#I had a good concept but my execution was so bad that I just dropped it

[pastelaeqy]

I think I personally enjoy the bottom one a little more but I thought of the concept like 10 minutes after I finally got the colours and lighting to look decent so here's both.

[antianakin]

Number 9 for the ask game! For both disneycanon and legends :)

9. worst part of canon

Man, this is a hard question to answer, mostly because there's so many things I could answer.

So I am assuming here that when you say "Legends" you actually just mean Lucas canon that existed pre Disney canon since "Legends" has never been and will never be canon in and of itself. If you were hoping to hear me speak about something that was ACTUALLY from Legends, I'm very sorry, but I'm not familiar enough with it and I don't think it works for the prompt anyway, so all of my answers are going to be from Disney Canon or Lucas Canon.

Some of these will land more in the realm of "the concept is fine/good, the execution was bad" and some will be more "the concept in and of itself is awful regardless of whether it was executed well or not."

In the Ahsoka show, the concept of Ahsoka facing her past with Anakin and how that's impacted who she's become is a great idea and it's really the only way to move her character forward, but the execution of it was so badly done that I wish it had never happened and we'd just never seen Ahsoka again or ever learned what she felt about Anakin. I've spoken enough about this show for anyone more familiar with me to know why I feel that way. If you haven't read my posts about it and want to hear more of them, you can search under the tags "ahsoka show" and "anti ahsoka show."

Turning the Darksaber into Mandalorian Excalibur is, perhaps controversially, a bad concept. It's introduced in the hands of a Mandalorian, sure, but it's also introduced specifically as a stolen Jedi relic. And between those two things, somehow the fact that it was in the hands of a Mandalorian got considered the more important part of it rather than the fact that it was a JEDI relic that got stolen from them.

And unfortunately turning the Darksaber into Mandalorian Excalibur has made the Mandos even more boring than they already were. It forces everything that was established about them in TCW to be basically erased and ignored. The whole aspect of them having a government of any kind, having a Council and a Prime Minister, is gone, and leaders are chosen by who can wield a stolen relic real good (or, more accurately, who can wield a DIFFERENT WEAPON well enough to defeat the person who IS wielding the stolen relic) rather than chosen more democratically by the people themselves.

The Darksaber also just isn't even being used very well in the narrative. It got handed to Sabine and we went through an entire lovely arc for her to earn it both the Jedi way and the Mandalorian way only for her to hand it off the very next season to someone who hadn't earned it at all. Then that person loses it and it somehow ends up in the hands of Din Djarin who seems to START an arc about earning it only for that to just get completely dropped so he can hand it right back to the same person Sabine handed it to last time and then it gets destroyed a few episodes later. There's not been any point to the Darksaber at all since it first showed up in Pre Viszla's hands in TCW. It should've stayed a fancy-looking stolen Jedi relic (and arguably should've just been handed back to the Jedi) if they weren't going to do a single interesting thing with any of the Mandos who ended up with it.

Moving on from the Darksaber, and looking at the Sequels, I think killing off all of Luke's Jedi students and destroying Leia's New Republic was a terrible terrible idea as a concept. I understand the idea of like... "Darkness always comes back, the fight is never completely over" but destroying ALL OF THE PROGRESS made in the last trilogy by the main characters just to force the new characters to do the exact same thing all over again is stupid. There are ways to do "darkness always comes back" as a theme without making Luke, Leia, and Han's arcs completely irrelevant. It doesn't feel hopeful by the end anymore, it just feels a little pointless because if everything is always going to be destroyed over and over again then why try to build anything at all? What's the fucking point of it all if none of the triumphs last long enough to mean anything?

And adding onto that, making the New Republic completely incompetent and also so horrible that they're basically the Empire in all but name feels equally frustrating as a concept because now not only were they destroyed before anything meaningful could be done with them, but it's not even a bad thing that they were destroyed because Leia failed long before Starkiller blew up those five planets. The New Republic was a failure from the moment of its inception because it's just filled with and run by cowards and greedy assholes who won't help anyone or do anything useful at all apparently.

I won't touch on R*ylo much because plenty of other people have, but everything about that was awful and it never should've been made canon.

While we're on romantic failures, I don't think Obi-Wan has ever needed a romantic interest, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done well. But Obitine just wasn't it. Obitine was executed so incredibly poorly that it just made both characters radically less interesting and if I didn't already enjoy Obi-Wan as a character, his relationship with Satine would probably turn me off of Obi-Wan entirely given that he's literally a sexist asshole to her. Obitine never should've happened and if they HAD to do it, they should've gotten better writers to handle it so that it didn't ruin a beloved character as a result.

I'm sure there's more I could complain about, but that's what's coming to mind right now.

[queensectonia]

last night i was reminded of one of my extremely few Hater Moments (lighthearted) about this series and i never got around to fully articulating my thoughts on it, so it is once again time for our regularly-scheduled kirby rant:

the spider sectonia reveal was poorly-executed on every level.

to start with, this plot element was introduced when the series was in its worst throes of Not Putting The Fucking Lore In The Fucking Games, but I will happily concede that this reveal was at least in a game; just not the game it should have been in.

I almost wonder if the Sectonia Clone as a whole was a leftover from the fact that Robobot started out development as Triple Deluxe 2, but considering that a) TD2 was dropped pretty early on and b) Robobot is just full to the brim with fanservice and callbacks anyway, I don't feel there's much evidence for such a theory.

at any rate, reducing the otherwise very intriguing reveal of Sectonia's prior form to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it easter egg in an entirely different game is pretty... underwhelming. we've had plenty of "reveals" or cool nods and expansions to other lorebits in similar easter eggs, but none of them were nearly as important as "oh, by the way, here's what the character whose whole arc revolves around personal and physical image used to look like! in a totally unrelated game!"

but that's the tamest complaint. that's just the accessibility of this information, which could have been better but certainly could have been worse.

the biggest problem is Sectonia's design. it's bad. it is just not good, fellas. she is literally just genderbent Taranza. it fails visually, it fails conceptually, and it fails really hard story-wise.

this design was so uninspired that when people in the EN sphere first saw it, tons of people thought it just was Taranza. then when we got screenshots, model rips, etc., it was still so painfully similar to Taranza that it made people assume HAL was saying Taranza and Sectonia were related - which turned into just as much of a shitfight as you might think.

even if this weren't attached to such a crucial character reveal, it's just downright a bad design! instead of taking even the slightest efforts to differentiate Sectonia from Taranza, they did the laziest, most barebones "uhhhhhh what if taranza But Girl" design shift possible. she's wearing the exact same outfit as Taranza, just palette-swapped. so little effort went into both the concepting stage and the modelling stage. she's just Taranza's model with the merest tweaks to make sure you know this is a Girl Spider.

genuinely, I would be a hundred times more amenable to this entire plot point if HAL had just bothered to give her an actual design.

but the problem is, making Sectonia a spider kind of just fucks everything about her story and contradicts itself at multiple points.

the aesthetic and theme language in TD is very clear. this is one of the biggest strengths that both it and Robobot share - the identity and literary through-lines of both games pervade every single visual element of them. Robobot tells its tale of capitalistic tech-fuelled colonialism through every part of the game from level backgrounds, to enemy designs, right down to surgical decisions like mechanising the pinwheel tree that was such a fond image from KRtD. every tiny thing bore the mark of the HWC, whether metaphorically or literally, such that you spent the entire game never forgetting that there was one unified force behind all of this, and Haltmann at the end of the game was the culmination of this aesthetic.

TD did the exact same. every part of TD sells that it's a fantastical fairytale romp through a series of themed locations with a connecting thread of the invading Antr* force.

*(this is a way better romanisation than "antler" this is my hill)

if anything, I'd argue that TD's design language in this respect is tighter than Robobot's, because Robobot had a fairly broad theme of "industrialisation and hi-tech space future sci-fi" to draw its foes from, whereas TD had to condense its antagonists under the stricter banner of "evil insect army".

and they did incredibly. every point of design about the Antrs points straight to Sectonia and draws from her in some way or another. it's absolutely seamless. she's the perfect logical endpoint of Antr design from every angle: she's the literal queen bee of this insect hive and the perfect expression of their anatomy. she's bigger than the biggest Antr. she's more developed. she's more powerful. they were so careful and thorough about this design conceit that Antrs have multiple stages that all march straight up to Sectonia. we go from the tiny bronto burt and waddle dee clones with their little wings and eyes that seem so familiar, to the Antr soldiers, all the way up to the Lord Antrs who are one step away from Sectonia. they have stripes and facial markings to echo hers. it's all wrapped up with the genius bow of combining ants, bees, and wasps: they're all hymenoptera! the metaphor goes even deeper than that because there's a species of wasp that parasitizes spiders! controls them, even!

... except no actually, we've decided she's a spider too and all of that buildup and artful design means nothing.

it's awful. it's taking what is far and away one of the best-executed designs in the series and saying that all of that buildup and blatant connection of ideas meant nothing.

but that's just the visual end of it. Sectonia actually being a spider makes no sense in the lore, either.

first of all, TD's incredible design sense and artistic direction applies to Taranza as well. while he's obviously derivative of Magolor, within the context of TD he's clearly meant to evoke the sky fairies. he's designed to look much more like them than any of the insect characters. he's got the same body type, he moves the same way as them, he's a sky fairy with a spider theme. the game draws visual parallels between him and the sky fairies more than once; this is not unintentional.

this is part of what makes Taranza's role as Sectonia's right hand more impactful: he's only insect adjacent, and the design language would have you believe he's more closely related to the fairies than the insects, so him being with the bad guys is notable and interesting.

so why would a spider character be the ruling monarch of the insect hive? why would the line go ant, bigger ant, fancy ant, armoured ant, spider, wasp?

I mean, shit dude, the miiverse posts directly tell us that Sectonia used to "look like her insect underlings". it really feels like the decision to make her be a spider was a total spur-of-the-moment one, between how badly it interacts with the rest of the story and how lazy the design was. Sectonia's backstory had a couple of holes in it regarding the actual timeline of things, but those were just mysteries regarding what order everything happened in. she was both a bodyjacker and a good queen at one point, which don't exactly jive, so it becomes interesting to think about how those two facts coexist. on the other hand, her being a spider just gets shoehorned in there for no apparent reason other than to... heighten her connection to Taranza?

and that just dovetails into the complete mockery HAL made of Taranza's character development after TD, and THAT is a rant for another time.

there was just no point to it all. Sectonia being a spider adds nothing, removes a bunch of nuance and intrigue, and muddies both her story and the background world of TD.

[swimsauce]

Twitter is busted rn so I'm gonna just write down my earthspark s3 thoughts here. Mostly ranting who gives a shit

Uugghhh this part was better overall I think. The last 3 eps are pretty good. It's still very noticeable that the script quality has decreased, the dialogue and pacing are pretty bad. But there where fun concepts, however executed to varying degrees of success. I'll just list it off

-prowl was a fun addition but wasted potential. His arc of being an older autobot stuck in his ways is good, he must learn to warm up to the terrans and live with the fact the old Civil War is over. His development is too fast and slow. He should've learned his lesson earlier and not at the end when he has a fucking wack ass convo with bee and op about how he's stepping out of line. It should've been called out sooner and his episode with robbie and thrash would've been a more appropriate place for him to learn to "trust the students" instead of being right in front of starscream. Feels like they wanted a little bit of his tfa arc without properly humbling him and giving him good character interactions (like his connection with tfa bee and sari to ground him). Thrash was right there to be his little bond mate like how jawbreaker is to grimlock or twitch is to megs, etc. His arc shouldve been tigther. Idk his gay moment with megatron was cool tho

-the chaos terrains are revived and on neutral territory. Whatever. I hope they get development instead of just being le evil robot cuz "they where born evil" is such a stupid angle.

-the decepticons going to cybertron could be neat if the story continues. But god damn what a shattered arc they had. Starscream being comically evil is still very clearly not the arc that was planned and it shows in its poor execution. Breakdown just shafting bee for the cons when in s1 he was clearly a more neutral con like tarantulas was is such wasted potential. All nuance in the splinter decepticons has been nullified, it's literally only megs who is "on the good side". It's not that I think all the cons would adjust to peace time or that they should all be so friendly but it's so annoying how it feels their arc/theme of moving on has been completely dropped.

-the quints are evil again, ok sure. If u don't got the civil war plot it's usually the quitessons as the enemy which is fine normally. But then being a splinter species much like the terrans and having a connection with robbie and mo is so neat, but it's completely disregarded because the quints just kill all other quintus prime offspring. Such wasted potential. Maybe have a good group and bad group, or some sort of nuance to the quints finding more of their kin? Idk there was that one grunt that kept getting beat up, lost an arm and head piece, I though he could've stuck around, maybe he could've aligned with the maltos after being rejected for failure, or become a secondary bad guy. Idk just anything more than literally repeating the 86 execution scene but missing all the sauce that made it good. The twist of thr gf being a quint is fine idk. Just poorly executed again

-God damn the dialogue and script is bad. Even good concepts get butchered or clearly aren't as well executed as they should've. I already mentioned the 86 reference, but the recreation misses the og point. It repeated shots used in the movie but without their purpose. In the movie hot rod and kup spin the water to purposely trip up the quints. In this the quints spin the water to push robbie/mo down further to the bottom so they can reach the bot corpses and grab a weapon? Fucking masterful gambit. . It lacks good set up and reason as to why it was done. In the movie it was to show the cunningness of hot rod and kup, the two of them being ACTIVE in their escape. In the show it's just a reference and a poorly thought out device to get them weapons. It makes robbie and mo PASSIVE in their own escape.

The whole ep with prowl and robbie/thrash could've been so fun, but prowl is so dull. He's supposed to be sharp and quick to see details, but the writting is so poor he misses shit and acts to late. When they're trying to find the quint shapeshiter and he suspects robbies gf, it would've been cool if he acted faster, maybe restraining the quint before robbie/mo catch on, maybe causing a rift in the new team, then have him proven right when robbie sees the blood. The way he just points out the blood and doesn't even move when it's entirely clear she should be questioned is such poor pacing forcthe scene. A supposedly quick witted character wouldnt just stand around when its perfectly clear someone should act. (reminds me of the dodgy writting of him in idw where it feels like the writters wanna imply hes smart without actually writting him well enough to showcase thaf fact. Lots of telling not enough showing)

There are other scenes like this where if it just went through like one or two more rewrites it would've been a solid scene, but they get held back by stupid details that just derail good character beats. It fucking sucks to see

-fair maestro sucks bring back mandroid or a similiar character. Him modifying himself with robot parts to be more like a transformer, trying to be techno organic much like how robbie/mo are techno organic . Idk he was a good foil. Maestro could be reworked to be a human who seeks out transformers for more nefarious science shit byt instead he just does stupid shit with them. Not even like fun tfa shit just lame shit. No where near as threatening as even tfp or tfas human villians.

-terrarronus slays I love her power armor power up. She's neat

Tldr the ending of the season was an improvement over s2, but man it still sucks to see how far it's falling. And I can still see so many good ideas in the show! Bringing old g1 characters like prowl is fun. Quints are cool dudes, and relevant to the quintos prime angle. The hate plague or some sort of infection episode is always a neat idea. Terratronus is awesome, I loved her use in the climax. But god damn it's so sloppy in execution. It cleaned up some of its sloppy ideas from s2, like the chaos terrans, but the thread there is still hanging. What about other autobots like prowl, it seems there are more of them around, where are they? Tarantulas is still out there, are there other neutrals or "good" decepticons still on earth, and what's their deal? Starscreams deal is so underutilized, i hope he gets at least some closure or arc that isnt shit. The chaos terrans just being evil and bratty for the sake of it is so shallow, do something more interesting with them. Maybe if the cons come back from cybertron we could get something interesting from them. Who knows. I know it's not the staffs fault, the writers room complelty changed and the animation house is different. But if we do get another season, they better clean up the plot more, they have a long way to go to fix up what they busted from s1. It sucks to see wasted potential like this

Idk I want it to be good but man 😞 fuck hasbro

[mdhwrites]

Going back through TOH's episodes, it strikes me how boring they are. Part of the problem seems to be how criminally unfunny the show is, generally speaking. I can count how many times I've laughed on one hand. In fact I can list them:

There was the "It's been my dream since I was a boy" guy pushing kids off cliffs (Moving Hassle), Luz's "He'll be fine" after throwing Hunter overboard - and then his subsequent re-entry (Hunting Palismen) - and lastly Luz tumbling offscreen in front of Amity after a spider crawls on her face (Grom). That's 3 scenes, 4 jokes if we're being charitable. And sure, maybe my sense of humour is just incompatible with TOH's and I'm being harsh.

But I can't deny that I just feel like there's no rewatch value in TOH? Like it's just... the jokes are so bad to the point it's not fun, it's not entertaining, it's a slog, I see no value in retreading the same ground. And I am a SERIAL rewatcher! This is coming from someone who spends maybe 85% of their time experiencing the same stories! I love seeing well-done media all over again, because even if I know what's going to happen or what they will say, a well-structured joke or a skillfully delivered line is still gonna engage me.

I can't even recommend the show to anyone because I HAVE in the past... and what ends up happening is they watch the first couple episodes, get bored, go "I recognize that you like this, but it's not my thing" and drop it. And I CAN'T BLAME THAT! Because that's how I reacted too when I got into the show! I only stuck with it because it seemed like it was going really interesting places. And it tried to, I think, and failed.

I'm also a very fandom-heavy person so TOH's boring episodes have made it increasingly harder for me to stay within it. Because I'm not rewatching anything, I can see myself in real time as I forget more and more of the plotlines, and even a lot of the characters. It's just... kind of disappointing. It's like I just had a gradual fizzling out of interest. I don't even hate the show, which might be better in some ways - instead I just can't muster enough shits to feel any type of way towards it.

I rambled a bit but I guess my ultimate ask here was: what are your thoughts on whether or not TOH manages to entertain new/old viewers?

So I like S1. I think the characters are what carry it and that they are at their most interesting, EASILY, in S1.

The vast majority of S1, in terms of concepts and executions for plots, is OKAY AT BEST.

This actually just comes down to a simple tonal decision of TOH and also just the fact that a boring world with boring magic creates little to do with bog standard plots and TOH actually has a LOT of bog standard plotting. It is a pretty classic story structurally and takes genuinely very few risks in the structure... Which is okay in theory.

There is nothing wrong with not reinventing the wheel and TOH talks a big game about subverting tropes but no. As a fantasy fan, I can tell you this is EXCEPTIONALLY normal. Like... Insultingly from how much it talks a big game. Especially because if you're going to do classic, you have three options: Shoot the moon, lean into the unique elements of your concept or do it VERY. VERY. WELL.

And remember: They did a body swap episode and it is one of the most hated episodes of the entire show. That's not a good sign.

But this touches on the second problem I brought up: This is a boring world with boring magic. Because TOH's fantasy world is so basic, has little magic and little flair with its magic, it inherently limits what it can do. Now, it doesn't have to be this way but the show made it this way with how little we see of it, how limited it is (like how plant magic is 99% vines), and how often it just blatantly makes one to one comparisons between it and our world with effectively NOTHING altered like how the covens are just jobs, right down to them being introduced through a job fair and a boring one at that.

So when we look at a classic episode concept like the body swap episode, the three plots are... Easily replicated elsewhere. One person gets in trouble in the swap's job because they don't know what they're doing (with the most unique twist of this actually landing them in prison), a classic animal plot where they're taken in by a place that seems cozy and then isn't with literally no changes, and finally... Teenager pisses off bullies and agrees to jump DEAD MAN'S GORGE! But instead of skateboards and people really building it up, its rat beasts.

None of these plots are actually bad, they're go tos for a reason, but... No one is bringing anything special to this. Luz is entirely ignored so her character may as well not matter, Eda is doing NOTHING to add to her plot and King... King is fun for about two minutes leading the bullies and otherwise is just any other character in this situation. It's not bad, I personally enjoy parts of the episode... But it's nothing special. From the second the thing that X character is going to do is revealed, you can guess every step of the plot and they don't even really throw in good jokes in the process. A couple jokes but nothing memorable because everything is weirdly subdued compared to how other shows would be, even in an episode that is definitely trying to be more over the top.

And this runs into the inherent tonal issue of TOH: It doesn't want to be an adventure comedy. Those are genres that are commonly really over the top. They hear jump the shark and go "How about a shark jumping ten other sharks in order to finish making a can of tuna for their fire giant overlord?" And the face of this fact, in that the genres it pitches itself as for the first two episodes!

TOH flatly refuses to be silly and over the top. It's characters are very... 'realistic'. I don't mean real, just that they're meant to feel more mature by being more in control. They don't let them interrupt each other for a joke, they don't let a character be potentially OOC for a one off gag like Hop Pop screaming "EAT THE RICH!" or Sprig asking "Have you ever killed a a man, Hop Pop," and I can only think of one time Luz got mad for the sake of a joke and honestly, yelling about the Rusty Smidge barely comes across as a joke because of how genuine the anger feels after a point. Otherwise, stuff that would normally get exaggerated frustration or the like to at least let you laugh at the reaction just... doesn't get one, like how Luz yells about Luzura being killed off but then... Just walks off and is passive aggressive mostly instead of even exasperated. For a drama or romance, this is not a bad approach but for even just an adventure kid's show... It's not great to put it mildly because people meet odd situations with weird levels of nonchalance. Not quite irony poisoned levels but getting there.

It's why TOH is mostly remembered for the romance and drama episodes. Not only do they allow some of the romance scenes to actually include melodrama, they also just fit how the characters act better. It's why Amity has some of the biggest emotions of the series and why Lumity have such great lines between each other because they're actually willing to lean into the sort of genre fiction that they're doing. This is also why S2 works better than S1 because a lot of the pretense of being a comedy adventure gets dropped but like... There's still plenty of boring in S2 with stuff like how Elsewhere Elsewhen takes time travel and includes a couple jokes at the beginning and then is just... horribly bland and barely qualifies as an adventure.

This lack of allowing people to be emotional and jokey also leads to the reliance on comic relief characters. People like Gus, King or Hooty, or S2 Lilith, who the characters can mock in someway, including the writers. Characters who can be the punchline even if it means a lot of people come off a lot meaner than they should, i.e. Luz absolutely rejecting Hooty for the vast majority of the series despite supposedly liking the weird and rejected. That also means that most of the time they're not on screen, either the scene starts getting pretty dry or you have a character suddenly warp to be comic relief, like how Eda gets in some S2 episodes like Elsewhere Elsewhen or Eclipse Lake where suddenly she's MUCH more of a joke than she normally is and also REALLY bad at it too and seeming potentially brain dead for it. Thanks to Them even does this to Amity even though she is probably the last person in the cast to make sense as a sudden clutz.

All of this stuff makes it so that if you go in wanting a kid's show, a fantasy show, ANYTHING that is pitched in the first episode... S1 is going to be just okay to you. I enjoyed it... But I also fell off when I first watched it. I thought the characters were good but none of it stuck with me as actually memorable and I watched until I think Adventure in the Elements. I never was never compelled to come back until Lumity animations (literally THE Little Miss Perfect animatic that is nowadays probably hard to find actually) made me go "I remember this show being neat." And Lumity was what kept me, not because I was generally laughing or calling these episodes something special. In fact, that sense of unsatisfaction is probably why I watched through it faster than Amphibia. No one episode of TOH is really great to watch on its own because... It's just kind of boring, or like half of it is boring because the B plots across the board are SO BLAND. S1 or 2 for that matter since Lumity starts getting boring B plots like with the archives or finding out the author of Azura. Both concepts btw that could have been really interesting setups and instead... If you're not into blushing Amity, get FUUUUUCKED.

That's without getting into REPETITION. Repetition kills comedy so King having one joke for S1 and also taking up like half of the B plots for the first ten episodes means you are going to be in agony eventually anytime someone talks to him because you know where it's going and you have DEFINITELY heard this joke before. And you know, he also gets three repetitive B plots which just hurts the joke even more, even as they try to make twists on it, and hurts the feeling that the show is doing... Anything..

It's just not good. Which is probably why once the characters and the 'subversive/unique' elements of the show both weakened, more and more people left because... Why would you keep watching this then? Those elements are what made up for boring plots with boring execution in a world that didn't allow for more interesting storytelling because it had few ideas and expanded on NONE OF THEM. So of course people pitch it using the elements that say "this isn't like other kids shows/fantasy shows" because if you pitch it to people who like those... They'll just be disappointed eventually and bored quickly. Like i think a lot of people did to be quite honest.

And a lack of creativity, and a lack of genre understanding, isn't something time could have ever fixed.

======+++++======

The short version of proving this point btw is going "Compare Bumi's introductory episode, which is a character giving three trials to prove another's worth, versus when the Bat Queen challenges Luz. One is exceptionally funny, interesting and has genuinely interesting twists while the other is... There. So very there. Painfully just... there. Not even bad, just... There.

Also, yes, comedy is extremely subjective which is why I tried to talk more about how a lot of these premises are boring because that can be a bit more objective.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past.

I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead.

If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[ravensvirginity]

I actually really enjoyed Titans #8, but I still have Thoughts™️

The whole Raven’s good side is named Rachel thing is extremely strangely executed in my opinion. I will preface this by saying that I don’t like Rachel Roth as an alias for Raven, and I think that if she does use a civilian ID it would only be for places where people don’t know she’s a superhero and she’d still be Raven to her friends. But moving on from that:

Going off of this conversation with Trigon, it seems like Rachel Roth is the identity Raven chose for herself. Her real name is Rachel, while her demon’s name is Raven. I do not personally like or agree with that assessment, but I have to wonder:

If she identifies so strongly with the name Rachel, why are the other Titans not calling her that? They’ve been calling her Raven the whole run. I’d actually thought they dropped Rachel as her alias because it hadn’t been mentioned at all until the second to last issue of Beast World. If they’re trying to set up a Rachel/Raven dichotomy, why does only demon Raven and Trigon call normal Raven that? You’d think her preferred identity would be the one tied the most strongly to her friends.

I just feel like the split between normal and demon Raven could’ve had some more thought put into it. Demon Raven pretending to be regular Raven is an interesting concept though, I’m excited to see where it goes! And I did really love how Trigon is written so far. Fingers crossed this storyline continues to have more good than bad, because I was really worried after Raven’s Tales issue from this past summer.

[vaultsixtynine]

fallout show final notes (attempting to keep this Short because i can and will keep going if i'm not mindful)

firstly: people who liked it getting mad at people who didn't and going "eugh fnv fans are so crazy" is silly. there are legitimate grievances to take with the show, which i will do in just a second. i'm sure there ARE fnv hardcore fans out there who are spitting mad because they didn't actually learn one of the most important lessons of fnv (the status quo must be broken continually to improve) - the shady sands bit isn't necessarily strictly bad BECAUSE it changes something fundamental about the ncr. i also don't think the show was going out of its way to spit on fnv as a whole Necessarily - there are too many nods and the fact that house is around at all just adds to that. it's not a todd dick contest, i think they were doing it in good faith, the fact remains that they still didn't do it Good.

so here are the things that i actually didn't like, now that we all got our kneejerk pissed off "group x says y and they're WRONG for that" reactions out of the way. SPOILERS spoilers Spoilers.

dealing with vault tec mysteries isn't actually a bad thing - kind of interesting inherently. however: vault tec AKA a group of Shadowy Elites is Responsible For Everything is so. pointed look at camera.

vault tec bearing sole direct responsibility for bombs dropping (and having that suggested to the board of shadowy elites by a black woman no less) is truly the least interesting progression point for fallout lore as a whole. we're going to ignore the war as a whole and The US Government in favor of corpo responsibility offloading.

lucy's dad being a freezy pop who nuked shady sands landed on a broken ankle because they're serving us Nuke Revelation with a side of Nuke Revelation. and it's all the same company. WOAHHH can it get ANY more interconnected!

i started straight up guffawing at ghoul mom reveal. pleasssseeeeee god

moldaver had so much build up as an interesting character and then got wasted on being the vaguest possible revolutionary who then died way too soon. hello? why is she dead already? what was the fucking point of the flame lady cult? why open this can if you were immediately gonna discard it? why isn't lucy's mom moldaver? CHRIST.

i dislike the attempt at new ghoul lore that just seems ultimately pointless? like ghouls as a concept were not Advanced in any way with this lore. i did like the pause to provide empathy with the feral ghouls, was a nice touch. buuuut Big Drug Energy is nothing to me and loss of discussion of radiation effects on a changed being that now lives in harmony with radiation is a sad loss for fallout as a setting imo.

i don't dislike ghoulman cooper. i think his character Concept is inherently very funny and good for its irony, except they didn't even use the irony at all? the myth of the american cowboy and The Western, the poison of american individualism, the sad reality of bouncing from one big lie (american exceptionalism esp in a time of war) to another one (ads for vault tec aka selling the end of the world) was instead turned into Oh No, My Wife (Black Woman) Is Actually Pretty Evil And I Forsook My Good American Boy Values For Her! and then just being a right bastard in the postwar.

bethesda will never be tired of Privileged Person Is Subjected To Horrible Degenerate Wasteland. lucy's character arc is supposed to be That (But Look, She's Still Good, Because She's A Good Vault Girl!), but it mostly just involves her being actively tormented in various situations. idk i don't think she should have to forgive cooper's humanity or lack thereof just because she's So Nice. character arc implied but not executed in a way i find noteworthy.

maximus. face in hands. he's literally maybe the most interesting character on the entire show. the brotherhood even got portrayed as an Actual fucking cult (which it IS. this is the best thing the show did imo). but for WHAT? for a CHARACTER ARC OR DEVELOPMENT OF ANY KIND? nope! he isn't even given the grace of a full scene where he actively realizes and says out loud or internally like. hey. maybe brotherhood............. is bad for me? and others? he goes back to the bos again and again to take his punishment, but still has to be Part of them for the final encounter. and doesn't even get to go with the "you have nothing to lose but your chains... Of Morality" duo at the end. i just want so much more for him & i feel like he's being squandered by the end of the season. i have 600 more things to say but i'm gonna shut. up

shady sands hot take: the ncr needed to be challenged and have the status quo shifted. by a random pissed off prewar man w too many resources being divorced? not really useful to change the worldstate in a meaningful way, to be honest. nuking the capital of the ncr not inherently bad. there being zero power-seeking (on behalf of other factions) behind it happening, NO factions fighting over the scraps (THE NCR WAS MORE THAN ONE CITY), and everything just smoothing back out into bethesda-preferred shantytowns and empty wastes where society isn't what you really have to care about, just your individual morality, is a big yawn for me. we've been here and we've seen this and it comes off worse in a tv show than a first person rpg.

of course all the survivors of shady sands immediately did a cult *from inside a vault* where they smear nuclear corpse ashes on themselves. and there don't seem to be any other survivors of note, just those ones.

i have many more things to say but let's cap it here.

final notes: so many of the things in the show feel like they were done for setpiecing shock value (can you BELIEVE it's ALL CONNECTED? here's some fun unexpected gore) (i actually don't mind the gore bc it's pretty falloutcore but sometimes it's like. okay we get it, shit's crazy in the wasteland!) rather than for actual coherent 'let's advance the world of fallout and its themes and lore' reasons. i understand that they were doing an external-to-games timeline and kind of a mishmash of elements, hence why i'm not bothering to complain about stuff in the show feeling Too Similar to game events - bc i don't really care about that. i care about it feeling like fallout and doing things actually meaningful with fallout's core themes, and at the end of the day, i don't really think i got that.

[dragons-and-dwarves-are-nice]

To the Shadows that Cry Witch /// Chapter 21

RAAAAHHHHHHHH WE'RE BACK AND ONLY ONE CHAPTER LEFT AND I CAN FINALLY MOVE ONTO PART 3. The Easter holidays have just started for me so I now have three full weeks to put into the last chapter. This one could be classed as a filler chapter but there's a lot they gain that links to the future so stuff doesn't just appear 'for the plot' - the girls need their hardcore character development before the journey. Enjoy! <3

Summary: Magic was real, but it came at a price. So when two girls end up in the one place they never thought they could reach, strange things began to happen. Good or bad? That's up to them to find out.

Tags: Kili x oc/reader - Fili x oc (POV to be written soon) - Thorin's company × ocs/reader (platonic) - fluff - angst - EXTREME slow burn - crack - Bagginshield

Word Count: 8527

Warnings: Nothing I can think of.

Taglist - comment or message to be added!

Want some background music? Check out my Soundtrack Playlist!

Now available on Wattpad and AO3 (please let me know if links aren't working)

< Chapter 20 // Chapter 21 // Chapter 22 >

Part 2: Chapter 21 -

Interesting Concept. Poor Execution.

Brontide (Definition): The low rumble of distant thunder. (Noun / Origin: Greek /ˈbrän‧ˌtīd)

Bag End, Hobbiton, The Shire ��� T.A. Monday, 27th March 2940 of the Third Age (Monday, 5th Astron, 1340 in Shire-reckoning)

4 MONTHS LATER

“I’m so happy you allowed me to accompany you three! It’s not every day I’m able to spare time for trip like this.” Gladiola smiled gratefully at the three of us.

--

After begging Bilbo to let us travel to Bree for a good month, he finally let up, but only agreed if we went in the spring, strongly insisting we wouldn’t survive the night if we had travelled in the deep winter.

“Bree is a hundred and thirty-five mile trip, meaning it would take a minimum of four days to get there. Meaning that we would have to camp in the freezing cold, because the only proper shelters are at least three detours from the path!”

We had instantly agreed, when we had realised the actual distance, deciding to wait until late March when the weather would be warmer.

Aa couple days before we left, Mrs Greenfoot had walked in on us packing when she was dropping off some spare socks she had knitted. After telling her where we were going, she instantly pleaded to let her go with us, saying how she heard Bree had some fabrics that she was dying to get her hands on, and how her husband was going to be at home full time for the next two weeks, so it would be a perfect opportunity for her to go. We said yes after persuading a reluctant Bilbo, and she shot off to pack, which led to now – on our fourth day of walking.

“Oh I really do hope the markets have what I want. I promised Menegilda I would make her a new dress for her birthday.” Gladiola rambled on as she took in the fields and forests ahead of us, her pace picking up with eagerness.

“I’m sure they will.” Replied Kay, grimacing at the feeling of her aching legs. “It’ll ruin the reputation they’ve built of they don’t.”

“Hopefully.” She sighed. “What are you all hoping of finding?”

“Every dangerous object under the sun apparently.” Bilbo spoke up before us. Stuffing his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a small piece of paper and handed it over.

Taking it, Gladiola quickly scanned the list, her face morphing into surprise and shock at the same time. “Swords?? Why would you need swords?” she queried, handing it back.

“To scare off half the town, in my opinion.” Bilbo grumbled, clearly not happy with the reason we had dragged him so far. “If I didn’t want to go for some of that wine they make, I would’ve said no on the spot.”

“Well, we would’ve gone ourselves if that was the case.” I jived back.

“We just want to know that we can protect ourselves if we ever decide to try and find our way home.” Kay explained.

Bilbo slowed his pace for a moment, as something seemed to dawn on him. “Oh.” He said quietly, a tiny quiver of dejection on his face. “Yes, home. I forgot about uh.. that.” Though he quickly shook that mood off, jogging slightly to catch up.

“Plus,” I added in an attempt to alleviate the mood. “we wouldn’t be looking to own one if we didn’t think it looked insanely cool.”

And with that Bilbo sighed, back to his usual exasperated mood.

--

The wall surrounding Bree stretched high above us as we neared the wooden gate, its intimidating nature emphasised by the two-storey stone turrets that flanked either side like a pair of unmovable sentries.

Gravel and dried mud crunching underfoot, we took the last few steps, before shuffling to a stop in front of one of the towering doors. Taking a couple steps forward, Bilbo reached up and gave the surface a few hard raps, before coming back to stand beside us.

A moment passed, and only the birds and the rustling of leaves from the nearby trees could be heard, when a muffled rattling sounded from behind the door. A small hatch near my eye level swung open, revealing the wrinkled face of a man, who, at the sight of us, morphed it into a sour scowl, a stark contrast compared to the warm sun that was beating down on our backs.

“Who’re you?” he barked, his croaky and adenoidal voice matching his unpleasant demeanour perfectly.

When neither me or Kay began to speak, Bilbo quickly piped up, stretching up on his toes to try and see the gatekeeper. “Um, hello?” he called out.

The gatekeeper, quickly stepped back and slammed the hatch shut, before a creak resounded from further down, opening another hatch that was the perfect level to speak with the hobbit, giving me a very strong sense of déjà vu.

The hobbit stepped forward towards the open hatch. “We’re here to stay at the Prancing Pony, for a week.” He explained politely. “To visit the market.”

“Oh?” croaked the gatekeeper with half a smirk. “And what are you here to buy, exactly?”

Bilbo didn’t hesitate to flap the list in front of the old man’s face. “Whatever we need.” He said sternly, before stuffing the paper back in his pocket. “I have visited before, you know.”

Looking between me and Kay, then at the hobbits, his eyes narrowed. “Two hobbits and a pair of human girls, together. That’s not something you see every day.” He muttered, reminding me a lot of a certain Hogwarts caretaker, and I half-expected to see a dupe of Mrs Norris jump out of nowhere. “Tell me, how do you know each other?”

“They’re his daughters!” A voice called out, and the three of us spun around in surprise to face a nervous looking Mrs Greenfoot. “Adopted, of course. And I’m a family friend.” She added with a sheepish smile.

The gatekeeper took his time to eye us all up slowly, his bloodshot eyes scouring whatever he could. Seemingly unable to spot anything he counted as suspicious, he quickly disappeared again with a grumble, the hatch shutting with a snap. Seconds later there was a loud groan, and the door he used to speak through slowly began to open. When the gap was wide enough, the gatekeeper stepped out from behind it, revealing his mousy grey hair and tattered brown tunic and trousers. Raising a wrinkly hand, he impatiently beckoned us forward, quickly scouring the area outside as we stumbled in, before he pushed the gate shut.

Bilbo diligently led the way as we trekked down the main street, dragging Mrs Greenfoot to walk beside him.

“What in Yavanna’s name are you doing??” The two of us heard him cry in a whisper. “People are going to ask even more questions if we call them my daughters! How am I supposed to come up with a story about that???”

“Well go with the story you already have! Because it’s the one you’re going to have to run with for now, Mr Baggins.” She hissed back with a smirk.

Deciding to pointedly ignore the storm brewing in front of us, I turned to the view of the building in front of us. “Very Tudor-like.” I mentioned, admiring the dark beams that contrasted against the cream walls, along with the jettying of the upper floors that stuck out, and the metal grid panes that decorated the windows all around.

Kay hummed in agreement as she walked beside me, the both of us in awe of the once-fictional town that spanned across our view.

“It’s nice to see it not pouring with rain and caked in mud like the movies.” She whispered. I eagerly agreed, very happy about not having to fight my way through several inches of horse-trodden mud.

Grasping our skirts, we twisted between people and horse-drawn carriages, finally stopping in front of a relatively large building, the carved wooden sign hanging above us revealing itself to be the one and only Prancing Pony, and the two of us craned our necks to look up and admire the famous building Reaching an arm out, Mrs Greenfoot hauled the hefty wooden door open, and the four of us took our first steps into the inn.

Approaching the bar near the door, I watched Bilbo wipe the thunderous look on his face, turning away from where he was scowling at Gladiola to face the bartender approaching us.

“Good afternoon!” The man called, leaning his round body over the counter to take us all in with a hearty smile. “The name’s Mr Butterbur, but you lot can call me Barney. What can I do for the four of you?”

“Two rooms, if you please.” Answered Bilbo, reaching into his pocket for the right amount of coins. “Preferably split one and three.”

“Ah, you got lucky!” said Mr Butterbur, sticking his hand under the counter to bring out two keys. “You came at the right time – travelling’s picking up again now that winter’s over.” He handed the keys to Bilbo. “Rooms 5 and 6. Say, will you lot be coming down for dinner? I have a feeling it’ll be quiet this evening and we’re serving roast beef and potatoes.”

“Yes, that’ll be lovely.” Replied Gladiola with a warm smile.

Thanking the bartender once again, we set off, crossing the sparsely populated room of tables, considering it was only late afternoon, and up the narrow, creaking stairs on the other side. It didn’t take long to walk down the upper hallway to find the matching rooms, Bilbo handing us our key before he unlocked the door of his own room, insisting the separation was basic courtesy.

Evening came round quickly, our time spent downstairs in the tavern. Bilbo, Kay and Gladiola were currently sat at a table by one of the windows, and I was up by the bar, sipping a steaming tankard of tea on a rickety stool as I waited for Mr Butterbur to refill Bilbo’s wine.

“Say, I don’t suppose you know a place that could sell weapons?” I asked.

He was quiet for a moment, only raising a bushy brow as he peered down at me. Slowly, he set the refilled cup of wine down, before taking a rag out to wipe the surface. “Depends, what kind of weapons are you looking for?” he said lowly.

“Oh, nothing too dramatic.” I waved dismissably. “My friend and I are looking to venture out by ourselves at some point, you see. And we’re looking for something that’s durable and efficient, but easy to get used to, that beginners can handle.”

He seemed to lighten up again, throwing the cloth down as he braced both of his arms on the bar, eyes darting around in thought.

“Are you sure you two want to do that?” he asked with a stern but gentle look. “I’ve never been, but I’ve heard the Shire is one of the safest places you can live, the world outside? Not so much. Besides, you wouldn’t want to leave your dad alone, now would you?”

I blinked. “My – ?” I spun on my chair, looking at our table when my eyes made contact with Bilbo’s, who already seemed to be staring over with light concern on his face. “Oh! He’s no – yea, he’s uh, only been our.. ‘dad’ for a few months though.”

“Even more reason to stay!” Mr Butterbur said, reaching over to poke my shoulder slightly. “You don’t want to go breaking his poor heart right after he opened it up to let you both in!”

I turned back towards the bar, a solemn look falling upon my face as I stared at the tankard in my hands. “I know it’s just…” I heaved a long sigh. “I had a family,” My voice quavered as I looked up at him with wide eyes. “No, I have a family. I wasn’t brought here by choice, I –” I pressed my palms over my teary eyes as the events from the last six months hit me all at once. “I don’t know how we got here and I can’t get us back.” I cried.

“Hey, hey,” he murmured gently, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what the two of you have gone through, but it seems that you’re distressed about the sudden change and you don’t even realise it.”

Blinking through the blur of tears, I looked up at him. “I have a bit. Bilbo’s found me crying at night over it more than once, but I’ve been telling him it’s nightmares of the night he found us.”

“A bad night?” he asked, smiling gently under his moustache.

“Very.” I replied with a wobbly grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that terrified before.”

He looked me up and down concerned, eyeing the large pink scar on my hand as I stared at it. He went to open his mouth, when he was interrupted.

“Oi Barney!” A man called from one of the tables nearby. “Don’t suppose we could get another round of mead?”

“I’ll bring ‘em round in a minute!” he called back, before turning to me once more. “Well you two have certainly had an experience, from what I can put together. But,” he lowered his voice again. “coming from a stranger, the best thing you can do, until you can find a way to get back, is to just carry on, and keep your hobbit dad company. Or, you know, find him a spouse – depends on whether he’s the bachelor type or not.”

I choked on my drink at the last statement, looking over at the hobbit with a grin. “Well whoever manages to charm him is gonna need a very strong metaphorical hammer.” I laughed. “Cuz that hobbit has enough stubbornness and resilience to rival the walls of Helm’s Deep.”

Mr Butterbur let out sharp laugh, almost spilling the tankard of beer he was filling. “Helm’s Deep! Blimey, you two must’ve done something insane to persuade him to take you in.” He chortled as he began lining up mugs of mead. “Anyway, you were asking about weapons, and I know of a guy that has a stall in the market square, name it and he’ll probably sell it.”

I perked up at the new subject. “Okay, what area of the square?”

“North-east corner, the blacksmiths.” He replied. “Ask for a man named Seathan Marshsteel. Tall, burly guy with a long dark beard and wavy hair, normally tied in a bun or something. Could be mistaken for a dwarf if it weren’t for the fact he’s over six foot.” He described with a chortle. “He’ll know what to give you, but best you go in the early hours, so the good stuff doesn’t get snagged first.”

“That’s great, thank you so much!” I exclaimed, finally getting up from the stool. Turning to face him fully, I gave him the sincerest smile I could. “And thanks for the advice, too.”

He waved a large hand in dismissal. “Don’t mention it. I prefer conversations with the emotional sober, than the emotional drunk.”

Giving him a laugh and a wave, I returned to the table with Bilbo’s refilled drink and my own, relaying the information Mr Butterbur had given me to Kay. The rest of that evening was spent in that corner, eating roast beef, potatoes and vegetables along with the rest of the taverns patrons, before retiring to bed for the night, ready for the next morning.

--

The murmurs of people and trotting of hooves were yet to be heard when I woke the next morning, only the chirping of the early birds, the occasional pair of footsteps scuffling beneath our window along with the crackle and pops of the dying fire across the room could be made out as I blinked the sleep away from my eyes.

I laid there for a while, staring up at the ceiling cast in dark shadows by the glowing embers as Kay and Mrs Greenfoot slept on. It still felt a little strange not having my phone on the bedside table, the calm piano of my alarm floating through my ears. The battery died on the fourth night after arriving at Bilbo’s, and I had cried endlessly, reality setting in as a realised that the only potential way of contacting my family was gone, unless we found a way back. I was mostly terrified of not being able to see their faces, but managed to calm myself slightly when I went through my small collection of polaroids and found a couple family portraits. I had stored them in the envelope stuck on the back page of my grimoire, for safe keeping but also as a way of keeping them near me for good luck. Going back through the polaroids, another stroke of luck hit me as I had found a polaroid of Kay and her mum, along with her dog Barkley, that I had taken on one of her birthdays, the two of them smiling at their dining table next to a cake glowing with candles, and the large dog laid by their feet. I had slid it under her door that night, deciding to give her some time alone with it. She had come to breakfast that next morning not saying much, only quietly thanking me before settling into her meal.

Coming back to the present, I decided it was time for me to get up. I took my clothes to the bathroom, slipping on a set of light briefs and a vest top over my underwear, an extra layer to battle the early spring chill, then sliding on my shift and finally my pale green summer kirtle.

Kay and Gladiola had roused from their sleep by the time I was sat on my bed sliding my socks on. I gave them a quick ‘Good morning’, before lacing up my trusty modern walking boots, and walking out the door to go knock on Bilbo’s.

The hobbit was already up, calling through the door that he would meet us downstairs for breakfast. I returned to my room to wait for the other two, before taking the stairs down.

We got lucky that the tavern served an early breakfast, the four of us able to down the meal and get out the door when there was still only a few people wandering the streets. The sun hadn’t fully risen either, the rays only managing to shine through the gaps of buildings and alleyways, highlighted by the fading mist as the jettying upper floors kept parts of the street within the dark blue shadows of the early hours.

“– well I would like to see if they have any rolls of lace as well.” Chirped Gladiola, chattering away about the fabrics and lace she wants to try and find, and that if she got commissioned to create some more outfits with the new fabrics, she might be able to afford a new sewing desk. “I’ll be refusing any requests from your relative Lobelia, Mr Baggins. You know what she said the other day? Marched right up to poor Melba and asked her why she was wearing dishrags right in front of her friends!” she exclaimed.

“She did what?!?!” Kay shrieked in outrage.

“I know! I’m surprised you Bilbo haven’t done something to sever her from the family tree!” Gladiola said as she turned to him.

“Believe me, it’s the one thing I want.” He grumbled. “I’ve had far too many of my possessions vanish only to appear in her parlour.”

After listening to the two of them slag off Bilbo’s relative, we had finally arrived at the market. People were still sparse, only a few meandering the stalls whilst some sellers were still setting up shop.

Using the east-rising sun as a reference, Kay and I headed towards the north-east corner, with Bilbo hot on our heels. We waved goodbye to Gladiola, who ventured off with her coin purse towards the colourful fabric stalls on the other side. Walking up the path past stalls selling everything from arrays of meat to bed linens, the smells of metallic blood, spices and cloth filled our senses as our eyes set on a grey canopy propped up by wooden posts attached to a building with a blacksmiths sign hanging from it. Underneath was a counter that was part of the wall, the stall actually being part of the building itself. Approaching the counter, we peered into the shop. Weapons of all kinds lined the walls, even more hung on the racks stuck in the middle of the room like aisles, or on the ceiling like stalactites. The fire in the corner was burning bright, along with the torches lining the walls, filling our nostrils with the strong smell of smoke and the warmth of hot steel, so we figured someone was in.

Kay leant over the counter to try and look around, before calling out.

“Hello?”

A bang resonated through the air, followed by a string of hissed curses. It wasn’t long until a figure appeared hunched from behind one of the tables, clutching and rubbing to back of his head as he muttered under his breath. He gave it one last rub, before standing straight and stretching his back. Placing down the small hammer in his hand, he turned to face us with a frown, though it quickly turned to one of slight surprise. He matched the description Mr Butterbur had given me: Quite tall, about 6’3, well built and muscular, with thick wavy almost black hair, half tied up in a loose bun, with a beard reaching halfway down his chest. He was wearing a pair of loose trousers tied with a thick belt and a baggy tunic rolled up at the sleeves, and covered in patches of soot and grime, his time in the forge on clear display.

Eyeing us up and down, he took his time wandering over, using a cloth to wipe his calloused hands down whilst his face held an expression of poorly concealed confusion. The look increased tenfold as Bilbo peeked over the edge, resting his forearms on the wooden surface to prop himself up. Reaching us, he plopped the rag down, bracing his arms on the counter as his pale blue eyes took the three of us in.

“Can I… help you?” he queried, an accent similar to an Irish one strong on his tongue as he squinted at us, looking as if he couldn’t wrap his head around what was in front of him. I tried not to cough when the smell of smoke increased tenfold, rolling off him in waves.

Nodding, I slapped the list I had taken from Bilbo earlier on the counter. “Yes,” I affirmed eagerly. “We were hoping if you had anything on the list in stock.”

Taking a moment to look between me and the piece of paper, he slowly reached out, pulling the list towards him and picking it up, before grasping the spectacles that hung from his neck by some string, and sliding them on.

He spent about twenty seconds flitting his eyes between us and the list, covering it in black fingerprints until he lowered it a looked down at us over his glasses.

“You three aren’t from around here, are you?” he remarked, his deep, throaty voice resonating through the chill, morning air. “I don’t advertise outside the town unless I speak to you personally, so who told you about me?”

Slightly taken aback by the man’s cautious demeanour, I stepped in the explain. “Uh – we were recommended to visit you by Mr Butterbur?” I managed out, gesturing in the direction of the inn. “from the, uh, Pr-”

“- The Prancing Pony, I know. We’re well acquainted.” He said with a small smile though quickly returned to eyeing us up. “Tell me, what do two young girls and a hobbit want within the weapons trade. You don’t look experienced to me.”

“Which is exactly the problem.” I stated firmly. “We aren’t. And therefore we want to learn how.”

He slowly regarded the three of us with a look, and I prepared for the disappointment of his potential refusal. “Ok,” he sighed, tapping his soot-covered fingernails rhythmically on the wood. “How long are you here for?”

At our silent confusion, he raised a brow expectantly.

“Uh?” Kay vocalised, her eyes dazed in confusion. “A week? We’ve got six days left.”

“And why?” I added. “Do you need time to make them?”

He shook his head. “No.” He stated, baffling us further. Sighing, he began explaining. “None of you look like you’ve seen combat during any day of your lives, so, my proposal is in exchange for six days of dinners at the inn, I give you six days’ worth of basic training.”

Surprised, I slowly turned towards Kay, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. She eyed me back, and grins began to slowly grow on our faces. We turned to confirm the deal, when the hobbit I had forgotten was between us spoke up.

“H-hold on!” he cried, pointing a finger to emphasise his point. “You don’t know any of us. How do we know we can trust what you’re saying?”

Seathan rested on his elbows so he could lean over the counter to face the grumpy hobbit. “Do you trust Mr Butterbur?”

“Mr-” Bilbo sputtered. “We barely had one conversation with him!”

“He did seem nice though.” Kay butted in, and Bilbo whipped his head at her in outrage.

“And it’s a fair deal.” I added, watching in amusement as Bilbo comically flips his head between us, shock evident on his face. “I’ll make you Victoria cakes weekly in return.” I quickly added.

Grumbling under his breath, he eventually gave in. “Fine, they,” he emphasised, pointing to the both of us. “trust the bartender.”

“Then you can trust me.” Seathan replied warmly with a deep rumble of a laugh. “You won’t learn quickly on your own – so meet me outside the inn at 7 o'clock each morning and I’ll give you a rundown of everything. We’ll have breaks at lunch, and finish in time for dinner.”

“Woah, are you sure?” Kay held up a hand to slow him down, brows furrowed in confusion. “Why are you offering this to us so quickly? We’ve only just met you.”

Seathan pushed himself up from his elbows with a grunt, towering over us as he stood to his full height. “My daughters.” He revealed bluntly. “My wife’s not big on me sharing this but they asked the same thing you did. I said no, and they were injured in a small goblin ambush during one of our travels.” A sombre look fell over his eyes. “They have since recovered, but that guilt has weighed on me ever since, therefore I’ve wanted to offer training to girls and women when they’ve been given no opportunity to do so before.”

Kay nodded slowly, happy with the explanation. “I’m sorry to hear that – I’m glad they’re ok now. So we’ll meet you tomorrow?”

“Come round sometime after luncheon today if you can.” Seathan requested. “The sooner I can get swords in your hands the better.”

Thanking him, we wandered back into the depths of the market, it’s scents dominating our senses once again as we scanned for our other hobbit companion.

---

That morning whizzed by as fast as we would allow it, our nervous excitement for the afternoon sending a slightly uncomfortable buzz through our stomachs, the thought of what was to come prominent on our minds as we scarfed our ham and lettuce sandwiches down. We had changed outfits as well – I now sat in my cream blouse and baggy brown corduroy dungarees, and Kay in her black tank top with some loose, pale brown trousers that closely resembled cargos, and a knitted cardigan slung on top. Sure, it looked a little modern, but we hoped the earthy colours would keep people’s interest away

When we had finished, we wandered outside, only to find Seathan waiting beside the door, instead of where he said he would be by the blacksmiths. Pushing himself off the wall he slowly strode over, no longer donned in his apron, choosing to only remain in his slightly sooty shirt and dungarees.

“You girls ready?” he questioned as he pulled his curls back to tie them with a piece of cloth. Shifting a little, he looked behind us. “Where’s your hobbit friend?”

Still a bit hesitant about his forwardness, I gave him a simple reply. “He doesn’t want to come – said he had planned this week for relaxing and wine tasting.”

He gave a nod as he chuckled. “Fair enough.” He remarked, and beckoned us along as he began trapsing down the now bustling street, the two of us following not long after.

Leading us down a wide alley just before we hit the market, he led us through some of the residential housing, that slowly turned from the fusty smelling, overhanging town houses that were packed together like sardines, to detached cottages with front gardens lined with crudely woven branches to act as fences, goats, donkeys and the odd cat mulling about the small patches of crops in each one. The town was fully alive now, the sun passing midday as everyone got on with their jobs and chores, voices and shouting echoing from down each passage as we trekked past. We were thankful that the early spring weather had allowed the sun to dry out the large mud patches that would’ve otherwise sucked up our poor shoes, watching the solid cracks and chunks grow in size the closer we got to the more rural neighbourhoods.

Rounding one last cottage, we came face to face with the open countryside, the grass long and swaying in the gentle breeze, with the occasional oak tree sheltering a few livestock from the 12 o’clock sun. Climbing over a rickety fence, Seathan brought us to our destination. A large patch of grass had been shortened – about half the size of a football field, and somewhat recently if the loose grass piles and faint smell of freshly cut grass mixed with the usual stink of livestock said anything. Down one of the edges were several wooden posts that had been hammered into the ground, branches and planks nailed on to make them look like human dummies, covered in chips and gashes where they had been practiced on previously. Down another side were some makeshift archery targets; wooden circles cut from tree trunks with white and red paint hastily slapped on in rings.

Eyeing up the equipment, I blindly followed the sound of Seathan’s footsteps. When they stopped, I turned my head to face him, about to ask what was to happen, only to flail my arms out in an attempt to catch the wooden sword that was flung at my face. Managing to grab it at the very edge of the hilt, I darted my wide eyes to the towering man to watch him chuck another at Kay, who had watched my floundering and was prepared enough to catch it with ease.

Picking up a slightly larger wooden sword, he weighed and swung it around as he approached us. “Ok. We’re going to start out with some wooden swords.” He held up a hand as Kay opened her mouth. “And before you protest, I would much rather you get bruises from these rather than deal with a mutilated limb from an actual sharpened sword.”

Pouting, Kay snapped her jaw shut, and we both trailed after him into the centre of the field.

“Now,” he began, turning to us, signalling for us to place our swords down as he did the same. “I know you two won’t gain the arm strength for swinging swords overnight, so we’ll start with some footwork so you don’t twist the wrong way and fall on your own weapon.”

The next couple hours were spent with us practicing out foot spacing and placement, Seathan reaching down to twist our ankles slightly every once in a while, shouting which way to put our feet when spinning around to face potential enemies as we spun and twisted to each end of the field. It oddly felt like I was back in my ballet classes, learning how to walk on the tip of my toes for the very first time again.

Eventually we were able to pick up the swords, learning how to use our arms alongside our feet as we twisted and turned to block his mock attacks that got stronger and stronger each hour, the man insisting that defence was the first and most important thing to learn when it came to combat.

Sweat was running down both of our backs by the time Seathan had called it a day, the sun now nearing the treeline in the distance as the breeze began to cool the moisture on our skin, sending chills down our backs.

“Ughhhhh I feel so muckyyyy.” Kay groaned as she chucked her sword back in the makeshift chest under one of the nearby trees, holding her arms out in front of her as she tried to pick her cardigan up with the tips of her now mud-stained fingers.

“Tell me about it.” I grumbled, exhausted as I reached down to grab the half-filled water tankard, given to us by a lovely woman who had seen us being worked to death by Seathan, who had actually introduced herself as his aforementioned wife. When she had suspiciously asked what we had used to pay him, she had sighed knowingly when we revealed it was several dinners.

“He only asks for that because I don’t let him.” She had muttered amusedly to us as she refilled one of the animal troughs for us to wash our hands in. “He’d be down there every other night stuffing his face otherwise – says Barney’s steak is a god-send. I told him throwing up on customers after eating it all would have an enormous impact on his business’s reputation.”

After chatting to the friendly woman for a few minutes, we were soon ushered up by Seathan, who had hardly broken a sweat at all that day – ‘the pros of working with a kiln every day, you build a resilience to heat’ he had remarked proudly.

Trudging back through the now-calmer town, we wearily made our way back to the Prancing Pony.

---

“By Yavanna, look at the state of you two!!” Bilbo had cried when we walked in, the hobbit gawping at our less-than acceptable appearances. “Yuv’got – mud. Everywhere!” he sputtered, gesturing at our clothes. “Go change, now.”

Snorting at his antics, the two of us dashed up the stairs of the inn, disappearing before we could watch the seething hobbit turn on our slightly nervous teacher.

When we returned having changed into our original clothes from this morning, we joined the two hobbits and Seathan at the table, who we’re all currently waiting for us to arrive before eating the fresh plates of dinner placed in front of them. We sat down and began eating whilst Seathan was recounting what he had taught us as he scarfed down his well-earned meal.

“– yea, they’re getting the hang of it quite quickly!” he stated with a proud grin. “Could say we’ve got a couple of naturals on our hands.”

I smiled back. “I’m just glad we weren’t thrown under the bus straight away, otherwise I would’ve given up.” I joked, but my joking was immediately stopped at the feeling of my throat jamming up, and I clenched my teeth, digging my nails into my palm as I tried not to make it obvious.

Seathan paused, his fork halfway to his mouth as he glanced at me with a bewildered look. “What’s a bus?”

Staring at him, I remained silent waiting for the invisible hands to stop choking me, and he began frowning as he noticed my cheeks turn a slight pink. I flinched slightly as I felt Kay’s foot kick my shin, and my airway opened once again, and it took me a lot of strength to not heave on the spot. I quickly darted my eyes over to see Kay staring at me, silently staring at me as she realised what was going on. Facing the other three, who were looking at me with curious looks, I racked my brain for an excuse.

“Oh! It’s uh.. just a saying where we’re from.” I laughed nervously, still trying to hide my excessive breathing. “We have different names for transport there. Like, um, a carriage is, obviously, known as a carriage, ha ha, but we have nicknames for it, like bus, or.. or car for short?”

A few moments of silence of passed as they processed my rambling.

“Bus is a strange word to call a carriage.” Muttered Seathan, furrowing his brows. “But, if that’s what your lot have named it, then I won’t be one to judge.” He shrugged before returning to stuffing his mouth with potatoes. Bilbo and Gladiola were already back to eating, used to our strange words and sayings by this point.

I glanced at Kay, only to see her glaring at me with raised eyebrows. I narrowed my own back at her mockingly, raising my tankard of tea to my face. “It’s not my fault we’re stuck with medieval people.” I muttered from behind it.

All I got was mashed potato flicked at my forehead in return.

---

The following five days flew by, Seathan putting us through intense training that was far more gruelling than we thought. I mean, c’mon, doing ten laps around the field is a tad bit excessive, plus, arms wield swords, not legs.

I regrettably voiced those thoughts to our teacher, who then proceeded to have us do push-ups and lifting heavy tools he brought from his shop every hour, much to our frustration. He also asked if there was anything else we wanted to learn the basics in – I had said archery, after enjoying it a few times at festivals and residential trips with school or the girl-guiding groups I was in. Kay had excitedly said she wanted to learn throwing axes. And then proceeded the extra push-ups and benching, Seathan insisting that if we wanted to learn a practice that required a hell of a lot of arm strength, then it will have to be a daily task of exercise for as long as possible before we got to our full strength. I collapsed in protest at that.

By the time Monday rolled around, the two of us could barely pick up a fork to eat, and Gladiola fretted over us as she helped shovel food onto our forks, whilst Bilbo glared daggers over the table at an amused Seathan, muttering under his breath about the ways he was going to set the man’s giant beard on fire.

---

“Oh, you two are going to have to show me what you’ve learnt on the way back!” exclaimed Gladiola as she folded our belongings into our packs, due to our arms and legs still unfortunately incapacitated. “And make sure you give that man the biggest thank you for what he’s done – not just anyone is willing to give up their time for strangers.”

“Yes mum.” Was all Kay groaned, voice muffled from where she was face-planted on her pillow. Slowly rolling over with a prolonged whine, she faced to where I was splayed out like a starfish on the next bed over. “We’re gonna die before we even reach the evening.” She mumbled, face half scrunched by the pillow.

“Now don’t say that.” Lectured Gladiola, whipping Kay’s ankle with a sock as she pattered by with the copious amounts of fabrics and ribbons she had bought, only receiving a short grunt in response. “We’ve got a four-day travel ahead of us, and with that mood, I’ll be forcing you both to carry mine and Bilbo’s packs.”

Slowly pushing herself up, copper strands still stuck to her face, Kay swung her legs over the bed. “Fine.” She mumbled. “We’re up.”

“Good.” Gladiola replied with a smile. “We should have left ten minutes ago, so Kate if you don’t get up we’re leaving you behind.” She half joked as she hauled our packs out the doorway.

“Girlie, c’mon.” Added Kay as she shook my ankle.

Reluctantly, I pushed myself up the best I could, trying to ignore the agonising aches all over my body as I laced up my boots and followed the two out the door.

---

“Now remember, you have to do the exercises I’ve given you at least an hour every day, and memorise the tips I’ve given you for hitting enemy’s weak spots.” Seathan lectured, handing us two sheets of parchment. “I’ve written them down here, and I’ve also thrown in some blunt steel swords so you can upgrade when you both feel ready to.”

Accepting the objects gratefully, we pushed some coins into the man’s hands so he could reward himself with some extra meals, thanked him profusely as we stood by the entrance gate to Bree, trying our best to ignore the lingering stare of the gatekeeper as he peered suspiciously at us.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” said Seathan, marching hurriedly over to a long leather pack that was propped against the wall surrounding the town. Returning to us, he loosened the strings of the pack and pulled the contents out.

“Here’s a set of throwing axes for Kay, and a bow and arrows for you, Kate. I also threw in some polish, oil, and tools for sharpening the blades of the axes and arrows, along with replacement strings for the bow and whatnot.”

“What?!?!” we both said consecutively.

“We can’t accept that –” “It’s too much! – ”

“I paid for it.”

Freezing, the two of us slowly turned until we faced Bilbo, who stared back, before sighing.

“You two can’t be taught all that and expect to leave with hardly anything.” He explained almost nonchalantly, pulling out the crumpled list we had written. “You wouldn’t have gotten anything on your list.”

A beat passed, before I flew down and scooped him up into my arms.

“WHAT THE – ” he sputtered.

“Father.” I said. He froze.

“Father.” Kay repeated, reaching over to continuously pat the curls on his head.

He whipped his head between us with panicked eyes. “WH- I’M NOT YOUR DAD – PUT ME DOWN!”

“Told you he adopted them.” We heard Gladiola mutter to Seathan.

Eventually placing him down, the two of us knelt down to drag him into a hug, despite his grumbling.

“Thank you.” Kay whispered. “For everything.”

With a sigh, he settled, reaching up to wrap his arms around us both. “You’re welcome, but for the love of Yavanna don’t make me regret any of it.”

With matching cheshire grins, we assured him we wouldn’t, before clambering up excitedly to receive the pack of shiny new weapons from Seathan. And within a few minutes, we were waving a hearty farewell to the blacksmith, yelling our goodbyes and thanks until he disappeared behind the closing gate.

Walking through the trees, we chattered away endlessly about the events of the past week, failing to see the two pairs of glowing blue eyes, watching us from the treeline.

---

2 MONTHS LATER

A couple months had passed since we had arrived back in the Shire, and a lot had happened since then.

We had shown Gladiola the techniques we were taught during the evenings when we were on our return trip, and she had pleaded that we taught her kids, saying how they had always wanted to play knights when they were younger. A couple weeks in, Kay and I had stumbled across a clearing on the outskirts of Hobbiton, surrounded by trees and seasonal wildflowers with a scenic view of the town from where it was further up one of the hills. It was a perfect spot; close enough to Bag End where Bilbo could sit on the bench by his front door and watch us, but the trees made it private enough for us to set up targets to practice both our weapons training, along with our magic, without the risk of someone stumbling upon us.

The most exciting part, however, was meeting Bertin Grubb, who owned the pony stables across town. After seeing the lean muscle we had begun to develop on our arms from the training, he had offered us a job assisting him with caring for the ponies, figuring we were tall and strong enough to handle the animals when they were being stubborn. It took a while getting used to, having to bend down excessively to use the small hobbit-sized wheelbarrow, or the rake with a handle too short for two girls at least twice the height of the average hobbit. But he eventually managed to get us some suitable enough, and we thoroughly loved every second, excited to finally be able to pay Bilbo back for everything he had done, especially when doing a job as fun as ours.

 Except for shovelling the horse crap.

It stank.

---

Bag End, Hobbiton, The Shire – T.A. Friday, 5th May 2940 of the Third Age (Highday, 15th Thrimidge, 1340 in Shire-reckoning)

The sun was barely rising when Kay and I got up, readying ourselves for an early shift when we received a letter that Bertie had received two new animals and needed the extra hands earlier than normal.

Trudging down the path as the birds sang their morning song, we munched on the poached eggs buns Bilbo had shoved into our hands as we were about to step out the door, before he had promptly marched back to bed for a well-earned lie in.

Blinking away the sleep from my eyes, I mumbled a conversation with Kay as we walked between the hedges lining the path. Soon enough, we neared the stables, only to see a frantic looking Bertie, who seemed to be nervously waiting for us whilst tightly clutching his cap between his short fingers by the wooden archway leading in. When his wide brown eyes landed on us as we rounded the corner, he cried out in relief.

“Oh thank Yavanna you’re here!” he cried, jogging over to us. “A friend of mine found them wandering the outskirts looking all muddy and he begged me to take them cause they were eating his crops but they’re so large I don’t know what to do with them! I –”

“Woah, woah! Hey!” I raised my voice slightly to cut off his rambling. “What do you mean large? What are they?”

“Horses!” he wailed, dragging his hands down his face. “Giant! Horses!”

Kay perked up, trying to look through the archway. “Really? Can we see them?”

Bertie looked up at her with a sweaty forehead and hopeful eyes. “That’s the thing.” He laughed meekly. “I was hoping you two could take charge of them? I’m afraid I might get stepped on if I go near them again.”

Following Bertie into the stables, he led us to the end stalls, to where there were two of possibly the tallest horses I had ever seen in my life.

One was patterned like a cow, black and white patches covering it’s body, the other pitch black, with only small, pure white socks colouring the ends its fluffy hooves, and a singular white star-like stripe running down its head.

Feeling like one of those girls in those magical horse novels, I slowly approached the black one, its features resembling those of a Shire horse – fitting, considering where we were. Kay’s looked like a Clydesdale, and I watched from the corner of my eye as she neared it, wonder glinting in her eyes as she offered her hand. I followed with my own, looking up at the beast that towered over me, the top of my head barely reaching its snout despite my tall height, as it’s black eyes peered back down to meet my own dark brown ones.

“Now you know why I can’t look after them myself.” Bertie half-laughed, flitting his eyes between the two animals, keeping his distance from the two animals as he watched, scuffing his heel against the floor like he wanted to bolt. “They’re girls, so hopefully won’t be territorial or anything that could cause issues with the ponies.”

I snorted. “I’m pretty sure you’ve just given the ponies two empresses to worship – they’ll probably follow them around the pasture like loyal minions whenever they’re together.” I grinned as I faced the poor hobbit, who looked on the verge of trembling.

He took a shaky breath. “Ok, well, you can do what you like with them, just make sure they don’t go mental and destroy half the place. Please.”

“I doubt they’ll do that.” Piped up Kay, who had now managed to start stroking the snout of her horse. “If you managed to get them here without a fuss, then they should remain docile.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “Hopefully.”

After that, Bertie quickly wrapped up the conversation, clearly desperate to get elsewhere so he didn’t have to face the two powerhouses bunking in the stables next to each other. He had mumbled about finding saddles and equipment large enough for them, before quickly scurrying off.

Turning back to face the horse in front of me, I reached up to gently place my hand on its sloping snout. “What’re you naming yours?” I asked, turning to her.

Looking up at the pink snout that was trying to nibble at her hand, she pondered for a moment. “Mmm, something like Calhourn maybe.”

“Nice.” I complimented. “I thought you would’ve gone for something like Moo Moo.”

She snorted. “That’s something you would go for.” She paused. “But it is a strong contender. Perhaps I’ll have it as a nickname.” She turned to me. “What’re you gonna choose?”

“Spleens.”

“No.”

“Ok, how about Felony?”

“Better, cooler, sounds like a name, but maybe choose something more… socially acceptable.”

I grunted in annoyance. “I want a name that disturbs people when they hear it – it’ll be a good conversation starter.”

“It’ll also be a good way to start the conversation of creating Middle Earth’s first mental asylum.” Kay deadpanned. “You can name something like your first pet cat Spleens, but not a horse that you could be riding into battle and potentially have written down in history.”

“But it’ll be the most remembered.” I pouted.

“And the most judged. Now, save the poor horse her dignity and give her a nice name.” she demanded.

“Doo Doo Daggins.”

“I swear to god.”

“Ok! Ok!” I giggled, petting the horse’s snout as she nudged at my hand. “Something fancy then.”

She nodded. “Yea, maybe something that relates to something you do? I don’t know – your witch stuff has a lot of fancy words in it.”

My eyes lit up. “Ohh! What about Hecate!? It links to my practice, and could be some type of dedication to her as a deity!”

Kay raised her brows. “That’s actually not bad. You gonna give her a nickname?”

I pondered for a moment. “Yea. Spleens.”

Kay just sighed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please let me know if you want to be added to the Taglist!

< Chapter 20 // Chapter 21 // Chapter 22 >

Return to Fic Masterlist

Return to Navigation

See you at some point for the last chapter of Part 2! Also please comment if you want to be added to the Taglist <3

Taglist:

@opheliasdrowningg @mrsdurin @g1gglef1t @qmabailor @saturnnie-03 @emstar07 @geewoo-ko @phanryesworld @stuckupstucky @rebeccao03 @wiccan-potato24 @ellessecretobsession @thepixiechicks @triostarz

(Message me if your tag isn’t working)

[pyropsychiccollector]

Yuma Harem: Down Came the Rain 1/7

Time to begin the third series~... I wanted to make sure to do all of the poll winners first, so that's the initial reason for spreading the love between series. :3 And now it's Rain Code's turn~...

As always, this will be an AU. Rain Code killed off... a good half of this harem. And Guillaume might as well be dead for all that she drops off the map after Chapter 3... XD So Fubuki and Kurumi are the only canon survivors. And the game ends on a pretty somber note with Yuma just leaving after regaining his memories, moving onto the next adventure. Very typical in shounen series, honestly. It's not "bad", just...

I want to fix things. (人◕ω◕) Too much death. Too much hurting the Kokohead. The Kokomelon, as some fans might affectionately call him. (人◕ω◕) And moreover, the "Yuma" we come to know "dies" as he regains his memories. Sure, it's strongly hinted that his feelings and experiences are just integrated into his original self... But we don't know the former #1 of the WDO. We know "Yuma", the amnesiac. Maybe Yuma had principles before he gave up his memories, maybe he did have morals... But if Makoto showed us anything, he was frankly a ruthlessly cunning individual that crossed any line in order to reach the truth. You can see this in how he assigned a great many detectives to Kanai Ward, and most of them died.

... I know I'm rambling, but the point I wanted to make is that I'll be focusing on the Yuma that we know. Not that the former #1 isn't interesting to think about... But Yuma has heart, you know? I wish to reward that. Reward the nice guys. Reward the goobers. (人◕ω◕) It does mean Shinigami will be sticking around, and you could count her as an unofficial member of the harem (... I mean, c'mon. What? You want Shinigami to bonk her Master silly in the Mystery Labyrinth? Perverts. (人◕ω◕) Not that I'm much better.)... But as you'll see, I've tweaked the idea of Mystery Labyrinths. If Kodaka's going to have a game just short of Persona, I'm gonna go "all the way" with those ideas. Put my own spin on the concepts. (人◕ω◕) I regret nothing.

The Beginning

To absolutely no one's surprise... Kurumi won the poll. lol I don't mind, she's essentially "Detective Chiaki". Finally, a series where "Chiaki" lives... For those who played Danganronpa, they were just brutal with her, tearing out and stomping on our hearts. Again and again. XD As a consequence, though, Kodaka killed off just about everyone else. ... He just can't let us be happy, can he? (人◕ω◕)***

But this lets me get Kurumi-chan outta the way. Again, not that she's bad... She's honestly a really sweet girl, and I won't pretend otherwise. It's just that we know Kurumi's story, know her dynamic with Yuma. And I personally like saving my dessert - that is, the girls that I most strongly support with the protagonist - for last. ... Didn't completely work out for Fate, but aw well. (人◕ω◕)

... I'm rambling again. There's stuff I gotta elaborate on. The first thing to note in this AU is that through a miracle, the train gang - the detectives that Yuma first got to know before reaching Kanai Ward - are all spared, save for Zilch. What ended up happening is that Yuma passed out in front of the detectives, fell over and bumped his head. This allowed the detectives to figure out that he was drugged - likely by the coffee he drank - and the fake Zilch was left to improvise and have Swank and the Peacekeepers deal with the detectives after faking his death to pin on the detectives.

Yuma still goes to the Mystery Labyrinth and Shinigami executes fake Zilch at the end of it. Yakou still arrives to help get the Peacekeepers off Yuma and friends' backs, and they all successfully make it to the Nocturnal Detective Agency. I bring up this background information just so there's not any confusion about Pucci's survival, later on... And why I'll be bringing up the train detectives in subsequent Chapters. XD

Chapter 1 still goes the same way. So we'll skip right to the relevant bits: the Aetheria Academy arc. Chapter 2. (人◕ω◕)

Chapter 2 is... more changes. Due to a few more detectives moving around in Kanai Ward (Pucci, Aphex, Zange, Melami), the NDA is a little more known. Which is why one of the "Aetheria trio" (Yoshiko, Waruna, Kurane) approaches Yuma first, as opposed to Kurumi. Kurane-chan wanted to desperately explore one last non-violent option to expose Karen, and avoid blackening Waruna and Yoshiko's souls. (人◕ω◕)

... I won't go into full details just yet, save that for the appropriate posts. However, I will say that Kurane's actions do wind up saving herself, Waruna, and Yoshiko from becoming killers. It doesn't all go to plan, and they do throw Yuma under the bus when crap hits the fan... But they live, and are able to atone for screwing Yuma over. The Aetheria trio still has futures. (人◕ω◕)

With all this background explained... Let's talk about Kurumi~ Because Kurane was the first to approach Yuma, Kurumi is initially unaware of who "Yumi", one of the new girls at the academy, is. She doesn't know he's a detective looking into Aiko's death (Kurane is testing him, which is why she didn't give him all the details), just that "Yumi" cares enough to ask about Aiko and what happened to her. ... And "Yumi" is rather cute. Kurumi-chan totally fangirls over Yuma's female disguise that he got from Desuhiko. Fooled into thinking he is a girl, and just another student at the academy. (人◕ω◕)

Kurumi and Yuma hit it off pretty well. For the week or so leading up to the fateful rehearsal, Yuma pokes around, trying to pinpoint the truth behind Aiko's death, whether it was a suicide or if someone killed her. Initially, Kurumi tries putting the brakes on his investigation because Yuma's a "civilian", and she doesn't want him getting in trouble with the Peacekeepers... But after Yuma half-lies and says he has connections with the new detective agency in town, promising to get them involved if Kurumi lets him investigate... Kurumi allows it, and gives her all in supporting "Yumi".

... Then the rehearsal happens, and "Yumi" stands accused of Karen's murder. Kurumi is still kept out of the loop as Yuma, Desuhiko, and Melami give the Peacekeepers the runaround while investigating the new murder case. She does what she can for "Yumi" by asking the theater club members and comforting them, but unfortunately Kurumi's not able to do too much with all the Peacekeepers locking the theater hall down.

It's not until after everything blows over that Kurumi finds out the truth about "Yumi". ... I mean, she saw him exposed as a man when Martina cornered the detectives on stage, but she wouldn't get the full story until the case's bumpy resolution. Kurumi didn't take it very hard she was kept in the dark for so long; Yuma had his reasons, and while he couldn't keep a new murder from happening he did help expose the truth and bring closure to Aiko's death. And it was a relief that her doubts about Yoshiko, Waruna, and Kurane could be put to rest. All four of them were close friends of Aiko, and it hurt that Aiko is gone... But they're able to move forward now, even if the trio has regrets and feel they need to atone in their own ways.

Kurumi helps Yuma with his investigation into Kanai Ward, filling him in on the information her grandfather uncovered before he disappeared. That Amaterasu was dabbling in homunculus research. Kanai Ward is still a broken city in dire need of hope, but Kurumi feels more optimistic now that detectives have finally arrived. The perpetual rain feels a little less oppressing~

The Middle Act

Kurumi bonds with Yuma and the other detectives in the coming weeks. (人◕ω◕) Kurane does, too, clinging to Yuma pretty hard... And Waruna and Yoshiko come around at their own paces. The bottom line is, Yuma becomes a good friend to the Aetheria girls. (人◕ω◕) He can never replace Aiko... But he fills the role she left behind. Yuma's an earnest, kindhearted young man that won't stand for injustice. Yet he won't give into despair, won't stoop to murder or similar extreme methods. The ends don't justify the means. In his unwavering beliefs and how he slowly gains confidence the more time he spends in Kanai Ward, Yuma helps the Aetheria girls to remain grounded. He helps them to have hope once more. (人◕ω◕)

Of course Yuma's got a giant target painted on his back because of the Peacekeepers running everything, but Kurumi stands by Yuma. Not just because she's the city's only informant, but because Yuma is her friend. And he helped her connect with Yoshiko, Waruna, and Kurane.

... So when Yomi still nukes the sub, a couple of weeks after the Aetheria case... Kurumi is swept up into urgency by Kurane, who's the most worried about Yuma, especially after he gets spirited away by the Resistance... It's not like there's much they can do. Needless to say, Chapter 3 is pretty rough for the Aetheria girls. While Waruna and Yoshiko are still in the middle of reflecting and bonding with the detectives at their own respective paces, and while they have varying doubts about how much the detectives can really impact Kanai Ward's situation with Amaterasu... They still didn't wish harm on the detectives. Not after being given a new lease on life. Kurumi and Kurane are the closest with the detectives, and it hurts to see the sub blown up, to not know if the other detectives are alive... To know that someone kidnapped Yuma...

And later, events go further downhill. Yuma and the detectives get pinned as bombers, as terrorists... The Aetheria girls have to be careful with the Peacekeepers suffocating Kanai Ward more than usual in their hunt for the detectives, but they can't just stand by and not help Yuma find the truth behind the new case. Marunomon District doesn't get flooded this time around, but bombs going off and killing people is still... pretty bad... Kurumi does everything she can as an informant to glean as much evidence and testimony as possible. And Kurane looks to her, emulating Kurumi in her own way. Kurane's greatest strength is that people rarely notice her, even the bumbling Peacekeepers that are so dead-set on tracking down Yuma. It's an awesome investigative power, and Kurumi's grateful to have Kurane's help in gathering clues. Waruna and Yoshiko help in their own ways; Waruna's the fiery, overprotective girl, the "muscle"; and Yoshiko has... connections. Mostly schoolmates, but she's on good terms with people outside the academy, too.

Regardless of Kurumi and the Aetheria trio's help, Yuma, Aphex, and Fubuki still end up cornered. ... And then through some miracle, all the detectives come out of the woodwork, and they're saved and the Peacekeepers grudgingly stand down when Amaterasu's CEO shows up. Kurumi's not sure what to make of Makoto, he seems like a pretty laidback guy, but there are undertones of... something more, beneath the surface. He saved the detectives, saved Yuma, but Kurumi can't help wondering what Makoto's angle is. And she's even more baffled when the CEO gives the detectives their sub back, with everything inside pretty much the same as it was before it got destroyed.

About a month flies by before they all know it, after that debacle. The detectives are all reunited, Kurumi and the Aetheria trio can still hang around them, and even the Resistance leaders are coming around now... Kurumi was a bit intimidated by the Resistance before the detectives came to the city, only really having rumors to go off of. But really, the Resistance leaders are pretty goofy, even if they're capable in their own right. They're not as extreme as the rumors would have you believe.

With all of them coming together, it really feels like they can effect change in Kanai Ward. The Peacekeepers are still wary of the detectives, still want to arrest them... Or at least some of them do. Kurumi begins noticing that some Peacekeepers are, however grudgingly, allowing the detectives to look into cases. At least the small-time stuff. ... If Amaterasu is linked at all in incidents, they're still pretty defensive and ornery. But there's a lot of crime in Kanai Ward, and Amaterasu isn't tied in everything... Just the most serious stuff.

And with Vivia's latest intel, they've been trying to locate a secret lab where the homunculus research is being conducted. To no avail, but it's the best lead they have to go on. And so a month after that last debacle... Kurumi is anxious when the detectives go straight to Amaterasu and get wrapped up in another incident. She, her friends, and the Resistance can't do much but wait for the detectives to come back, and it's an agonizing wait...

Thankfully, the detectives do make it out of Amaterasu's HQ in one piece. And they bring good news: Yomi's been arrested, and it truly seems like Kanai Ward will change for the better after this. Kurumi's glad. The detectives still have their mission of discovering Kanai Ward's Ultimate Secret... But for the first time in years, Kanai Ward seems to have a bright future ahead of them.

... To Kurumi and everyone else's dismay, however, the tragedies aren't over yet. Apparently, after they see the news of the World Detective Organization getting bombed, everyone in the sub at the time is knocked out. And when they wake back up... Yuma is gone. Nothing else was taken, no threatening note was left behind... Yuma's just disappeared.

They all have a bad feeling about this. The detectives are determined to settle this themselves, to keep the "civilians" out of harm's way... But Kurumi, the Aetheria trio, and the Resistance absolutely refuse to sit this one out. While the detectives go straight to Amaterasu HQ to confront them about Yuma's abduction, the Aetheria girls and the Resistance scour Kanai Ward, just on the off chance that Yuma was taken by someone else...

To their great horror and discomfort, however... Yuma is nowhere to be found. They investigate hard over the next two days... The detectives return with their conclusion Yuma isn't in Amaterasu, they were even allowed free roam of the Amaterasu premises by Peacekeepers and researchers alike. And... he wasn't there. The Aetheria girls and the Resistance didn't have any luck, either - no one had seen or heard from Yuma. It's like he disappeared from the world completely...

And that's around the time that the detectives decided it was time to confront the one area they'd left untouched: The Restricted Area. If Yuma was nowhere in the Kanai Ward that they knew... Then he had to be there. Determined to save Yuma, everyone bands together to bust into the Restricted Area, rules and laws be damned. (人◕ω◕) They take one of the Resistance's vans and use it like a battering ram to plow through the electric fence around the perimeter of the Restricted Area. Then they take another van and drive on through the opening, not trusting at all what might be on the other side...

The Restricted Area is unlike anything they'd seen in Kanai Ward. It was rundown, and it seemed like an older area of the city, nowhere near as bright and illuminating as the rest of the city. It was like... darkness lurked in the Restricted Area. A deep darkness that made Kurumi feel anxious and worried, but they needed to take the plunge and find Yuma at all costs... He... He had to be there. There was nowhere left. No other possibilities. Kurumi and everyone else were unable to accept the possibility that it was too late to save Yuma... that he was already gone.

After finding that the Restricted Area was not an easy place to navigate by car, and that the people roaming about it seemed... strange somehow... the "Yuma Rescue Squad" got out to explore the area on foot. Servan and Aphex would stay with the van, driving around where they could and keeping an eye out. But the detectives, Kurumi, the Aetheria trio, and Shachi, and Iruka all split up to cover the most ground. They weren't dumb enough to search on their own, not in such unfamiliar territory; they formed pairs or groups. Kurumi stuck with her friends, and bravely forged on ahead.

... It was such a spooky, spine-tingling place. The locals were gruff and unresponsive to them, and not a single teenager was keen on approaching them more closely. They vaguely knew that this area was rumored to have had a gas leak in the nearby mines, and that Amaterasu labeled this town as uninhabitable... So maybe the locals were so strange because of that gas leak. Amaterasu might not have been able to do anything for the people here.

All Kurumi could do was keep searching for Yuma... He had to be okay. He had to be. Seeing this place so desolate and brought to utter ruination... A heavy weight was in Kurumi's chest and refused to go away. If Yuma was here, there was a good chance that he hadn't eaten or slept well... But they would save him. They wouldn't leave a single stone unturned.

To their immense relief, Kurane was able to find Yuma after what must have been an hour... He was holed up in a random house, after barricading the door and windows. Yuma... Yuma was bleeding. It looked like someone or something had tried gnawing his shoulder and neck, and his clothes were all roughed up. Kurumi and Yoshiko did what they could, scrounging around for any First Aid supplies in the home, bandaging Yuma up and sterilizing his wounds. He was horrified at seeing them in the abandoned village, fearfully asking if they'd encountered anyone... If everyone else had come here.

Yuma was not that relieved to hear that was the case. When asked what had happened to him, why he was holed up here, all Yuma could say was that the people in this village were wrong... They weren't normal. Weren't sane. He even went so far as to call them zombies... Yuma wasn't sure how or why he was brought here, but they needed to round up everyone and leave. He didn't want to endanger his friends...

He didn't feel that he was worth the effort to come here. Yuma had been prepared to just die trapped in this abandoned house. But now all he wants is to just get everyone safely out of the village... go back where they came. If they have to leave him behind, so be it.

Yoshiko and Waruna gave Yuma an earful about his self-sacrificial attitude, and Kurumi and Kurane just did their best to comfort him. They'd make it out... But Kurumi came to the realization that they should investigate this place. Yes, safety was paramount... But if they just left, Yuma could get dragged back here by whoever kidnapped him. Hell, the Peacekeepers might punish them for breaking in here, or they'd just seal off the Restricted Area again... This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to find out what this place was, what happened here, and why Yuma was brought here.

... Kurane doesn't like the thought of lingering somewhere that almost got Yuma killed, but Waruna and Yoshiko uneasily agree that Kurumi's right. They can't just... leave without answers. They'll look around while searching for the Resistance and the detectives.

In subsequent events, they skirt around the locals that Yuma's deeply fearful of. They investigate an old post office, and find the order to evacuate amidst papers left behind. Soon enough familiar faces show up, and the girls have no choice but to believe the "zombie" story that Yuma fed them. There's no other explanation for seeing Karen and her father approaching them sluggishly, moaning and groaning incomprehensibly. They make a run for it, and somebody outside shoots an arrow attached with a note that explained a little bit about defective homunculi... They don't have the time to sit and reflect on it, so they keep moving, and eventually run into the Priest from the church, as well as that Worshipper. And before long, more and more familiar faces emerge from the woodwork, none of them can be reasoned with so Yuma and the girls keep running.

Gradually, they hook back up with the other Rescue Squad members, who are thankfully in one piece, if not spooked by the seemingly cannibalistic residents. They eventually reach the ominous factory, and uncover more information about homunculi and the true nature of Kanai Ward. Some Rescue Squad members are already in the factory and surrounding areas, poking around. They learn the uncomfortable truth that the meat buns of Kanai Ward are made from human corpses, and they just keep learning more and more...

The final "stop" on their tour is an old bathhouse up high. They all can see this is where the unending rain originates from, and when they turn off the equipment... everyone but the detectives pass out, and the residents of the abandon village go berserk. Makoto arrives to restore the rain, but only after Yuma "lends a hand". Right after the rain is back, Makoto and the detectives have a tense standoff, and Yuma has no choice but to access the Mystery Labyrinth one more time to resolve everything. Thankfully, however, he's not alone as all the Nocturnal Detective Agency personnel join Yuma on this last eye-opening adventure. (人◕ω◕)

The Future

Players should probably know by now how the final adventure goes. (人◕ω◕) Yuma uncovers everything, and this time he's got his NDA friends supporting him, not just Shinigami. It's an emotional rollercoaster for all of them... But they get Makoto to change his ways, to leave the labyrinth and reveal the truth without killing him.

I haven't really mentioned up until now, but the chief difference with the labyrinths from canon is that it's possible to talk it out with the culprits' souls and have them reveal the truth to everyone outside the labyrinth. There's no need to execute the culprit every single time. With the soul returning to the culprit, changed, the labyrinth fades away on its own. So essentially, Yuma and co. won't have to use Shinigami's emergency exit. (人◕ω◕) Shinigami can remain contracted to Yuma.

Of course that means Yuma won't regain his memories... But he's fine with that in the end~ Because all the mysteries have been solved. Makoto is going to tell Kanai Ward everything, and he's going to strive to open their city up to the world and allow them opportunities to leave. Amaterasu will develop innovations to help them deal with their weakness to sunlight. Hearing the truth will be hard for the citizens, especially for the Rescue Squad... But the people of Kanai Ward will endure.

And the NDA... Well... (人◕ω◕) Yakou thinks he'll be on his own again, everyone else returning to the WDO for new assignments... But he's floored when he's wrong. Yuma, for one, resolves to stay and help the NDA. Kanai Ward still needs detectives... They're at a crossroads now, with Peacekeepers receiving a major overhaul, Amaterasu coming back from years of corruption. Yuma might not have the memories, but he knows that he used to be #1 of the WDO, and as he currently is... He can't lead the organization. Yuma would rather work here, where he knows he can still make a difference. (人◕ω◕) The train gang that he came here with pretty much agree to stay, too, for their own reasons. Desuhiko, Halara, Vivia, and Fubuki will at least go back to the WDO for the election to decide the new #1, but then they'll probably come back to help as detectives~ Their time here wasn't long, but they're loyal to each other and to Yakou. It's enough to make the poor guy bawl his eyes out. He's touched. (人◕ω◕)

Kurumi graduates from Aetheria Academy soon after everything resolves, and she remains the city's informant - although with the detectives' help, she may find new informants willing to step up, to learn from her~ Yuma remained here because of his bonds with the few people of Kanai Ward that he's gotten to know these past several weeks. He has an ever-deepening bond with Kurumi and her friends, and the Resistance.

Yuma still has plans to travel the world someday... He may or may not settle in Kanai Ward forever... But he's in no rush to leave. And even if he ever does depart, Yuma will have a bunch of... buddies... tagging along. (人◕ω◕) ... Alright, they're his girlfriends. No use beating around the bush. He can't deny that he loves them all, and they love him. ... A lot. (人◕ω◕) Sure, certain girls are more competitive and greedy... But Kurumi's one of the ones willing to share Yuma. Yoshiko, Waruna, Kurane, Fubuki, Pucci... They're all good people. She wouldn't keep Yuma from them~

... Guillaume is an interesting one, but more on her later. (人◕ω◕)

Surprisingly, Kurumi is slower on the "I wanna marry Yuma" campaign... She's content to just be with him. Yoshiko, Waruna, and Kurane are more ambitious. ... Or in Kurane's case, she just... needs him. Very badly. (人◕ω◕) Pucci is ambitious, too. Fubuki more goes with the flow. Guillaume is... Guillaume. There's no rush for baby Yuma's, either. Not for Kurumi, at least. Not to say Kurumi wouldn't like having a family with Yuma; the idea is very appealing. It's just... Kurumi's deeply flustered with that intimate stuff. The really, really intimate stuff. Hugs and kisses are great, she likes cuddling, but taking off clothes and doing..... that... Kurumi's not horny. It's too embarrassing for her. In the beginning, anyway. Kurumi is beaten out by her friends in this instance; each of them having their reasons for craving Yuma on that physical level. (人◕ω◕)

Nevertheless, Kurumi does form a family with Yuma someday. Makoto was gracious enough to give Yuma and his ladies residence in Kanai Tower, and later he also helps oversee the building of a proper "home" for all of them... Of course it has to be big. There's seven of them plus Yuma. And then you throw in their kids... Yuma's life is very busy with seven lovers, but he doesn't regret loving them. (人◕ω◕) Kurumi's one of the gentler, "fun" moms. And she's second in maturity, only losing out to Yoshiko on that front. ... But that's cuz Yoshiko's used to being a mother figure, even before her children were born.

The rain never stops in Kanai Ward... But now Kurumi and everyone else knows it's there to protect them. And with the NDA alive and thriving in the new Kanai Ward... With Yuma there... Life had never been sweeter for Kurumi-chan. (人◕ω◕)

[ghost-town-dwellers]

im writing a full smpronpa review because honestly that fic kinda changed my brain chemistry. this will be bullet point format as i am lazy

okay, so disclaimer- i havent seen smplive so i cant talk about those streamers characterizations. HOWEVER, i had a 3 year long derange danganronpa phase and have been abnormal about technoblade since 2017 so i do consider myself a bit of an expert on those aspects. oh also im taking the poke route and replacing that guy with yahi 👍

- gettin the techno things outta the way. first off, really likes his characterization and how it didnt fall into the trap of “overly bloodthirsty and unemotional” technoblade while still keeping his hitman status from tekkitlive i believe? and his deadpan demeaner. A+

- on the negative side, i will never get forgive the author for missing out his speech quirks like dropping the “g” at the end of words or constant use of “bruh”. additionally, plotwise, i feel like technoblade as the hitman sent after schlatt and co was disregarded a bit too quickly? and also came off as weird considering no one was meant to have any memories?? like why did schlatt and co and techno remember that part??? idk that just confused me but its danganronpa so whatevs

- the talents. they didnt.. feel like they had much of a purpose? like they didnt feel like they added much to the characterization, but that does add something interesting to the fact that the talents were a fake concept all along so i will not say if this was good or bad and will leave it up to you

- speaking of, was there a reason we never found out ty or travis’ talents? like they died and we just never found out what they were or why we didnt know. like. that confused me

- on the OTHER hand. the fake talents imply that yahi made HIMSELF the ultimate comedian which is objectively hilarious. big obama giving obama a medal energy

- poke. girl they did so little with him that i REGULARLY forgot he was there. bro just do SOMETHING with him. however, this is also a classic danganronpa experience so i will accept it

- the third trial kinda went crazy. i liked the twist on two victims to instead be two killers. genuinely an interesting version of the third chapter, and ryan was like.. a weirdly compelling character, especially after that trial

- half of the end twists were just straight ridiculous. im not.. really a fan of the “it was joko actually it was yahi actually it was cooper” thing, but its very sdr2 core so tbh thats fair. on the other hand, what in the world exactly happened to joko????? like he was at the final trial for like a Minute but he was dead beforehand in the flashbacks???? was he a robot????????? im so confused

- also, what was the purpose of charlie fakin his death? once again, very danganronpa of them but fundamentally kinda weird and unnecessary. i understand the in universe explanation but like.. out of universe why was that decision made?

- i would like the give the author massive kudos for the actual murders and trials. as someone who has participated in and even RAN danganronpa fangame rps, that shits HARD. it was pretty well done! not perfect, and some parts were hard to follow but i have ABSOLUTELY seen worse

- i also started really liking angel as a character. i liked the choice to have her actually be a detective lying about her “ultimate” and she felt very genuine and interesting. schlatt also came across as a pretty interesting antagonist with canon-typical confusing motives

- also whatever the fuck joko and cooper had going was gay as HELL. like idk what was up but it was deeply homosexual

- i also liked the way the ending had a sort of commentary on fan culture and the increasing escalation of entertainment for the cruel enjoyment of the masses. very yugioh arc v z-arc core for the like two people who get that reference. im not entirely sure on how WELL it was executed especially within the wider context, but i still found it interesting

thats the general review! ill update this if i realize i forgot stuff but all in all thats what i wanted to say

[genlossneg]

Okay so like. I didn’t have any interest in this, my boyfriend did. He’s been talking about it since the first streams, all of the stuff in it he finds cool, and how novel it is as a piece of media. He loves it, he’s dropped a lot of money on merch for it (which to be fair, the merch looks sick as hell I’m not even gonna lie), and he really wanted me to watch the founder’s cut when it came out. Well, I watched the founder’s cut and I just gotta say. It’s awful. I was so unbelievably bored, and when I wasn’t bored I was annoyed. Honestly I think the worst part for me is Slimecicle. He is remarkably unfunny, annoying, and obnoxious, and if his absolutely piss poor excuse for comedy was completely surgically removed (haha see what I did there?) it would make it a lot easier to tolerate all of the other badly done elements of it. Pretty much none of the attempted humor was funny to me. Maybe if I liked the streamers already I would have found it really funny, but I maybe exhaled out of my nostrils like 2 times total. I’m not sure what the consensus is with the Gen loss community about its humor but it did not hit for me in the slightest.

It feels like little of importance was happening for 65% of the runtime, the acting is terrible, the pacing is bad, and it’s just. It’s not even remotely good until the last like 45 minutes of the cut. I just could not bring myself to care, it felt like a constant barrage of “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened.” Over and over. It wasn’t scary at any point, and I still, even after managing to just BARELY sit through the entire thing, don’t understand how so much money and effort went into this if this was the end product. I was not familiar with any of these streamers besides Jerma and Vinny Vinesauce, which the Founder’s Cut does woefully little with, so I had absolutely no connection to any of the characters. If there was some effort made to actually get me invested in who the characters are maybe I would have felt more positively towards it but it feels like I’m supposed to go “HOLY SHIT A STREAMER I LIKE OH MY GOD”, which might have worked if I was at all into ANY of the people here. It felt like there were no stakes and nobody was taking anything seriously until the last “act” or whatever when they’re running around the mall. I see what it’s going for, I can read into the metaphor about the dehumanizing nature of producing content for an audience and stuff, but just wow. The worst part is that I was just so bored the entire time. It feels like a “you had to be there” kind of thing, and since I wasn’t there, none of it appealed to me in any way.

I don’t know, this clearly isn’t a piece of media made for me but I spent the entire time I was watching TRYING to like it and it just was not it. Ever. At any point. The ending was okay I guess, I like it conceptually, but having Hetch (I think that’s his name, I don’t really recall and I’m not scrolling through the cut to check rn) trying to be a glorified game show host over the only bit of the end I kinda vaguely enjoyed kind of ruined it for me a little bit. Idk. Having Ranboo say “thank you” as his head was turned into a mid at best blood effect was the only bit that made me feel much of anything besides annoyance or boredom. I like the whole concept, but pretty much every part of the execution was horrifically botched, I feel like I shouldn’t have to like the people involved already to be invested in even one of the characters. Maybe the streams were better but I just don’t have any desire to watch them.

Maybe I’m being too mean here but yeah, I basically forced myself through 2 and a half hours of some of the most amateurish “horror” content I’ve ever seen and it felt like I got very little out of the entire viewing experience besides 45 minutes of content that got dangerously close to being okay at best.

this has been sitting in my inbox since the founders cut came out and i was going to respond to it once i watched it but clearly that is not happening anytime soon, so i can't speak to that specific experience but i definitely think watching it live added to the experience at least a little since the audience had a lot of chances to make decisions which kept it at least a little engaging. im not shocked the founders cut is super jumpy because they condensed a lot and the filler, while annoying, did keep the pace reasonable. i agree w a lot of your overall critiques and thanks for sharing a founder's cut take!!!

[s1ithers]

finished da:o at last. thinking about my assortment of half-developed warden ocs who never quite gelled the way hawke did and i feel like it's partly that i never hit on a sequence of endgame choices that really felt like a payoff. da:o is a such a great build-your-own-blorbo kit, you get such juicy character concepts out of the origin choice & reactivity but i'd always get an oc to mid-late game and feel like they were a bit dressed up with nowhere to go bc the ending just doesn't... really cap their arc in a way that feels satisfying

there's some good crunchy episodic drama contained within the treaty quests but in terms of the overall structure, the warden hits their lowest point at the beginning and you spend the game powering up until you win, pretty straightforwardly depending on your choices. like yeah the dark ritual is edgy sexist bullshit but you need it, you need something there.

like the first 2/3 are a great arc. hero leaves home in exile, goes around finding friends & adventure, returns home changed by said adventures, confronts their past, wrenching emotional ordeal etc, moves on as their new actualized self to take on the big bad. which is great except everything pretty much comes up warden from there on out. you need some kind of climax crunch to test that actualized self, another pain point at the end

which they tried to do, it just falls a bit flat for me. i've heard the 'grey warden must die' twist criticized as feeling sprung out of nowhere but i don't mind that so much. between the whole 'in death, sacrifice' thing, duncan & jory, sophia dryden, etc, i think it's pretty well set up that this is an organization with dark secrets that their two bumbling junior recruits know way too little about. i do think it's a bit stock. 'will you die to save the world?' just isn't that interesting, there's a plain right answer both ethics & genre are pointing you to, which more importantly is not really tied to your character at all.

like say what you will about da2 but the ending pays the hell off bc it forces hawke to show who they are. a person could justify making either decision, so who your hawke is matters. every bit of character development is leading up to how they'll jump in that moment

and then after dropping the warden sacrifice on you, dao immediately offers you an escape hatch, which, unless your warden is really fussed about blood magic or whatever, of course you're gonna take. structurally i think this decision is leeched of a lot of potential by the fact that both options are coming as new information.

new guy we just met: wait! there's a problem! morrigan: don't worry i fixed it! okay! on we go then! thanks morrigan

(could've been cool if alistair knew a warden had to die from the start, so you're struggling to go on with this journey, knowing how it ends, really get some time to stew on that before morrigan drops her bomb. the full relief of a stay of execution, plus 'you're only telling me this now?!' gives the warden a somewhat more sympathetic reason to feel betrayed than like, self-centered dickishness)

but more than that, the options the game gives you to object don't acknowledge what's really so awful about it. like you get 1) dark magic scary. part of a pattern in how i think this franchise tends to (mis)apply blood magic etc as a narrative device, but, like, good option to have for roleplay. 2) is oldgodbaby a bad idea? valid question but doesn't really go anywhere (and is more or less locked into being an anticlimax, can't be world-shaking as a choice-dependent outcome)

but like that post that was going around. what it means for morrigan is so wrenching. is it what she wants for herself or is she still acting out her mother's will? can the warden know, or believe they know? if they ask her to go through with it, are they complicit in flemeth's abuse? or are they overriding morrigan's agency if they refuse out of concern for her? how does your warden's origin & personality frame how they see this - what they're entitled to, what they owe, what they believe about duty & autonomy & respect, they're relationship with morrigan, & with magic, & their own impending death.

these people who are so young & so traumatized flailing around hurting each other in their good intentions. the dark ritual as this awful act of desperation & mixed motivations & regret that tears this hard-won friend group apart (especially if alistair is involved). saving the world as a good clean victory over evil in the grand scope, at the cost of this cataclysmic sacrifice on the personal level - so intimate, so devastating, so small. THAT'S drama.

[mdhwrites]

Do Themes Make a Story Good? Featuring TOH and Amphibia

I've tried talking about this subject a few times and never found a good angle for it. Last night, a thought wormed into my brain about the fact that I make a lot of posts defending the thematic strengths of Amphibia, how those themes help justify some of its writing choices and even talk about concepts and the like that people claim are not in the show that are actually represented. Contrasted with my blogs on The Owl House where I usually talk about its themes to highlight poor execution on them or how I disagree with them existing, a fear hit me.

Do I consider Amphibia's themes more valid because I like the show more?

The extremely short and reductive version of this is "to some extent yes." That doesn't get into WHY for this though. After all, one's enjoyment of a piece shouldn't matter for a theme. Not all themes are fun or pleasant and so expecting a comfortable experience with them isn't fair. It limits the sort of storytelling you're capable of.

The problem is that this extends to ALL media. What commonly determines if a piece is genuinely good or not is if it was engaging, not if it was fun or enjoyable. A horror fan and an action fan might both call their movies a blast but the sort of engagement they had is vastly different. One is loving the use of scares, tension, etc. like that while the other may have just enjoyed a popcorn flick with explosions, big set pieces and silly violence but neither opinion is bad because they were both properly engaged by the points of the movie.

Themes are interesting because we often talk about them as engaging but I think this is actually putting the cart before the horse. We pick up on these themes because the work itself is engaging. After all, a textbook on mental health can have a theme of dealing with trauma but we don't frame it that way because, you know... It's a textbook. It's dry. Conversely, an author might tell you that their work was about something but if it was incoherent garbage, then who cares what it had to say because you didn't like it in the first place to dig into every piece of symbolism that supposedly has something to say about the theme the author claims.

So what does this have to do with Amphibia and The Owl House? Well, their ways of dealing with theme are kind of fascinating and indicative of how they are built as shows and play into why I find one's themes great while the other is lacking. I'll try to illustrate with two metaphors: Amphibia's theming is like putting away pennies for a fundraiser to make a park for the community. Everyone pitches in but they pitch in in small ways and no one is able to just dumb a giant wad of cash in. They're small drops that build and build until one day you go to put a penny in and are pleasantly surprised to find that hey, you guys are making some real progress! You might not make the goal you had but this is impressive as is! Next week it's a little higher and higher until the jar is gone, only for the organizer to come out to cheer about how they made it and finally revealing the park, but the sum of it all is so much more than you could have expected from mere pennies, especially in all the small details! However, even if you only glance at it, it still looks complete, fun and satisfying.

The Owl House's theming is much more like a college essay that ends up getting a C. It starts with a really strong thesis to their paper and has a compelling starting argument that implies a lot of knowledge. However, they have fifty pages to fill and the student realizes by page ten, they're running short. So they first start pulling in elements that don't conflict immediately but are still a little strange to include. Then it includes a couple strange tangents and personal anecdotes that don't seem to make a lot of sense and are losing the thread faster and faster. By the end, the tricks to achieve word count are starting to become blatant, especially as they spend so much time repeating the same things as if they were new information or something unique but it's actually well worn. All of it is useless to their argument and even actively harming it, let alone when paired with all the rest. Structurally it works and it finished with enough words but it comes back with the thesis statement circled multiple times and the question "Wasn't this the point?" under it, all in red.

These two approaches have knock on effects though. Amphibia doesn't ask anything of the viewer but to buy in slightly. In return, you are invited to just enjoy the characters and its world. It doesn't have anything to prove and doesn't need to be loud in its messaging and so the story is allowed to function simply on a basic level and be enjoyable on its own. It can tell a simple story with a clear moral because it knows that the moral is playing a part to the larger whole and doesn't care about if everyone knows how grand its scope because the goal of enriching everyone will be reached no matter what. This is how you get an entire season dedicated to Anne's character development that only bothers to actually say that was the goal at the end of the season when the option to be selfish once more and cut off community, to reject change and go back to what is comfortable, comes in the form of Sasha. And heck, that is actually one of the most overt times Amphibia brings attention to its storytelling/theming but only AFTER earning it.

The Owl House meanwhile has something to prove but neither the knowledge or focus to do so but it's stated it so now it has to earn it. As such, anything that crosses its desk that is even tangentially related to its themes gets pushed in so that it can claim to be thoroughly exploring the topic, even if previous examples or the like actively conflict with the new example. As an example, I've seen people really praise The First Day for tackling how the traditional school system doesn't accommodate people or work for all learning types. With TOH's early statement of "Us weirdos gotta stick together!" and all that implies, this is actually a great topic for it to tackle. However, because its being grafted onto this thesis, the supporting evidence hasn't been properly built up and so you have people claiming they should be allowed to do school differently... By literally breaking the law in a way that is met with the DEATH PENALTY. It's technically on topic but it's sloppy and loses all of its bite because you're left more confused than properly satisfied.

This causes a weird issue where you can engage with Amphibia only on the surface level, never take in its themes, and still get a deep enjoyment from it because the basic storytelling makes sense, follows its own internal logic and has satisfying payoffs because of every penny contributed to making the whole thing works. You don't need more than Anne's relationships with others to be able to cheer in joy at the "They're not Amphibia's greatest treasure" moment because those relationships are engaging on their own. Because of this engagement and satisfaction though, you're more incentivized to want to actually take a closer look at what the whole picture was and to enjoy the minor details, even if you didn't have to, like how the whole show always pushed seeing selfish things that could oppress others as worthless when compared to the selfless and communal which is part of the thematic punch of the greatest treasure moment.

Meanwhile, The Owl House paradoxically is hard to enjoy as a basic story due to all the concessions to theme while the choices of the story also actively make the theming worse, making only the absolute most surface level read the one that can be satisfying because only then can it desperately claiming that everything had a point actually be believed. Otherwise, the broken seams that are barely keeping the whole thing together start to show itself until it entirely unravels at the end because it cannot tie them all back together. The epitomy of this is how Luz becomes a chosen one, breaking some early theming, due to a power up she only gets after the THIRD time that she theoretically resolves the same inner conflict in THREE EPISODES, muddling any of the thematic payoffs for any of the three times the themes were meant to climax. The best the show can hope for is that the teacher will accept their excuses for why it's so incoherent, despite the fact that even as early as S1B (When The First Day I referenced earlier was) the flaws in the show's ability to actually meet the assignment were clear.

This is why I personally argue that you can have a good story without themes but you can't have good themes without a good story. If the work doesn't support them then the themes will more often than not get in the way and audiences won't care they were there in the first place. Admittedly, this might be due to my own writing method where I usually stumble my way into a theme that stems from simply trying to make the base concept the best way I can. After all, almost every story will have a theme of some sort but if you go in with the goal of making a statement, well...

You better know what you're talking about and how to present it or you'll become more repetitive and rambly than this blog.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[neverlearnedtoread]

The Dragon Republic

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐; rin making bad decisions like they’re going on sale at the market, arms full of regrets, guilt, mistakes, and self-destructive coping mechanisms: i can fit in one more

Oh?? 👌😉😏

rf kuang gave us an unflinching exploration on the cycles of violence and oppression, dissected the ever-escalating chain of vengeance, and the good good of eastern-inspired mythology?? like ma’am.....the good food im eating at your feast.....ive been so hungry

the lore deserves its own point. it was so effortlessly woven into the story, especially the way it tied into certain characters’ backstories. i can’t say much more because spoilers but if you like integrated worldbuilding and you like chinese-inspired magic systems get over here!!

the friendships. namely rin 🤝 kitay. miss kuang you know what really matters, and its not 10398 handsome men, its one ride-or-die bff holding you back or yeeting you into the midst of battle as needed

grimdark, but not oppressively depressing? im not sure how to describe it..the story gives you enough adrenaline to power through with the sheer speed of reading to find out what happens next, but doesn’t pull its punches. i think its partly that rin herself ploughs through the narrative like she’s trying to outrun the events, giving the reader the momentum to move with her

No.. ❌🤢🤮

i took a screenshot when my friend and i were planning to do a buddy read together. the trigger warnings took up an entire page. do not screw around with this. there’s no shame in tapping out for any book, but especially this one

some characters die, and i specifically blame rin for it. i mean there were a lot of other factors, but in the spirit of the phoenix herself i am choosing to close my eyes to the rationality of working through my feelings of grief in a healthy way and plunge straight into being pissed off about it, forever. *wipes tear* just like rin taught me

did suffer from a bit of middle book syndrome, at least to me. i mean, i finished an 800~ page book in 8 hours of reading time, so maybe don’t believe me, but the first half of the book dragged more than i remember the poppy war did. i will admit a lot of that was because rin was in no position to be a rational, active protagonist. the narrative needed her to flounder, and she did.

Summary: Rin goes unhinged 2: water dragon boogaloo (ive tried and tried to write an actual summary for this book but i don’t think i can top this throwaway line i wrote as a placeholder)

Concept: 💭💭💭💭💭 Where to start? There are historical influences, commentary on social issues and the impact of violence on communities both physical and otherwise, the slow and terrible descent of a beaten-down protagonist. Basically a checklist of stuff I like exploring in high fantasy settings!

This is the second book in a trilogy - spoilers ahead!

Execution: 💥💥💥💥 Rin doesn’t like politics, and I think that made the narrative drag a lot initially as the moving parts tried to be interesting but through Rin’s jaded lens were stripped of their veneer. Kuang was more than ambitious with her sophomore book, and I know that she was open about struggling with the pacing of TDR while she was writing it - still, I think there’s more than something to be said about shooting for the stars! I didn’t think any part of the book dropped the ball, but the nature of all the heavy topics it was trying to handle became a hefty meal to swallow

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤ Like I said, I read this book over 3-ish days in 8 hours. The library copy I had said it was 800 pages. I felt as powerful as Rin when I finished. The first half was a little dead in the water (which is a pun, yes, how many damn times did someone fall into the water and nearly drown in this book?? smh) but nothing I couldn’t handle with a little exasperation at Rin’s...*gestures* mental landscape. But when we reached the lore about Su Daji, and the Trifecta, and their chosen gods....i broke into a flat-out sprint. I was naruto-running through the plot.

Favourite Moment: it’s a battle to the death between the scenes with the trifecta backstories and the rin 🤝 kitay scenes

Favourite Character: chaghan, because i loved his backstory so, so, so much....also I didn’t know that handholding scene in the mountains was like. canon. and not fanon. rin really looked homosexuality in the eye and said ‘huh?’ with her whole chest.

[tamarakkoarchive]

Thoughts on IDW Sonic

Shoutout to the one (1) objectively better written character in IDW compared to their Archie-sona, Silver. The emphasis on being a friendly but gullible and non-cool hog definitely makes him more unique and interesting among the cast.

So... I decided to quit with Sonic IDW after the latest arc (as of October 2021) from the realization that they aren't really gonna do anything that escapes from the status quo from what's already established in the games.

You could think that's not necessarily bad and yeah if it was a episodic thing focused on gags like the Sonic Boom comic I would have no issue with it at all but like, the main Sonic comic was always about melodrama and out of nowhere complex worldbuilding.

I don't think Archie Sonic was good at escaping too much of what made the series what it is either but they COULD deliver every now and then regarding adding lore for characters that barely had anything in the games. And even if I wasn't always fond of the execution, the concept was fun enough for me to make me like the characters in question more (honestly I wouldn't have given a fuck to most Classic characters if it wasn't for the Archie comic)

I'll die on the hill that Espio's extended ninja family background (to the point that he spied and gave away information even from close friends) was the dopest shit ever

Meanwhile... it's been 3 years and IDW didn't add anything new, the characters and motivations are incredibly flat to the point it makes you think it's just something made to market the games and that's about it.

Sonic specially pains me because he's so unnaturally hero-like, instead of just having fun doing random stuff in the breaks between arcs he's just constantly looking for people in problem to help. The characters are constantly in '''''Sonic Forces mode''''' and it's one thing if it's in the middle of an arc but doing it as status quo is just annoying. Wasn't Sonic modeled after Goku, a VERY absent-minded protagonist? Why Sonic X nailed it so well and yet Ian Flynn keeps missing the mark for almost over 2 decades at this point? Quit with this cringy Marvel writing bullshit, for crying out loud.

I could think of a million things to say and in the end I just keep going back to Sonic Boom that is essentially the example of a consistently good Sonic comic: simple, actually funny, the characters act in cartoonish nature and not complex '''good''' or '''evil''' reasons, and most importantly, Sonic and Eggman are actually likeable and befitting their original game selves.

(Note added in 2024: I dropped the franchise for good after watching Sonic Prime, haha. The current vision that relies on self-references (specially memes) and is absolutely uncapable of taking the characters as seriously as the pre-2010 writers is, well. Not for me anymore, that's for sure. I'll stay with my Sonic X Sonic characterization and ignore everything else)

[snugglyporos]

// So. I was reading some story someone sent me about what they considered a 'good' isekai, and at first I was kind of okay with it, but then I hit something like ten chapters in that made me go NOPE.

And it's the concept of differing morality.

Let me explain. Let's say you have a character from say, our world, entering a medieval fantasy setting. The medieval period, and indeed much of history, had vastly different ideas about morality, specifically, capital punishment. Meaning that for a society where death is everywhere, as people don't live as long, violence is endemic, and getting a cold means flipping a coin to see if you die, executing criminals is pretty routine.

Now, if you're someone who has been dropped into this world, and you see someone being accused of crimes, some of which seem pretty bad, such as murder or maybe magical ones such as necromancy, would you immediately think to stick your neck out to declare that executing them is wrong?

Because I feel like that's a really, really stupid thing to do.

Like it's one thing to believe that such a thing is wrong. It's another thing to insert yourself into a society you know nothing about and declare that they are wrong, that their laws are wrong, that their cultural beliefs are wrong, especially when you're the fish out of water here.

The saying 'when in rome, do as the romans do' exists because the best way to survive and get along is to go along with things even if you don't entirely approve of them!

Like if I was dropped into a fantasy world my primary drive would not be centered around trying to object to whatever weird laws the locals have. I would be asking for a copy of their legal code so I could learn what they were before I got myself in trouble.

Also! Just because you're not from a fantasy world doesn't mean you have no concept of what kinds of magic are like!

Like if you live in a world with say, RPGs, then you should be vaguely aware that in general, necromancy is bad. Sure, individual necromancers might be okay! But on the whole, they're usually the antagonists, and people who grave rob are usually not good people. Probably shouldn't stick your neck out for them on a whim.

Like I've said a lot about how sometimes lawful good can become lawful asshole, but I've not said enough about how chaotic good can become chaotic moron, because doing things that are theoretically altruistic but which make no sense is not a good thing!

There's a difference between 'I am against capital punishment because I believe people should be able to redeem themselves' and 'I believe that there should be no punishment for people doing transparently evil things because it makes me feel icky.'

Like I believe this strongly when it comes to tabletop especially. When you write a character or roleplay a character whose alignment differs greatly from the party or the society's norm, you need to establish how they coexist with them without causing problems!

For example, I often bring up my chaotic evil Oozemancer character who existed within a party of mostly good characters. To me, good/evil is actually altruistic/selfishness, and so he gave not one fuck about anyone or anything else except his oozes. And obviously, the BBEG is going to pose a threat to his beloved oozes, and so he is entirely willing to go along with the Paladin and company and acquiesce to their goals, because it provides material benefit to him.

Conversely, a paladin surrounded by evil characters might rationalize it by saying they're trying to provide an example for them to follow or trying to curb their worst excesses. They won't go along with obviously awful things, but you also can't object as strongly to mostly neutral actions. Dishonorable is not the same as evil, after all.

My point is, I cannot stand when characters grandstand about their morality systems in a situation which makes absolutely no sense for them to do so.

It's like if you were transported back to the height of the Aztec empire and witnessed human sacrifice, you're not going to stop the ceremony because they'll just sacrifice you next! That's not doing good, that's just being a moron. And it shouldn't be presented as the morally correct thing, because that's just character centered morality.