat of an unreliable narrator in this.

Kurosawa's assumption

First let's take a closer look at the traits Kurosawa names when he talks about Adachi's type. In Japanese, those are 青春系 (youthful-like, which got translated as "pure and innocent vibe") 清掃 (clean, translated as "delicate") and 優しい (kind) (panels are from ch 5.5 and 18.5)

Does Kurosawa fit those traits? Well. Kinda. There's this one panel where Adachi sees him as "pure" and there's many instances where Kurosawa acts kind of childlike which one could describe as youthful/innocent, but it's not the most solid proof.

"Clean" is an easier descriptor to prove though, since Adachi calls him that multiple times, albeit not exactly the same word in Japanese. (He uses 清潔 which translates to "clean" and, funnily enough, "pure" but in the sense of perfection rather than innocence.)

And so is "kind", which is a core trait Adachi values about Kurosawa and even mentions it first when asked. (This is not super relevant but I also want to point out that the first character in Kurosawa's first name (優) is literally the kanji for "kind".)

But if you actually check whether or not Adachi ever uses these words to describe Fujisaki himself, you'll find that the only one he uses at least once is "kind", and I could only find that in the japanese version. More on that later though.

What he never calls her though is pure, youthful, innocent or delicate.

Exploring Adachi's type

So now that we established that Kurosawa's assumption is kind of shaky, let's try to figure out what traits Adachi is actually attracted to, and whether or not those can be applied to Kurosawa. Our candidates who he has shown to be interested in are as follows:

The middle school girl and the black haired woman from his nightmare/flashback, and Fujisaki.

That is… not a whole lot. Since we can basically immediately exclude the middle school girl, because we have only one panel to go off of, we're left with only two people to examine, but examine we shall nonetheless!

Let's start with the flashback woman. She does visually resemble Fujisaki quite a bit, but I believe the actual reason Adachi even considers her is because of this.

She seems (at least initially) open-minded and is the only one putting a somewhat positive spin on men with no relationship experience. She's probably displayed this trait before and that might have been why Adachi got interested in the first place. And guess who else does that, who we know Adachi is definitely interested in.

The way this is the whole reason he even realizes his feelings for Kurosawa is also very telling. I think that for him looks take a backseat in favor of personality. He's pointed out the conventional attractiveness of the women in Toyokawa before but he never shows any actual interest in them.

Here he also points out their prettiness but is immediately scared off when he learns of their thoughts about him. The only one we see him actually interested in is Fujisaki, whose looks are more on the average side but whose thoughts never get nasty and insulting like the ones he hears from the pretty women. … which is also a thing he values about Kurosawa, and he even tells him that directly in ch 34 when they have their heart-to-heart pre-first time. And it's funny because in the beginning he does expect him to have a "nasty personality", probably because he's so used to good looking people being like that.

In conclusion: The reason he likes the flashback woman is not because she has pretty long black hair but because she is not mean about other people's shortcomings, which can be applied to Kurosawa as well.

Now let's look at Fujisaki and all of her interactions with Adachi and see if we can find some more of those Parallels that we love so much on this blog.

Adachi mentions that Fujisaki is cute quite often.

… which he also thinks of Kurosawa very often. There were honestly so many instances where Adachi finds him cute that I would reach the image limit on this post very quickly so have this one panel instead:

Bonus: he also very much enjoys Kurosawa's smell.

And since we're on the topic of "cute", I think a big reason why he finds her so cute is also that Fujisaki often asks Adachi for help, and as I mentioned in this essay, Adachi likes to feel needed.

Which, again, very much applies to Kurosawa, too.

Adachi also seems to appreciate that Fujisaki is a hard worker. (He doesn't know she's reading yaoi on company time though.)

And once again, he states this to be something he likes about Kurosawa as well.

Another descriptor he likes to use for her is "good". This often means "kind" in the japanese version, which I already elaborated on above. (For example in the panel below "nice" is "kind" in the original.) But there's also plenty of times he calls Kurosawa a "good guy" (i.e. "kind")

I know I said before that visuals don't matter as much to him but these parallels are just too funny not to include. Flower backgrounds for the pretty people 💐

Bonus Mari in here because I think it's cute how he blushes at her. Both Kurosawas are simply too much for this bisexual disaster man.

And apparently he's also just really into very shiny people.

So now that I've really hammered my point home that Kurosawa is just as much Adachi's type as any of his other interests, let's think about why there's even such a discrepancy between what Kurosawa assumes and what actually is. I think it's because his only point of reference for Adachi's interest in romantic partners is Fujisaki. What he doesn't consider, however, is that Fujisaki never tried to put up a perfect front around Adachi the way he did. Adachi has had the chance to see Fujisaki fail and find that immediately endearing, whereas with Kurosawa he had to first get magic mind reading powers to get to that same point. At least they got there eventually 🫶

Ok I'm finally done rambling, this thing got way too long again 😩

Are YOU Adachi's type? 🫵 Tell me about it in the comments!

[deadite-central]

SPOILERS FOR WANO ACT THREE!

Yeah I got nothing to say this time let’s get started

Like I said in the previous post, I adore everything about Yamato’s and Kaido’s fight. The idea of how much Yamato was inspired by Oden, and how his father did everything to take that away from him is displayed here fully. Kaido treated him with nothing but cruelty for most of his life, and for what? Because his child admired someone he himself believed to be incredibly strong and honourable? Yamato rightfully calls out his father on everything he’s done to ruin his life, and it feels so earned, and even if he knows he can’t win, he’ll make sure Luffy has the chance to defeat him

Okay I don’t know if this is a well known fact but I adore Hawkins. He’s genuinely one of my favorite characters in the entire series, and his fight with Killer gives him so much time to shine. He’s incredibly smart, not allowing himself to be attacked head on due to using Kidd’s life as one of his straw dolls, and he seems to be in control of the fight up until Killer also decides to pull a trick and slashes his arm off, the one arm Kidd didn’t have. The true icing on the cake for this fight is when Hawkins pulls out the Tower card, which if you know anything about Tarot is the last negative aspect you’d want to pull out in a situation like this

Continuing the pattern from before, about the fact everyone gets their time to shine, I lean FINALLY talk about Sanji’s struggle that stemmed from his relying on the Germa raid suit, he worries he’s turning into someone like his family, as he can feel the changes he’s going through. He wonders what Luffy would want from him, which ultimately leads to the death pact between him and Zoro. He defeats Queen, and goes back to being his usual kind self (with a neat callback to his flashback in whole cake with the mouse), but the looming threat of the death pact still lingers. Zoro himself goes through my favorite fight of his against King, with the two paralleling each other, displaying utter dedication to their respective captains. It’s thematically important for Zoro, especially since he pushes himself to save his friends so much he MEETS DEATH after the fight, which leads to a bunch of stuff in the later arcs (at least from what I’ve seen so far). Lastly, I hate when people say Usopp didn’t do anything in Wano, as if this scene of his doesn’t exist. He shows the samurai that a honourable death in battle is stupid, because at the end of the day, it’s living another day that allows us to grow, to experience new things and to keep fighting, it takes a part of his character that would usually be seen as a flaw and flips it on its head, showing that sometimes you run, so you can keep fighting

I haven’t really talked about CP0 during Onigashima, but once they decide to put their plans into motion to make Wano WG territory, we get one of the coolest panels in Wano, along with the reveal that maybe, Luffy’s fruit isn’t what we thought, which I’ll get more into later

Kidd and Law vs Big Mom is a masterclass in using the abilities of everyone involved to their full extent, with the ending of the fight not only letting Law make a homage to the man who saved him, but also giving Big Mom a moment to think as she falls to her doom, on what Roger wanted to achieve. It’s profound, and I truly hope she’s coming back in Elbaph, as she’s such a good character and I miss her so much. I’m not the only one to miss her, as getting to see the version of Linlin that Kaido knew during his time with the Rocks pirates but their relationship into a new perspective, as sure they butt heads, fight, and both want the title of pirate king, but she was the one to take him under her wing, and the two clearly cared about each other, I genuinely felt for them here, despite the evils they’ve done, and that just shows to me how complex both of them are

Before we get to a thing I’ve been meaning to talk about this whole goddamn arc, when Kaido gives the news of Luffy’s defeat, Nami once again shows unwavering faith in her captain. Luffy has defeated foes thought to be undefeatable, and this scene in particular brings me back into Alabasta, with everyone proclaiming that Luffy would never die

And oh boy were they right about that

[0lshadyl0]

Hi would it be alright to request yandere romantic hcs for Naruto please with a female reader if possible maybe she was part of his team in his younger days ; love to see what you come up with ^-^

I love this question, especially because of the concept of being a teammate, basically being the third member of team 7, since I think that another female character should have been the tri-lead and not Sakura (It's not that I dislike Sakura, in fact, I feel that she is a character with a lot of potential but undervalued by her author who only went out of her way to develop Sasuke. Sakura is a wasted potential like almost all the women in the series, which It makes me think that Kishi doesn't know how to write women… or he's lazy because they aren't Uchihas or Sasuke)

In fact, I am thinking in the future of making a fic with a team 7 made up of Sasuke, Naruto and Hinata, since they are the respective reincarnations of Indra, Asura and the descendant of Hamura, but that will be for another post

yandere Naruto Romantic Headcanons

Well, here I am going to develop Naruto in his early age, that is, Naruto from the first part of the series, it does not include shippuden, the last and I will pretend that Boruto does not exist (don't ask me questions about Boruto, I didn't see the series and I am not interested beyond the concept of Boruto's visual power but only because it would be a development of the byakugan not because I am interested in the character), so here we will see the child version of a twelve-year-old yandere Naruto (if I remember correctly, that's how old he was at that time) until he leaves the village with Jiraiya, keeping this in mind, let's continue

We all know the sad story of Naruto and how painful his childhood was, without parents, hated by the entire village, without friends and all that drama

The important thing is that from all that negligence and lack of human interaction, the need was born in him to attract attention in any way possible

basically what I want to say here is that he would turn yandere for literally anyone who pays him the slightest bit of attention and above all, this is key, who treats him well

I'm not talking about great charitable gestures or kindness, I'm talking about treating him with cordiality, basically the first principle of a decent human being (yes, that's how badly he's been treated)

He would trust you 100% if you approached and proposed to be his friend (let's remember part of a flashback in some filler chapter where he went into a dangerous forest to look for a kunai from an enemy ninja of the village just because some stupid and very bad-hearted children said that they would be his friends if he brought said weapon, basically sending him to die if it weren't for Iruka-sensei)

Another thing is that Naruto is tremendously obsessive, just look at how he behaves with his teammates, that will not compare to the obsession he developed with you.

and we must take into account, here Sakura does not exist in his head, you are the prettiest girl in the village and he has made his intentions very clear to you that in the future he wants to be your lover (boyfriend, in a innocent way since he is a kid)

He will not see mistakes or defects, he will fight with Sasuke or Kakashi if one of those two scolds you or disrespects you

he will not like your friends, not because he is jealous or that he thinks they are going to steal you from him, but it is more because of his insecurity and fear of being alone again, that is something you can repair If you make your friends also friends with him

He is clingy to the extreme but not very observant in the sense that he won't always remember your favorite color or food, but at least he remembers special dates.

your enemies are his enemies and he does hold grudges against people who hurt you

He will also see you as someone above him and everyone, he is like a worshiper (remember how he thought well of Sakura? It's the same but amplified) you are a being incapable of making mistakes in his eyes

His beloved's opinion is very important to him, so much so that it is above anyone else, above his teacher, Sasuke, Iruka, the ramen guy or even the Hokage.

At this stage he will be a little annoying, irritating and clingy, but nothing dangerous, a child in love, the most dangerous thing about his yandere side would come out later when his crush stops being childish.

[zaenaris]

Anime-only adaptations I really enjoyed

I really loved how the anime staff pour their love in the flashback and in the parts where the characters are described the most (bc, in the end, TR is a story driven by characters, not plot), so yeah, kudos for the kokonui, kakuiza and Kisaki centric parts that were not in thee manga and that were added as a ponderate choice by the anime team.

In chronological order

When Takemichi calls him with his nickname "Kaku-chan", Kakucho hesitates before killing him, while in the manga (ch.134) when Izana orders him to kill Takemichi, he just does it with no mercy. The result is the same, but in the anime we saw Kakucho's struggle

The parts about Koko and Inupi, their past and their fight (2x21 or ep.8 of the 2nd coure of S2). It is a very emotional and crude part also in the manga, but in the anime, thanks to some changes/adaptations/voice acting and music, manages to be even more emotional and impactful, while remaining faithful to the manga. That's how an adaptation should be done

First of all, the kiss

while, story-wise, it's clear the kiss is not fanservice, but an important moment to understand their past and their complicated relationship, no one can deny the anime kiss looks even more passionate than the manga version

Among the people that approached Koko in the manga for money reasons, only Izana and Taiju were mentioned (ch.159), meanwhile in the manga, besides them, were added also Madarame Shion - an anime only addition-

and the Haitani Brothers, as a nod to Wakui's birthday art for Koko

I already talked about it here and partially here but, in short, I like how the anime underlines even better that Koko considers himself unredeemable and incapable of detach his own identity to make money illegally

and honestly, peak adaptation: the transition to younger Koko to Tenjiku!Koko saying the same line, to make us understand that Koko still feels incredibly guilty about the past...

... and the fact both Inupi and Koko cry in this scene, a moment that there wasn't in the manga and that was an incredibly beautiful and touching addition

but while manga!Koko -ch.159- at this point is just resigned and "colder" in his decision to stay with Tenjiku, just like also manga!Inupi already calmed down, anime!Inupi is both fed up with the situation but willing to makes things right and very determined..

while anime!Koko is destroyed, he doesn't even stand up when Inupi punches him (I already talked about it here)

the little addition of Kakucho in the flashback when Shinichiro goes to say hi to Izana to take him out with him. Izana's favourite people "interacting" was nice (too bad the animation quality was a little meh in this episode, but I understand we can't have peak quality all the time)

Kakucho with Izana when he finds again Karen by chance and she tells his she's not his biological mother and he's not related to any of the Sano. It the manga Izana was alone, adding Kakucho was nice because the situation is still terrible, Izana sees his whole world collapsing on himself, but at least he has Kakucho

last one, Kisaki's "I wanted to be like you" that humanizes him a little. In the manga his death was quick and brutal. We can understands, reading the manga, he had this superiority/inferiority complex towards Takemichi, but the anime explains it more clearly (I talked a bit about it here )

Maybe there's something else that was an anime-only adaptation that made sense, even improved the already existent narration, but I probably don't remember it. These are the ones that imho, are the most important both for the characters and the narration.

I love how Liden Film followed faithfully the story but added "more heart" to it, that's what a good adaptation should do

[aihoshiino]

chapter 160 thoughts

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 17

Aqua Hoshigan Status: Incomprehensible

144 held out strong for nearly 20 whole chapters but 160 comes in like a beast to take its crown as Oshi no Ko Chapter That Has Baffled And Confounded Me The Most. The way it talks about the characters and arcs it's trying to convey to the reader is just mind boggling - some of this stuff just feels completely disconnected from the character arcs it's supposedly commentating on. It almost feels like an Oshi no Ko chapter from an alternate universe version of the manga.

I kind of suspect this is actually the case, in spirit at least. Akasaka has previously stated that he's had at least an ending for OnK planned at least since midway through Tokyo Blade based on when this interview was given. You would think the amount of time between then and now would have given Aka the time to organically work towards this but I think the opposite is true here - because the story has organically drifted and grown in the telling, as is natural for a serialized work of this length, the story that Akasaka ended up telling does not naturally lead into the ending he wanted to give it. And rather than compromise he's just… going ahead with it without making any adjustments, which leads to this bizarre sense of whiplash that's come from the last handful of chapters.

It's definitely possible that some of the stuff in here will read better when we're not getting this stuff bit by bit across however many break weeks but… man. I ain't getting my hopes too high.

To my relief, we start off on a note of confirming that Nino and Ryosuke were, in fact, both freaks about Ai way before Kamiki ever got involved with them. Even so, the story's framing of how he influenced them is just… weird. Based on the little flashback panels we see of their supposed friendship I'm inclined to think Kamiki is being truthful here just because whenever we see on-panel flashbacks in this way, they tend to be more-or-less factual accounts of events. Aqua tries to say he's lying, that he definitely intended to do harm but this is really hard for me to swallow, given that this 'intent to do harm' ball would've had to have started rolling back when Kamiki was fourteen at the oldest and long before he and Ai broke up.

Not only that but I have to stress, again; Nino and Ryosuke were already freaks about Ai at this point!!! They tracked down one of her loved ones under false pretenses and entered his life presumably for the purposes of crowbarring info about Ai from him!!! Wil from the OnK Brainrot server pointed out that this comes off much more strongly like Ryosuke and Nino taking advantage of Kamiki's naivety to prey on Ai, which I agree with and think lines up way more straightforwardly with the Kamiki we saw leading up to 154 and its conclusion.

It almost feels like there's two Kamikis; the victim of circumstance Kamiki who embraces monstrousness as an act of reclamation, who knows he can never again be good so he will surrender to being bad and the flatly evil Light Yagami ass Kamiki who's bad because uhhh he just is ok? It probably goes without saying which of the two I find more compelling and overall more consistent with what the story has been building up so far, but the way the story keeps abruptly switching between the two makes it almost impossible to get a coherent read on him.

At the end of the day, I simply find it very hard to swallow the manga's attempt to almost sweep Nino and Ryosuke's culpability under the rug or to transfer the weight of their actions to Kamiki and hold him accountable for them because of this supposed manipulation. A healthy, well-adjusted person with no tendencies towards violent or antisocial behaviour does not suddenly get mindbroken into a misogynistic murderer overnight because they saw that the subject of their parasocial obsession keeps a toothbrush at her boyfriend's house. I can believe that Kamiki certainly didn't help but the idea that he is solely responsible for turning Nino and Ryosuke into violent murderers is a stretch.

I feel like I'm kind of talking in circles on this point a lot because I'm struggling to articulate why it bothers me so much so I'll end this section by paraphrasing a section of Higurashi YouTuber Bess's deep dive post-mortem on the GouSotsu anime duology. that I think sums up where I'm at.

In it, Bess quotes the original author in describing the actions of the overarching antagonist as "giving a gun to someone who is being bullied and getting emotional" and says that she agrees but points out that if the victim chooses to fire that gun, they are the ones who hold responsibility for their actions and that being the victim of manipulation does not suddenly rob them of accountability for their violence, whereas the framing of GouSotsu is that the overarching villain is the sole person who bears responsibility.

I feel like this is the dynamic at play here with Kamiki and Ryosuke/Nino too - except Kamiki, in this metaphor, didn't even fucking give anyone a gun because both Ryosuke and Nino were already armed to begin with. BUT I'LL MOVE ON NOW I SWEAR…

Aside from ^ ALL THAT ^ I also feel like this chapter's attempt to define the white/black hoshigan dichotomy is also just kind of a flop. It's so overly specific that it doesn't actually match with how the black OR white hoshigans have been portrayed symbolically before (was Aqua using his super special dark and evil star powers to dominate and manipulate others when he was eating potato chips and pumping up a pool floatie? come on, man) but it's also just so on the nose and overly dramatic that it comes off as kind of goofy and hard to take seriously.

It's also really funny and kind of frustration to see this dichotomy established seemingly for the purposes of just propping Ruby up some more. Aqua insisting that Ruby is ~just different~ from him and Hikaru REALLY flops because like… IS SHE REALLY THO???

Understand that I don't say this to shit on Ruby but like. Ruby literally had a whole arc about going black hoshigan and using her talent to manipulate and use people for her own benefit! She effectively utilized girl power to put the jobs of an entire TV show's worth of people at risk so she could clout chase a little more efficiently!!! Literally everything Kamiki tries to assert about him and Aqua are also perfect descriptions of how Ruby behaved during that leg of the manga until it flipped off like a switch and she faced literally zero consequences and learned nothing from it.

This is another indication to me that this conversation is an artifact of Akasaka's originally planned ending because this whole bit gassing up how Ruby is just ~so different~ from Kamiki and Aqua simply does not cohere with a story where Ruby had an entire arc of her just being Aqua 2.0 that was never really resolved and she never really learned anything from. If the framing here was just a LITTLE different, I think it could work - maybe instead of Aqua acting like Ruby is just intrinsically, arbitrarily Pure of Heart or whatever, a point could be made that Ruby is actively choosing to be a good and loving person even after all the shit she's been through and especially after an accidental taste of the dark side. But as it stands the accidental implication of the story ends up being that Ruby's BH era was Good, Actually and the actions she took during it were also good lol.

I continue to have all the same issues with the B-Komachi concert as I did in my previous chapter review so I won't repeat myself on that. I will, however, point out that the song Ruby namedrops in this chapter is a reference to Spica (where we translated it as 'When You Wish Upon Your Star'), in which this is a song written and performed by Ai as a message of support for her fans. That is to say, we are once again seeing Ruby, from a narrative perspective, not being allowed to stand on her own as her own idol but relying on the imagery and legacy of Ai's idolhood.

Not only that but… again, I must ask: why is Ruby the center and narrative focus of Kana's graduation concert? Like, obviously, given that Aqua and Kamiki are talking about her the framing is going to focus on Ruby but why is this conversation happening during a moment that had been massively built up to be about Kana? Why is Aqua talking about Ruby as an idol like the rest of B-Komachi just doesn't exist? Why is the narrative unironically indulging in all the same favoritism and coddling of Ruby that, in-universe, tore apart the first generation of B-Komachi?

I guess at the end of the day my problem is that I'm just kind of fed up with Ruby as a character and the way the story has been bending over backwards to coddle her so it's hard to me to get invested when the story goes YEAAAAHHH WOOOOOO RUBY!!!! Especially when, like it has been for a while now, this coddling comes not just at the expense of other characters but also at the expense of Ruby herself and the coherency and consistency of her character arc. It sucks for Ruby as a character and it sucks for me, as a reader, who used to rank Ruby as one of their top three faves but now just feels kind of exhausted with her.

LOOK OUT KAMIKI HE'S GOT A KNIFE

God this whole bit with Aqua getting double white hoshigans while he pulls a knife on Kamiki is just kind of too goofy to take seriously lol. I have some thoughts about how this potentially recontextualizes some of Aqua's actions through the Movie Arc and during the previous confrontation with Kamiki but. I just keep coming back to Aqua being like "white hoshigans means love r something which i'm going to prove by killing you in cold blood" and just shaking my head. It really feels like a moment written just to be a cliffhanger so, like I have with the last three damn chapters, I'll hold back any commentary on it until we get a continuation of this thread next week.

honestly the part of this chapter I enjoyed most was that creepypasta ass full page panel of Kamiki's fucked up smile. that genuinely really alarmed me when i first saw it and even now I don't like looking at it for too long or i get the willies lol. Genuinely fire horror imagery from Mengo as usual. Can she PLEEEEEEEEASE do a horror manga next i'm BEGGING to get spooked by mengo-sensei

no wait i lied. the best part was that cute panel of ai and her babies. <3

justice for memcho and kana, tho, for real

And I'm sure as none of you will be shocked to hear……….. break next week.

[modernmessydisaster]

Pre-Arcane S2 Act 2 Thoughts

With hours away until it drops, gonna list all my predictions & wishes. Hopefully, I get at least one or two right.

Ep 4, Obviously, a Jinx centered episode. But it's more so the effects of what Jinx did in Ep 3. The people of Zaun rallying behind her, wearing her colors & fighting back.

Jinx has been absent since the attack, probably watching after Vi and trying to figure out where she goes from here. How to finish herself off or something similar :(

It isn't until Sevika convinces her, especially finding out Isha got arrested & taken to Stillwater with the rest of her "followers". That Jinx finally takes up the role she's been given by Zaun, their hero.

Probably other parts of the episode, back n forth. How Cait is doing as Commander, the people of Piltover looking to her as guidance. Strict curfews, large number of enforcers & noxus soldiers patrolling. The once shiny Piltover looks empty of life and dreary. Muted, darker colors. Maybe at some points, Cait sees reason and slowly letting go of her anger/grief BUT Ambessa stops that and fuels Cait's vengeance again.

Leading to the mass arrest of Jinx's followers, probably calling Jinx a hero sent Cait over the edge a bit without Ambessa in her ear. Either way, Jinx comes and saves them. It's a whole big show! Which in the eyes of Piltover, a huge failure on Cait. Which probably shakes their trust in her, until Ambessa smooths it over. By declaring that an army of enforcers & noxus soldiers will march down into Zaun and finally bring it's people to justice. Maybe this is the start of Cait realizing she's wrong, Ambessa is using her, but it's too late.

Her mother & Vi's words haunt her now, at the choices she's made.

□□□

Ep 5, hmmm I wanna say a Vi centered episode. What she was doing in the timeskip. Underground fighting, her trauma & grief. Girl is going through it. Maybe we will see flashbacks to her time with Vander & her parents.

Honestly, don't know where this episode would go. Maybe more hints & build up of Viktor's cult in the background. Some Zaun people hating her for being an ex-Enforcer and her part in unleashing the Grey. I wanna say this is the episode where the Warwick/Vander fight happens. Perhaps this episode near the end lines up with Ep 4, timeline wise.

As in Vi, fighting for Zaun again. Going to help the breakout at Stillwater. Probably wanting to make it her final stance, her grave. But Singed unleashed Warwick/Vander at Stillwater. Vi goes to fight him, with help from Jinx later. OR Jinx was almost going to die going against Warwick/Vander and Vi jumps into the fight to save her/die doing what Vander told her, "protect/take care of Powder."

Basically Vi pouring out all her emotions into this fight. Flashbacks with "Remember Me" playing and Warwick/Vander seeing Vi's familiar fight style, Jinx's yells. He starts remembering, just the faces of his children. His own flashbacks with each kid, Vi being the last. Her child version overlapping who she is bow as an adult. Warwick/Vander letting out an anguish howl and trying to say Vi's name in a distorted voice.

Alternative thought, just struck me.

Ep 4, is about Jinx & Vi, combining what I wrote about each. I'm not about to rewrite this whole thing

Ep 5, being about Jayce/Ekko/Viktor/Mel. More so Mel & the Black Roses. Her journey in whatever maguc prison they put her into paralleling Jayce's own journey in the Hexcore/Arcane Time/Dimension Magic? Ekko, idk if he got separated from Jayce. Instead having his own journey in that Time Magic Fuckery with Heimerdinger.

Probably both groups seeing the danger of this Arcane corruption, one in the past, and one in the future.

Either way, all three groups break out. Mel goes to stop & get answers from her Mother. After learning everything she could from the Black Roses after defeating whoever was holding her. Awakening her own powers. Ekko going to save Zaun, and Jayce going to stop & save Viktor.

□□□

Ep 6, I feel like the episode will start with Viktor & his cult. Seeing how much it's grown during the time skip. Long haired Viktor, but while he should be happy. Idk maybe there is an unease brewing in Viktor, especially how weird his followers/hexcore Sky hallucination act. With tales of his miracles spreading, wouldn't be surprised if Ambessa tried making a deal with Viktor or something similar to have that magic on her side.

Viktor's cult has been in the background for Ep 4 & 5. So yeah, finally seeing what is going on with him. Probably eldritch horrors he can't comprehend and that disguise themselves as Sky, but can't or won't anyone. Since their influence & power is growing. Probably soon, they are going to do a ritual, maybe sacrifice of the followers to unleash something.

Viktor slowly realizing this. Adding in that with Ambessa's ruthless attacks on Zaun. Almost everyone has migrated to the lower levels where Viktor & his cult are. So when Ambessa attacks as we see in the trailer. Viktor & his followers are gonna be caught up in it.

Maybe Viktor & his followers will join the fight for Zaun, maybe the Hexcore/Void? Uses this opposite to do something? Honestly do not know, again all speculation.

Probably WRONG on everything here, but it was fun to theorize.

Lastly, quick things I want to happen in Act 2.

JINX & VIKTOR MEETING, they gotta at least have a conversation! Something something of Jinx commenting that Viktor isn't the only one who has hallucinations & hears voice. OR at least a long glance at each other

ISHA NOT DYING, I refuse to believe she's gonna die. Maybe almost dying, but Jinx saving her, thus how she lost her braids.

Slico hallucinations & voices being supportive

Jinx kicking Noxus soldiers ass especially with her own hextech/magic.

Mel having magic because she was touch/blessed by Kindred in the womb. Which unknown to her, is how she kept escaping death. Essentially, Mel is the lamb, fox, snd wolf. Death's champion.

Viktor & Singed meeting again.

Probably Maddie dying or her being horrified by her actions OR Maddie isn't horrified by her actions but CAIT IS

Steb, quitting the enforcers, starts a chain event of other enforcers quitting cause this is all going too far. Probably later, Cait asking him & others for help to stop Ambessa

Now to prepare myself to what an emotional mess I'll be in a few hours:

[mbrainspaz]

what the hell was that Heather vs Muse scene? What was that? What was the dynamic between them even supposed to be? Why did her book inspire a serial killer? Why did she freeze like a deer in headlights when dealing with mentally ill people is supposed to be her whole job? What did he even want from her? He obsessed over her and then he was just gonna kill her like all the other randos? In her office?? In the middle of the day???? Why pretend to want therapy just to attack her? It kills me that the whole therapy sesh dialogue only existed to explain that he knew Taekwondo so that he could last 60 seconds longer against Daredevil than your average thug in another utterly underwhelming and cramped fight sequence. Gods the storytelling could not get any stupider.

It's impossible to miss that half of it was awkwardly dubbed, too, so maybe they started out with something that made sense. Honestly her acting makes so little sense that I think in the OG version he drugged her. Even that wouldn't explain some of the dumb stuff she said. "Don't you care about all the people you killed? Huh? Do you feel nothing?" WHILE she's being cut open by a guy wearing a mask with bleeding eyes. "What the f*ck are you doing?"—Clearly dubbed, and yeah, this is said while he's approaching her with a knife. The dubbing saga continues with: "You've kidnapped me and then you're gonna what, SHOOT ME? HUHHGH?!" *Killer picks up gun* Girl... yeah. Probably. Take a hint. Then... then she just calls him a coward for wearing a mask. Rolled a 1 on the survival check.

I laughed even harder when the bad cops said 'Someone stabilized the victim.' Bro she's still unconscious and bleeding out. Daredevil didn't even wrap up her arm.

Muse wasn't even scary once Matt kicked his ass in the last episode. And why did he hate Fisk????? Why did Daredevil even go back to Muse's lair and go directly to his portfolio of paintings of his girlfriend?—Which he was only able to recognize because the paint was so thick they were practically sculptures (and done in a completely different style than all his murals), which was so convenient I had to roll my eyes. They even tossed in a flashback in case we forgot that he could TOTALLY recognize her face because he touched it 20 minutes ago. Just like he's touching the paintings! Wow. Just... if your plot hinges on a character whose whole thing is being a blind man (who can magically 'see' his surroundings but canonically can't read screens or stuff on paper) finding and looking at a bunch of paintings to immediately find the bad guy who just happens to be attacking his girlfriend at that very moment, drag that corpse back to the f*cking drawing board. Honestly between all the nothing sandwich plots, the spectacularly bad therapy scene, and the elbows-in-your-face CGI fight sequences this show should be studied forensically to track down everyone who murdered it. I looked up who was responsible for the writing and found out Dario Scardapane gave us at least some of Season 3 of Jack Ryan, which was one of the most nonsensically dull seasons of TV I've ever tried to watch, so that tracks. The credits mention almost a dozen producers and one 'staff writer', so maybe that was part of the problem. Said writer, Devon Kliger, hasn't done enough to pin him down, but imdb says he's currently working on Furby, the movie.

One last nitpick is that you've gotta expect all the MCU IP nods to other characters now that Disney has their grubby mouse paws on it, but honestly even those have gotten on my nerves in this show. 'OOh, we know who Kamala Khan is tee hee.' Okay try mentioning her once instead of a dozen times.

And all of this is exactly what I've come to expect from Disney. The squad of dirty cops that they're (i hope) setting up to get taken out by Punisher, and Fisk and Matt's acting are the only things making it bearable.

[unnecessary-dinosaurs]

*Long, exasperated sigh*

Ok. Chaos Theory season two review.

Spoilers below the cut. This might be a long one.

When this show was first announced, I was thrilled. The characters that meant so much to me would be coming back in a new series. I almost cried once after the first teaser leaked because I was just so excited to see Darius again. I was admittedly a little nervous too. Camp Cretaceous ended on such a good note. Did we really need a continuation? Going into the first season, I was cautiously optimistic.

Then it came and went. I liked it fine, but it wasn’t the same as Camp Cretaceous. In the following months I felt the years long grip JWCC had on me start to loosen. So by the time this season two came around, I was the least excited I ever had been for a new season.

For all of its run, Camp Cretaceous was so good because it simply refused the flaws of the current Jurassic movies. Where the JW trilogy prioritized action, JWCC prioritized the characters and their bonds. Where JW treated dinosaurs like scary monsters, JWCC treated them like animals. Where JW didn’t know when to end, JWCC ended when its story was finished.

Chaos Theory feels like this side story finally adhering to the rules of the franchise. The characters take a backseat to convoluted plots and mature dinosaur action. The story continues even though it doesn’t need to.

I’m not saying the season is horrible or even bad. I just feel like this show, despite its many strengths, hasn’t yet justified its existence to me. If you’re going to uproot the amazing ending of the first show, it has to be for good reason. And I’m just not convinced yet.

First, what I liked about the season:

-The first episode was genuinely so good. Like seriously amazing stuff. Great atmosphere and tension and sets up the rest of the season nicely.

-Brooklynn!! My least favorite camper in JWCC was my favorite this time around. Her flaws were layered and interesting and her motivations were compelling. Her flashback episode was my second favorite. Her relationship with Ronnie was good, and I consistently found myself drawn more to her side of the story.

-This kind of goes without saying but the art direction is still just so good. The lighting is so perfect, the models and the way they move are perfect, everything is just really nice visually.

-I liked the ending. I was worried that everyone would be happy and reunited by the end of the season and it would be too easy, so I’m glad they’re stretching out the conflict.

-The video call scene in episode three. It was just really cute. Good cute moment.

Ok. And now what I didn’t like so much:

-I feel like nothing happened this season? Like all the information in these ten episodes could have been condensed to five. Just really frustrating pacing. Felt like a lot of filler (a whole season of filler).

-I’m just really upset with how the characters were written. Why were none of them (except Brooklynn) interesting? Who even are these people? Why do they have the most generic dialogue ever? Like, I’m expected to care about Kenji, but that’s just literally not Kenji. He doesn’t look, sound, talk, or act like Kenji. Why is his character just being angry and making bad puns now? Why is Ben so boring? Arguably the most interesting character in JWCC is just some guy now? I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this but I can hardly be convinced to feel for these versions of the Nublar Six.

-The new characters were ok at best. They were all serviceable and likable, but I just couldn’t really understand why they were there. Zayna was completely fine, but I saw no reason for her to tag along the entire season. I really just don’t think she contributed much besides acting as a tour guide. The scientist guy was just completely one dimensional. Evil scientist. That’s the character.

-And the best new character from last season just never came back. Where was The Handler? She was such a highlight last season and she had one scene. Bummer.

-The Camp Fam finding out that B is alive was so underwhelming? It felt random and undeserved. There was little build up so what should’ve been a really important moment didn’t have much gravity for me.

-I get what they were trying to do with the hippos and lions but I just don’t really care, sorry. I’m watching Jurassic World, I want to see dinosaurs. I at least appreciate the thought though.

-I wish Brooklynn’s plot hadn’t been faking being bad to get cozy with Santos. It felt like a rehash of Darius pretending to be with Kash in season four of JWCC. A much better rehash, yes, but a rehash nonetheless. I just wish they’d done something more interesting there.

-There were several plot points from last season that were hardly/never brought up. Darius’s crush on Brooklynn, Ben’s girlfriend, Sammy and her family, etc. Why?

I have more stuff I could say but I don’t want it to seem like I think this is the worst season of tv ever. Or even the worst season in JWCC/CT. There’s a lot of genuinely good stuff in here, I just feel like it gets meddled with all the junk being in a franchise comes with. Camp Cretaceous avoided it to an extent, but eventually, it caught up. I know a lot of people like this show and I’m happy for them, but I’m just not one of them. I hope my complaints are addressed in future seasons, but honestly, I won’t count on it.

[mimicha-arts]

Link Click s2e9/e10

Date of the post: 09-01-2023 Okay, I watched this episode a couple of times, another post-episode post where I’m trying to gather my thoughts. SPOILERS FOR S2E9 AND E10 1. Probably missing scene I am 99% sure that we are not done with the “from the hospital to the pier” scene, I will believe until the last moment that this is a hoax. Chen Xiaoshi will run into the red light, and in fact, I think there is one missing scene at this point.

Some time ago, a small draft was published, where one of the characters ran across the road and barely dodged a moving car. Soo, I think it was here. If this remains in the final version, of course, we'll definitely come back to it (source). Just my speculation.

Yes, Xiaoshi was just impossibly lucky (lmao) to escape from the hospital, but we are still left with three unclear details:

upside down phone

the kettle in chronology 1

damn boat! This part of the plot is still the most confusing thing for me. What was the point of giving Lu Guang away the first time? What was the point of creating a time loop? Why he still ended up with Lu Guang (as it seems) in the scene of Romeo and Juliet? I'm pretty patient with this, just curious.

2. Abilities. I think we got a hint about how the twins' powers work. Previously, I assumed that the limitation of Li Tianchen's control abilities was like this: that he could only act in the evening, night and early morning (somewhere in between), since all the kills and uses of his abilities did not occur during the day. Now perhaps we have our answer? Based on the history of the foxes, it is likely that the time of using his abilities is tied to his sister's "sleeping time". Because when she was sleeping, her brother went for "hunting". Moreover, such a focus is on his “paws” and pats.

3. Change of events - Qian Jin and twins The way twins met Qian Jin is SO different. I actually kinda think, that that one of the variants of events is the already fucked up past through the present. s2e9:

s2e8:

It seems to me that the difference in these events is obvious. Both the moment itself and the details. Li Tianchen's backpack on his back, blood on Li Tianxi's dress. Everything went differently.

Alternate realities went brrrrr? The scene from the episode is an attempt to change events, where instead of Qian Jin it is actually Cheng Xiaoshi? I have no idea. 4. Hi, hatman! Friendly reminder: it's just my guessing. At the moment it seems to me that if there is no trolling here, the boy from the flashbacks and the hunter from the fairy tale are the same character. Clearly. We know that his last name is Liu, and Liu Min himself has a younger brother, Liu Xiao, so yeah- Сan't wait for him to return from overseas and be part of a real scene.

In fact, I really love that Li Tianchen hoped throughout his expression that Liu Min is Liu Xiao (whether he realizes that these are different people is still unclear)

Considering the announcement of Neo Aurora, it seems that we will see Liu Xiao's real appearance and design in the near future, I'm shaking. I have so many stupid jokes about him! 6. Liu Min I guess the woman they were discussing at the beginning was someone else? Since Liu Min can still able to move his legs and even can stand up.

I can conclude that Emma was not the first victim of this “alliance.” So it's hard to say how many people were actually killed, definitely not 8, much more. At least that's what it seems to me. Idk, I'm just having fun, as always. Feel free to discuss. Thanks for reading ~

[synergysilhouette]

Rewriting "Fire Emblem: Engage"

This has been on my "draft" page FOREVER. It's my oldest post, and by the time I post this, I'll probably have forgotten some details that I KNOW I'm gonna get hounded (no pun intended) for.

Less emphasis on Emblems--I know, I know. "'Engage' celebrates the anniversary of the franchise, so why wouldn't previous games come into play?" I get it, but it feels suffocating; putting emphasis on the protagonists from past games takes away from the current game (which already feels like it borrows a lot from their last installments). However, in lieu of emblems inside the magical rings, something much more sad is there: 12 of Alear's dead siblings whose spirits are inside them (or their bodies were sealed in there; less sad and still works).

2. Zephia is Alear and Veyle's mom (plus Sombron being their father isn't a plot twist)--As per usual for previous recent FE protagonists (notably Robin and Byleth), Alear's mom is an unseen character who doesn't do much for the plot. Seeing how Zephia wants a child and Sombron promises to give her one, I'd prefer it to be retconned so this happens earlier, and she ends up giving birth to Alear and Veyle (and possibly other siblings). She yearns to be reunited with her children a thousand years later, and manipulates the Hounds into acting as her family (I feel like making Mauvier younger works here since she was supposed to see them as her children, but she physically looks his age or younger), something they all latch onto. However, when they stand against her and Sombron, she turns vengeful and vows to destroy them. Plus she takes the place of the evil Lumera boss (because that was too much like the Revelation route in "Fates" with Mikoto).

3. Flashback/Nightmare makes more sense--A really confusing thing is evil Alear at the beginning. I don't recall if it's ever made clear if this is simply a nightmare or a flashback. Neither one makes sense; we SEE Alear in the past, and they're much more timid and submissive, not as sadistic or wicked (at least their vibe) as shown in the flashback. A nightmare also doesn't make sense, since it's never validated; Alear never joins Sombron, nor do they ever struggle with their evil. Instead, I like the idea that at first, they're legitimately evil. Thanks to Lumera and Sombron's toxic love and living in fear of their death, they are cruel and broken at first. Only when they're injured during battle and rescued a thousand years later by Lumera (for once, I'm keeping the amnesia arc) do they change their perspective on things, vowing to defeat their father. It's also worth noting that they KEEP their hair color; it doesn't turn blue because of Lumera willing it to. Instead, I'd prefer they have a natural red and black hair color (looks better, imo).

4. More of Alear's backstory--We do an unnecessary time travel event for ONE chapter, and I'd prefer if we did more back and forth. Perhaps we simply nix the arc where the team travels back in time (I'll still be using time travel, albeit in a different way here), and subsequent flashbacks we get are from Alear slowly regaining their memories. I'd probably also utilize Nil and Nel, who, in the OG game, are twin children of an alternate version of Sombron. I'd also kinda of change their designs since the black and white is mainly used to show affiliation (still keep Nel in pink and Nil in blue, though), and I'd probably give Nil a more buff design to contrast with Alear, similar to how Nel's mature design contrast's with Veyle's innocent one. In my version, they're children born to Sombron (not via Zephia) who are treated as inferior to Veyle and Alear, and are abused for that, so they strive to prove their worth so their father won't kill them.

5. S-supports for other characters--It was a weird choice for only Alear to be able to marry/reach S-supports with other characters. I know this is a minor detail, but I'd like this, since it adds a bit more depth to character bonds.

6. More romantic options--Everyone is fair game except characers who appear to be underage, ie Framme and Clanne. FE was really great with making much more same-sex options for "Engage," though it did seem confusing why some characters were platonic (yet still required a ring). I'd prefer it if S-supports were romantic, personally.

7. Child units via ring chamber--I got into FE via "Awakening" and "Fates," and I always loved being able to have kids. I made a post about fanmade kids a while ago, and I would do an "Awakening"-style time-travel story. Only this time, it's not a threatening future or a grim mission; you simply unlock them in the ring chamber when achieving S-supports, and they're summoned to your world via the rings within thanks to Alear's siblings.

8. Sombron's backstory is less hypocritical--I...I'm at a loss. He talks about his kids trying to kill him when he's killed several of them. Then he says how alone he feels, and when Alear reaches out to him, he brushes it off. It doesn't feel like writing that makes sense, especially if Sombron himself had feelings. In my rewrite, I'd say that Sombron is from Elyos (IDK why they made him from another world) thousands of years ago, growing up in an abusive and toxic family who eventually tried to kill him before his powers were unleashed and he killed them. Mentally broken, he vowed to have a "right" family of his own, though his first child ended up being as twisted as his family and tried to kill him, only for Sombron to beat them to the punch. Now suspicious and weary of all succeeding children, he lives a loveless, unhappy life.

9. Less rushed villain origins/more pronounced Hounds--Every FE game I've played has issues with writing villains, at least supporting ones. I guess that's the downfall of a game that relies on pair-ups/boosting affinity with other characters. In any case, it does feel like the Four Hounds weren't really characters, but just obstacles. They didn't feel fleshed-out beyond certain traits, and their motivation/backstories were pretty quickly rushed through. I'd probably include them in the story a bit more to give them more screentime and availability to be expanded upon for more nuance.

I feel like there are things that I'm missing, but I've had this post for so long, I wanted to finally release it, so I'll add any additional thoughts later.

[henrysglock]

Have You Gorged Yourself, At Last, In Your Lust For Blood?

No, I have not 💕 This is yet another post about the massacre of 1979 and its fucked up blood, because there's just...so much to unpack.

Namely...why does it all feel like one big copy-cat of other attacks...with a dash of Vecna mixed in for the Flavour, the way Klarbrunn tastes like fruit?

My main question for tonight: Where is all the blood coming from?

We know all the Vecna-style attacks are relatively bloodless...and I mean bloodless. He's not messy. The only blood that we see leaving the body is via the eyes. This is consistent.

So where is all this smeary, pooling blood coming from?

There's blood with no associated body, blood near a body that doesn't match that body, and blood near bodies with no visible source for the bleeding:

The only person whose psionic kills get messy, so far, are El's...

But even that doesn't explain the bloody, smeary hand prints and bloody impact marks.

Neither of them leave bloody impact marks. There is no precedent for bloody impact marks anywhere in the show.

Which, this becomes far more interesting when we consider that the blood and the cracks exist separately:

(Which is something Em noticed, and if he hasn't talked about it in depth on here yet I know he's planning to eventually!)

So that brings me back to wondering:

If it isn't tied to the impact, and there's no visible explanation for it...then where did all that blood come from?

This, then led me to pose the question:

Is it possible there's something else going on here...something unrelated to One or El circa 1979?

As we know already, many of El's flashbacks of the 1979 massacre/4.07 are shot-for-shot reused footage from Brenner's recollection of the events as they occurred in 4.01.

There are some original shots, such as this hallway:

(Brenner's recollection vs El's, respectively. Particularly, the orderly in on screen left. He's changed position, and the prop above/beside him has moved.)

But shots like these, for example, are directly copied and pasted from Brenner's memories:

Which then led me to ask: What other memories of El's, Brenner's, or both might be bleeding into NINA, intentional or otherwise?

There's one scene, in particular, which we never see any additional detail for...and I really wish we did.

It's the opening scene for 1.01:

Now, you all also know, I have many questions regarding El's supposed post-gate escape in 1983, the main of which being —

How did she get from this:

To this, the next morning?

We assume she escaped in the confusion re: the gate...which is questionable, given a number of questions and inconsistencies (Such as: What time did she escape, exactly? If it was during that morning's confusion re: the gate, then how did she get that tank open and why did she stop to change her clothes? If it was later that night and she'd been rescued from the tank/her clothes were changed by staff, then how did she manage to get out without being stopped? What were the circumstances? Did she kill her way to the tunnel? If she did, then why does Brenner look to the gate when he says she can't have gone far? )...but that's not what this part of post is about, so I'm setting this aspect aside.

I bring this ^ whole debacle in because these two guys (the guy screen right during the supposed opening of Mothergate and the guy who gets chowed on by what we assume to be the demogorgon) are the same guy...and judging by his outfit and the title cards, the same guy on the same day: The day the gate opened, which is also the day El made her escape.

We see El at Benny's Burgers the next morning, after this guy ^ gets chowed on.

That means at least one version of Brenner and/or one version of El ought to have taped footage, memories, anything for whatever inevitable collateral damage occurred between the moment the gate opened and the moment when this elevator, with the creature in it, went upstairs:

We never see what actually killed this guy, as opposed to what or who he was running from... nor do we ever see what happens when the elevator makes it upstairs.

What, did the demogorgon just teleport in to kill this one guy, and then teleport back out, leaving behind a perfectly good meal (the lab at least has a skeleton crew, we see that in ST2) upstairs? And even if it's the Vecnagorgon...again, teleporting in to kill one guy and then leaving?

I'm calling bullshit.

I want to know how and when our El really escaped, and I want to know what aftermath she and/or Brenner inevitably saw upstairs when the creature in the elevator escaped.

And why do I want to know this?

Because the 4.07 massacre of 1979 is shot, positioned, and painted just like every other creature attack in a lab/prison/hospital.

Russian demodogs, ST2 demodogs...

and as Em pointed out here: the ST3 hospital scene, which I also pointed out as having HNL gown vs General Hospital Gown fuckery.

None of these are Vecna-style attacks. All of them involve a creature. So why are they all so shot-for-shot paralleled to a massacre committed by one human man?

I mean the bodies, the hallways and door...they're nearly identical in every case, for heaven's sake!

Knowing what we know about the blood vs the impact marks (i.e. they are divorced from each other, they exist as separate marks):

Let's ignore the impact craters. Look at how the blood is applied.

It's the same smeary/drippy/sprayed application.

Both the ST2 and ST4 democreature attacks are also coincidentally watched on and/or guided through via security footage, just the same as NINA is guided via security footage (supposedly):

The only creature attack we don't have footage for is the "overwritten" overnight footage from Nov. 6th, 1983:

Truth is? We know just about nothing re: Nov. 6th, 1983.

We don't know what was in the elevator or where it went. We don't know what that scientist was running from. We don't know what the circumstances of El's escape were. We don't know what happened in the lab that day.

But we do know one thing: None of it lines up with what we're meant to assume happened, meaning they're hiding things from us...just the same as they hid the events between Henward leaving El in the store closet and when she leaves to find him.

I'm willing to bet that he knows, though, given the way he stares up at the ceiling of the elevator...

Which is where our lab tech friend was attacked from.

We also have this bloody, unexplained, intruding flashback in NINA:

We're given no explanation, the flashback skips the memories of broken-limbs children in their rooms, it leads directly to that shared creature-attack hallway shot, it's cut with Brenner's flashbacks from within the rainbow room, and it does not appear again in NINA. Anywhere.

All this to say...Who's to say that the missing footage and/or memories from that day in 1983 aren't bleeding into NINA, consciously or unconsciously?

What if all this extra unexplained blood is that memory intruding from either El or Brenner?

[midnight-society-tlou]

Hello all. Absolutely no one asked for this, but I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time watching and rewatching the trailers for season two, and if I don’t get my thoughts out, I think I might actually explode. Enjoy.

POTENTIAL TLOU 2 SPOILERS BELOW

(if you haven’t played the game)

First–Eugene.

Whatever reason it may be that Joel looks like he’s about to shoot him, I feel like it’s fair to assume that, seeing as it’s someone from Jackson, he’s infected. Of course there’s a million other things it could be BUT, I say that becauseeee…

Joel’s clothes in the clip with Eugene, and the “you swore” scene are obviously the same. My guess is that this is some sort of combination between the scenes at the end of the finding strings chapter, when those two kids from Jackson have died, getting infected, and then the argument at St. Mary’s. It’s clear at the end of finding strings that Ellie knows *something*. She knows Joel’s lying. Maybe Eugene will be there in place of the teenagers that got infected, sparking the conversation of what happened at the hospital between Ellie and Joel, and boom. That’s it. JUST AN IDEA IM MOST LIKELY WRONG, but that’s that one.

NEXT, and I’ve been thinking about this one for months now. I’ve seen so much debate on what’s happening in this particular scene…

Here’s my two cents on it. I think the most plausible explanation for this is that it’s the fireflies–pretty sure that’s not news to anyone. While it could definitely be a nightmare, unless Ellie actually has some memory of the hospital–which would probably make it very hard to have the tension between her and Joel work out, because she’d have his lie worked out a whole lot quicker–I don’t know how likely that would be. What I was thinking is that it might even be Joel’s thoughts. Maybe is a nightmare but not of Ellie’s, of Joel’s. He has no idea what happened to her in the hours he was asleep, and judging by the collectibles from the hospital in the game, it was at least a few hours. Maybe it’s a genuine fear, maybe it’s his own thoughts, some form of rationalising what he did, not that he probably feels the need to. I DONT KNOWWW. Again, just an idea.

This one’s a bit on the nose. As in it’s, like, pretty much 100% confirmed. But the night of Ellie and Dina’s first kiss, and the night before Joel dies (again, assuming game canon) is New Year’s Eve. Left is a screenshot from one of the premier promo videos, right is from the teaser–the banner is in the background.

I’m thinking of Joel, finally feeling like he might maybe be about to get Ellie back–coming into a new year with probably the first tiny bit of relief that he’s had in years, and then it’s all gone so soon after😭 Not. Ready.

Next thing. In the clip of Ellie boxing in the teaser, it’s really hard to see in such a quick, blurry clip, but it doesn’t look like she has her tattoo.

Soooo–teen Ellie flashbacks are looking more and more likely (not that they weren’t pretty much confirmed by having Cat in the show, but y’know…). I’m assuming that the person holding the punching bag is Jesse, Cat, or Dina. Either way, can’t wait to see any flashbacks we didn’t get in the game. WOO! something that might, maybe be positive. Maybeeee?

Last one. Joel does in Jackson. (That is a guess–I think everyone’s been thinking this anyway). I’m sure so many people know more about this than I do, but I remember reading a few years back that there was an alternate version in the early stages of the game where Abby and Co. attack Jackson to find Joel. Obviously, there’s the infected in the show and we never actually see Abby in Jackson. Maybe they don’t make it back at all, but if they do, maybe Joel’s death is going to be some combination of that alternate ending and something new.

Sin é. That is allll.

Bonus thought–things I would seriously do anything to see in the show. Quick fire.

- chemical burn scene. don’t think I have to elaborate, don’t think I’m the only one.

- Some of the journey to Seattle, Ellie and Dina, Tommy or Jesse’s perspective. If there was a place for it in the episodes, if it did something for the story, I would love to see it.

- Some more of the war between the serephites and the WLF. I could not be happier that we could be getting some Isaac backstory. The serephite island is one of my top couple parts of the game to play, and though that’ll probably be its own massive action-packed episode next season, I’ll take any little crumbs I can get. Honestly, just all the Seattle backstory, send it my way.

- I feel so strongly about this one. Scene of tommy leaving Jackson the morning before Ellie. Presuming it follows game canon. Picture the day after the infected attack, and Joel dies and who knows what else happens--Jackson will likely still be pretty wrecked. Imagine a scene, really dark and moody music and lighting, with subtle and soft but just absolutely haunting shots of tommy walking down Main Street. Early morning, the sun is not quite up. There would be dead infected lining the streets, blood and gore and horror quite literally everywhere. And the only movement is tommy, rifle slung over his shoulder, trekking through it all to get to the gate and out, leaving his home and his family–all of it, to get out before Ellie in the hopes that she won’t follow. It’s the last thing he can do for his brother, keep her safe… aaaand then of course that won’t work out but you get the point. (And yes, I know, the courtroom scene. But still. I’ll hold out hope that that so,how comes before this? Unlikely, ik).

Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

[lightningarmour]

ABSOLUTE UNIVERSE First Wave

Back when they were new, I made a whole post going over my thoughts of the first issues of the Absolute Universe titles, and now with the release of Absolute Superman #5, and the incoming release of Absolute Flash #1, it feels like we've reached the end of the first "wave" of this experiment and I want to review and expand my thoughts about these titles now that each has had time to stretch it's legs and breath a bit, and each series seems to have been structured as a 5 issue debut story arc, so it feels like as good a point as any to really assess the merits of each series. One issue isn't always enough to go on but by 5 it seems like you should be hitting your stride, and well, maybe I'll just get into it.

ABSOLUTE BATMAN: THE ZOO I was obviously unimpressed with issue 1, and Batman is a character I already have many problems with so I might be acting less generous to this series than the others, but I really think that this one is just a poorly executed idea. Of all three series it feels the least like it's committed to the premise it's alleging to present.

Basically the entire story arc spends way more time on all the parts of the first issue that I hated and pretty much completely ignores all the parts I did like. Beyond the first issue we get almost nothing to do with Bruce Wayne's civilian life as a supposedly working class construction worker or whatever the hell he's supposed to do. We get none of the "examining Gotham and what makes a city a living thing" like I was pontificating about in my last post.

Instead basically all we get is more edgelord Batman having access to just an absolutely ludicrous amount of resources and assets. He has a fucking like excavator dump truck as a Batmobile that also is a transformer that turns into a giant car. Where did he get this, how did he modify it to be a transformer. Why did he make a bunch of safe houses throughout the city in the exact shape on the map as his bat-symbol? There's no way that's the most convenient layout to have hide-outs, it's just to look like a bat. How did he do a controlled demolition of a skyscraper to have the silhouette of the exploded building look like his face? It's all so stupid to the point of taking me out of the moment because it really just makes it all feel like it doesn't matter. Fucking anything can happen. In the final issue he's shot by guns at point blank range and literally set on fire with a flame thrower and falls off a fucking building, and he just kind of walks it off. Like yeah we're meant to believe he's hurt but like, it's not going to be in any way that prevents him from doing Batman shit.

Absolute Batman is also the only series so far to full on have a filler-issue complete with backup artist. Which suggests to me that the scripting for this series is kind of a mess. Issue 4 is 100% a flashback to Bruce's childhood with him like, inventing the super material that his cape is made of or whatever. In this issue we also see a flashback to the like 1.0 version of Batman which is an eye-roll reference to Golden-Age Batman, and in this sequence Bruce mentions that he is wearing fake fangs dipped in a paralytic neurotoxin. WHERE THE FUCK ID HE GETTING NEUROTOXINS? Like he is supposed to be just a guy.

The ultimate "climax" of this story arc being that Black Mask offers Batman like 20 million dollars or something as a bribe to just let the party animals keep doing crimes for no reason and Batman pretends to accept before setting the money on fire, presumably because he doesn't need it anyway because he just has plot-armor and weaponry anyway so why need the money?

Oh yeah, also the whole reveal of the party animals being that it's basically like an augmented reality crime video game where you get paid thousands of dollars in crypto-currency for killing people and causing mayhem(presumably all financed by Da Joinker for yadda yadda reasons) is pretty lame, and just feeds completely into the inherent fascism of superhero fiction. There is just completely motiveless crime happening all the time by faceless, barely human criminals and they must be violently punished!

Much like Bruce Wayne's position as part of the working class, any attempt to draw any real like, social commentary to this problem is done completely aesthetically and with zero conviction. Black Mask goes on facebook live or whatever and gives a little screed about how the rich take advantage of the poor and corrupt politicians let it happen or whatever so fuck it why not commit arson on a daycare full of children for 10,000 dollars? It's so hollow and full of shit.

The final gripe I'll waste my time on here is that this also feels like the least complete full story arc of all three series so far. Issue 5 ends with Batman beaten up and in retreat, and then just like, the party animals leaving crates full of guns and animal masks on the streets of Gotham. So like, the party animal thing is just going to keep going, it's entirely unresolved and if anything, escalating. Batman accomplished nothing.

ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN: THE LAST AMAZON Hands down the best of the ABSOLUTE line so far and it's kind of not even close. I'm going to once again attribute this to the fact that writers probably have more freedom to kind of do whatever they want with Wonder Woman because her supporting cast and rogues gallery and whatnot are not as iconic and like, pop culturally ever-present as Bats or Supes. So because they're not trying to include quite so many prescribed story beats, you can do something much more creative with it.

Also, I think what I said last time still holds true in that, the pacing of this first arc is just much better than the others. Both Batman and Superman each have a whole single issue of their first 5 dedicated as a flashback to fill in backstory details which takes up a lot of time in a 5 issue story. Wonder Woman manages to avoid that and have a story that is always moving forward while still utilizing flashbacks issue to issue to give you relevant information, and even still manages to lay some crumbs and keep you curious about the details. It's all done so well.

In my last post I definitely complimented issue 1 for being brave enough to not feel the need to do a lot of character cameos for the soyface reaction, which I still stand by, but it is pretty fucking funny because like, immediately in issue 2 they introduce Steve Trevor, and from there you meet Barbara Minerva, and Etta Candy, so they do also play the hits, but it feels less forced.

This opening arc also has a great sense of like, escalation to the action. Each issue you get some kind of new weapon or tool or skill Wonder Woman has in her arsenal to help solve the problem she's faced with. Pretty interesting twist reveal that she's missing a fuckin arm. That's a change that feels like a meaningful departure from classic Wonder Woman, in a way that say, Batman doesn't have anything that really really makes him feel like a different person.

The artwork in Absolute Wonder Woman is still my favourite of the three series so far, and tbh it has probably the best panel layouts as well. And on top of everything else, it's just the fucking coolest. Again, Wonder Woman riding a skeleton Pegasus, fighting monsters with a big ass Guts sword? Bad ass! There's a part where she casts an enlarge spell on her big ass sword and it grows to be absurdly huge so she can use it to slice a kaiju sized monster in half. That fucking rocks. And then she polymorphs into Medusa which is pretty wild. Very interested to see if that becomes a recurring kind of bit.

Overall, everything about the series just clicks. It's good, folks.

ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN: LAST DUST OF KRYPTON I certainly had some aspersions after the first couple of issues, but I think looking at the first 5 issues as a whole, it comes together pretty well, if maybe lacking some real iconic or kind of "stand out" moments. As with Batman you still have the baggage problem. Trying to fit too many of the origin story parts into this while still actually having something happening as part of the main plot, and I think overall not much really happens and that's a bit of a let down.

Overall I really like this set up. Refugee Superman fighting against an evil exploitative corporation and it's PMC army. Good stuff. Lois Lane as a military operator makes sense, if you're looking at this all as like, her being pressured into joining the army by her asshole dad instead of being able to follow her passion of being a reporter and whatever, but as far as what the result is, I don't care much for jarhead Lois. The Brainiac thing I still find a bit odd and I am curious to see how that all plays out and ties in, but in a more cautious way than I am to learn about say, all the shit with the gods and Amazons in Wonder Woman. It seems like there's going to be some kind of overarching thing about like other alien technology being swooped up by Lazarus.

I'm a bit torn on the Krypton stuff. On the one hand, it is all incredibly heavy-handed, especially with the whole like, "society controlled by AI" thing. Feels maybe too on the nose but then again we do not exist in a world of subtleties anymore, so I suppose why not have the like Ecological destruction of Krypton by a caste of self appointed techno-supremacists? It seems as though Krypton is fully dead and gone so the fact that it's society is a kind of ridiculous exaggeration of ours is fine and doesn't need to raise too many questions.(although I do have my fears that they left it too open to other kryptonian survivors showing up eventually.)

The reveal that Kal-El has only been on Earth for like 6 years is very interesting to me, and I think makes a really interesting change in his character. So he has obviously living memory of Krypton, but not even like, oh from when he was a young child, but like incredibly recently, and when he was old enough to understand what happened and why. So he crashes on Earth and probably immediately starts seeing the reflections of Kryptonian society in Earth and now has this almost desperate need to try and save us and this planet from ourselves so the same thing doesn't happen all over again.

Jimmy Olsen being part of an eco-terrorist organization is kind of funny to me. Like yeah fuck it why not, though I'm unfortunately going to guess right now that they are going to set up some kind of conflict between Superman and the Omega Men where they are fine with resorting to violence and don't care about civilian casualties or whatever and Superman will have to come in and say "No, it is morally wrong to do acts of violence or sabotage against capitalist enterprises, instead you should vote" or some bullshit.

Superman having an AI voice in his suit doesn't bother me as much as it did in the first issue because mostly Superman kind of doesn't do much in this opening arc so there's not that much time to see how his AI thing really behaves or whatever. There's an extended bit in issue 2 where Lois handcuffs herself to Superman and the suit spends the whole issue doing some kind of stupid glowy bullshit to get it off which is like ehhhh.

Overall I really ended up liking the visual effect of the dust cape, that's a great artistic choice IMO, but I kind of don't like that it's a nanotech thing. Where his suit like, dematerializes to create more of the cape, and also like heal wounds? What happens if he runs out of Krypton dust? And we see the same technology in the Krypton flashbacks like acting like a nanotech 3D printer or whatever where the suits and spaceships and even weapons and shit are all just materialized out of the red dust stuff, so like can Superman just turn his suit into a gun or something? It feels a bit too far afield for what Superman's shtick is supposed to be.

And like I said earlier, this opening arc is really lacking in big moments that make me go "Oh hell yeah, this is some quality Superman." Because mostly he saves a bunch of people in issue 2, then the rest of the story is Krypton flashbacks and Lois Lane trying to track him down. By issue 5 I think it ends on a good "the stage is set" moment where I think things can really start happening and gaining momentum, but that's just speculation.

So in conclusion, it's still a 2/3 on the Absolute Universe with one of those two massively excelling over the rest, but I'm hopeful that Superman has hit it's stride.

as for the future, I'll probably do another post for the first issues of wave 2. Preliminary thoughts are: Flash is a Wally West story written by Jeff Lemire so I can't possibly hate it, Martian Manhunter looks so interesting and unique and experimental to the point where it will probably be the single most interesting and different of all the Absolute line. And Green Lantern sounds kind of lame, if I'm being honest. Just kinda don't care about Lanterns that much to begin with, and the fact that it's starting off with the ensemble cast is kind of whatever because I'm of the opinion that there are too many fucking GL's.