#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

[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!

[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:

[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 ~

[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?

[genericpuff]

Rachel "Retcon" Smythe Strikes Again!

Okay, so I've been seeing pictures of Volume 4 of Lore Olympus floating around, and people are ALREADY FINDING RETCONS.

Most notably so far, some added panels in the Hades and Apollo confrontation that happens outside Artemis' house (when Persephone steals Apollo's lyre) in Episode 81.

This is the original scene, for anyone who needs a refresher:

Aaaand here are the panels that were added.

(all pictures of Volume 4 are courtesy @iwannagutyou on IG!!! thank you for giving me permission to use these! <3)

First of all, the art. It's so noticeably bad. You can tell Rachel has completely lost her ability to draw these characters in the S1 style, I'm fairly certain she took the panel of Hades from the old version and just copy pasted it to try and get around it (look at the posing) but it's incredibly obvious looking at that third panel that LO is not and can never be what it was back in 2017-2019. Those first two panels seem like they were copy pasted from the previous ones, which is just sad if those are the lengths she has to go to to come even close to replicating the older style.

Now, this just might be due to camera translation, it could very well look better IRL, but the colors just look so incredibly desaturated and the lines blurred out, to the point that people are doing double takes over whether or not panels have been directly changed - they haven't been, they've just been so sucked dry of their colors that they look off enough to cast suspicion.

If anything it's a harsh reminder that LO has kinda always had art problems, especially with its lazy humor and stupid meme faces.

Of course, to be fair, color loss can happen in print, but seeing how slapped together these books tend to be, I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't put in the effort to convert the page art to CMYK or at least tinker with the saturation in editing some more to ensure it would come out more vibrant in print.

Now. Excuse me while I go on a bit of a crackpot rant here. Newbie puff pals beware, because this is gonna get dicey and you're about to learn where my tinfoil-hat rep comes from but I just have to talk about it.

Back to the added Apollo panels, where Persephone asks Hades not to hurt him and he looks nervous before she says "I just want him to leave".

Maybe it's just me, but it's a little weird that THESE are the panels they decided they needed to add. It's weird that she's asking Hades not to hurt Apollo when she's about to break into his car and steal his lyre just a few moments later. It's weird that the implication seems to be that she's referring to Hades' act of violence towards Tori... but Persephone doesn't know that's happened yet. So this feels like an unnecessary retcon that's doing more harm than good.

But I feel like the timing of this is kinda messed up as well, as this book released just days after the release of the last FP episode in which Apollo has his 'side' of the assault story told through his perspective, which is often considered a HUGE no-no in writing assault stories because it often comes with the implication that it's asking for empathy from the audience. We already know Apollo is delusional, we already know he thinks him and Persephone are meant to be despite her constant rejection of him, we didn't need a flashback from his own warped perspective explaining that very thing, the only purpose to do such a thing this late in the game would be to try and get the audience to 'connect' with him (it's giving S3 Bryce from 13 Reasons Why vibes). Now we have this scene of Persephone asking Hades not to hurt him (despite the structure of the episode being literally fine before, this change wasn't needed) getting snuck into the physical book release just a couple days after the newest FP tried to present Apollo in an empathetic light (and let me tell you, that's a whole essay and a half that I'll be getting into eventually).

Shit, if I wanted to get REAL Pepe Sylvia with it, I might say that hypothetically, the whole point of the random Leuce abuse episode - despite Persephone having no way of knowing what she attempted as Hades hadn't told her and she wasn't there to see it and we weren't shown her overhearing them in any way - and the following episode that was mostly padding of Hades and Persephone having sex - no consequences or follow-up whatsoever to the Leuce scene - was just to pad out the episode release schedule and buy time until the book came out so that Rachel could release that Apollo POV episode right before the book came out and revealed those new added scenes of Persephone asking Hades not to hurt Apollo, in what could be a sly artificial attempt at minimizing the SA plot so Rachel can finally just brush aside the one major plot point she regretted writing the most. After all, it wouldn't be the first time Rachel's controlled the pace of her comic to release certain moments at certain times that line up with IRL events.

But, y'know. I'm gonna quit on that thought while I'm ahead because it's probably making my credibility meter drop into the red. My ADHD has been real bad lately and it's really starting to show LMAO All ima say is that IDK who Rachel thinks she's fooling here, this kind of shit is stupid easy to fact check when the digital version of the comic is available online to read.

To end on a much funnier and lighter note, remember how Rachel tried to retcon the Demeter/Hera/Hestia relationship by changing the line "I miss my sisters" to "I miss my friends"? Well, there was one panel that had been missed in the webtoons version that still refers to them as sisters. You can still find this unedited line in Episode 78.

And uh. They forgot to fix it again for the book.

It's permanent now. That's permanent marker. It would have cost them nothing to find this in the webtoon version and fix it before it got sent to the book editors. Now it's gonna cost them thousands because the book editors didn't bother (or know) to check.

There's also this... weird shit going on with the speech bubbles. Like, they're REALLY FUCKING OVERDOING IT with the speech bubble outlines. I don't know who made this choice but it was a bad one. Gross. Don't do that. It looks so cheap.

But let's be real, at this point I feel like the book editors are just outright sabotaging Rachel because who the fuck calls themselves a professional when they do this shit-

Oh, and there's no bonus episode, just sketches. Which is fine. But it makes me chuckle to think that Rachel just didn't have time in her already razor-thin buffer to draw up a new episode to pass off as "cut content".

[plazmafields]

Some thoughts about Kerry:

Spoilers ahead, needless to say.

1)

I saw a video comparing the two versions if Chippin' In (Kerry's vs. Johnny's) where someone in the comments suggested the reason Kerry leaned more mainstream rock is because he only wanted to make music for money. I completely disagree with this and here's why:

User Friendly was the last song Kerry put out before deciding he wasn't going to perform live/tour anymore and went into a deep depression. Looking up the lyrics, you can see he was becoming very distressed with the lack of control he had over his career, and the things he says in the song sound like a cry for help that wasn't received by listeners the way he had hoped. We never hear his version of the song, and I believe that is intentional. Vapid, loud, chaotic, almost over-stimulating laser-pop is such a huge juxtaposition to the lyrics, and yet it's the only version we get to hear. Clearly User Friendly meant a lot to him or I don't think he would have reacted the way he did; combined with the cover being done by a pop group groomed by the music industry to sell as many albums as possible, it all went against Kerry's original intent with the song. Then there's the story of how he wrote Bleed the Beat: he was working his ass off for people he couldn't stand and that song was his outlet during that time. He'd play until his fingers bled just to get his frustrations out. Music is his medium for release, just like it was for Johnny.

In Johnny's version of Chippin' In, the phrase "chipping in" has two meanings: getting your first implants, and, the same as our universe, helping out. Johnny's song uses both meanings interchangeably during the choruses, the verse before it dictating which definition is being used. Johnny's arm is (from what I can tell looking at the design) military issue. The song is both about the corpo military forcing him to get an implant, and also about believing he was doing the right thing when he joined by "helping out" the armed forces. Since, in this universe, militaries are owned and/or sponsored by corporations, Johnny views corporate jobs and military service to be the same level of morally wrong (The Ballad of Buck Ravers attests to this).

In terms of how the two songs compare, obviously Kerry's version of Chippin' In is meant to have more wide appeal. Not only are the lyrics more tame, mostly just talking about the implants themselves and only having one verse that even mentions anything "political", but I believe Kerry understood that the best way to get his music to the most listeners was to go for a more mainstream sound and universally relatable lyrics, so he toned it down. Everyone hates corpos, sure, but not everyone wants to bomb Araska HQ. This is probably a stretch, but we can see from the flashbacks that Kerry didn't have any implants during his time in Samurai, so maybe Johnny was like super opposed to implants after having one forced upon him, and Kerry's version of the song is kind of saying "hey if you want implants get implants, they make you look cool don't feel bad about it."

2)

I do support the idea that Kerry should have been bisexual like in the source material. I absolutely get that bi erasure is a big problem, ESPECIALLY with male characters. However, I respect that in the game you can only romance him with a masc V; I'm not going to mod him to he bi, I'm not gonna ship him with women. I see it the same way I see Cullen from DAI: he is canonically bisexual, just not attracted to my male Inquisitor (in Kerry's case, fem V). Maybe Kerry had such a traumatic divorce from his ex-wife that women just kinda scare him right now. We can see high heels and bras and blush littering his house, so we can assume that at the very least women are still getting naked for some reason or another at his parties. Maybe he prefers men romantically, or maybe he's just not ready to date women again, and we as players should respect that just like we would a real person.

3)

Kerry was 100% going to kill himself when you show up to his house. There are shards advertising robotic security systems in numerous places around his house (meaning he fired his human body guards), shards with negative reviews of his last album, there is only one camera and it is by the front gate (none inside the house), he gave his cleaner and cook "the day off" that very day, you see in emails that his ex-wife is giving him the option of all or nothing with custody (you take the kids or you don't get to see them), and he isn't enjoying making music anymore, his one passion in life. He had a gun with him in the bathroom, and I believe by the way his speech slurs and he makes the impulsive decision to get Samurai back together, that he is drunk for that entire scene and has a drinking problem. It is my opinion that the reason he doesn't reveal any of that to V is because he knows Johnny will hear it and judge him, call him weak, or make insensitive jokes like he does to V when he gives you the quest. The only time we see Kerry be somewhat vulnerable is 1. Over text when talking about the crazed fan, since he probably thinks Johnny can't see those (I believe he can) and 2. In the epilogue when Johnny has been removed from V's head (Kerry says he doesn't want to lose V, and during the credits he tells V he just wants their lives to be less hectic so they can spend more time together).

4)

It took me a couple playthroughs to warm up to Kerry, Panam is probably still my favorite romance, but I think Kerry might be the best romance option for a Skreetkid V. He perfectly embodies the plights of Night City at every income bracket: no matter where you are on the food chain, if you're not at the top, you're getting fucked over. He clearly likes living in comfort while still embracing his rebellious side from his youth. But now, he has the cushion of money and status to save him if things go tits up (when you get a wanted level in Westbrook district, close to North Oak, the officer on the police scanner says "I swear, if its Eurodyne again" suggesting that he is very reckless but hardly ever faces real consequences). Maybe he stays in his gilded cage because he fears facing real hardship on his own, without friends, without a support group, without Johnny. He has a strong sense of pride, though, and would never admit to needing Johnny, even if they were best friends. The way Kerry wants to show Johnny a riff he's been working on after the concert, only to be disappointed when V takes over again, I think it really shows that as much as they disagreed, their friendship held the band together.

5)

I don't remember if Johnny hints at it or I saw someone suggest this on here, but the idea that Kerry only "dates" V because Johnny is in his head is ridiculous to me. The first time he called you to deal with the Us Cracks tour gear, he wanted Johnny. Every time after that, he wanted V. He definitely realizes which of the two is helping him; he can tell them apart. The Johnny that Kerry remembers wouldn't have done a selfless thing in his life, lest risking his pride and reputation as Night City's biggest fuckboy. Whether you really schmooze him up or tell him he's going overboard, Kerry appreciates that you helped him. And I think after the concert, when he hands V his gun, Kerry's body language suggests that he wasn't planning to give the gun to Johnny, he thought about it because V was back in control. V helped get the band back together, V helped decide if Denny or Henry should play the gig, V was the one who brought Johnny to Kerry's house. Johnny won't take over to do it himself despite probably being able to. I only wish you didn't meet him so late in the main story, so that his story could have more time and space to breathe.

[coraniaid]

I was thinking about how Kendra really should've been mentioned in Fool For Love given its an episode where Buffy wants to learn about previous Slayers' final battles so Top 5 episodes in which Kendra should've been mentioned in?

Ignoring the episodes I'd have liked to actually see Bianca Lawson return in (either in flashback or some alternate dimension or in a dream sequence or as the First) and ignoring Fool For Love as well since you mentioned it already (but I agree that's a good call otherwise).

S3E07 Revelations -- obviously Angel didn't personally kill Kendra, but he played a very major role in her death (she came back to Sunnydale to stop his plan to wake Acathla, he lured Buffy away from the library so she wasn't there to protect her, he sent Drusilla to kidnap Giles and Kendra tried to stop her). So it would have been nice, in a way, if anybody had thought to bring Kendra up during that scene in the library where they're arguing about Buffy keeping Angel's return a secret and how he killed Jenny Calendar and tortured Giles. Especially when they're doing so mere feet away from the spot where Kendra was murdered. It would have nice to suggest that Buffy wanted to talk to Faith about Kendra at the end, too (even though I think Faith still brushes her off the way she does in canon).

S3E08 Lovers Walk Relatedly, it would have been nice if -- while Spike was busy feeling sorry for himself and remembering all the nice spots in Sunnydale where he and Dru had murdered people in better times -- the writers had remembered Buffy had reminded him that one of the people his ex had fun murdering was Kendra. Or that, way back in Becoming Part 2, the very last time Buffy said Kendra's name out loud in the show came with a threat to kill Drusilla ("Forget about Drusilla. She doesn't walk. She killed Kendra.")

S3E15 Consequences. Don't think this even needed Kendra to be mentioned by name, but it would have been nice if the show had acknowleged that this is in the third time in barely a year than Buffy has been questioned by the police in a murder investigation. And by the same guy all three times! Detective Stein doesn't seem to be part of the town-wide conspiracy to cover up the supernatural, so what does he think really happened to Ted and to Kendra? I get that the show at this point wasn't trying to be too serialized (but Ted, at least, will get brought up at least one more time in Season 4's Fear Itself), but ... I dunno, I just think it would have been a nice bit of continuity to have Stein tell somebody (Buffy? the Mayor?) that not only does he think Buffy was involved in Finch's death but that he still hasn't ruled out her being involved in Kendra's death too (whatever his bosses told him to make him drop it).

S5E14 Crush. This isn't actually a very good episode (as indicated by the words 'written by David Fury' that appear on the screen at the beginning) so we can't expect too much from it, but ... look! It's Drusilla! Back in town for the first time since Becoming! And Spike's talking about killing her, even. "Why do I care?" Buffy asks him, which would be a perfectly fine way for Buffy to express her disinterest in Spike and demonstrate her refusual to be swayed by his attempts at coercing her to 'admit' her romantic feelings for him if this were any other random vampire, but this is meant to be a vampire Buffy has a strong preexisting personal grudge against. She killed Kendra, David. That's why Buffy should care. You could, I dunno, at least have Spike bring that up again? ("If you don't admit there's something there ... I'll untie Dru, let her kill you instead. Just like she killed that other Slayer.")

S7E17 Lies My Parents Told Me. I mean, not the canon version of the episode, which is basically unsalvagable, but in some other better version of this episode where Buffy finds out that Robin was Nikki's son it might have been nice to contrast Robin's years long quest for revenge with the fact that Buffy didn't allow herself to leave town and hunt Drusilla down for revenge. Not because she didn't care about Kendra (at least, she cares about Kendra in my version of the show...), but because she had a responsibility to everyone alive in Sunnydale. That would, at least, be a better way to echo Nikki's "the mission is what matters" line than the gross way the episode settles on ("You're trying to get revenge on a man who doesn't exist anymore! Also, isn't it cool and fitting he got 'his' coat back?")

[thewickedbohemian]

Thoughts on what I think was Brilliant Minds's best episode yet (and no not for the reason you think, for interesting character study and even-more-potentially-Emmy-worthy writing than E3 "The Lost Biker")

so instead of Wolf's past we're seeing Roman's this time

so they're kinda working together

mission accomplished so what's the rest of the story

and Dana continues to be a vibe

and Roman's got a sense of humor now that he's got a voice

looks like there was something going on between those two

Jacob and his hero complex being proven right

oh so that's the "twist"

but if he's saved that's still technically what he wants (not to "live like this")

cue the big ethical question

everyone working together that's cool

I like the whole seeing-ghosts thing so he can interact with people (potential connection to Wolf's flashbacks)

still managing to bond with Dana (and avoid her damn questions) and of course she played chess I like her even more

that's quite the rough story

and it feels like Wolf doth project too much

of course the guy's gay (and has a partner like that)

that was harsh, the not seeing him anymore (but what did Roman mean)

so everyone but hyperempathy guy gets their moment with him

and also Ericka's issue from last episode gets put on full display

I thought going outside would somehow help

REVEAL CONFIRMED!

I like the little sleepover happening

and somehow knew the story of Altair and Vega was coming

for once we decide to actually make the needle drops have audible lyrics (and Higher Love sounds better like this)

the difference between this and the episode that made me ragequit New Amsterdam was here the death didn't feel like a failure or at least the potential for failure was the doctor's problem too not just mine

and so he wasn't seeing himself but his dad

I may not be cut out for being a doctor myself but between his empathy and her reaction this feels like something that'd happen with my mom if we were both in that situation (not necessarily with the dad stuff but her feelings)

Ericka likes both of them and it's not just my love of the Devlinverse (e.g. sure one too many for exact team parallel but Wolf/Nichols feels Librarian-Guardian-coded especially with his military background) wishing Brilliant Minds eventually (if it lasts long enough god willing) resolved that love triangle via throuple

I feel like this kinda redeemed "If The World Was Ending" from all the critics bashing it in 2020 for seemingly-tasteless pandemic connection and now I'm wondering both how the hell they afforded that (usually shows don't have that big-name needle drops) and if this was better audio clarity or w/e than the studio version not just louder

THAT'S THE WAY TO DO A CLIFFHANGER ENDING (and we don't even see a hint of his reaction in the trailer)

it feels to me like everyone's challenges that the witches last episode revealed in their tarot reading for the group now were on full display in one episode; Ericka's perfectionism and Jacob's hero complex were displayed in how they dealt with the Roman issue (and even somewhat (albeit the least so) Dana's fear of stillness), Van's feeling too much was addressed in that scene with Ericka and Wolf not only had to deal with literal death but the kind of big personal transition the Death card more symbolically represents

[thegeminisage]

it is time for. NOT a tng update. but a ds9 update!!! wednesday* we watched "emissary" and actually i'm not clear on if we watched both parts or just one since my website is wonky but either way whatever we watched FUCKING RULED. i'm dispensing w the normal bullet points so i can ramble as much as i want

*it was last night actually but it took me all day to type this up so i'm scheduling it to go up later. it got looooong lol

the first most striking thing i noticed about ds9, or at least the first half of what we watched, is that it FEELS like a video game. someone tell me if this is insane. you're playing as sisko. you get flashbacks of his backstory, you get thrown into this starbase that's in shambles and it's Your Job to fix it up. you go around meeting all the secondary characters who will be in charge of this or that gameplay aspect or upgrade system or shop: kira, o'brien, quark, odo, jadzia, julian, etc. the FOLEY in this was insane. all the noise in the back CONSTANTLY suggested a lively and whole universe outside of our direct line of focus - it felt so alive in the way not even the enterprise in tos did. i could picture myself in the opening gameplay/cutscene like slowly walking my character through what will become a hub area that i gradually upgrade over time while kira or o'brien narrates the list of problems. you're starting at the bottom rung and expected to fail, but you can FEEL the potential even in just one brief walk through the promenade. IS THIS INSANE? it feels like an insane thing to say. someone PLEASE write in if you have ever had similar feelings. if they haven't made a ds9 game yet, they should.

i also notice that not only is the quality of the ds9 episodes worse than that of tng and tos - no one has remastered them into 1080p, apparently - but the lighting is very different, as well. it felt WEIRD to see picard and the enterprise D shot this way. but it also lends, perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not, a really gritty atmosphere to what is normally a very clean universe. i guess since we mostly see it from the inside of starships, it would feel like a sterile place to us, but you know how everyone always compliments star wars on how lived-in it feels? the buttons are wearing, sand is stuck in their fancy thingamajigs, etc? this was how ds9 felt to me.

okay. the characters. let's fucking get into it. what's so fun about ds9 in general is that in all other trek shows i have picked out my specialest little guy in 5 seconds flat. tos was spock EASILY. tng i knew it was data before i started. i already know seven's gonna be my favorite voyager character, but i have NO IDEA!!! who my precious little baby in ds9 will be. what a fun surprise for everyone involved. if anybody wants to place bets go ahead.

like, i thought tng had a pretty solid lineup (hence my eternal frustration with its wasted potential) but they're not anywhere as eclectic as ds9's core cast. iirc, sisko and o'brien are the ONLY humans who for once are outnumbered by trek's cool aliens. i'm saving sisko for last because that was the part of ds9 that touched me most profoundly, but for o'brien - it was a little sad to see him leave the enterprise, because picard was right, it WON'T feel the same without him, but i'm really excited to see why everybody says he suffers more than jesus and to find out if the eyepatch is a permanent thing or if it's just mirrorverse fuckery. either way, i win. like, o'brien is cool, and i always miss him when i don't see him in tng, and i'll continue to miss him in tng from here on out, but he could never shine in that show. it's too stiff and too reluctant to put its characters through any real development. it's a shame they can't ALL move to ds9, tbh.

the next person we met was kira, who was WONDERFUL. it took me a minute to warm up to her, not because there was anything wrong with her, but because i figured at first glance she was ds9's version of ro laren, the obligatory bajoran cast member to connect us with the bajoran/cardassian plot - which would of course be good because ro is awesome, but it's not necessarily anything new and i already love ro. BUT I WAS WRONG! kira's personality is very distinct from ro's; really the only thing they have in common is not liking cardassians which lmao Yeah. my favorite thing about kira is that she smiles when she's upset or angry. that's Such an acting choic, to have her grinning at the cardassians when she's almost certain they're about to blow her whole space station to smithereens. all love light and respect to ro laren my beloved, but i think i actually like kira BETTER.

odo: WHAT is that thing he can do oh my god...is this a changeling?? i got that result in a star trek quiz once. i really loved when he snuck aboard the enemy ship posing as a bag to hold gambling winnings. i was like oh they showed us the bag to show us it will get stolen soon BUT NO it was odo!!!!!!! such a fun surprise. the exposition on his backstory was a little slapdash but i enjoyed it all the same, i cannot wait to learn more

i was most nervous to meet quark because i hate hate HATE the ferengi in tng, but he was actually so entertaining! like, you're never gonna be able to entirely remove the antisemetic undertones from the ferengi as a whole, but he was smart, practical, and endearingly longsuffering. i love his wryness and deadpan humor. i have a feeling he is gonna be so much fun to torture lovingly.

meeting julian bashir felt like meeting a famous person. for the longest time all i knew about ds9 was that cardassian guy wanted to FUCK that gay little doctor, so it was a little hilarious that in his first scene he was asking a woman* out on a date. sir do you not know you're gay?? even funnier was the fact that out of everybody in the pilot he had the least lines. we barely know him, but we finally met him. relatedly, i can't to wait to meet more cardassians, especially The cardassian. so far, they're still all gay.

*jadzia!!! gnc/trans queen! the trill stuff is SO interesting and watching that worm slither in and out of people during those flashbacks was so wonderful but also made me wince. i love that she used to be an old man and the jokes about it are actually really funny without feeling transphobic or anything SO FAR. who knows if that changes. i feel like we haven't gotten much yet from her either but i cannot wait.

SISKO. damn. where do i even...first of all, he should be allowed to bite kick kill picard. i say this as someone who experienced a genuine THRILL of pleasure upon seeing picard's borged self again. i loved that whole thing, i'm obsessed with the borg. that it comes back in this small way in ds9, and has such a HUGE impact on the storyline, was so so so fucking good. i always say tng tells and not shows, but even after just knowing sisko for a few moments i felt keenly how much it devastated to find his wife like that and THAT WAS JUST FROM THE FIRST SCENE. and it only gets better! he's a great dad. he's FUNNY. he is not above manual labor. he wants to tear picard limb from limb. and he exists HERE.

the wormhole alien sequence was. so good. it was SO GOOD. explaining linear time to aliens. the aliens using his memories to talk to him. HE EXISTS HERE. back and back and BACK to finding his wife in the rubble because HE EXISTS HERE. he CHOOSES to exist here. he existed there when he applied for a transfer to earth. he existed there when he confronted picard. he never left the ship because HE NEVER LEFT THE SHIP. they dragged him out but they COULDN'T DRAG HIM OUT. he exists here because he won't leave her to exist here alone because damn it we can't just leave her here. that was the most insane series of events i ever watched. like, because at first you DO think it's the aliens taking him back there BUT IT'S HIM. HE IS DOING IT TO HIMSELF. when the penny dropped i got literal chill bumps and when the aliens said "it's not linear" and he, openly weeping, replied "it's NOT linear," i genuinely, truly, shed a tear along with him. TNG COULD NEVER. none of those miserable fucks EVER cry!!! sisko did it in the god damn pilot!!!!!!!

and like, the fact that he can choose to stay at the space station at the end, to shake picard's hand, to exist SOMEWHERE ELSE. AAAAAUGHGHGHG

i really loved the final confrontation, too. kira is so so so so good, again, i LOVE that she smiles when she's angry, when she's sad, and it's not a fake smile, it's genuine and honest emotion, and she's genuinely and honestly going to start eating the cardassians for sport if they don't leave her alone. it was very scrappy, them pretending to be bigger and badder than they actually were because they had no other choice. you get the feeling everybody on the station and indeed the station itself is barely holding together, and what little togetherness is present comes from sheer spite.

anyway, absolutely 10/10. i was so worried ds9 wouldn't be good but it not only met my most furtive hopes it surpassed them with flying colors. it's gonna be REAL hard to go back to tng after this.

[ultraviolet-cello]

Day 8 of the tristamp analysis marathon and jesus christ i am!!! really excited to do these now because people have been adding onto/being nice abt my stuff and that's super cool. Thank you again to @tristampparty for running this! I didn't manage to join in on the book club last year so it's nice to have a fun little event all the same

[But as for next book club,,,, well. I'm extremely transgender about trimax and would love to join in]

As always, spoilers for trigun stampede and trigun maximum! Also some CWs for Vash-typical passive suicidal tendencies and discussion of his psyche

So! Episode 8! I have.... mixed feelings, on how Tristamp portrays Knives. On one hand, I definitely think that we're being lead to believe that Vash has always been a peace-loving kid and that Knives has always had those tendencies, which would set up for season 2 to break that down. I hope.

The one thing I couldn't figure out, ofc, is the Knives not needing to eat thing - My friend millions-dykes theorized a black hole/white star dynamic a little while ago [as seen in the screenshot. I'm Organ, they are Nagito Malmonella]

aaaaaaaaanyway, we still get these little instances of knives just being a kid, and it's the funniest thing in the world to me. Vash is also apparently in tune with him enough to pick up on that and it's such twin behaviour.

There's also just a lot of cases of Knives smiling or being giggly around Rem, which,,,, he's such a mama's boy like we know this but it's so nice to have it reinforced. This theory of Knives having always been cold/standoffish just doesn't track - the only time he usually seems uncomfortable is when Rem touches him or when he talks about Plant stuff - particularly when he's talking about being different to Vash. Knives, to me at least, is a tad autism-coded :]

OKAY TO THE SCENE[TM]

So obviously this has changed from when we first saw Vash tell the story. Vash's sequence of events runs as follows:

Vash walks up to the little hill that Knives is laughing maniacally on top of -> Knives says "I finally did it! It worked! -> Vash confronts him with "How could you do that?" -> Knives reassures him with "Don't worry, I left the Plant ship" -> Knives says "I even got Rem killed!" -> Knives points out that Vash is his accomplice, but does not elaborate why. "Don't get mad. You're already my accomplice, isn't that right Vash?"

Now the sequence of events in this version is provably more accurate (the same audio is used in the black box recording discovered later), and goes as follows:

Vash wakes up from the escape pod and goes "Nai, where are you?" -> He spends some time following Knives' footsteps where he sees the crashed pods and fire and Knives laughing on the hill -> Knives says "I finally did it! It worked!" -> Vash says "I can't believe you killed Rem!" -> Knives says "Don't get mad. You're already my accomplice, it was you who told me the passcode - Am I right, Vash?"

So there are several inconsistencies in these two versions of events, most notably for me is that Vash is the one to bring up Rem. If the 1st telling was correct, it would imply that Knives wanted to kill Rem, but that part is conspicuously absent, because Vash is the one that brings her up.

Vash's retelling also omits the fact that he was the one to give Knives the passcode, shifting more blame onto Knives. It's very very interesting to me. Finally, Knives mostly has his back to Vash when he dissolves into laughter again. Which is a technique often used to hide if you've been crying or are having a hard time keeping some emotional responses down.

And I'm not even done with this flashback! The scene where Vash just lies down and wants to give up is,,, Well, in Trimax, ever since Tesla, Vash has struggled with suicidal ideation - he's the one that asks for Rem to just kill him, and that's heartbreaking, but we also see a bit of that leaking through here again, where he just wants to lie down and give up. It also gives me hope we're gonna see that Tesla aftermath scene in the next season, because that'll be breaking Vash down into his more complicated, messy parts.

Okay so I do think that the subtitles Aniwave uses are... a little bit Wack, I'm pretty sure that they're unofficial and probably a bit wonky, and I'm only slightly conversational in Japanese so I have 0 idea about this, but hey I think someone should inform Wolfwood, for no particular reas- [I am dragged away by security]

[I did check the dub, which referred to Plants giving birth which I think is much more likely to be accurate. But it'd still be funny for Wolfwood to have to sit through Plant sex ed so neither of them get pregnant]

Rem really was very, very young,,,,,

There are four photos here, but only one is given to Vash. I wonder why,,,, Possibly to gauge his recognition of Knives being in the photo, or keeping the other three to learn what they can about Knives.

The night/day progression cycle here doesn't really match up with Vash's little tally, so I don't think it's counting days. Given that he apparently went to say hello to everyone in cold sleep while on the ship, I think it's a little more likely that the tally marks are for them....

Do we ever actually get to hear Rem say the blank ticket thing in a flashback? I don't recall it, but it is said to Vash after the whole Stabbing Incident in Trimax, so that's possibly why they've kept it from us.

Theeee markings under this Plant's eyes match Elendira's, which. Obviously Elendira in tristamp is part plant there's just so many little details that lend themselves to it,,,

The HAIR COLOUR CHANGE AAAA

I like the little wall of Vash baby pics in the background here, but he still didn't get any of his 3 other ship pics back :(

Finally, Vash's line of "an Independent will make up for what an Independent has done" is interesting because his guilt complex really does spiral, huh. The reason Knives telling him "Oh, you just feel guilty for the Big Fall, huh?" in a later ep fucks him up so much is because like. That is kinda true to an extent. Vash is his own kind of self-deluding, but that only really starts spiraling at about this point in time.

Alright, setting up for a Day of analysis tomorrow, because I have many thoughts and feelings surrounding Knives (I love him very dearly and I hate him a lot (affectionate)) and we Will spend some time talking about Trimax Flavour Knives because my understanding of him is fundamental to my understanding of Tristamp Flavour Knives.

Thank y'all for the fun comments and theory addons!!! I'm having a lot of fun and we're really getting into how [normal] I am about Trigun!